chrisg's Tour Diary

we decide to head down to LA a day early, partly to have a chance to relax and visit with people over the weekend, and partly to escape the crap-ass weather we've had in san francisco. of course, it's sunny and beautiful when we leave our studio in west oakland. in fact, it is the light from the blazing sun that causes some metal on our van's tires to shine in dan's face. cw had taken the van somewhere in the morning to get it aligned, but they apparently decided not to point out that the front tires were almost entirely bald. at this point, we're already running about two hours behind schedule, but it's obvious that we need to get new tires before we head down. we still have to stop in mountain view for chris to drop off some bytes or something, so we decide to find tires while he's doing that.

now that the tires have been pointed out to me, every dimple and crack in the road fills me with anxiety as we head down the freeway. all sorts of interesting questions come to mind, like "If one of the tires explodes, would our van just skid a little, or is there potential for flip?" or "What if both tires explode?" It should also be mentioned that the van vibrates as if it's re-entering the earth's atmosphere at any speed over 70mph. But we get to mountain view in one piece, at which point we drop cw off, and head to the costco that we saw from the freeway for some tires.

dan pays the $45 bucks for membership, takes his picture (which prints immediately onto his membership card - technology!!) and we go buy some tires. of course, it's saturday afternoon, so they won't be able to have the tires fixed until 6pm. even though that's the time that we originally expected to be getting into LA, we decide to go for it. to kill the 3 hours of waiting, we grab some lunch at in-n-out, and then start slowly walking up and down the aisles of costco. it is crazy the stuff that you can buy there. i mean, just how long would it take to go through the two bottles of armorall that are packaged together? does armorall go bad? we decide to grab some bottles of wine for our hosts in LA. among our choices is a $25 bottle of Kirkland Signature Chateau Neuf du Pape. This bottle sends all sorts of confusing messages. On the one hand, it has the chateau neaf du pape seal embossed into the glass, so it seems like the real deal. but on the other hand, it has the cheesy 'kirkland signature' script logo on the label. and it's expensive, so it can't be that bad, right? although intrigued, we opt for some more solid choices, then move on.

we pass up the $100 karaoke microphones, trimspa, and the $1700 children's playhouse, but invest in about 24 packs of gum, 24 bottles of stella artois, and 24 9-volt batteries. cw and i forgot towels, which we also pick up for cheap (and you can buy them in single quantities!) we get a call to pick up the van, load in our new purchases, and head south.

the nice thing about leaving at 6 on a saturday is that there is no traffic. we glide all the way down on our new tires, humming along to slowdive, ladytron, film school, queens of the stone age and kelly clarkson. adrienne tries to up our worldliness by playing her cantonese lessons. we repeat along for a bit, but never learn what it is we are saying.

we pull into LA around midnight. we run into john around the corner from his house, and he leads us back to a parking space in front of his cottage studio in los feliz. after chatting for a bit, we walk over to a house party in silverlake to meet up with laurel, who greets us in some kickass gold lame pants. the pants hypnotize us into dancing until 3:30, by which point the rest of the party has vanished (including the residents). we head back to los feliz and hit the hay.

after a couple of walks up and down vermont st, and a brunch around the corner at fred 62, we head to sea level records. it's pretty empty when we arrive, but by the time we're set up and ready to go a small crowd has formed (and i'm not even related to some of them!) the show is fun, even though playing in a store during daylight to an audience whose every expression i can see throws me off a bit. i notice that a camera flash goes off every time i close my eyes. is someone playing a horrible trick on me, or do i close my eyes too often? i think the latter is the case, so i'm trying to see if i can order the apparatus that they use on alex in clockwork orange.

after the in-store, we head to eagle rock and hang out on diana's deck until the sun goes down. then we head to dave's house in south pasadena, eat some dinner, and go to sleep. the version of LA living that we see when we come down here is so tempting -- sunny days, airy decks with views, patio dining and celebrity sightings.