Just got back from seeing David Byrne and Gilberto Gil at Town Hall (it was a benefit for the Creative Commons License). David Byrne was amazing as usual. He played a strong set of old and new and was just stone cold hip. Gilberto Gil sort of phoned it in. Maybe I'm a terrible snob but any time a guy starts covering Bob Marley and John Lennon, you know you're in trouble. That type of cover should be the exclusive domain of cheesy Philippino wedding bands and bad karaoke. Byrne, by way of comparison covered Hugo Ball (the dada poet!) and Hendrix.

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How many people could the US military possibly recruit from their Times Square kiosk? I mean I understand how they might have grabbed folks back when Times Square was Times Square, but now it's Disneyland....

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Does Alec Baldwin have his photograph in every single New York deli?

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, the moving truck arrives!

The final 2 days drive left me all pretzeled up and dealing with serious back pain. Jenn and I had a Vietnamese lunch in Chinatown and she suggested I try acupuncture. The office was above a Chinese medicine shop and the doctor barely spoke English, but his assistant translated. After much nudging and poking, he seemed to understand exactly where I was hurting. The pins went in almost painlessly. In fact I had no idea there were so many until I peeked over my shoulder. I looked like San Sebastian down there. He used pins in my back, behind, legs and feet and then left me under a heat lamp. The lamp started out pleasantly warm but eventually turned really really hot. After about 20 minutes the doctor returned, removed the pins, stretched me in a bunch of different ways and we were done. I felt 80% better. My sciatic pain was totally gone, and most of the back pain was gone. Today, a day later I woke up feeling much better. Good stuff and cheap.

Lin Sister Herb Shop
4 Bowery
(212) 962-5417

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At the townhouse we checked out the paint job. The best color is the one we were most worried about, the bedroom aquamarine. We were less happy with the colors that came as a result of negotiation. The living room for example is a very standard seafoam green, nothing exciting and the red in the TV room is probably too bright. Both colors were the result of compromises. This all reconfirms my belief that good design is rarely democratic.

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I found cool graffiti in the attic, my future office. Some of it dates back to the the late 1900's. Most are simply names with dates. My guess is that over the years the attic was where kids would hang out to get away from their folks. The faded skull and crossbones painted on the wall would seem to confirm this.

Can't wait to move in. The movers arrive Wednesday.

I spent the night with my friends Tbone and Lisa otherwise known as 'the Bones'. My question, why does their son Harry's chalkboard say "Smoke the Bear, Superman, Crying Indian"?

This leg of the trip was unexpectedly grueling due to my back pain (my back decided to fail spectacularly yesterday and has left me a human pretzel), flooding detours, and grisly accidents. I didn't take out my camera much (any movement was causing me serious pain). But when I finally hit the Triborough bridge I knew I was home and would soon be hanging out with my wife and my dad, so everything felt better...

Jenn had delicious tacos, flautas, soup, and rice warm and waiting... ahhh..

Since California the skies have been remarkably clear and cloud free. Then today over Ohio I spotted my first bit of cumulus. Soon the sky was full... and I'll admit I went a bit cloud mad.

I hate interstate highways, but I've been on them all day long trying to make some time.

Miles driven: I've stopped counting but around 700
Pieces of pie eaten: 1
Discovery of the day: Iowa rest stops have free wireless internet
Goal: to Arrive in NY by Sunday
Biggest scare: Almost being driven off the road by an out of control big rig

I woke up at 5, drove out into the Valley of the Gods and watched the sun rise. If you are driving across country, make this stop. This area has all the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, sans the crowds. My only regret is that I experienced this without Jenn. Last time we were driving through, we had just hit some large roadkill screwing up the car didn't travel the 17 mile dirt road through the valley for fear of breaking down.

Later I ran into a military funeral for a young soldier killed in Iraq. The entire town was out. I stopped for a while and watched the coffin, carried by soldiers, go by.

The put me in a melancholy mood... which was reinforced by the many memorials along the way.

Miles driven: 712
Pieces of pie eaten: 1 (pear)
Things that scared me: white trash woman at the hotel yelling at her little girl
Number of clouds seen: 0
Number of people seen in 4 hours in the Valley of the Gods: 1 (a German backpacker)

Day 2: 630 miles stopping place Mexican Hat

Pieces of pie eaten: 2 (both apple)
Burgers eaten: 1
number of clouds seen: 0
things that scared me: pack of vultures tearing apart a coyote

Once again a day of straight empty roads. While I had to take a detour to get over the mountains, the detour took me past Yucca mountain and through several desert basins. I love desert & mountain scenery. I love empty roads. Don't know why. Maybe it's the Mexican in me. I'm listening to all sorts of college history lectures on my ipod. So far I've covered about a thousand years of Egyptian history and Byzantium. Later I will do 10 hours of geology. Maybe I'll arrive back home super smart. Oddly enough all these scenes reminded me of places I had seen in China (Death Valley looks like Xinjiang, the Yucca Mountain area looks like Gansu, northern Nevada looks like Qinhai...etc). I arrived to Mexican Hat/ Monument Valley right at sunset.

Our stuff hits the road.

This guy was talking about living 'off the grid' in the Angeles National Forest.

I always stop for roadside memorials.

If you need a lighted fish lamp. The truck stop in the Mojave is a good bet.

The roads were virtually empty. From 5-7 I passed a single car. I chased mountain shadows across the desert and watched the sky fade to black. After sunset on roads this empty I like to drive with the headlights off just using the sky glow which is plenty bright. The windows were open...the dry 90 degree air felt nice across my face. The hotel here in Furnace Creek is empty except for a couple of Germans. Lousy restaurant. Depressing bar. The road up into the mountains has washed out so tomorrow I'll have to backtrack. Finding nothing to do here at the hotel, I drove down the a road and turned off onto an unpaved path up a hill. Up on a little ridge I parked the Mini and hung out on the roof with a pillow stargazing. The milky way stands out in high relief in this kind of dark. The Pleides stand out to the naked eye. I was out there for a good long time and got a nice shower of shooting stars just as I was getting ready to drive back. Invariably my inner transcendentalist comes out on these drives.

Tomorrow I hope to get an early start out of here.

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Today is my mom's birthday. She would have been 59.

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Day 1:
miles driven: 300
scariest thing seen: burnt volcanic landscape around Cinder Road
best road candy: all chocolate Nekko Wafers

Jenn reports that her belly button is on the verge of flipping. The inversion has been a hotly anticipated event in our household... missing the show is a minor tragedy. Jenn if you are reading this today, I want pictures!

Neither Leon nor Tiny materialized. Instead I got recently-released-from-the-state-pen Dennis "Big Bad D" and Norman who went by "Quiet Norm". A third guy known only as "Sloppy" showed up, decided it was too hot and left. The temperature was hovering just over 100. Work started 8 hours late and the 18 wheeler only was half loaded. So tomorrow we start over at 7am. I wonder if Quiet Norm will again don a USPS uniform and combat boots. I just want to hit the road.

Has anyone noticed LA has more than it's fair share of scary dentists?

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The moving van arrives at the storage facility today and then I'll start driving... The phone call this morning was less than encouraging.

The moving guy: "Leon and Tiny, well you know, they were partying last night, so we'll be late man."

me: "How late."

The moving guy: "Maybe 4 hours maybe 6. I'll call your cell."

me: "4 to 6 hours?!"

The moving guy: "Tiny, man, he's an animal. Good guy though. Don't worry man."

The first picture was taken on the day I moved to LA. Feb 94 I think. The second was taken today.

In my 10 years in LA I lived in 7 houses from Santa Monica to Silverlake. Today in Santa Monica I happened to drive past house #3, my little cottage on 12th and Idaho. It was tiny but was smartly designed and strangely soothing. Even twelve blocks away from the beach I could always smell the sea air in the morning. I have nothing but fond memories of the place. Today I was pleased to discover the plants I put in have virtually taken over the façade and the tree is a decent size. When I moved in there were no plantings whatsoever.

I try to plant trees wherever I live. I like seeing how the trees I've planted along the way have grown. It gives me a yardstick with which to measure my life. The first tree I planted was in Houston at the age of 5, a red oak. In a picture I wear a NASA jumpsuit and am proudly holding a shovel. I went back and visited a few years ago. That tree dwarfs the house and shades the entire lawn.

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This mornings house visit made me feel like I should visit all the houses before I go, so tonight I visited house #4 which I shared with several friends up on Lincoln Terrace. It was owned by Rick Rubin and featured incredible views (and an attic filled with perfectly aged rock & roll t-shirts). From my desk I looked out over the Chateau Marmont, the Marlboro Man, and the city itself. I am about as anti-smoker as a man can be (I'm not proud of it, and know it's not rational, but I judge most all smokers harshly and think they are weak.), but I miss that Marlboro Man sign. Sunset just isn't Sunset without it.

This is what the place looked like tonight:

And this is what the little street looked like when we were there:

LA is full of secret places hard for someone outside to see.

A recent issue of Harpers turned me on to a book titled Sebastian's Arrows: Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca. I happened to find an advance copy. While Surrealist writings don't usually do it for me, Lorca's lecture "Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion" alone is worth the cost of admission.