Well, it is now Thursday morning, 9 am. Up at 5 this morning, internet until 6, an hour of stretching and strengthening, a shower, walk 1.7 miles to Steelhead Coffee where I am greeted by Nick, Skyler, and Amelia behind the counter, have my usual cortado with egg’s and Manchego on toast prepared by the lovely Zoe (aka, @rosemarysbabyzoe), followed by ten minutes of folding, stretching, squatting, and balancing in the parking lot, and I am now ready to write.

This week has been a rather low mileage week, which is probably good since parts of my body have been complaining a bit about the stress put on them by Sunday’s trudge up the Mt. Wilson Toll Road. I have gone through several cycles in my life where circumstances, usually work-related and then complicated by relationship issues, cause me to not get sufficient exercise. When that happens, I can actually put on about a pound a week and before I know it I am 60 pounds overweight, with bad feet to boot. One of my most valued tools for reversing this trend is the trudge.

A trudge is like a hike in that it involves walking in a natural (or more natural) setting on a natural (or more natural) surface. It is a special case of a hike, however, that requires a) non-technical walking on easy surfaces, and at least 3 miles (5K) of an unrelenting grind upwards that gains at least 1000 ft of altitude over that span.

The Mt. Wilson Toll Road is the ultimate trudge. It begins at the head of Eaton Canyon Regional Park, although the best access is off Pinecrest, in Altadena. From the gate the trail descends, crosses over the creek, and then begins an almost uninterrupted climb to the summit of Mt. Wilson. The distance is 10 miles, and there is about 4400 feet of altitude gain. I like it for training as I can hike up until I have had enough (keeping in mind that I will also be descending, which I like much less than ascending), and then turn around. When I get to the point where I can do the whole enchilada, then I consider myself up to snuff!

My destination for Sunday was the first real landing pad on the hike, Henninger Flats. Henninger Flats is the first (and perhaps only) place where the road levels off, and it sports a campground, picnic area, and restroom facilities (although the modern facilities were locked and only the rustic ones were available). It is about 3 miles from the gate to Henninger Flats, and there are 1325 feet of elevation change involved.

On Sunday I started my trudge at about 10:30 am, hung out at the Flats for a little while, headed back down, and returned to my car at 2 pm. Only some relatively minor complaints from my left hip and my right foot, and I was energetic enough to head out to Calabasas to visit one of my families, the Dennis’s–I was feeling guilty because I had stood up the Dennis’s on Thanksgiving, opting instead to head down to La Jolla to visit yet another of my  families, the Feifer’s. Need to keep ones families happy!

My current goal is to do a trudge each Sunday. In addition to the Toll Road, which I am planning on doing on the first Sunday of each month as a benchmark, I have a good trudge up the North Ridge Trail in Chino Hills State Park. That trail has been officially closed for a couple of years, but I am guessing that I can still get past the closure for the ascent, and by connecting to the Sycamore Trail it can be turned into a loop where the descent is a bit more forgiving.

I had my long-awaited follow-up appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Warden. It has been 12 weeks since the surgery to reattach two of the three heads of my triceps on my right elbow, and he was worried. In my first follow-up two weeks after the surgery he had accused me of having a year-old injury, that prognosis based on the difficulty he had in stretching the tendons and the fact that the first pin he had used had pulled out, so it was with some trepidation that he entered the room, closed the door, and said “Well, let’s see what we have here.”

I dutifully extended my arm and he began going through his diagnostic routine. His glumness very soon morphed into something more like glee as he assessed my progress, which he deemed remarkable. I have full extension and flexion, which amazed him, and all muscles seem to be fully attached and functioning. He did caution  me that the attachment takes on the order of 9-10 months to fully heal, so he did not even want to start on any kind of therapy aimed at strengthening the muscles at this point, and no heavy pushing is allowed. He also said that maybe at the 9 month mark I might be able to start PT but that given my track record to date I might not even need it.

On the other battlefront, the re-training of my gait is really coming along. My goal is to be able to walk 20 miles any time I want to. That has been a distant goal for the past year as I have been working on completely reworking the functioning of my right leg, and that has often greatly restricted my walking range. There have been many objections by many body parts, starting from the smallest of toes, migrating up the leg through the knee, with the current front line being the muscular systems high up on the leg that control the orientation of the femur. They were kind of stuck in a turned-out mode for a long time, and muscles that are supposed to be loose were too tight, and muscles that were supposed to be tight were too loose.

I think I have now regained the necessary flexiblities and basic strength to walk properly and I am now working on building strength. In the beginning phases I was lucky to get in five miles in a day, but lately I have had a number of 10-12 mile days. My experience is that the best therapy for my is trudging long distances up steep hills, something that Long Beach largely lacks (sad face emoji here), so it is off to trudge Signal Hill two or three times!

 

I had quite a dilemma on Monday night. My multi-talented friend Sam (aka Samantha Parks Bulls Daughter and @bullsdaughter) was teaching her inaugural yoga classes at Flow LBC, but Deja Nichole was scheduled to do a full 40 minute set at a venue called Beatnik Bandito in Santa Ana. At this stage of her career, seeing a full Deja set is still a rare enough treat that I chose that option. Sorry, Sam, but I am planning on doing your “Mellow Mondays” class next week, so I will see you then. Sounds delicious! For a small taste of the multi-talents that Sam possesses see my blog entries at Bedlam Lullaby and Speak It Easy. As for her yoga teaching talent, I am looking forward to experiencing that facet of Sam for the first time next Monday. If anyone else is interested please join me next Monday evening at Flow LBC from 8-9:15. This is a great time to take classes at Flow LBC. Ramona currently has almost more teachers than students, so there is a fair-to-middling chance that you may wind up with a private class for the price of a regular class! Best way to learn if you are a beginner.

 

Beatnik Bandito is a tiny self-described Music Emporium in downtown Santa Ana. By day it is “A finely curated conglomeration of all things music! A shop that is owned and operated by musicians, for musicians, and for all others that live to love music!” It is also available seven nights a week for very small-scale performances. The stage area can accommodate a four piece combo easily, and the house seats only about 12; there is room for standing, but the room is much deeper that it is wide.

Most of day one of the Trump era was spent in a down haze, trying to keep the despair and negativity from seeping in, but I found the perfect antidote that evening at “Speak It Easy: Creative Food for the Soul“, a monthly event organized by Sam, aka Samantha Parks Bulls Daughter, aka @bullsdaughter, and hosted by the Callaloo Caribbean Kitchen in Long Beach.

SIE (Speak It Easy) is the manifestation of the positive energies of Sam and her collaborators: Shelley Bruce, Lance Lowe, and Donovan Brown. Sam is a transplant from Kansas, of all places, has spent time time as a barista, and is now a yoga instructor who will be teaching at Flow LBC, the new yoga studio that Ramona Magnolia Tamulinas is opening in Wrigley. In addition to those talents Sam is a connector, a radiator of positive vibrations, a very talented singer and performer, a genuine live wire, and an all-around great person to be around. Being a connector, Sam does not want her event pigeonholed as a “poetry slam” or a music-dominated “open mic”, so she has revived the vaudeville concept. From Wikipedia, “A typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill”. It is kind of like a set in Mathematics: what do the elements of a set have in common? They are all in the same set. What do the acts in a vaudeville show have in common? Only that they are in the same show. Leaves a lot of room for flexibility in scheduling!  Samantha is also an animated and engaging MC, and the interludes between acts were as entertaining as the acts themselves.

The SIE format is to have a number of invited, featured, guests, and intermix that with an open sign-up list. The evening opened with a musical set by The Black Noise, a collaboration between SIE parter Donovan Brown and Victor Ojadughele. I had encountered them in the past, and had written about them in a review of the Definitive Soapbox. I had been impressed by them at that time, and they got the evening off to a great start. The audience, quite subdued  to that point as everyone was pretty much involved in trying to process the news du jour, was energized by their spirited performance.

The Black Noise was followed by a couple of spoken word artists, and then a mixed spoken word/music performance by Kyoko. A common theme at the opening of each set was how to deal with the new reality, and the general theme was “bring it on, we will deal with this too.” There was a very funny comedy performance by Marie, and inspired and touching readings by SIE co-founder Shelley Bruce and featured artist Darrius Bradford.

Next up was my favorite young artist, Deja Nichole! Deja was there with her lovely mother, Joanne, and her beautiful grandmother. She opened with a duet composed for this performance with her friend Nikki Cicero, and then performed a couple of original songs, one of which I am including here. You can find additional Deja videos in my coverage of her birthday show and Tyler Curley’s feature performance, both at the Fox Coffee House.

Deja was followed by a comedy act, the inimitable Mardy MacFly, who cut a trim figure in all red and delivered a hilarious performance. His material is fresh and accessible to mixed audiences, and his delivery and brand of physical comedy were very effective. I am regretting that I didn’t get any video of his performance, but as he is well worth seeing again I am sure I will be able to do a better job next time I see him.

I first met Sam in the context of an open house at Flow LBC when she performed with her a capella trio, Bedlam Lullaby. I had seen one of her sisters-in-song, Cameo Adele earlier that evening, and was very happy at the end to see that they had been joined by their third member, Denicar Bergancia. Cameo Adele, by the way, recently released a solo effort, To You From Venus that I highly recommend and is well worth listening to. Bedlam Lullaby closed the show with a perfectly placed and emotional rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” It was a perfect end to a perfect evening, and I am pretty sure that everyone there left in a much better frame of mind than they had entered.

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Just a quick note to give a shout out to Cheetah and Rhiann Platt, the proud owners of the ultimate shop catering to the aerial arts, Aerial Essentials in Las Vegas. They are having their grand opening celebration there today, and if you are in the area stop in.

Just sitting here waiting to head over to my ballet class at Elevation Studios. Been a fun and interesting morning. First, the lovely Jillian was working the register, and Jillian is always good for a giggle or three. I got her going, and then the young lady in line behind me went it for the knockout as both of them were prone to the giggles and primed to go off.

The young lady from the line sat next to me and started perusing a large format book of techniques for drawing perspective. I asked if she was an artist, and then had to convince her that she actually is one. If one does art, then one is perfectly justified in calling oneself an artist. Her name is Kimberly and she manages Recreational Coffee, a coffee shop at 3rd and Long Beach Blvd that I am planning on visiting at some time in the near future.

Saw an amazing stunt baby just a little while ago. A young man sat next to me, and he had his 19 mounth old daughter with him. She was on the chair across from him, and had turned around and was kneeling facing the back. You could see the wheels going around as she was determined to stand up. Finally, when dad was distracted by his food she managed to go for it. In a flash she was up, over, and smacked face down onto the concrete floor. There were about three seconds of crying, then dad picked her up, wiped her face, and she was fine. Knows how to take a fall!

Going pretty good. I am now 8-1/2 weeks out of the operation, and have almost full flexion in my elbow without discomfort. Still kind of tender if I put stress on it, so I am continuing to lay low a bit on the yoga side. Giving myself credit for small milestones, like washing my hair. When the brace first came off (2 weeks ago) I could get my right hand about a foot from my head, the next day it was but inches away, then I could tickle my scalp but could not apply pressure. Then soon I could wash the top of my head, but couldn’t reach the back of my neck. Now, however, it is all systems go with hair washing!

The last few days have been rather momentous due to changes in my living situation. After living solo for the past 3-1/2 years I now have a couple of housemates. My yoga muse, Ramona Magnolia Tamulinas, and her new puppy, Grace, are now firmly ensconced in my spare bedroom. Ramona is in the process of opening a new yoga studio, Flow LBC, that will fill the yoga void that currently exists in the Wrigley neighborhood. Her energies have been rather scattered for the last year or so when she was working as a nanny and living in Glendale with only sporadic forays into Long Beach; the Long Beach yoga community is looking forward to seeing much more of her from this point on, and it is great to have her back in town. Great for me to have my own live-in yoga teacher!

It is a bit of an adjustment for me, and it was nice to see the bustle of activity yesterday, with a couple of women in the house and a couple of big firsts for my occupancy!  Ramona put my oven to use for the very first time. It is a is a nice old gas oven, but I have just been using a toaster oven. Even better, Ramona’s daughter Sadie did a very thorough house-cleaning, another first! I am not big on house-cleaning, but in my defense I also have a very strong “clean as you go” approach, so while the dust may build up, and stuff tends to clutter, I do manage to maintain an acceptable level of neatness. Sadie, by the way, is very good at it; she cleans like a demon, is merciless at attacking clutter, and came up with some nice improvements for storage.

Here is a reflection back on my living history…

1950 – 1973 lived in a couple of apartments in Chicago, and then a house in Franklin Park with parents and 1, 2, 3, …, 8 siblings, finally (I am the oldest of nine). Went off to college in 1968 and had roommates in the dorm for two years, lived with three other guys in a house off-campus for one year, and then lived in a trailer outside of town with two other guys. Family sometimes had a dog, but never more than one, I think.

1973 – 1977 I was married. We lived in married student housing in Macomb, IL, for one year, then rented a house in town the next. My wife quickly acquired three cats, and never once maintained a litter box. The cats came with us to our apartment in Holt, MI, and then into a nice little two bedroom, two bath townhouse with a full basement in cooperative housing in Lansing. The cats stayed with my wife when she decided that this graduate school thing was taking  way too long and bailed.

1977 – 1981 I was in West LA, and slept on the floor in my friend Lana’s rent-controlled apartment. Her brother Ramon had the couch. Lana had one fat cat, and she took good care of it. Not the most luxurious of accommodations, but at $9o/month quite affordable.

1980 I was lured by the promise of a couch to sleep on to move to Santa Monica and moved in with Victoria and her teenage daughter Tiffany. Tiffany was on the kid’s acrobatic gymnastics team that  we had at the time, and Victoria was in the IBEW and trying to make a living in a very heavily male-dominated studio electrician field. No pets.

1980 – 1982 Victoria, Tiffany, and me moved into another house in Santa Monica populated by Audrey and her pre-teen daughter, Rachael. I had a space under the eaves of the house. Definitely rustic accommodations, but had room for a bed, my first bed since leaving Michigan! Shortly after we moved in a young ballet teacher, Jacqueline, moved in as well. I don’t recall any pets. Audrey was a kind of a life coach, with a neurolinguistic programming practice that she ran out of the house. She did well enough at it that she was able to buy a house in Pacific Palisades.

1982 – 1992 I moved to a house on Rose Avenue in Venice, right across from the Penmar Golf Course. The first year there was my friend Gene, his old and smelly dog Rusty, and two other guys. The next year the other guys left and Gene’s girlfriend Davida moved in. They eventually married, and in 1988 their daughter Frazier joined the fray. In addition to the fart-bomb that was Rusty there was at least one, and perhaps two, cats in the  mix; the litter box was unfortunately 1) situated right outside the door to my bathroom, and 2) not tended to as often as I might desire. There were some challenges here as Gene did all of the cooking for his family, but was the antithesis of me when it came to cleaning up, so there were generally piles of dirty dishes in the sink.

1992 – 2002 I moved into a house in the Hollwood Hills. It was on Mulholland Drive right at the  intersection of Laurel Canyon Blvd. It was like being in an eagle’s nest, and could swoop down in minutes to music events both on the Hollywood and Valley sides. The main residents were Buddy and Mayumi. Buddy is a friend from graduate school at UCLA (which I was just finishing up when I moved in) and his Japanese wife Mayumi. When I first moved in they had two very young boys, Niki and Spike, and then along came Bucky. There was also a rotating cast of other residents, among them Bruce Ray White, Buddy’s siblings Jon Dog and Vicki, the entire Brause family (Scott and Mariko and their kids Maria, Kensuke and Sosuke), girlfriends of Jon Dog (Shayne and a crazy black girl), boyfriends of Vicky (Chris, who she is married to now), and the entire Tony T family (Tony and Kyoko with first daughter Tammy, and then son Joey who was born while they were in residence). It was a pretty cool place to live and much fun was had by all! Then they had to go and sell the house…

2002 – 2007 My first foray into actually living alone. I bought a house in California Heights in Long Beach, worked real hard (had two full-time jobs for that entire span). No pets, no roommates, although I did have a rental in the back with my tenant Andrea.

2007 – 2010 Met Elsa, fell in love, and went all in. Sold my very affordable house (3.1 miles from work) in Long Beach (at a great profit) and bought a much bigger house (2800 sq ft) in Placentia (30 miles from work) to accommodate her needs. In addition to Elsa there was her son Dat and their dog Lu.

2010 – 2013 In late 2010 Elsa was gone (but still on the deed to the house), and I was on my own. My niece Kelsey and her fiancée Jason lived with me for the last year. Finally had to hire a lawyer to get Elsa to settle on the house, and sold it for a big loss.

2013 – 2016 Moved back to a rental house in Long Beach in March, 2013, and lived alone until this week.

 

Just a quickie to update anyone interested in what is going on with me. After a couple of wild and crazy weeks (Vegas and Mexico trips), I am now settling back into a more regular routine. I have now been free of my brace for just over a week, and there are improvements in function every day!! One day last week my ballet teacher, Carri Burbank, asked if I could yet drink out of a champagne glass. At that point my answer was that I could hold the glass, and even get it close to my lips, but would not yet be able to drink out of it. Well, as of yesterday evening I was able to effortlessly tip a glass of wine and am pretty confident that my answer to Carri will be yes! Bring on the champagne!

I have now established my morning workout regimen, which consists of stretches, squats and heel raises, and some stability exercises that I lifted from my physical therapy routines. Also about 10 minutes of core work. Currently I am not doing any upper body work, but in the near future will be trying to integrate some into my routine. My shoulders need it!

I am also now getting back into utilizing the services of “Team John”, the core group of dedicated professionals who assist me in my endeavors. Last Friday I had a session with my core coach, Stephanie Winkler, who very creatively was able to put me through a grueling 1 hour mat Pilates/barre routine without doing things that might jeopardize my perhaps fragile triceps. On Monday I got back into the groove with my body mechanic, Donna Place, who has a gift for instantly zeroing in on whatever body parts need attention and the skills to fix the problems. This time it was my right upper back/shoulders, and some hip stability exercises on the Gyrotonics tower. Tuesday I had a massage session with my body tenderizer, Teresa Figueroa, and in the very near future will resume yoga sessions with my yoga muse, Ramona Magnolia Tamulinas! Life is good!

One of my favorite haunts is the Fox Coffee House. Not only is the Fox conveniently placed within easy walking distance from home, but it also plays host to not one, but two open mic events each week. On Thursday nights there is a pure open mic from 7-9 or 9:30. On most Saturdays the mic is open from 6-7, and then at 7 there is featured act with a full 50 minute set. The open mic then resumes from 8 until closing.

The Fox Open Mic is the love child of Sean Gallagher. Sean is the father of Mary Gallagher, proprietor of the coffee house, and his event for almost two years now has provided a safe and nurturing environment for anyone seeking to find their voice and develop their talents. Performers of all ages will show up once, start coming back, and many eventually graduate to the main stage as featured performers; it is always a red-letter day when that occurs. Back in September I wrote about a breakout performance by young Deja Nichole, and since then Deja has caught a wave and is now playing at venues all around Los Angeles. While I was happy to see Deja in the crowd, she was there not as the featured performer but in support of another graduate of the Fox talent machine, Edward Lopez.

Edward, or Eddie, has been coming to the Fox for about a year, and has developed from a somewhat shy and withdrawn young man into a confident and outgoing performer. He performs as The Hildreth Avenue, and I believe that this was his third time as the featured act. I didn’t see his first time, but I did see the second, and it was a bit of a disappointment. I only knew him at that time as a kind of a darkly shrouded young man who was usually there and often called into service as a collaborator for other artists, a role that he did exceptionally well. In the last performance I saw Eddie seemed unprepared, and very conscious of that fact; he wound up doing a greatly abbreviated set, which was a shame given that the room was full of other artists who only needed a nod to come to his assistance.

Eddie has learned his lesson well, and he delivered a fully-featured fifty minute solo set of mostly original songs to an audience emanating a tangible sense of love and support. I was trying to come up with an analog for Eddie’s voice, and was almost ready to give him a “defies comparison” label, when another audience member compared him to Kat Stevens, a comparison that has considerable validity. He does a great job of supporting his singing with his guitar playing, and vice-versa. Eddie wears his heart on his sleeve, and then he transcribes it into song–you can trace the arc of his life by following his lyrics. His performance on Saturday was mesmerizing, and he has redeemed himself big time–Eddie is ready to roll!

Here is a link to a video of Eddie’s performance

Eddie wasn’t the only highlight of the night as the room was filled with outstanding talent. Some of the highlights were the performances by Jon and Ren of When the Ocean Kisses the Sand, Ishmael and his typically comical interplay with Sean, and a performance by Deja Nichole. One of the highlights from Deja’s birthday performance was a duet that she did with Eddie, and I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t have her up to sing a song with him in his set, but any disappointment quickly evaporated once I got to hear her sing again. Plus I got to meet both her mother and her grandmother, a wonderful pair of beautiful ladies!

Here is a link to a video of Deja’s performance

Last up was a very intriguing performance by an adorable young lady who showed up late with an acoustic guitar and a retinue of other young lovelies. She gave her name as Danii Smith, from Colombia, and was completely unfazed when feedback problems kept her from using a miked acoustic guitar. “Can I play the electric?”, she asked, eying Rodney‘s electric guitar. Given an affirmative, she proceeded to play a very nice jazzy set of three songs with a great voice and very proficient self-accompaniment.

Hi Gail,

Just wanted to take a minute or two to check in with you in between adventures. The trip to Las Vegas was great! I drove up on Wednesday, and then all day Thursday was taken up with the setup for the Circus Couture art auction. It was quite a job to try to get all of the items displayed in the space allotted, but it did get done. Friday is when the cast do their (mostly) dress rehearsals (usually have their costumes on but no makeup), and that is a great time for a cirque fan like myself to see all the acts, sometimes more than once, so I like to hang out during the rehearsals. Typically there is a last-minute crisis or two as the opening of the doors approaches, and this was no exception, but everything got done. The show was great and you can read more about it in my blog entry. Check it out if you haven’t already. I think it is one of my better pieces.

Since my friend Kerry Winston Ward  (aka, fulltiltward on YouTube–check him out!) was going to be in town until Wednesday I decided to hang out until then. Most of the day Saturday was spent at Starbucks writing my blog entry on the event, and then it was off to Cheetah and Rhiann’s house for a barbecue. They are into the aerial arts and have some celebrity–they spent several months last year traveling around and getting married 58 times in 30 some countries–and moved to Las Vegas earlier this year from LA. Housing prices are quite a bit lower there; they bought a five-bedroom, 3 bath house with a swimming pool for 325K, a house that would be well over a million here.

Vegas is also the perfect location for their business, Aerial Essentials,  which caters to the Cirque community, and they can get a lot of walk-in business there; if you are in the area they will be having an open house at their shop on November 5. Met some new friends and got to hang out with some old ones. The Linz’s were in attendance (Erika, Tom, and Mary-Mike), got to hang out with Kyle and Leah, Diane Klein was in attendance, but in true Diane fashion spent the entire time in the kitchen whipping up goodies with her able assistant Doc, met the lovely Kae, an aerialist who was also dealing with an elbow injury, and some assorted others.

We spent Saturday and Sunday nights at Cheetah and Rhiann’s. On Sunday, Kerry spent some time tending to work, I did a bit of walking, hung out in a coffee shop for a while, and then we had a debate party. Kae came over, and we ordered pizzas. Made it through the debate without misfortune and then hit the hot tub.

Sunday was an early-to-bed night as the Platt’s had to work in the morning and Kerry and I were planning on leaving at 4 am in order to drive to Kanab, UT. There is a walk-in drawing for permits to hike a geographical feature called the Wave in the Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument. Access is very restricted; at 9 each day there is a lottery to give out 10 hiking permits for the next day, and we tried the lottery. Didn’t win, but that was just as well as it would have required us to stay overnight in order to use it.

Instead we decided to hike into Buckskin Gulch, a slot canyon that is 11 miles long, hundreds of feet deep, and 10 feet wide. Kerry is in WAY better shape than me (he completed not one, but two, 200+ mile ultra-marathons last year), so the plan was for me to go as far as I was comfortable with and then I would head back to the trail head and he would continue to explore. We hiked down a wash (Wirepass) that fed into Buckskin Gulch until that wash also turned into a slot as well, but I didn’t get as far as I had hoped. We came to a spot where there was about a 9-10 foot vertical drop requiring some serious climbing, and in the interest of not putting myself in a situation where I could undo all of the healing in my triceps I decided to turn around at that point. The new plan was for me to hike back up, drive the car from the Wirepass trailhead to the trailhead on Buckskin Wash, and hike down until I met Kerry coming up. That all worked out fine for both of us, and probably better than our original plan.

We drove back to Henderson where we stayed the night with a friend of Kerry’s, and he hung out there all day Tuesday taking care of business while I wandered around the area, hanging out in coffee shops and getting some miles in. That night we met up again with Cheetah and Rhiann at the Penn and Teller show. Kerry knows Zeke, who is the prop manager for Penn and Teller, and Zeke got us tickets for a VIP box. Great show, Thai food afterwards, and then stayed over at Cheetah and Rhiann’s.

Wednesday I helped out a bit with staging for Kerry’s event that day. He contracts with companies to do team-building events, and his event that day was also a charitable event. His company, Corporate Explorer Training, bought 25 wheelchairs, and the task for the participants was to assemble the chairs while also having to compete in some challenging activities. After the chairs were assembled they were then donated to Disabled American Veterans.

I have helped with his events in the past, but I wanted to get back to Long Beach before dark, so I headed back at about 11. I was planning on going to a variety show that is pretty crazy (see Scot Nery’s Boobie Trap), but also requires a 25 mile drive near rush hour. There were no advance tickets available, however, and it was unclear whether there were any at the door, so I decided to pass on that and go down to an open mic event at Hellada Gallery in downtown Long Beach. That turned out to be a good move as it was an absolutely magical evening of music. There was an awesome pool of performers, and they were able to spontaneously assemble themselves in various configurations and created wonderful impromptu performances. It was a very special night, and I am planning on devoting a full blog entry to it.

Today was a taking care of business day, and I did top it off with another open mic event at one of my local coffee shops. Tomorrow I will be taking off very early to drive down to Cabo San Lucas with Kerry. His wife and daughter are living down there, and they only have one car there, a Prius. Kerry likes to get out on the back roads, and a Prius is not suited for that, so he bought a Rav4 which is much better for that and which his daughter can drive.

Signing off for now,

John