The Pacific Northwest was a nuclear furnace last weekend, but I wouldn't know, because I was down in California with my old bandmates. Fun times. First time on a plane since my son was born four years ago. We recorded music, drank a lot of wine (see previous post), hung out at the beach, ate excellent food. So good. The whole time, though, it was pressing on my mind that my mild forest home was broiling in 116 degrees of post-apocalyptic heat.
I played my first solo set in forever at the end of the wine party. Unamplified, super punk rock. It felt great. I should have recorded it, but I was at the end of an alphabet's worth of wine tasting (see previous post). Oh well. It was made for the moment anyway.
We recorded in a really excellent studio in a really terrible part of LA. I played a Flying V for the first time. Ridiculous ergonomics on that thing, particularly for a smaller individual like myself, but it played well and I felt 100% like a rock star.
I swam in the ocean in Huntington Beach. I needed to get pummeled a little bit by the ocean and the ocean was only too glad to oblige.
I flew back to Portland after the hottest day in the city's history. I got in late enough that it was only 78 degrees out. I had ridden my bike to the airport. Hmm, do I dare to ride home at 1 am after the apocalypse? I did. The city felt dazed, punch-drunk. Rabbits were hopping all over the bike path. No humans except a few people staring from their encampments in the darkness. I rode past our daycare (power was out) in inky blackness. Traffic signals out, tow truck cleaning up wreckage at the intersection. I could swear I saw stars. I rode over the bike bridge and looked out at the people who were crazy enough to be on the freeway at 1:30 am after the apocalypse.
When I opened the garage door at my house, the house blasted sauna furnace volcano heat at me. Somehow it was even hotter upstairs. Wife and boy were down in Tualatin soaking up my mom's AC. I fell asleep, woke up, and went back to work looking at squiggles.
