featuring Woody (acoustic guitar) and 5-Track (acoustic guitar)

1A

3

1B

It rained again, less dramatically, for a couple-few days. No tornadoes, little in the way of mudslides, the mania all wrought out in the first go rounds.

It was a spring rain. It was a subtle difference. It had less of a density to it, not so much in the way of sodden snowpants and slightly more along the line of still-wearing-those-wet-clothes-are-you?

Then it got clear, like it does. Best air here is right after a rain. I go outside just to breathe.

It got hot. I had heard it was going to, and then it happened, in the middle of the night. I could tell cos I woke up sweaty and had to take some clothes off. Sure sign of a heat wave.

And the next two days of February in southern California were as hot as Vermont ever gets in July (maybe a couple of hotter days in August). The heat was nice – got my first light sunburn of the year, it passed quickly when I applied Aloe, or Arnica, or Something – but also a reminder that it ONLY GETS HOTTER FROM HERE, HA HAAAAA!!!

Then two days that could be described as relatively cool (even bordering on chilly on at least one evening) and now it is raining again.

A return to the One.

Yesterday was a hair on the chilly side, tho not unpleasant… like Seattle in the spring. Like there’s a mild, debatably damp bite in the air. But not overtly damp. And not a nip. No teeth to it. Just a chill. And besides, it was sunny. I was outside mainly in the late afternoon, just before sunset, attempting to contend with what turns out to be a double-filament bulb in our 1999 Nissan Altima’s tail/brake-lights. Hassle upon hassle - but pleasant enough to deal with until you get a fix-it ticket. Which we haven’t got, so rite on it is.

Was also out briefly driving to Greg’s for Rough Church rehearsal. It was nice enough up his way, but not spectacularly so (measured by that I didn’t notice, and I usually do). I mean, it was clear and the air and temperature were pleasant. I just didn’t get any sense of the cosmic ambience. Which could in itself be telling.

Previous afternoon I was rehearsing on Simon’s Drum Satellite with Cricket & The 2:19. I brought an extra shirt thinking I’d need one. Didn’t really, though it wasn’t too much either. Also pleasant and cool, but a little drier in the air. Like, micro-clicks drier. Notably unnotable, also, except in relations to the days surrounding.

Micro-clicks of individuation are, I suspect, what I am after.

Today it is raining again. I haven’t been out yet. I will soon be on my way back to Greg’s, but I don’t see much to sample today in the way of meteorological micro-clicks. It is wet, and probably a bit chilly. I don’t mind.

Sodden palm fronds line the pavement like drowned monkeys, figments of last week’s rain, and I believe yesterday was the 1st day of spring.

Which is a radical thing to say about January 30th. But this is Los Angeles, and I can feel it. There is said to be more rain yet to come. But I’m putting it on the line right here and now that it is going to be a spring rain.

OK, so in terms of my thesis re: the subtleties of Los Angeles weather I could not have picked a worse time to begin. The weather here this past week+ has been nothing if not DRAMATIC. One 40-something Los Angeles native and lifelong resident told me this was the wildest set of storms he’s ever encountered here - before embarking on a rant about the misnomer that is “global warming” … hence, I advised, the increasing usage of the more accurate term, “global climate change” … and there we are.

The last few days have been cool, mellow, round, pleasant, the sun not showing it’s face until late morning but then coming out in strength … but a benign strength, and the air has been very clear, tasty and breathable. We’ve been up in the canyon a part of the time, where it’s just bound to be nice … but it’s been nice down below, too. I was there.

Yesterday it rained a bunch more. I took a couple of mid-length walks in it, to the library and to the rekkid store (more on that later I magine). A pleasant woman working as security on a media shoot of some description (I mean, they were filming something … not that they were shooting at the media, fortunately or un-) asked me where my umbrella was, and I replied that I am from Seattle … which is true, although more by inclination than by birth. It felt good to say it, and not at all dishonest, and it is in fact probably why I don’t use an umbrella.

But as I explained to my climate-concerned friend, although it does rain most days in Seattle, it does not DELUGE or DOWNPOUR so very often, and it almost never rains ALL DAY.

OK, and as for the effects of the aberrant weather on the Los Angeles population:

There was a woman pacing up and down on the sidewalk across the street from my apartment. It was not an even pace. She tended to cover ten to fifteen feet at a circuit, but not always the same ten to fifteen feet, meandering up and down over thirty yards on a five minute cycle (yeah, I paid way too much attention to this). She was blonde, pudgily proportioned in a lump and unhealthy way as if she had been stuffed badly, wearing mainly a shapeless black dress and little white heels, carrying an umbrella and talking on a cellular phone into which she was hollering:

“WEEAUUGGGGHHHH! WHOA! YEEOWW!”

Each exclamation punctuated with a wobbly marionette-like dip of one knee.

“God is ANGRY!!! Get thee behind me, Satan! YAAAUUGHH!!”

… And on and on, some of it less intelligible than other.

From time to time, either she lost her phone connection or she got hung up on. When this happened she would calmly and quietly, picture of normalcy, stop her pacing, examine the phone, re-dial, and then pick up right where she’d left off, pacing and kicking and glossolating.

When it rain down here, the crazies come out.

That was thunder as big as I’ve ever heard, set off car alarms on our street, sent the qat under the bed, I barely counted to 6 between the flash and the bang … Whee!

* EDIT *

… and now there are tornado warnings in Long Beach! Of all things.

Current listening includes “Fight On, Your Time Ain’t Long,” a collection (sans liner notes) of acoustic gospel including a track by Bukka White and also a whole lot of amazing stuff I’ve never heard of with lines like “I wouldn’t mind dying / but I got to go by myself…”

This LP is fun to play GO to. Really. Just ask John Norwood. It’s on Mississippi Records, if that helps you any.

On cassette I am playing close attention to “Good As I Been To You,” an early-90s recording of acoustic folk-blues by Bob Dylan. Favorite tracks on there include “Blackjack Davey” and “Jim Jones” though “Froggy Went A-Courting” is hard to deny. Bob still using his ’80s voice for the most part. He settles back down through-out his next, similar, album, “World Gone Wrong” and has regained his fullness by “Time Out Of Mind” yea unto the present day. Go Bob!

And, of course, anything that sounds good in the rain is welcome on my turntable today. Time for coffee and staring into the clouds.

Several days of rain - putting the lie for sure to my assertion that there is no weather here. I am as happy as a pig in the rain.

The day before yesterday, Z felt that it was a bit cooler than is normal for this time of year. And maybe a bit on the clear side. I did not notice anything.

Yesterday (really only yesterday?) we began the day with a hike up above Mandeville Canyon. Beautiful day, cool and clear (both of which are the case with pleasing frequency in that part of town and at that elevation but which were accentuated on this occasion). We spoke with many ravens and observed a red-tailed hawk. The crows don’t talk - they tick!

We felt the first drops at the top of the hill, and it was sprinkling softly but without urgency by the time we reached the car. This became a more certain rain, but that did not prevent us from taking lunch on a vaguely-roofed patio by a koi pond. “Beatific” comes to mind.

Later in the evening it became a solid downpour and has continued as such. On the street we’re seeing umbrellas, last year’s shoes, refugees from mudslides, inexplicable traffic accidents, nasty moods and terrible driving. But we are not on the street today. We are inside, drinking tea and talking to the cat. I haven’t had a day like this since Seattle (two years).

Mornings are often nice at this time of year. Morning are nice anyway, but there is sometimes a cool, clear quality to a January morning in Los Angeles. If you are fortunate enough to have vegetation in your immediate area (we have a palm tree and a few potted plants of vaguely tropical appearance in our concrete courtyard) then the experience is enhanced. It is almost but not quite reminiscent of Florida. Though not nearly humid or rainy enough. This is not the tropics. This is a desert.

Something about the feel in the air on this kind of morning even makes things seem a little quieter. Maybe it’s relative humidity.

Last night I was up on Washington Heights for Rough Church practice at Greg’s house. The weather up there, being above the basin, is often a bit closer to “normal”. Last night, for example, it was very windy. The air is generally clearer up there, and there is an amazing view of the city, which I especially enjoy after dark when it is all lit up. From Greg’s kitchen I watched the branches of trees blow around like crazy (you could almost have called it “blustery” … but not quite) and then later after the sun had set I wandered out onto the (3rd floor) balcony. The breezes were soft and constant.