Gustavo, as those of us lucky to read him down here via the OC Weekly and various other locales have long happily known, is not merely one of the funniest and most passionate writers on both local Latino history and the Mexican-American experience in general — his wonderfully barbed column ¡Ask a Mexican! has been entertaining people and/or driving them up a wall for years. He’s also a great music critic and excellent food writer. So basically he has the life I want. Not that I’m jealous. (Okay, a little.)

Anyway, he posted a brief piece on the top 5 Mexican restaurants in O.C. over at the LA Times, and if he says it, it must be true. I’m not brooking any argument here. And having tried none of them yet, I’m long past overdue.

There is not much to say beyond that. As Memorial Day approaches, one must remember.

There are the four dead from the 1st Marine Logistics Group, for instance.

There are the Iraqis killed by bombs, by torture, by who knows what other means.

And war is far from the only cause. Who knows how many are dead now in Myanmar. Who knows how many have died in China. Tragedies like them beggar the imagination, and they will continue for that, sadly, is a risk of life — a banal sentiment on my part but one that acknowledges fragility and the lack of guarantees.

Thus, simply, remember, and embrace life, and work to better oneself and one’s world. That is always the goal.

The number one question I still get — quite understandably — about living without a car in Southern California is “How?” There’s no reason not to ask, really; LA and the surrounding areas all seem to demand a car just for basic existence. This isn’t a post about my response in full to that — there are a variety of reasons why I go without, not least of which is the minor but important fact that I never got around to getting a license — but I will say that I’ve often found that a lot of people’s surprise over how I get about results from an ignorance of the resources available.

That sounds very harsh but it’s not meant to be — rather, again, it’s quite understandable. If you assume cars as the baseline, and everything around you is geared towards that, then the idea of going without one seems shocking if that’s all you’ve been used to. This is a car culture, there you go. Whereas from my perspective, I can rattle off bus connections, train times and so forth like that, as well as being able to quickly search for best possible connections between places with what’s available. Combined with the fact that my bus travel is free — UCI employment means I can use my staff ID as a pass — and that the Metrolink system provides a reasonable and cheaper way to get to LA than Amtrak does, I’m usually sitting pretty. Is it perfect? Of course not, but what is? On Friday workers broke into a gas line between the Irvine and Tustin Metrolink stops and it gummed up the route for some hours — a reminder that things aren’t always guaranteed, but it’s a risk I see as no different from thinking that there won’t be some horrible accident on the freeway you’re on, say.

One of the upshots of living this way is that the cost of cars and everything associated with it — security, insurance and so forth — doesn’t trouble me at all. Gas prices less so though of course there’s fuel to factor into the cost of many things, so it’s not like I’m isolated from it (not to mention the environmental problems and much more besides). Even so, I look at gas prices with a gimlet eye because there’s no real impact on my day to day living as yet, it’s just something to observe. What intrigues me more instead is how other people are dealing with them.

Two stories over the weekend caught my interest — they’re fairly general ‘gosh isn’t this interesting’ pieces but are still telling enough. From the first:

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

“In almost every transit system I talk to, we’re seeing very high rates of growth the last few months,” said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.

“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”

And from the second, talking specifically about the LA area:

If there has been anything that remains quintessentially unpredictable over the years in the Southland, it’s traffic. One day it’s good, the following it’s let’s-move-to-Portland awful, then it’s back to tolerable.

But a sampling of residents, traffic reporters and technical data indicates that as gasoline prices have climbed and the economy has faltered, weekday congestion has softened in some areas over the last month. There are notable decreases in commuting times on some well-traveled freeways.

Other drivers say their commutes are still bad, but that the roads are more lightly traveled at midday and evenings — the times of day that people make discretionary trips.

It’s important to note that these are both ultimately representative of a particular situation right now rather than a permanent trend, and there are comments to this effect in both stories from people interviewed. Still, it’s obviously very interesting.

There’s a comment in the first story that I think is crucial — one fellow in Texas, a car culture state if there ever was one, described his switch from car to bus in Houston (which is even MORE of a car culture place — a British writer I know who was walking between spots in the city once was stopped by a police car because they couldn’t believe somebody would actually be walking along the street that way) this way: “Finally I was ready to trade my independence for the savings.” This attitude of car-as-independence has always fascinated me because it comes up so often from folks, with them wondering why I don’t take advantage of that aspect. As one friend says, “You can just go wherever you want to.”

I guess I’ve never felt that as a necessary aspect to life, though. Hard to say. But I also think it’s a learned behavior too, advertised, inculcated, sold — the study of the economics and marketing of cars and car culture is a well worn field, with all kinds of strange twists and turns. (One of the funniest things I’ve ever heard was in a pickup truck ad back in 1993 or so where a generic salt-of-the-earth guy says something like “Trucks have always been a spiritual thing to me.” Uh?) Outright lecturing people about the problems this has all caused — ‘this attitude is bad and here’s why’ — is too didactic for my tastes. If people are discovering alternates on their own and appreciating them for that reason, then great — I’d rather that than never considering them at all.

This past Saturday I was swinging around the LA area meeting up with folks and attending two house parties some distance apart from each other, and I got there via a combination of mass transit and carpooling — and I’ll never stint on my thanks for friends in the latter case, as there’s no question that carpooling and shared rides have been key for me when it comes to special or one-off situations not easily reached by train and/or bus. But the majority of the routes were done via OC’s bus system, LA’s, the Red Line subway, Amtrak and Metrolink — and all of this on National Train Day, which I wasn’t even aware of until I first got to Anaheim Station.

One thing I noticed on the Metrolink on the way up was that it was packed — something that is pretty rare on the weekend routes. A lot of people, a buzz of conversation — it was an honest surprise to me, I’d not seen anything like it outside of one or two holidays before. There wasn’t any discount or special thing being done for the Metrolink lines for National Train Day, instead it really just seemed that, indeed, a lot more people were taking these routes where they might have otherwise driven.

It was funny for me to realize that I’d actually enjoyed the quieter train cars in the past — I’d been selfishly looking forward to just sitting and thinking on the ride up as I so often have done. But after that I thought, “Hey, isn’t this what I’d wanted, and what I want to see happening? Enjoy it for what it is, and hope for more.” And so I looked around a bit at everyone, a little people watching here and there, and hoped that this would be a welcome sign for the future — a stronger appreciation of what’s out there, what options exist, and that this would lead to even more options being created.

Call me the eternal optimist, which I am most of the time. It’s a good place to be.

[EDIT -- friend Jody noticed this piece by Carolyn See which appeared on Saturday, about going carless in LA. I met Carolyn very briefly when I was at UCLA -- a good soul, and a good piece she's written here.]

Argle bargle. Yesterday’s parties and generally gadding about LA were great but so far today has been little but zoning, sleeping and a bit of eating. A necessary balance. Therefore, in lieu of greater detail:

• Robert Forster’s The Evangelist is unsurprisingly a lovely album, emotional and moving almost by default but in a way that suits both his style and honors the memory of his Go-Betweens partner Grant McLennan. An album that shouldn’t've existed in a better world, but which in this imperfect one is a welcome addition.
• I will be quite glad to not hear about a certain president’s daughter’s intimate wedding again. In fact I’ll be quite glad to not hear about any of that family again, really.
• Couple of updates on blog links — my friend Andrea Reyna’s got her blog up as she’s posting from Serbia, and doubtless will have things to say about today’s election, while a question from a friend prompted me to think of Laina Dawes’s great blog, Writing is Fighting.
• And for Mother’s Day mom got Dorothy Dunnett’s exquisite The Game of Kings, which I recommend to anyone who loves historical novels, mysteries and entertaining novels in general. In these days of extremely elaborate TV series as extended movies in miniature I see no reason why Dunnett’s works in general couldn’t result in something spectacular.

All for now. More sleep and listening and zoning calls.

Basically I’m out and about today for parties and get-togethers — tomorrow I will be working on a few writing projects but hopefully will also have a few things to say about Blackwater, mass transit and the last king of Poland. Not all together, mind you. Hope everyone’s well — enjoy your Saturday!

So I’ve just finished up a couple of interviews with Buzz Osbourne and Dale Crover of the Melvins, one of the greatest bands of time and space — more about that piece when it runs! Both very personable guys and while I’ve no doubt I was just one of a million interviewers they talked to this week they had some good thoughts and great quotes.

They also remembered one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen, ever. Good friend Mackro saw it too; he and I were a few months away from meeting for the first time but I had gone down to OC with my friend Steve to see the show and he likewise had come up from UCI with friend Dave to see it.

What follows, originally typed up some years ago (and with a lot of tics and quirks that frankly I cringe to see now), is my story, modified by Mackro’s memories, as well as what Buzz and Dale confirmed just now, plus the prompt of a recording of the show I got from a hyperBungle fan a few years back (much of the detail of the show I’d remembered perfectly, though not all of it). Enjoy:

—

Down in the sweet balm of Orange County, at the long-gone and unlamented Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim, a ye olde theatre-in-the-round, Mr. Bungle announces a show, to considerable excitement in certain sectors. The lingering KNAC crowd is especially drawn to this, due to the Faith No More connection, which is about all most people have actually heard (those wondering about KNAC need know only this, that it was a station which nowadays in its online only format pretends it was all Metallica back in 1987 when in fact Ratt and Poison and so forth were its bread and butter more so than our favorite Napster-lovin’ combo — but I digress). In the meantime, feckless young innocents as myself and Mackro, though we did not know each other at the time, who actually had heard the album and loved it, considered this a Distinct Blessing, as FNM were about to fire up the Angel Dust tour and Bungle would have to disappear for a while. Off we all went.

As friend Steve and I fended our way past the leathery-faced 35-and-up permatan David Coverdale rock dude and dudette types, as well as the more understandable young semi-proto grunge/whatever crowd, we concluded that this was perhaps going to be a strange evening. (MACKRO — don’t forget the Red Hot Chili Peppers/Fishbone dorks..) Grotus was the opening band, so we settled on in as they Did Their Thing, and it was a fairly fine thing at that, industrial rock hoohah of a gone sort. Viva, etc., off they go, the Young Gods’ TV Sky plays on the monitors, and the next band sets up.

Said band are them glorious Melvins, who do their thing — which is not what the crowd came to hear. As time passes, said crowd turns ugly, as cheerful cries of “You suck!” increase in volume. The Melvins mostly laugh their asses off and keep doing what they do, finally leaving to the general crowd’s delight. (MACKRO — Joe Preston didn’t seem to care, Buzzo tried to make the songs slower and more grueling, AND AND AND Dale Crover went up to the mike after their set and said to the crowd “Mr. Bungle says fuck you”) Myself, I was new to them and didn’t know entirely what to think, but I thought most folks were being way too harsh.

As it happened, Bungle very clearly agreed with me.

[2008 EDIT -- Mackro and I had heard a couple of stories about this but here's the full skinny: as Buzz and Dale confirmed to me, Mike Patton saw how the Melvins were treated, immediately tore up the setlist for Mr. Bungle and wrote out a new one directed at the audience which read "TONIGHT THEY WILL PAY."]

Bungle take the stage, dressed entirely in combinations of wrestling masks, Aztec outfits and other oddities — no surprise there, per se. The crowd is cheering, pumped, the pit is ready, bring it on. The band acknowledge no-one and nothing, finish setting up and launch into…

…a twenty-minute low-key jazz noodle (MACKRO — eeh wouldn’t say that… it was more of a Melvins/Earth type guitar buzz except even more minimal and grueling/MY 2008 EDIT: Mackro’s right, as the recording confirmed.). Patton wanders around the stage, apparently speaking in tongues to himself. The band then play the closest thing to a cover version of Spinal Tap’s “Jazz Odyssey” there is, only without the energy and pace. It’s…interesting, true. The crowd vaguely quiets down, then starts to get more and more impatient. Bungle, of course, ignore their feelings entirely. It gets to the point where the pit starts crowd-surfing even when there is *no* music remotely approaching pit/mosh/surf levels, which apparently increases the band’s utter contempt for the crowd. (2008 EDIT: both Buzz and Dale remembered that as well!)

After that, for the next thirty minutes or so, Bungle proceed to play one of the most fucked-up sets I’ve heard in a while. Ignoring their album entirely, they proceed to amuse themselves with some indescribable nonsense, interspersed with equally indescribable cover versions. Thus, we are entertained at points by a cover of Tom Jones’ Bond theme “Thunderball,” sung by Patton in a strangled roar (2008 EDIT: Dale remembers that there were a bunch of older ladies in the audience, which is where he must have been watching the show and laughing at the festivities; he had no idea why they were there — ‘must have been somebody’s moms or something’ — but that when “Thunderball” started they all got excited and went “Tom Jones!”), and that one Alan Parsons Project song that goes, “Time…keeps flowing like a river…to the sea…,” except Bungle turned up the amps and Patton practically yells out, “TIME…KEEPS FLOWING LIKE A RIVERRRRR…TO *THE SEA!!!*”… (MACKRO — they also did a song without any instruments, just this Negativland-ish sample loopy thing.)

Somewhere in all this, while starting at last to do songs from the first record, the drummer busts out the Queen “We Will Rock You” beat or its equivalent and Patton gets the crowd going with claps and shouts, leading to this priceless exchange:

Patton: “All right everyone, REPEAT AFTER ME! (in time to the beat) BUD-WEI-SER!”
Crowd: “BUD-WEI-SER!”
Patton: “MICH-EL-OB!”
Crowd: “MICH-EL-OB!”

This goes on, other music and songs are performed. Then all of a sudden there’s a pause:

Patton: “All right, now! I LOVE THE MEL-VINS!”
Crowd: “I LOVE The mel…” (fading rapidly as they realize what they’re saying)
Patton: *bending back, in full madman voice* “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!” *turns away and ignores crowd*

They end up doing a few first album songs, but only that — “Travolta,” “Love is a Fist,” “My Ass is On Fire.” They abandon the stage. To my semi-surprise, there’s enough cheering and callbacks for an encore, as many others have been booing lustily and complaining loudly. So the band come back for an encore…logically, it’s another weird-ass crazy jam of something nobody recognizes.

And then this happens:

As one, the rest of the band stop what they’re doing and turn to the drummer. Initially he looks confused, as far as anyone can tell with his mask on. The others then start singing, enjoyably, “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to…” etc.

The drummer stands up, a look of fear showing through his mask. He immediately throws his sticks down and runs off. Remember that this is a theatre in the round, with the band set up center, playing to one half of the venue, the other half roped off and empty. So the drummer charges up one of the empty aisles as fast as he can.

The other band members are displeased with this. They therefore drop *their* instruments and charge after him. To Steve’s and my utter amazement, we see them catch up with the drummer and, as best as we can tell, completely beat the living shit out of him!

And that was it. No ‘good night,’ no final announcement, nothing. Shortly thereafter the lights go up, so we all leave.

Steve and I were utterly, totally amazed, we had clearly seen one of the best shows of our lives, something Brian agreed with me on when we compared notes much later. All around us the leathery types and moshpit morons and others were bitching and complaining and saying what shit it was — we realized that they had completely and utterly missed the joke on them. It was conceptual art terrorism of a high degree, and I’ve never seen anything like it since.

(2008 EDIT — I just realized I forgot to ask Buzz and Dale to fully confirm that last part. If it was only a fever dream of an ending, well, it only seemed appropriate.)

Done for the What Was It Anyway? blog, a kind of Stylus successor on a more low key level, but enjoyable. Full piece here. To quote a bit from it:

Somewhere, somehow, there’s a part of me that wishes I was Morten Harket, former Lutheran priest in training, now worldwide pop icon, even if only for a little while, standing above a landscape not dissimilar to the wider-than-widescreen landscape of green fields, distant hills, and blue but cloudy skies on the cover of the album, a fjord behind me or something, filming a video for the soaring title track quoted above and therefore getting the chance every so often to let fly with a huge, pure, perfectly sung, “And SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

You laugh, but you’re not me.

Great album, still.

Though really it’s just because it’s spring and ducks are always about, which I like. Mostly I see them on campus because of the nearby wetlands, thus yesterday’s shot — which had left me a little melancholy because said duck had been separated from its partner, who had wandered away to check something out, and it was quacking a bit sadly. (They soon met up and all was well.)

In contrast these two were happily floating around the pool at my apartment complex in the late spring evening being content and enjoying life. And in the same way that I felt a bit melancholy yesterday evening, tonight, while I’m a bit tired, I’m much more content in turn. More tomorrow, when I’m more awake!

…that’s about me right now! Mental break to catch up on a few things, more tonight hopefully. In the meantime, though, from last night, a photo of a duck:

Not sinister, not smoking cigars.

In this post a while back I talked about TVT Records — and most everything I had to say was said then. But there’s been an amusing followup, via Idolator:

For those of you who are pretty sure that you don’t need cash from TeeVeeToons, Inc., there’s still good reading to be had: The label owes $26,883.50 to SoundScan, and $1,300 to the now-defunct Harp, Also, their accounts payable department has apparently neglected to send a $945.46 check to Chad Kroeger for some time, and I for one would love to know why.

So would I, actually. The actual list is here. Anton Newcombe’s not on it. Typical.