Let It Snow

I've admitted before how much I hate cold weather. However (and this may be another version of the old "make lemonade when life gives you lemons" story), if it's going to be cold, I say, bring on the snow.

This picture has me pretty fired up. I snapped it a moment ago while controlling the UberCam at Squaw Valley. It shows the effects of a couple of really good snowstorms in the Sierra, and all this has hardcore skiers as well as sometimers like me waxing rhapsodic.

The rosy glow will last for several days, until we actually load the car up and:

• get stuck in traffic on the way to the mountains
• realize how much they charge for lift tickets these days
• get stuck in a line for lunch and realize how much they charge for lunch these days
• get stuck in traffic again after skiing

For now, it sure looks good, doesn't it?

Willie Mays Buys Me a Camera

Willie Mays gave me many moments of pleasure during his playing career.

Now, he's given me a camera.

Allow me to explain. As a 14-year-old kid, I was lucky enough to be at Candlestick Park the day Willie got his 3,000th career hit (in case you're interested, here is the boxscore from that game). There were 28,878 others on hand, and somehow, I wound up with three ticket stubs.

In what may have been an early indication of my future career plans, I carefully noted some details of the event on the backs of two of the stubs: 2nd inning, bases empty, Mike Wegener pitching. Went home, tacked the stubs to my bulletin board full of sports memorabilia.

Fast-forward 37 years. Somehow, the stubs have survived high school, college, marriage, parenthood, and at least 15 moves. The busted water heater at home forced me to move some boxes, and there they were.

Within minutes of finding the tickets (and a bunch of other stubs, photos, and assorted tokens of a lifelong obsession with sports), a little voice began to fill my head. "eBay," it said.

Without going into all the details, I can tell you that there are people who are willing to pay for things like these tickets. I made enough to easily cover the cost of a new Nikon digital SLR kit.

Thanks, Willie.

Father and Son

Scene: the band's rehearsal space. It's in an old auto parts warehouse in Oakland, converted to a warren of rehearsal rooms. The property is permeated with the odor of pot smoke. The room we use has been done up in a "shrine to Sinatra" motif, complete with a ginormous photo of the Chairman of the Board on the wall behind the drum kit.

Players: Doug, Patrick, Zack, and me. Plus my son Geoff, home for winter break. He has his bass with him, which is good because Doug got stuck working late and couldn't get home to grab his bass. When Doug arrives, Geoff becomes a spectator.

We work on a few songs, struggling a bit to remember ones we haven't played for a while. We're also doing without Joe's vocals. We get a pretty good laugh out of one stretch where we play the songs at double-time, realizing we could really maximize our rehearsals if we could play 4-minute songs in 2 minutes.

At the end, we're just fooling around, dragging songs out of our collective memory. We find ourselves smacking out the power chords on "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and I notice Geoff is into it. He busts me for not playing the song with enough power. He knows it's an anthem, and I'm not measuring up.

And then Patrick says, "Did you ever think you'd be sitting somewhere watching your dad play Nirvana?"

Geoff pauses a beat and says, "Not really". Ditto from me.

This Time, It Counts

Humility is a valuable asset. When used properly, it can shield you from all sorts of stress.

Take your humble correspondent and the Eyewitness Blues Band. I (and we) didn't claim to be anything more than a bunch of broadcasters goofing with guitars when we first burst upon the scene a year ago. Nobody expected much, and we got away with plenty, including this:

That's Mike Sugerman, me, and Doug Sovern--with Dr. Elmo. Don't recognize the name? He's the man behind the weird holiday classic "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", and as part of our mad dash to get away with every musical experience we could, we brought him into the radio station so we could play along with him. Live.

Did we suck? Well, Doug didn't. Mike and I were so naive that we didn't understand that "modulation" meant "key change", so when Doug and Dr. Elmo modulated, we didn't. Bad guitar playing is one thing. Bad guitar playing in the wrong key is something else again.

So now a year's gone by. Dr. Elmo is coming back for a reprise. We've had all kinds of rehearsals and performances. And this time, we can't play the "goofball" card. This time, we have to modulate.

Ticket Stubs

The whole water heater-furnace mess chez nous has had a few positive aspects. A lot of old junk in the garage had to be moved to get to the busted appliances, and some of it kept right on moving to the trash (or Goodwill).

And then there were the boxes full of "memorabilia", like this baseball ticket stub.

It's for Game 7 of the 1962 World Series--a game I never saw (I was 6 at the time) and only know about because it helps define my life as a Giants fan. That's the game the Giants lost 1-0, when future Hall of Famer Willie McCovey lined out to end the game with runners at 2nd and 3rd. I have no idea how the ticket came to be mine.

But I know what to do with it now. It's for sale on eBay, along with a few other stubs and some game programs and tchotchkes and other stuff my wife has long considered "junk". I used to argue with her, saying these things were being kept for posterity. Now, I'm more interested in having less stuff. So if someone else wants my posterity and is willing to pay for it...let's deal.

House Party!

I always thought it would be pretty cool to have a place where you could shove the furniture over against the walls, plug in the amps, and have a party.

Now I know just how cool it is.

Doug Sovern lives in exactly such a place, and the other night, we shoved the furniture, plugged the amps (after hauling everything down 60 steps, but more about that later). and partied.

It was the Eyewitness Blues Band House Party. No set list--we just made it up on the fly. No amp for Mike Sugerman--the one I "borrowed" from my son for Mike to use had a short and was threatening to electrocute him. And no Patrick on lead guitar, so Doug's girlfriend Sarah's friend Adam (are you following?) filled in. Beautifully.

Were we rough around the edges? Hell, yeah. Too loud? Probably. But damn, I think it worked. I even caught My Long-Suffering Wife bobbing her head and tapping her toe to the sweet 4/4 beat.

Of course, she didn't have to haul amps, drums, and PA speakers down the Twisting Path of Fear to Doug's house. This gorgeous Craftsman-style lodge sits way below street level, and everything goes in (and out) via a set of uneven concrete steps hacked into the hillside. For all I know, some of the gear is still down there, awaiting someone with enough courage and muscle to hump it back out of there.

But hey, a small price to pay. The payoff? The woman who came up to Mike afterward and said, "Hey, you guys were better than I expected."

There's the title of our book right there.

It Never Rains...

...but it pours.



Don't tell me inanimate objects can't communicate, because I am assembling proof. Not 24 hours after the water heater croaked, our furnace bought the farm. Guy came out to have a look and began slowly backing away from the beast, saying, "I...am...not...going...to...try...to...fix...THAT!" Something about carbon monoxide.



So after having one highly-recommended company tell me it would be a week before they could even send someone over to bid on the project, I got lucky on my second call. Chris the Heater Guy actually got to my house before the appointed time. Took a look, told me I needed a smaller furnace than the old dead one, and said he'd be back the next day to install it. It may not look like much, but we have high hopes for our new furnace...

The Bastard Machine

I know Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle calls his blog "The Bastard Machine". He's referring to the TV set.

But I'll put my Bastard Machine up against Tim's anytime. Check out this little home-destroyer:

Looks pretty smug, doesn't it? You would, too, if you'd just managed to earn an early retirement and simultaneously screw someone out of several thousand dollars.

Looks like the Trek Carbon-Fiber Bike Fairy and the Gibson Guitar Wizard may have to cross me off their list for awhile. I'll be singing the Busted-Down Water Heater Blues.

Oh, Crap!

Words you don't want to hear from your wife: "Hey, how come I'm not getting any hot water?"

There's really only one likely answer: the friggin' water heater has expired. And unfortunately, when water heaters die, they don't just go. They GO.

Sure enough, when I finally moved all the garage junk out from in front of the door to the water heater closet, I found water. We began a massive response operation: moving stuff out of harm's way, dragging in a hose, running back and forth to the PC to find advice on the Web on draining/shutting off the water heater, etc.

And then more words you don't want to hear: "Hey, the carpet in here is wet."

Crap! The crisis has now elevated. Furniture-moving, Shop-Vac'ing of wet home-office carpet, pointed discussions about what the hell we do with the soon-to-be-moldy carpet.

Can I ask one question? Why would they build a house with a water heater closet that drains into the house instead of away from it?

Feliz Navidad

My kind of song. Three chords, and it works just fine when you slap some attitude on it.

Last year, the band played it loud and punk. This year, we just got after it with our acoustic guitars (I like to call mine my "quiet axe").

Check it out.

Wait...We're Still Around?

Amazing, but true. The Eyewitness Blues Band is still here.

This whole thing started in September '06 when my buddy Mike Sugerman let me talk him into one of those classics of the TV news genre: the "reporter-involvement story". While the exact words are lost to history, the conversation went something like this:

Mike: "Man, I need a story..."
Me: "Hey, there's this outfit called Bandworks that teaches grownups how to play in a rock band..."
Mike: "Cool. Wanna do it?"
Me: "Uh, I actually only know, like, 3 chords on the guitar..."
Mike: "I suck, too. It'll be a hoot."

In short order, we'd roped KCBS reporters Doug Sovern (bass) and Melissa Culross (vocals) into the deal, and Mike later recruited CBS-5 colleagues Joe Vazquez (vocals) and Zack Heene (drums).

In the months since, we've added a fine guitarist (Patrick Sedillo), reduced our vocalists by one (Melissa decided to "seek other opportunities"), argued endlessly about how seriously to take this, had a bunch of way-beyond-our-expectations gigs, and learned much about the pure joy of playing music with others.

And here's a secret: we're not that bad. Tip to other aspiring middle-aged bands--be sure you bring in at least two or three people who really know what they're doing, so the rest of you can enjoy the ride.

It helps to keep your day job, too.

This video clip is from deep in the archives--the 2006 CBS Radio holiday party. A long time ago, in Band Years. Personally, I wish we played the song more often, but I'm only one vote.

Future Genius?

My son Geoff will probably kill me for this one. Wait--he can't kill me until he graduates from college (or else he'll have to pay his own way). Filmed in loving color in our family room several years ago, aged to perfection. This was before he took up the bass. You can see the beginnings of a guy in the rhythm section.