Vacation Boy

Hello

Hello, dear readers -- if any of you are still out there -- I've missed you all!  I guess I just needed a break from blogging because the last week or so I've really missed it.  I make no promises that I'll do better with the frequency with which I blog but for today it's good to be back.

Actually, this is sort of an open letter to my good friend, Cindi Ballard, who wrote a couple of weeks back inquiring if anything was wrong since I haven't blogged in so long.  It kind of reminded me that this blog has been a wonderful way to keep in touch with my peeps and why I kept writing it after my 30 day stint on Cape Cod was over, back in the day. 

I am really terrible at communicating -- no shock to anyone -- although my intentions are good.  I have meant to write Cindi back every day since she wrote, but then I was in Aspen and then I was home and had deadlines and then I had to feed the cat and then I forgot to pick up light bulbs at Ralph's and then I took a class in furniture refinishing....all of which to say -- my ADD condition is not getting better, it's getting worse.  It's not just Cindi -- I've been meaning to write my cousin Beverly since she commented on my blog months and months back.  Some of you, who do not truly understand someone with an ADD disorder, would say that I simply don't care enough to follow through with my correspondence (or whatever the task at hand might be) but the true fact of the matter is that I do care, it's just that focusing on one particular thing at the right time is, without medication, sometimes impossible.  So, to Cindi...to Beverly and Danny...to all the many others I've slighted:  I apologize and will try to do better.

Most of you know, especially if you're long-time readers of this blog, that I've really suffered with depression (which I think in some ways triggers and reacts from the ADD.)  Moreso since Mom and Dad died but, truthfully (although I didn't know it) all of my adult life.  I don't know what causes it, but it can truly be quite debilitating.  If you have never suffered from it, you can't understand it.  I remember a few years back talking to a friend on the phone who got quite frustrated with me and said "Just get off your a** and get to the gym!"  But...I couldn't.  That's the night when I started looking online and found a therapist who, thankfully, was just what I needed.

The reason I bring that up, is that it occurred to me yesterday that the past few months have truly been pretty amazing.  I think there are many factors contributing to this, but I think I am learning to, emotionally, face my giants, which is not easy but is good.  Moving to Santa Barbara, and all that means, has been a wonderful thing as well.  And while I think depression is one of those things that will be somewhat of a factor in my life forever, I am grateful for the times, like now, when the air is sweet and the head is clear and life is as it should be.


Goodbye

She was beautiful, yes, but also charismatic.  I was enchanted with her as a teenager, watching Charlie's Angels every week, reading the unauthorized biography and, while I didn't have the poster, I did have the button made from the poster (I collected buttons and this particular one was a Christmas gift from Mom.)  I loved Farrah.

I made her laugh once.  It was a miserably cold and blustery day in New York.  I was crossing the street at 19th and Broadway, going from ABC Carpet & Home to the adjacent Fish's Eddy.  I remember the wind cutting like a knife and there was, oddly enough, little traffic at the time.  I had my head down and to the side trying to shield my face from the biting cold when all of a sudden as I was about to step up onto the curb I realized I was about to hit someone -- I looked up right into the face of Farrah Fawcett.  I jumped back and actually made a gasping noise -- both from recognizing her and from the near-collision -- and she laughed. 

Farrah died today in LA.  Cancer is a terrible, terrible thing.


Why

The last couple of days I have found myself longing for the good ol' days....and by the good ol' days I mean two weeks ago before I knew who Jon and Kate are.  Seriously.  They are everywhere...and they're famous for what?  A high sperm count and lack of restraint?  Obviously I don't watch their show or know their story -- maybe they adopted these kids from Malawi, Indonesia or, I don't know, North Little Rock -- but you can't stand in a checkout line without being bombarded with the intimate details of their lives. 

And now...they're getting divorced.  Read my lips:  I.  Don't. Care. 

But what about the kids?  Nope - I just looked in the pantry and I'm all out of care.

Yes, I know that makes me a bad person, and I'm okay with that, but I just can't dredge up any emotion whatsoever for these famewhores or their children.  I actually got an e-mail from someone I know yesterday requesting prayer for them. 

First, I have enough friends who work in the reality television industry to know one thing:  It's not real...sure, the situation might be real, but the producers manufacture what they need for good television viewing.  Second, I have real friends with real problems and I'm not going to waste my time and energy worrying about them.

Last night, on the local tv news, they were the LEAD story.  The LEAD.  We have a major political scandal going on in South Carolina, North Korea is threatening to blow us to smithereens and the leading story on the news is Jon and Kate Plus Eight?

Much is wrong.

I first saw it when I was coming back from lunch...driving down Hollister Avenue, I noticed a huge cloud of smoke rising from one of the canyons -- Oh my God, were the words I uttered over and over...At first it seemed so intense in the middle that I thought perhaps a plane had crashed into the mountainside.  But turning on the news revealed...a brushfire had broken out on Jesusita Lane, over by the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens. 

That was Tuesday.

It is truly unbelievable what has transpired since that time...the thousands of acres that have burned, countless homes (including, I fear, some belonging to friends of mine) have been destroyed and an entire city has watched open-jawed as this beast refused to be tamed by the most experienced, brave and knowledgeable firefighters in the world.

Santa Barbara is a small city of 88,000 people.  Over 30,000 of them have been evacuated and another 29,000 are on stand-by, waiting with cars packed with what they absolutely feel like they couldn't live without if need be.

It rarely rains here.  The rich and vibrant flowers and beautiful landscaping that the town is known for couldn't be possible without irrigation.  A cigarette butt carelessly thrown out the window of a car or a kid lighting a firecracker can mean massive destruction.

Many of the homes that have been destroyed belong to the wealthy people who can afford to live on the mountain overlooking the sea.  (I, live down by the sea looking up at the mountains -- drastically different tax bracket!)  By wealthy, I mean the extremely wealthy -- homes costing 20, 30, 40 million dollars are now piles of ash and rubble.  The fire doesn't care who they are and what they have accomplished to buy such oppullent homes.  Nor can their money buy any real protection from what God and nature (and a suspected arsonist) decide.  Of course not everyone who lost their homes was wealthy, but I wonder if maybe those who had the most to lose might feel the lost a bit deeper.

My vantage point has been way too close for comfort.  Standing in the front yard watching huge flames shoot up the mountain, while fascinating, is a very scary and sobering thing.  I never really felt like I was in real danger, being on the opposite side of the 101 freeway from the fire, and closer to the cooler, wetter air of the ocean.  UNTIL, the fire jumped Highway 154 and continued burning without so much as the slightest slowing down. 

While it wasn't necessarily predicted that the winds would bring the fire south, we had all learned that this fire has a mind of it's own. 

So...I grabbed a suitcase and started packing...just in case...but what do you take with you when you aren't sure that you'll ever be coming back?  Birth certificate, passport, will, house and insurance documents...the picture off the piano of me and Mom...phone charger, laptop...pair of jeans, underwear, shirts and socks...Louie's litterbox and catfood....I certainly could have packed a lot more stuff into the car, but it's amazing how disposable and replaceable things seemed at the time.

My quiet little street looks like a war zone - even though we're a couple of miles from the fire, everything is covered in soot and and the sky with the sun trying to shine through the smoke makes the whole area look like a sepia toned photograph...the street looks almost like it has snowed except this isn't melting...cars are parked everywhere, presumable people from other areas of town staying with friends and family.

I was relieved to get out of town last night.  This trip to Vegas has been planned since December.  Seeing concerts here with friends.  The fire is only 30% contained but the weather seems to be cooperating with firefighters a bit.  Louie is in the capable hands of my pet-sitter, Allison. 

As I type this in my room at Mandalay Bay, I can't help but say a prayer of thanks that my home is safe.  My heart goes out to those who lost their homes.  When I go home on Monday, there'll be stories of heroism, heartbreak and all sides of loss.  I hope my friend Karen's house, with the amazing view, is okay.

Dear Tony,

Even though I will see you Sunday night when we will both be equal parts nervous and honored to be singing at the Songwriter's Showcase, there are things I want to say before then.  Congratulations on your nomination for Songwriter of the Year.  You deserve it -- so stop being so Tony about it and enjoy it!  Brag on yourself a little!  You are the hardest working songwriter I know.  Your successes haven't come easy; they've been hard-fought and often slow in coming, but you have always done it the right way.  To quote a friend of ours, how you go about it matters.  (Except I still haven't forgiven you for having SK sing for you at that ASCAP thing years ago!)

When the Songwriter of the Year award is announced next week at the Doves, I have no idea if you'll win or not, but that doesn't matter.  You and I both know that for a non-artist songwriter to be nominated is quite a rare accomplishment.  When I was nominated 10 years ago, your congratulations rang the loudest.  When the nominees are called next Thursday, listen for my voice -- I'll be cheering!

Some of my favorite moments in life have been in my office or yours either listening to some great song that one of us just heard, plotting our strategies for the next cut or project, or simply just talking through whatever problems that day might have brought.  I remember riding in your car back from lunch to the old Benson building trying to find the words to tell you how much I admire your writing, and not really being able to say much more than "man, your songs move me."  I remember hearing "But He Didn't" for the first time and thinking it was one of the greatest songs I'd ever heard - and it still is.  I remember being freaked out by your crazy organization when we were writing the "God Of The Empty Tomb" musical and talking through it that day while we were buying our salads at Kroger -- I think you were equally as freaked out by my "oh-let's-just-jump-into-it-and-see-where-it-takes-us" approach!  Somehow we met in the middle and wrote a pretty cool musical!   I remember losing a Dove Award a couple of years ago, but feeling pretty okay about it because I lost to you.  I remember seeing your Suburban pull up outside the church at Mom's funeral and couldn't believe you had driven all that way, only to turn around and drive home afterward.  I cherish the picture of you and I standing in front of the Brill Building in New York, because you and I (and a couple of others) have managed to build our own little community through the years.

And that's just the beginning.  I have no doubt that 15 years from now you and I will still be standing in some hallway (who knows where) waiting for the chance to play each other something we've just heard, or to share some story about the ridiculous writing session we just had (with some 15 year new artist) and ultimately one of us will say, at some point in the conversation, "Pretty cool that we're still here, isn't it?"

I'm proud of you!

Joel

I honestly don't even know where to begin to tell you about my day today.  It started off as a quiet morning -- I had planned to run a few errands, go to the gym, do a little grocery shopping and come back home.  I had already showered and fed Louie and was getting ready to leave.  On my way out the door, I took my multi-vitamin, my glucosamine, my fish oil and was trying my best to drink my Metamucil.  Yes, I drink Metamucil - what of it?  I started back when I was doing chemo and just kept it up.  Trust me the world is a better place when I'm....well, Metamucil'ed up.

I don't mind usually.  It sorta tastes like Tang, or at least how I remember Tang tasting.  Until a couple of months ago when I was at CVS stocking up and I noticed that they were now making a berry flavored Metamucil and I thought I'd try it just for something different.  Well, let me tell you that is the worst tasting stuff I can imagine drinking, even worse than that awful Noni juice that Kirk Talley convinced me to try a few years ago.  I mean it's just all I can do to force that stuff down my throat.

Which brings us to this morning.  After drinking this berry-flavored crap I had had it!  There is absolutely no sense in torturing myself every morning just because I haven't used it all yet.  I decided right then and there to dump it out and pick up the regular flavor at the store later.  So I turned on the faucet in the sink, flipped the switch for the garbage disposal and started pouring this gross powder down the sink.  After a few minutes, I noticed a berry-colored sludge coming up in the drain of the other sink!  I stopped pouring thinking that I was just going too fast and that it needed to catch up.  I kept the water running to help it go down.  It didn't.  It just kept oozing up in the other sink.  From somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered my dad holding a plug in one sink to force a clog down so I grabbed the sink stopper and held it down over the second sink and turned the garbage disposal back on.....

Did you ever see in the movies, when they're drilling for oil and they finally strike it rich and the oil goes shooting up in the air, covering them all with black sludge?  Well...re-imagine the black sludge to a dark, berry-red and that's pretty much what happened.  It just about scared poor Louie to death when the geyser blew and he went running from the room, covered in Metamucil.  (He spent the next couple of hours under the bed, refusing to come out, until I just reached in and pulled him out.)

The kitchen is white.  Stark white.  It took me well over an hour and two rolls of paper towels, four cloth towels and an entire bottle of 409 to clean the red goop off the cabinets, fixtures, appliances and floors.

I called my brother, Charles, to ask what I should do and his wife Ramona answered.  Charles was in the shower so she'd have him call me back, but she was laughing so hard he couldn't understand what my problem was.  (It's nice that I can be such entertainment for my family!) 

I've spared you many, many details -- like the fact that I had to change shirts twice -- but to make a very long story short:  the plumber is coming on Monday. 

Okay -- let the jokes begin!

Today is my brother Charles' birthday.  Or is it Charles's -- no that doesn't look right -- I guess maybe I had it right the first time, but it seems unfinished somehow.  I don't know, maybe I'll just do this:  my brother Charles has a birthday today!  YAY!  I like that better.

Anywho...here's to Charles!  I don't know what he's doing today to celebrate, but I can guarantee one thing -- he's wearing a hawaiian shirt!  Why?  Because it's friday.  And that's what Charles does on fridays.

I don't think I have any real rituals like that but maybe I need to start one.  That way I'll know what day it is.  See, the problem with being self-employed is that every day is kind of the same and so you never really know what day it is.  If I had more of a clothing ritual then I could look down and say "hmm...I'm wearing a hawaiian shirt, it must be friday!" 

:)

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Louie woke me up early this morning wanting food.  I threw a sock at him but that didn't shut him up for long.  While I was downstairs feeding him I heard the garbage trucks outside.  Good thing, too, because I had forgotten to take the cans out last night.  Maybe Louie knew that.

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I was running this week with Matty G and saw a baby seal who had hauled himself up on the beach.  My first thought was that he was dead, probably since I saw a dead seal last week, but, no, he was moving around.  A man and woman had stopped also and the woman explained that baby seals go through something called a "catastrophic molt" which happens after they're weaned and start losing their baby fur then the haul themselves up on the beach to finish losing their fur.  

I went back later to check on the seal but he was gone already.  I guess maybe a catastrophic molt doesn't last very long, which is a good thing because it sounds painful!

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I have a new passport!  :)  Where we going?