As Ella Fitzgerald once said—

As Ella Fitzgerald once said—

"The record's still available!"

One night back in the early days of Elephant 6 and the Apples in Stereo, I made a record with my friend John Porcellino at Robert and Hilarie's basement apartment in Denver. Three songs on Robert's 4-track, played on my crappy old Lero guitar, with occasional accompaniment from John and Robert and a bunch of stray animals milling around. I was a newlywed, living in my wife’s fifth-floor condominium and feeling maybe a little undeserving, but there I was, acting out a teenage rocker’s fantasy, making my own record.

Then, time passes....

You may know that both John and Robert have gone on to bigger things (see here and here for starters). Me, not so much—or at least not in the same ways as those two cats. But recently, somebody sold one of those records on eBay for a winning bid of $5.53. "Nearmint 7-inch ep," clustertone wrote in the item description, "out of print from 1993 on Spit and a Half. A small pressing of mellow acoustic vibes, like the warm sound of Felt Pilots [sic] mixed with echoes of John Fahey and early Elliott Smith. Pastoral, tranquil and hypnotic...."

Clustertone and winning bidder oubapo, you made my day. "Echoes of John Fahey..."? Distant, muffled echoes to be sure, but gosh, thanks!

Family Portrait

Family Portrait

We spent one Thanksgiving down in Florida, on the west coast near the Suncoast Seabird Sactuary. Most evenings we crossed the street to walk down the beach at sunset.

One of these evenings a pair of strangers came up with a Polaroid in hand. Could they take our picture, the one said, and instantly I was thinking oh shit....

But then the man explained a bit more: his mother recently had a stroke. She couldn't speak any more, couldn't really communicate at all, but she could still work her camera, and what she most wanted to do with the rest of her life was go to the beach & give away photos of the people she met there. Would we allow her to take our picture ...?

We did:

A photog/graphic artist friend created this cool composite of Flickr pics from Arizona. Click below to see the image in all its glory.

More Monument Valley here

Lydia, the Tattooed Lady

Lydia, the Tattooed Lady

One more note from New Orleans: Wandering the French Quarter, I met a woman outside a bar who lifted her hair and took off her work shirt to reveal two tattoos. One was on the nape of her neck, a copy of Dwight Yoakam's autograph.

The other was on her left arm, a tattoo of Dwight Yoakam's profile from the cover of his first album, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.. Look closely, and I think you can also see Michael Jackson's nose.

Another thing: Lydia showed me a snapshot she carried in her wallet--a picture of herself and Mr. Yoakam. She looked ecstatic; he looked weary.

The City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans

Work sent me down to the city of New Orleans last week, and my boss and I wanted to see the Lower 9th Ward, so we hired a cab to drive us through. The cabbie was a Haitian man named Fritz, and for an hour's fare ($30) he took us out of downtown, over the bridge, and into the lowlands where the levee breaks did their worst.

Supersize pictures by clicking on them.

Here's a view down one block in the lower 9th ward. In the upper left picture the yard sign reads "I Am Coming Home." Next door (lower left), nobody's coming back. Note the sidewalk taken over by Mother Nature in the lower right.


More scenes from the Lower 9th Ward, clockwise from upper left:
a chandelier hanging in a gutted house;

FEMA marks spray-painted outside the door;

a rotten dining room chair, stuck 7 feet up when the water was finally drained away;

a house that says "au revoir".


---> See more pics here.