back in the OX1

OX1 4LQ is my post code here in Oxford, so I like to refer to Oxford as the OX1. I even have a song that I'm going to record called "Fear and Loathing in the OX1". I'm back after a month, glad to be in my own apartment, and up at 5 AM ripping CDs, answering email, listening to my dad's Chess Blues box set, and working on the blog again. Being back is weird, just like last time. Though it's melancholy for different reasons this time. There's lots to read about my reasons for travelling to Seattle recently... worst day, crash site, steps forward, high flight, so from here on I'm writing about other stuff.

Seattle Parties

I thought I'd start with some of the cool stuff that happened this last trip. There were a lot of fun parties and outings during the month I was back, for example my friend Wendy moved over to Seattle from Spokane and moved in with my other friend Tracey. They had a welcome bbq, which was fun, and was a great chance to catch up with folks.

front door... notice upside down pentagram :)

tasha, wendy, carl, shutlz, tracey, reba in foreground, and stacie (behind reba)

There was also an excursion to the Viking Tavern which is the bar that I will buy someday. This place is so cool!!! This trip was notable mostly because I love the Viking, and also because my friend Lenny's friend (to remain unnamed) demonstrated for us all the dangers of hiphuggers + thong + incaution.

my beloved viking

if you're going to do this, be sure you remove the tag first

Another highlight was Reba's birthday at the Smokeshop. The whole gang came, and we even had Naseer from Oxford by total random chance. This was a great party, though late-evening details will remain classified to protect the innocent.

nikki, nat, tasha in our corner

baydra and me

clockwise: baydra, mike, ryan and lena

carl, lisa and reba

Granny's New Home

This next bit may seem like a downer, but it's actually a great step forward for my family. My grandmother has Alzheimer's related dementia, and had been living with my mom and dad for the last two years. She's pretty out of it in some ways: can't remember what you said to her 5 minutes ago, gets very frustrated and agitated easily, thinks she's going places she's not, does all sorts of weird repetitive stuff, etc. At the same time, she's a great conversationalist, very social, physically very healthy, funny as hell, and eats like a horse without ever gaining weight. However, since my dad died, she's been living with just my mom, which is really not a good situation. She needs a lot of attention and care, and was frankly driving my mom nuts. For everyone's health, we all decided to find her a new home. What we came up with was an "adult family home", which is basically a house with a few resident old people, and some full time staff. We saw some REALLY shitty ones, but also found a great one up in Edmonds called Ocean View near where my sister lives. This place is a really beautiful, clean and well maintained high end house in a secluded neighbourhood. It has an incredible view of Puget Sound, and there are two staff to work with 3 old ladies all day, so the residents get a lot of attention. Granny put up a fight at first, wanting to move back to Tampa (an impossibility for several reasons), then deciding she liked the place, then deciding she wanted her own apartment, then finally deciding to go to Ocean View in the end. There was LOTS of drama all along the way, pretty typical for my family. In the end, one day last week my sister took granny out to lunch, and the boys and I moved all of granny's stuff to Ocean View. Then, to minimise stress on granny, we split and my sister took her there. Apparently granny was fine when she got there, and began settling in nicely. PHEW. I just got an email from the house manager yesterday saying that she's fitting in very well, chatting with the other ladies, going for walks, enjoying the view, eating a lot (no surprise there), and even leading the other old ladies in singing songs from the 1940s. That makes sense, because she used to make us sing when we would have to stay with her when we were kids. Man, was that annoying. Anyway, after a month or so, we'll be able to visit her, by then she should be calmed down enough so that we don't freak her out too much. I guess that having lots of family members around really ups her stress level. I'm really happy about this situation because granny is in a lovely, safe, environment, and is out of my mom's hair. Now mom can start to get on with her life a bit, which is good.

granny at ocean view doing what she likes to do

my brothers in the living room

lunchtime with Rena and my bros... nice view eh?

reception room

Wrestling

My friend Owen is involved in the the SSP, the Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling league. This is like a punk rock version of big time wrestling, complete with funny wrestling outfits, scripts, good guys, bad guys, double crosses, and obnoxious announcers. Of course, it's held in a bar, The Re-Bar, and the audience is drunk and throwing empty beer cans the whole time. My friend Tracey (of Wendy and Tracey above) is dating Owen, and she took me to see the event. This night was just what I needed... totally fun and goofy. It was theraputic to be surrounded by a bunch of absurd Seattle punky atmosphere.

I wish I could tell you what these guy's wrestling names were

yes, this guy is jumping off a ladder

owen gets ready to body slam another wrestler

me and owen in his civilian gear

me and tracey

New Music

Finally, through buying a lot of new music, I've found some new music that I really like. First: Dead Meadow ...sort of like a more Jesus and Mary Chain version of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, very cool. Next, the Holloways, actually a new band from London. They play a sort of ska like rock that reminds me of the English Beat with a more afri-pop guitar style. These guys are coming out with a new album this month, and the singles are totally kickass. I'm going to go see them here, but I'll probably be in Seattle for my 20 year high school reunion when they play the Zodiac in Oxford, so I'll have to do an overnighter with Reba at another UK town, and maybe even talk Gabe and Katy into coming. I'm also really enjoying an old 90's band I just found out about, oddly enough from listening to a comp CD that a friend of Reba's sister's husband made for Reba's sister's son Matthew. The band is called The La's, and they played pretty guitar pop, really jangly and fun. I'm not exactly sure who to compare them to, but their song "There She Goes" is literally perfect, kind of in the same way that "Queen of Eyes" by Robyn Hitchcock, and "Magheeta" by My Morning Jacket are perfect. Know what I mean? Finally, I've been listening to the Chess Blues Compilation, which is a comp of old records from Chicago's Chess Records, an old blues label probably most famous for acts like Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf. My coming reunion reminds me that I used to listen to and play a lot of blues when I was in high school, but I got really sick of it, probably because of endless heavy metal infused "blues jams" I ended up in. Listening to a bunch of white metal kids in the 80s trying to "shred" over endless 12 bar blues is probably one of the 5 worst tortures ever invented, and even if you're one of those metal kids, you can really learn to hate the blues. Or at least, what I once thought was the blues. Anyway, I had dropped the blues for about 20 years, but apparently, listening to songs like "Evil" and "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin Wolf, or songs like "Rollin Stone" and "Got My Mojo Working" by Muddy Waters can bring even my taste for the blues back from the dead. This stuff is raw, creepy and fucked up. It's all about stealing other men's women, drinking, killing, hoodoo, and other anti social shit. The forms are of course, standard blues, but the innovation with the instrumental motifs is very cool, entirely outside of any improvisational stuff. I dig it! Plus, this collection was my dad's so I like to think of him listening to it, and that maybe we're in touch just a bit through it.

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