Babylon Sisters

It's been too long, I know, but things get in the way. Sitting here at 18th and Dolores, a rather lame "upper" Mission cafe after driving around looking for parking. Typical SF story. Anyway it's been a blur since I spent almost 10 hours sitting on a plane, and then in the airport terminal, waiting to take off from JFK, delayed by mysterious lightning and severe thunderstorms that crept in on little cat feet.

What can you say about the Left Coast? The cool air at night and the utter lack of humidity induces a kind of trance state, particularly for a tropical person of the sun like myself. LAMC was this close to being LAME, but they ran out of bands that hadn't played it yet, I guess. Sure, the Beverly Hilton can be quite a shock to the system, and even stranger was after the opening panel, escaping to the Newsroom for lunch. Right across from the dreaded Ivy, I sipped the carrot juice and patiently listened to Alex and the plans for the new record, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Jim McGreevey was on CNN for what seemed to be an hour. Not even Pauly Shore rushing by could distract me. At first I thought that New Jersey was seceding, but finally (after about 20 minutes of this in my subconscious) read the crawler beneath him. Of course this is a nightmare for the Democrats, but more on that later (maybe never).





Ely Guerra was actually quite good at the Santa Monica Pier later that McGreevey evening, the first five or six of her new songs making an auspicious debut. There was a lot of power in the presentation, chords that shook the wooden pier and aroused the kids behind the absurd chain-link fence. Then the Andrea show took over, pretty much what we saw in Brooklyn a few days before. The difference for me this time was checking them out backstage beforehand, and I saw the edgy energy of pre-show psyching-up. Afterwards I explained to Sol that I'd misplaced her demo in Claudia's car shuttling us from Suba to a couple of blocks further east. The wind was picking up and I prowled around the length of the pier looking for M., who promised margaritas but the restaurant was closed, even though it was still open. Undaunted, hoooked up the NeverLost to find Paul Saucedo's apartment in Venice, where I encountered Giovanni, the Adobo crew, and Josh N.'s ex. Ana, fresh outta Berkeley and about to join the hometown Lat Alt Team, had some interesting things to say about Maria Full of Grace and Control Room.

Probably just the New Yorker in me, but the California Plaza was a weird place for the final two shows. The bizarre fountain in front of the stage had the effect of distancing the crowd from the musicians, something that probably lessened the intensity of performances by Niño Astronauta and Superlitio; enhanced Bajofondo Tango Club and Kevin Johansen (who is in fact an interesting guy who mentions Hilly Kristal and Larry Rohter in the same paragraph). Briefly checked out the Standard for the standard $10 martinis, which compared favorably with the closing party, held awkwardly in the VIP room of Casino, where they actually allowed black jack with the scrip they sold at the front door. Hordes at the bar eventually convinced me to give up my drink tickets and escape to the parking lot, where I encountered Ignacio Peña (whom I'd met at Phantom Vox the day before) and Josh N. Did you know that Draco is somehow hooked up with Christo in conjunction with 2005's Central Park wrapping?
I didn't.



Ah, the secret pleasures of Silver Lake. Right off Hyperion and Sunset, a Williamsburg-like paradise of breakfast joints and Sunday brunch DJs. Leisurely drives to Santa Monica and Mulholland Drive, mellow dinners at Alegria on Sunset. When you announce that you only have plastic, they patiently wait as you go across the street a block and a half away to the non-Blockbuster video store with the ATM. They have no doubt you're coming back to keep your honor intact.



Had lovely long coffee with Lysa Flores, engaged to be married, putting out new album soon, paying tribute to X's John Doe. Paul S. claimed he was devoloping a script with her attached but I never asked her about it. Instead, she, like Victor Viesca did later, regaled me with stories about the Chicano awareness thing that happened around Zack de la Rocha's hang, where Ozomatli and Quetzal, among others, grew into their art-radicalism. Again, like my later conversation with Victor and Tenoch, we compared notes about Chicano and Nuyorican. What a cool thing. Long lost cousins catching each other up on the bregando obscured by the Continental Divide. When my celly rang, she said, that's the same ring tone I have on my phone. It's like this weird generic disco thing. Under my breath I asked, what's your sign?

Note to self: Meditate on the profit margin of ring tones for artists signed to major labels.

As I alluded to earlier, I hung with Victor and Tenoch at the Dodger bar near Chávez Ravine, and then later made our way to T.'s place, where they took turns working the turntables--picking up on my cues about early Gang Starr, it was really real. Perfect sendoff to the next day's slightly rushed trip up the coast, where I made the appropriate revelatory stops.



There's really nothing like it, and if you've done it I can't add anything relevant. But if not, it's like this long, winding encounter with the Pacific Ocean as the terrain changes subtly until you find yourself in this land of cliffs and redwoods. The continual return to the ocean is kind of poignant for me, because I'm compelled to rush to Santa Monica or Venice as soon as I land in LAX, and this trip up route 1 is like a repetitive pleasure. But it also means things you don't expect, like metaphors of birth, death, illness, orgasm, enlightenment. I had the I-pod plugged into the cassette hole of the rent-a-car and Tim Buckley gave way to Héctor Lavoe and finally silence, as I did my now-ritual visit to Sand Dollar Beach and found one-ness with surfers and foggy waves crashing all around.



Yeah that was then. All that was left was two and a half unusually sunny days in San Francisco, which seemed much more paradisical than usual. It was so clear I got to go up to Twin Peaks and see the entire city in a way that I'd never really seen it before. And of course that mundane encounter with Café Dolores that I described earlier, and the ever-increasing gentrification of the Mission. But the edge was off this time. The telescreens, as Marc used to say, were not quite on. I realized I was blessed with some kind of miracle, S.F. summer in August, and had to get back to NYC and get glued to the keyboard. To write some stuff you'll never see, and some you'll never forget. North Beach cooled my heels and I slept with the window wide open. My hosts P + L held the key to the past, but nudged me, gently into the future.