About 6 or 7 years ago, I was walking somewhere in San Francisco, to work or home from work, on just an average day commuting. This was long before my “days of more dedicated traveling” began. Just going about my daily grind.
This older, well dressed, asian man walked straight up to me, a panic stricken look on his face, and started speaking to me in what I think was Japanese. Not one word of English. He kind of put his palms up, looked around, giving me the distinct impression that he was completely lost, and spoke no English. I tried for a minute to ask him anything in English but I only got gibberish. Also, this IS San Francisco, crazy people can come up and start talking to you anytime and you learn to ignore it. I remember feeling bad for him at the time, but ultimately was thinking, ‘I have to get to work, someone else will help him out,’ and moved on.
Later I felt guilty for not helping him, and never forgot this incident. But this scorpio rat also clearly holds on to things way too long.
On my round the world trip, while never actually panic stricken, I felt his pain, and this story came back to my mind. Also interesting is reading others’ blogs when they are in this situation in say, Iran (true story) and literally 10 people, none who speak English, will gather around to help them find their way. Sometimes we are just too self centered and self important to take the time and look around to help people.
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This might sound strange, but I’ve had a weird incident early on this trip. The Costa Ricans are 4 girls and one guy, close friends of a wide age range, the guy being fairly young at 26 or so, and the oldest my age. Anyways, hanging out with them all night on the pier drinking beer, at one point he and one of the girls ran off with a local to buy something. I automatically assumed it was pot, but they said that he was buying them a whole fish to cook at their guest house. I was like, oh sure, a fish, ok whatever. Well as it got late and they hadn’t come back yet, we started gathering our stuff and my wallet was gone. I was like, ummmm, did it fall in the water? Me and the 3 girls started looking for it, and they seemed kind of nervous.
About 10 minutes later the two finally came back and he said “oh Chris, i’m sorry i picked up your wallet, i don’t know what happened.” His English is not so good. First off, I didn’t have much money in there, I keep the bulk of it in my room and don’t carry it around (after this incident I stopped carrying my wallet altogether!) One of them said “check your money” which I already was, but I replied “I don’t care about my money” and one of them was shocked I said that. I said I care about all this plastic and my drivers license! I did however suspect a $20 bill was missing.
They told me to come back and hang out with them but I was a little confused at this point by their body language and what seemed to be embarrassment, or that they wanted me to leave. I wasn’t sure. None of them gave me the impression that they were criminals by any stretch. The older girls are in their 30’s and have careers for crying out loud.
On the walk back the group was not all walking together, they’d broken up a bit. When we got back to outside their place, it just felt weird. I decided to say good night instead. As I was walking away, he chased after me and handed me a $20 and said, “I’m sorry, it fell out.”
Awkward!
I mean, it had already been established that we’re all here all week, and pretty much going to run into each other almost every day. This left me with very mixed emotions at first. The next day I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was drunk, this was probably some old childlike behavior that came out when he saw an opportunity and grabbed it. They were all embarrassed, and he DID give it back.
The next night, of course, I saw them at a back table at one of the bars. I went up to them, they looked a little nervous, until I said “Hola! El Bandito!” and patted him on the head. Last night we all had fun together again.
One irony was that I brought $50 worth of vitamins, toothbrushes, lotion, and baby formula from Walgreens for the island clinic, based on recommendation of a local. Or maybe that bit of karma is what made it work out better than it could have been. There have been a lot of robberies lately, because of the holidays, and crime is very high in this country to begin with but the islands are relatively safer and better policed than the mainland.
Why is it so easy to forgive sometimes, and so impossible at others? Betrayal of trust with a piece of paper is much different than betrayal of trust with your emotions. Not to mention, coming clean helps.
ah stumbling across the internet never ceases to amaze. Some roundabout surfing, due to finding some old friends on facebook led me to… some of my old college handiwork.
It is called Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz by the band Mr. Bungle. Transcribed and arranged by me for percussion ensemble, Magnolia High School performing it… a few months ago!
I spent many late nights in 1996 on this very involved percussion ensemble arrangement, but by my third year of North Texas and my 5th year using Finale, I was in the zone with doing this kinda shit. It’s funny it was one of the last things I did before I left school and never REALLY heard it performed well, only sightread once.
So to see a HIGH SCHOOL ensemble, especially one this big, tear it up and have fun with it, is really really cool. You can buy my arrangement here, although I get no royalties .
ONE of the reasons why I moved and live here – the CRAZY amount of amazing music shows that plow through the Bay Area in the fall. I swear last fall was the same.
So we started off with Radiohead/Beck/Manu Chao a month ago. It was ok, but I have completely tired of “festivals.” Not worth the masses, sound problems, and short uninspired sets.
But in the next TWO weeks we have: The Silver Jews, Calexico, Ry Cooder/Jim Keltner/Nick Lowe (oh my), and rounding it out with Deerhoof. Also tempting me with tickets on Craigslist are Spoon this week and Sigur Ros next week. That’s just ridiculous… in a span of two weeks!
The cost of all this entertainment I’ve purchased thusfar… bout $530. I’m thankful I can afford it and hopefully will be worth every penny. I’m also glad I can be a jaded musician and still be a rabid fan.
Considering how crappy my spring was, summer 08 was a nice improvement. Work was a bit stressful there for a while, but I survived the major migration and have more responsibility now. I’ve played very little music, but I’ve been super busy socially and made a lot of new friends this summer which was needed. I ended it with a great Labor Day weekend (always a nice, sunny, and quiet weekend in SF) that included yoga (my first class with the famous Rusty Wells, was amazing), a hot day on the beach (SO rare), bbq’s, and buying a new car!
This new car thing was getting to be a thorn in my side. I’d been working on it for months trying to make the best decision. Finally I was out of time as my registration was expiring, and the computer died on my damn Jeep so I couldn’t pass the smog test.
My new car is functional, fuel efficient, and SEXY! How sexy??? watch this:
The newly redsigned Subie Forester. It’s less like a wagon now and more like a sporty SUV. So much so in fact I caught a Porsche Cayenne owner checking it out the other day! So here’s the real deal, as I was driving it off the lot:
Travel plans… Hmmmm. No idea, other than Ecuador is still simmering in my head, and I have an invite to Iran. yes, Iran… for a wedding, rather soon, too soon in fact considering the red tape and possible problems with getting a visa there. Which reminds me I need to renew my passport as my 10 years is up on my current one.
The parents are coming for a visit this week. It will be their third visit to SF since I’ve been here. Going to do a day of wine tasting for sure, and possibly my first ever trip to Alcatraz! wooohooo a tourist in my own city!
Things have been crazy busy, and crazy in life… as you could probably tell.
So busy recently in fact I’ve had to resort to wash ‘n’ fold laundry service for the first time. 22 bucks for someone else to do 2 loads of my laundry?!?!? Holy shite. I need a girlfriend. Oh wait, those are waaay more expensive.
So what the hell has been going on? My last (crysis) blog post has my friends calling me ‘emo.’ Hah! I’m not emo, I’m just embracing my dark side.
In May I went through some pretty dark and difficult times. I was not myself at all. Some of you know, some don’t, I’ll leave it at that. I got out of this all by basically turning my life upside down and inside out for an entire month. All the normal stuff I would do I didn’t feel like doing anyway. I just listened to and bought new music, did some reading, hung out with close friends, left dating on the shelf for a while longer, went back to therapy, and replaced several addictions with my new addiction – yoga.
A big part of this credit goes to Kate, who when I was at the end of said difficult time, told me to go with her to yoga class. This bhakti flow class was incredible, i was drenched in sweat, and the teacher Andrea was amazing. Her mellifluous voice both talking and chanting was that of an angel. It became Sunday morning church. I was so incredibly focused I was kind of shocking myself. I had better balance on one foot than a lot of other people around me, and did really well considering my lack of experience and my current state. At several points I found myself fighting back tears, but I guess that’s what the kleenex boxes are there for. Two weeks later I told Andrea it was a life changing experience for me.
I had tried yoga maybe 3 times in my life before, but I was kind of resistant to the idea of it, the hippie vibe, exposing your workout and your body in such close quarters… the whole thing. But my heart and mind was needing something new, something profound. I’ve been going ever since. After 1 and a half months there’s such a huge difference in myself physically and emotionally.
Don’t get me wrong though… I’m not walking around flaunting my yoga mat, and NOT becoming a hippie.
In June I went home to host my parents 40th wedding anniversary with my sister. Things went really well, everyone had a great time, and it made me thankful to have my family and old family friends all there and healthy. My mom told me the day before she’d never had a party thrown for her, and if there’s one person who deserves a party it’s my mom.
At work, things are good but crazy busy also. The last few weeks I had to overhaul our company network (140 people, over 300 network devices) pretty much single-handedly. This past weekend was the big changeover. I’m exhausted. I’m not complainin, I like a challenge, and as I told a friend, I like to be the hero sometimes.
Socially things have been a lot better than in the past few years as well. Lately even on nights when I have nothing going on, or have someone flake on me, I’ve had someone else pop up and be like, “wanna grab dinner?” That’s really all I ever wanted.
On getting old… heh. I went to the doctor yesterday. Long story short, I need to lose 10 (more) pounds and get my blood pressure down. But I don’t have to stop drinking to do this. $1000 in insurance money and 3 trips in for various tests to find out this valuable information I already knew. Thanks doc.
All in all, considering the things I’ve seen going on in the world around me, things are looking up.
You know, I have not made it a habit of posting my innermost “whatever” feelings… personal life and thoughts since I’ve launched this blog. I mean, they clearly are scattered all over what i’ve written here. you know, it’s just not what it was about. Call it inspiration, lack of someone to talk to, or cleaning house but I think that may be about to change.
Lately, things have been, well… I don’t know what’s going on with me. It’s like there’s an incredible knot in my brain that’s unraveling little by little.
There *WAS* a recent event that triggered all this, but I’m not going to talk about it… yet.
I’ve had a lot of time to reflect lately. Lots, at times you don’t even expect. Just last night, after playing my first improv set of music in years with old friends, while watching Carla play with Fred Frith, (a member of one of my all time favorite bands) their amazing musical noises wafting over my ears sent me on a yet another mind trip.
I also find myself amazed when i run into people i haven’t seen in years and you have to summarize “what you’ve been up to.” It’s funny because, often times I feel like shit and want to say “nothing much,” and “no i’m not in any bands” but then I’m like, “oh yeah, in the last 5 years i’ve done…”
Sometimes I can’t believe the last 4 years of my life. Seriously. The last 4 years have been the most tumultuous, amazing, dark, exciting, lonely, eye-opening, confusing, lucky, deceptively stable, years of my life. It’s contained the highest highs and the lowest lows – making great music, touring with one of my musical idols playing for tens of thousands of people, sadly ending the longest relationship of my life, happily ending the longest job of my life, watching all the hard work I’ve put into my music career slowly fade away, confusion over my ‘other’ career, starting therapy, putting myself in impossible situations, and visiting 17 countries.
I *should* be happy. right?
And then you think – these aren’t REAL problems… poverty, disease… Why am I whining when other people aren’t nearly as fortunate? ugh.
I AM learning a lot about myself. that’s for damn sure. i just can’t make any sense out of what i find.
Sometimes I think about a change of scenery. But what does that accomplish? a self made kick in the ass?
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