The Soundtrack

Once upon a time, I always wrote to the radio.  I had my boom box plugged in and turned on throughout elementary school and on through college.  I typed term papers to the beat of Expose and then Depeche Mode, onto Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails, Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Basement Jaxx.

I wrote to the radio because I didn't have to deal with flipping over tapes and albums or messing around with buttons every time a CD skipped.  I never knew what I was going to get, but I was certain that I would like most of it.

Then I started to hate radio (exceptions: Big Sonic Heaven on Indie, some KXLU shows that I haven't been able to hear since the Christian station took over and most of the weekend DJ mix shows in LA).  This, of course, made writing more difficult.  I tried writing along with the sound of the stations on my digital cable.  That worked for a bit, until I realized that the rotation was just as limiting as terrestrial radio.  I tried writing to the sounds emanating from my iTunes, but I didn't want to deal with creating playlists and I wanted to have that element of surprise.

Now I'm onto Pandora and it seems to be working out alright  I based my station on Hercules & Love Affair, the only band to emerge in 2008 that I flat-out, completely love.  That said, I get a good mix of Erlend Oye and the Human League, which makes me happy.  I have no complaints yet.

Update: Uh, it seems like Pandora repeats quite a bit as well.  That said, I'm making more stations.

The Hardest Part Is Getting Started

The moments, which could mean hours, days or weeks, before the story unfolds are agonizing. Time creeps away as I delete one pathetic sentence after the next.  But then, usually one week to two days before the story is due, it hits me and I have to write it down at that moment or else I will lose it and it's back to the starting point.

Today, the story that I have to turn in next Tuesday appeared, one paragraph after the next, in my mind.  I started to type, got all of one and a half sentences onto a page when the phone rang. Of course, no one else would bother to pick up the phone, so I stupidly did.  It was a call that would have normally been of no consequence, except that when I hung up, I completely forgot what I was writing.

Ah, the Writer's Life

Yesterday, I had the chance to interview Chuck Klosterman.  I really appreciated having the opportunity to ask questions to someone who asks questions for a living.  You can read the results here.

Really, though, this post is to let you know how glamorous the writer's life is.

5:30 p.m.  An unusually low level of traffic on Sunset allows me to get to Book Soup early.  I didn't realize that there's a lot behind the store, so I parked five blocks away in the structure that is usually $5, but today was $8 because parking attendants love arbitrary and temporary price hikes.

6 p.m.  I walk into Book Soup and hang around for a bit.

6:20 p.m.  I meet Chuck Klosterman and we go upstairs for the interview.

7:20 p.m. CK reads.  I take notes.

8:30 p.m.  Spike Lee is going to be here tonight too, so we decide to stick around even though an interview is totally not going to happen.  He won't arrive for another hour, though, so I meet up with the Weekly's photographer and an LA Times reporter and we walk down the street for pizza.  

9:30 p.m.  Spike Lee fields questions.  I take more notes.

10:50 p.m.  I come home.  I am tired.

11 p.m.  I start transcribing my interview.

12 p.m.  I realize that this interview was incredibly long considering that my max word count is 1000.  I think about fast forwarding through it and just transcribing the best bits, but it's all interesting to me.  I keep going.

2 a.m.  I finish the transcription and read it repeatedly until I can figure out what to keep and what to cut.  I figure that since the piece is about the event of reading from the book, I should stick to questions pertaining specifically to the book.

2:30 a.m.  I finish editing the transcript and start writing the intro.

2:50 a.m.  I fall asleep with my head less than an inch away from my laptop.  I blame this on One Life to Live's horrible plot lines.

4:30 a.m.  I wake up and start writing the intro.   I can't think, so I smoke a cigarette.

5 a.m.  I have stopped thinking about the intro and started writing it.  

5:55 a.m.  I send my editor the story as the credits for InuYasha roll.

6:10 a.m.  I fall back asleep

7:30 am.  I wake up for work.  Decide to sleep some more.

8 a.m.  Okay, now I have to get up for real.

3:30 p.m.  Get home from work.  I'm not really sure how I got there, what I did when I was there or how I ended up at home.  I posted something on MySpace earlier, but it seems like a blur.  I try to put on a Pink Dots album, but I can't find the needles for my turntables and I'm too tired to look around my room.  So I open up iTunes and fall asleep.

4:45 p.m.  I wake up either because a really noisy song came up on the cue or because I had to go to the bathroom.  I can't remember.  All I know is that I can't fall asleep.

5:30 p.m.  I decide to watch TV.  Bush is talking about the economy.  I'm still not sure what's going on.

6 p.m.  Eat dinner

7 p.m.  Decide that I'm not going back to sleep anytime soon, so I go to the gym and start reading Twilight while I'm on the treadmill.

8 p.m.  I know I have some things I have to get onto paper, but I can't organize my thoughts.  Wait, I can never organize my thoughts.  I guess this is starting to revert to a regular day.

9 p.m.  Watch One Life to Live.  It's still boring.  Man, I could write better story lines on two hours of sleep.

10:21 p.m.  Watching random anime that I have DVR'd.  Figured I would blog in an attempt to revive my writerly sense.

Blogging for Others

Today I guest blogged over at the Anime Blog, covering this weekend's MikomiCon event at CSUN.

Also from today's files, I covered Friday night's Man Man extravaganza for the LA Weekly.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Spiritualized, Catpower @ Hollywood Bowl, 9/17/08

When I met my brother at the Hollywood Bowl for last night's show, he was dressed like a Bad Seed. It wasn't intentional, as he normal looks like he could playing bass alongside Nick Cave.

"I should have brought a red glove," he said.

"So you can have a 'Red Right Hand'?" I asked.

"Exactly."

Nerds, we are. So much so that I had to fight the urge to scream, "Bring out Kylie!" during the show, as a reference to Cave's duet with Ms. Minogue, "Where the Wild Roses Grow."

We had a running list of songs we wanted to hear. Fortunately, Cave and the Bad Seeds played most of them, including:

"Tupelo"
"Red Right Hand"
"The Mercy Seat"
"Deanna"
"Papa Won't Leave You Henry"
"Into My Arms"
"The Ship Song"
"Stagger Lee"

(Not necessarily in that order.)

The band played quite a few tracks off Dig, Lazarus, Dig. Of these, my favorite is "We Call Upon the Author" as the band throws in a really cool, little funk breakdown between a few of the verses.

A lot of people seemed to be at the show specifically to see Spiritualized. The people who were behind us spent most of the set screaming "Jason!" and howling into my ear. Good times. I think they left before Nick Cave hit the stage. Personally, I barely contained my screams for "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space."

Catpower packed a crowd in too, particularly in consideration of her 7:30 p.m. time slot. Yes, everything is always on time at the Bowl. Did you know that there's a counter on the side of the stage to let the bands know how much time is left? I caught that last night from our freakin' awesome boxed seats (how the hell did that happen?). Spiritualized, naturally, went a minute over with pure noise and guitar-throwing.

S. 3325 Needs to Be Stopped

I was incensed when I read this post on Boing Boing about S. 3325, The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Act of 2008.  How could the Senate even think about using taxpayer money to encourage the RIAA's legal pursuits?  Really, it's not about copyright anymore and it probably never was about giving the artists their fair share.  (If that were the case, then Madonna, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails wouldn't have felt the need to pursue other options while the labels' attorneys were busy suing kids.)  No, it's all about bullying whoever they can in an attempt to stop progress.  And if the record industry can't get its act together enough to develop marketing and distribution strategies to work in the Internet Age (something many unsigned artists have accomplished), why should anyone listen to them?  I guess that's the Whineocracy for you, anyone who can throw the biggest tantrum wins.

Well, I'm against it, so I wrote to my Senators.

In the midst of all the hoopla over the elections, and perhaps because our President is the self-proclaimed "Decider," I think we've forgotten one of the greatest aspects of being American.  Our government works for us.  We vote them into office and we can vote them out of office.  That said, if we all email our Senators, they will have to listen.

That said, please read as much information as you fan find on S. 3325.  If you too think it's a load of crap, write your Senators and have your friends do the same.  It's not just about elections, it's about raising our voices all year long.

Let's Go to Estonia

Seriously.

I just learned that there is a bar in Tallinn that is dedicated to one of the three most awesome bands in the world.  Yes, a Depeche Mode bar.

So Blu

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Carlos tipped me off to this video. It's an animated public wall art project by Blu, painted and shot in Buenos Aires and Baden.

Domo Arigato, Target

Target picked up on Domo for its Halloween selection and Carlos and I headed over to the store on Balboa and Nordhoff to check out the supplies.

It appears that Domo is quite popular in Northridge as candy is going fast. I picked up a Domo-as-Frankenstein chocolate lollipop and Carlos selected a marshmallow Domo. The chocolate is your run-of-the-mill drugstore variety, but it looks so cute and only costs 99 cents. I haven't tasted the marshmallow offering.

There are also candy bracelets for the raver in you, wax lips, felt bags filled with an assortment of candies and plushies. You can check out the selection here.

Political Arguments

I'm not one of those people who particularly enjoys discussing politics.  Regardless of whether your talking to conservatives or liberals, the conversation will generally turn hot-blooded and irrational in a matter of seconds.  This isn't just casting judgment, I know I'm quite capable of doing the same thing as well.  Typically, unless the person is a really close friend, I will just smile and nod.  You could tell me that you think that Attila the Hun should rise from the grave and cease control of these United States and I would probably still smile and nod.  I let you think that I agree with you, even if I think you're off your rocker, just because I don't feel like getting into it. Sometimes, I actually do agree with you, but I still just smile and nod because inevitably a debate of semantics will occur.

Last night I was doing the smile and nod thing.  

"I go into the bathroom for a minute and all of a sudden you're arguing politics," Carlos laughed.  

I looked at a friend who was sitting on a barstool a few feet away from me and then back at Carlos.

"I swear, it wasn't my fault."

My friend shrugged and laughed.  Then Carlos did the same.

The whole thing revolved around Barack Obama.  Guy at the bar was hyping him up.  To be honest, I don't really care how a person votes or if he/she chooses to vote.  That's your business and if you feel the need to tell me this information, then, whatever.  But the guy kept on going on about Obama (and, to tell you the truth, the whole "cult of personality" surrounding both candidates and their running mates really bothers me, let's talk about issues and not your biographies).  I was still smiling and nodding.  Then he said that Obama never voted for the war in Iraq.  I should have let this go, but I've heard people say it too many times and it's a misleading statement.  I couldn't leave it alone.

"Of course not," I answered.  "He wasn't in the Senate then."

Then he started arguing with me and I got all pissed off because I knew for a fact that I was right and I wished that I had my laptop with me so that I could prove it.

Finally, he answers me with, "Well, if that's what you want to believe."

"Of course, it's what I want to believe.  It's a fact."

Fact: Barack Obama took his Senate seat in 2005.  I found this information on his official bio.  This was well after Congress had approved the invasion.

Since Obama was not in the US Senate at the time of this vote, he could not have voted for it.  And since he did not vote on this issue, the point is moot.

We left it at that.

Actually, we didn't leave it at that.  I made some comment about how I'm not really thrilled with anyone and I might exercise my right to not vote this year (of course, I make that threat all the time and never seem to follow through with it).  I think that was my way of saying, let's just stop this right now.

I'm still waiting for the day that this election ends.

Secondhand Reports

"Liz, I have never seen so many cop cars in one place before," said C., who has been waxing my eyebrows every few weeks since we were still teenagers.

C. got stuck in the 118 traffic leaving the Valley after the shop closed last night.  She was driving with one of her co-workers and they had heard something about an accident, but weren't sure exactly where it was or how bad it was.  So they drove towards Chatsworth.  Streets were closed, but through a string of back roads, they ended up fairly close to the crash site.  She said it was so much worse than anything she expected.  

The two girls waited it out in a restaurant for five hours, until the roads had cleared and they could get back home.

"All we could hear were ambulances and helicopters."

Today, the helicopters are still hovering above us.  Amtrak is closed going from Chatsworth towards San Luis Obsispo.  The southbound trains from the Valley seem to be operating normally.

Train Crashes

Every five minutes, sometimes less, there are helicopters overhead.  There's no point in leaving the house because virtually anywhere we would go would be along the route from Chatsworth to one of the two local trauma centers and who wants to get in the way of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars.

ABC 7 hasn't veered away from the train wreck.  I wish I could change the channel, but I can't.

If you're from the Valley, this story hits really close to home.  The Metrolink runs from Ventura, through the San Fernando Valley and then into Burbank and Glendale before it hits Downtown.  I've taken it before.  My brother rode it every day until very recently and my father also took it frequently.  

According to news reports, there were 222 people on the train when it crashed.  That's after it stopped at the last Valley station, so let's estimate that altogether, there were over 400, maybe even over 500, people on the train-- everyone from salarymen to students.  Since its inception, and particularly since the recent hike in gas prices, the Metrolink has become crucial for people trying to get somewhere between the Valley and Downtown.

What struck me as strange throughout the evening, was that the reporters seemed sort of astounded by the concept of people riding trains.  One asked, "Are there seatbelts?"  If anyone has ever seen a seatbelt on a train, let me know because I certainly haven't seen them in L.A. or any of the other cities where I've hit the rails.  Plus, the Metrolink is a commuter train, meaning that it's standing room only at the busiest times of the day. 

Then there was some tangent about homeowners Chatsworth disliking the railroads because, to paraphrase the report, the noise and traffic of trains really don't gel with "a nice neighborhood like this."  So now, we have this horrible accident that resulted in a still-unknown number of deaths and severe injuries, where people are still trapped inside the cars, and people are trying to bring the homeowner groups-- organizations that are often cited in conversations with locals for contributing to the  abysmal state of public transportation in the Valley-- to politicize the situation.  That's sort of tasteless. 

Tim Finn's Number One Fan (All of Them)

I'm a bit shocked, actually a lot shocked, that the El Rey was so sparsely populated for Tim Finn's show last night. The club was maybe a bit more than half full and, oddly, all seated (there were folding chairs on the dance floor). I expected something much closer to sold out for the event given Tim Finn's history with Split Enz, Crowded House and the Finn Brothers. Plus, he's an Officer of the British Empire and one of those dudes that KCRW loves to hype (strangely, the show was actually presented by Indie 103.1, who I think only plays his Split Enz stuff). The people who were there, though, were diehard. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a few were following the bus along the tour route.

For example, we were outside when one guy, probably in his mid-40s, was educating some other guy about Split Enz's transition from prog rock band to new wave band. Then he mentioned Crowded House and the younger guy said, "I didn't realize that they (Tim and Neil Finn) were brothers." Then there was a girl who standing on the other side of the patio, completely unconnected to the conversation, but within earshot, who proclaimed, "Oh, my God, I can't believe he didn't know they were brothers."

I think this might have been the same girl who kept standing up and shaking her thing during the show (see photo above), which was pretty entertaining. Then there was the guy behind us. He couldn't deal with polite applause between songs, so he shouted out a bevy of compliments.

"That was amazing!"

"That was phenomenal!"

"That was phantasmagoric!"

Okay, I made up the last one. He totally should have said that.

I'll admit, I really don't know that much about Tim Finn outside of his work with Split Enz and his brief stint in Crowded House (which, for the record, is his brother Neil's project). But seeing people get all bat shit insane made a deep impression on me. Having lost my voice from screaming through several Morrissey concerts, I can relate.

I thought a lot about hype during the show, how I've been to so many shows over the past few years that were touted as being the event of the year or month (in actuality, though, it's only the event of the night) headlined by a band that's featured in all the magazines and newspapers and all the blogs. And at a lot of the shows, the venue is packed beyond capacity, but everyone is just standing there, like the only reason they are at the show is because you have to be able to say you were there. Then there was this concert, something that was clearly not hyped, headlined by someone who was the Next Big Thing over 25 years ago, but nothing could match the enthusiasm of the crowd.

As for the show itself, I did recognize some of the older songs, like "Chocolate Cake" (Crowded House) and the two big Split Enz hits, "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" and "I Got You." (Oh, and I think he did "Weather With You" and "I See Red" too, but since I wasn't on the clock, I didn't take notes.)





Of course, I got you sounds quite different now. This video, which was apparently taken in 2007, is a good representation of last night's rendition. (It's also of an unusually good quality for YouTube concert clips, kudos to Rosey of San Diego: Dialed In)



There's a difference, though. Right before the third verse, Finn broke a string, began singing about the broken string, and then had to stop to get it repaired. During the downtime, he played another song on the keyboard. When the guitar was returned, he picked up where he left off, asking the crowd to sing the third verse. But, since everyone (including Finn, as he said) seems to get the verses mixed up, the crowd started singing the second verse. Even the number one fans, all of them, got it wrong. It's a confusing song.

Nightclubbing in 2008

Carlos is flipping through photos on Juan's camera as Nery text messages someone and I capture the scene on my camera.

This wasn't because we were bored. In fact, Funkmosphere has quickly become our favorite weekly party in L.A. (it's free, the DJs play killer tunes and there are always pop-and-lockers on the floor). This is how life is now. We have gadgets that fit in our pockets and promise imediacy, even if that means conjuring memories of a moment that happened only five minutes earlier.

The Moment I Felt Homesick

On our last night in San Francisco, we decided to catch Ellen Allien and Modeselektor. As you may know, I love both and have covered both for the LA Weekly (Ellen Allien I also interviewed for PopMatters), so this was a big deal.

We hailed a cab and headed down to Mighty, which we were told is on the border of SOMA and the Mission. It's a nondescript venue situationed in the middle of a block of warehouses. Outside of the club was a bus and a huge line. We waited, and waited. And at just after 11, when we got to the front, we were told that the guest list was closed and the party was sold out. We had to move to the line of people waiting to pay. That line was nearly a block long and there was no guarantee that we would ever enter the club. So we checked out the DJs in the Burning Man bus for a few minutes, hailed another cab, and went back to the hotel to pack.

I missed home, a place where no one shows up to nightclubs until 12:30, a place where I have been talking my way into clubs since I was a teenager.

We said it was no big deal, we would catch them Saturday night at Avaland. But then the train was delayed and we didn't get home until almost midnight. By the time we got ready to hit the town and made our way to the club, it would have been close to 2 a.m. and we would have missed at least one of the sets.

Thus ended our trip to the Bay Area.

Fisherman's Wharf

Based on some vivid childhood recollection, my sister asked me to pick up some saltwater taffy while in San Francisco. So we headed down to Fisherman's Wharf and followed some much vaguer memories until we found the candy store. Then we checked out sea lions and took a boat tour.









Then we walked all over San Francisco, heading back to Chinatown, where we caught this street performer.

Sunk in Dran Francisco

Li Po was a Chinese poet who wrote verse about drinking alone. Li Po is also a Chinatown bar that immediately became a favorite of mine.

"Sometimes people call it Lie Po," said the bartender, a tall, presumably Chinese-American man who looked to be hovering around 60. "But it's Lee Po."

The bar is located on Grant, maybe three blocks past the Chinatown gate. We noticed it while traversing the neighborhood, burning off the steamed pork buns, duck and egg fooyung that we devoured at the fantastic Far East Cafe. We were heading homeward after a stop at City Lights and a few contemplative moments in front of North Beach (I think) adult shops.



We needed a breather, and by breather, I mean drink. Li Po attracted us with its over-the-top Chinese facade. We walked inside, where there were three guys sitting down on bar stools, sat down, grabbed a round of drinks and watched the end of the Republican convention. Kind of watched it, I suppose would be more accurate. I'm all burnt out on politics and the election is still two months away.

Soon enough, I had to use the facilities. I walked down a dimly lit staircase and entered the ladies room. The only light in there was above the sink. It was pitch black in the stalls. Kleenex served as a substitute for toilet paper and towels. This should have turned me against the establishment completely, but it didn't. Perhaps I have overcome my fear of public bathrooms.

We stayed in the bar for two or three hours, as I chugged four vodka tonics.

"Wow, you're pounding those back," Carlos observed.

It's easy to drink in a city where you don't have to drive. I was just making up for all those frightfully dry nights in L.A. clubs.

Then we started messing around with the jukebox. I thought I had programmed Everything But the Girl. Instead, I got some house song I vaguely recalled from college. To that we added Prince and Nena's classic "99 Luftballoons," as a sort of tribute to all the German we had been hearing out on the streets of San Francisco (seriously, did the whole country get this month off and head to California). Unfortunately, it was the English version of the song. (FYI, the jukebox also hosts tons of Cantonese pop CDs, which you can program alongside the soul hits of the '60s.)

We saw a flyer for a club called Sweater Funk that takes place on Sundays at Li Po. Since we had to leave on Saturday, we couldn't attend. If you're in San Francisco, check it out and tell me about it. Our bartender said that there are also parties on Fridays and Saturdays. He told us we should come on the weekend, which I hope meant that he didn't assume we were tourists. Cool.

We hit up a small handful of bars over the course of our stay. The Gallery Lounge, about one or two blocks away from the Caltrain station in Soma, was good enough for us to enter twice in one night. The bar features art on the walls and the bartenders are very nice. The Utah Hotel Saloon, which is down the street from the Gallery, is alright. We inadvertently entered through the wrong door and pissed off the bartender. Capitan, down the street from our hotel, was super yuppie and cramped. We went to the White Horse, below our hotel, for food, not drinks, but can say that the dinner was great and the service far above the mediocre b.s. you get at restaurants in L.A.

Entering the City

Our goal was to hit as many spots in Northern California as possible. Then we entered San Francisco and, once you do that, it's hard to leave.

I had been to San Francisco once before. I was eleven or twelve at the time and the trip to San Francisco remains the only Ohanesian Family Vacation. Oh, we went to other trips, but the other trips all involved heading up to Fresno to visit family. Therefore, those excursions don't count.

It was the sort of family vacation fit for National Lampoon, something that could end up in an autobiography should I ever become a person of importance. But I fell in love with San Francisco then and, going back as an adult, I love it all the more.

On Wednesday, we headed up to The City, as the evening newscasters reference San Francisco, to meet up with my cousins for Thai food in the Sunset district. The next day, we packed our things and headed to the Hotel Beresford.

There are three Beresford outposts in San Francisco. We stayed at one of Sutter, near Powell, across the street from one of the many Art Institute buildings across the downtown area. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't and so you will have to check out the website.

This hotel was such a change from the HoJo. Sure, it didn't have air conditioning (even during a heatwave, it's not really necessary in San Francisco, at least for those of us from L.A.) and the wi-fi was virtually unusable, but it was a really cool hotel. The building is small and Victorian in style, with the rooms situated above a pub. The inside is decorated in that quaint, flowery British style. One of the major bonuses is that the minibar is dirt cheap, with beer running at about half the price of what you would find at a bar. Then there is the location. I think we were technically on Nob Hill. It was about two blocks away from Union Square and four blocks from Chinatown. From our hotel, we were able to walk almost everywhere. We hit up Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, Russian Hill and the Financial District on foot. We hopped on a trolly to get to Fisherman's Wharf and took a cab to an ill-fated club adventure I will document later, but that was about it. For the rest of the week, all we did was walk. And eat. And drink.

The House That Guns Built

Sarah Winchester was a savvy business woman who spoke multiple languages, a tough boss who rewarded her staff with unusually large salaries, free room and board and pensions, and an amateur architect who embraced such forward-minded concepts as electricity and showers. Sarah Winchester was also crazy. And rich. And, as those of you reading this should know, that combination makes her a classic eccentric.

Winchester's San Jose home is a must-see attraction if you're in the area. The closest train station is Santa Clara and that's a $20 cab ride away, so you might want to drive, or try to figure out the bus schedule (we couldn't). The cover charge is hefty, generally around $25, but you can get discounts at local hotels (I think we were able to get tickets for $18). Trust me though, if you're interested in architecture or just weird shit, you have to see the Winchester House.

Sarah Winchester married into the famed family of gun producers. After her husband's death, she inherited a hadsome sum of $20 million. Despite this vast amount of money, she was distraught over both the death of her man and her infant child, who passed away a few years earlier. So, she did what every sensible, grieving woman does, she went to a psychic. The psychic told Mrs. Winchester that her troubles were the result of the gun fortune. So many people had died at the hands of these weapons that the spirits were now out to get her. Now, Mrs. Winchester had to appease the spirits.

If you're like me, you probably thought that the only way to appease angry dead dudes would be to sell the gun business. You would be wrong. In fact, the only way one can settle the animosity of those killed by firearms is to build a house and keep construction going until the day you die.

So this is what Mrs. Winchester did. She moved to San Jose and began constructing and reconstructing a house that would become a local wonder. And she would do this until the day she passed away in this room.





This is the backstory provided by our tour guide Wayne. He was a cool dude, full of strange information that he related in the thickest of Boston accents.

Mrs. Winchester kept her stake in the gun business, making on average $1000 a day. In spite of the fact that she sold the weapons of genocide to the Turks, she was a generous woman who paid her staff at least double of what they would make elsewhere. She also provided room, board and pensions for her most cherished workers. This is the foreman's house.



She was also a woman of extravagant taste, who outfitted her ever-expanding home in Tiffany's most expensive creations.



Mrs. Winchester was also an innovator, installing electricity and showers into her home well before it was common. As the architect of the home, she designed unusually shallow staircases, as arthritis prevented her from lifting her feet high.



It's really easy to trip on those.

Construction ran all day, every day, ultimately resulting in a house filled with staircases that led nowhere, doors that lead nowhere and lots of towers.



The basic tour will take you through 110 of the 160 rooms in the house. There are additional tours that go behind the scenes, I think to areas that were under construction at the time of her death, and through the gardens.







There are also two small museums on the campus, one featuring Winchester guns and the other featuring the companies non-lethal products.



We only did the main tour, which is about ninety minutes and requires climbing many staircases.

You Too Can Float in Space

That's me floating in space. Sort of. The space suit hangs from the ceiling of The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. I sat in a chair and looked through a lens, which is how my face ended up on the astronaut's body.

I spotted The Tech from a taxi cab on Tuesday night and suggested to Carlos that we go. I was intrigued by the horse in front of the building.



The museum is completely interactive and, while I think it might be geared for children, it's certainly fun for adults. It's the only museum I have ever visited where you can sit around and play Second Life and virtually arm wrestle both people in the museum and those available by satellite.

For $8, you get admission to the museum plus a ticket to one of several Imax films that play in an adjacent theater. You can also pay extra to see multiple movies. We caught Sea Monsters, a National Geographic film about very large prehistoric water creatures in North America. The Imax theatre alone is worth the price of admission. It's shaped like a dome and the seats are slightly reclined, so when the film plays, you actually start to feel like you're in the middle of an ocean that no longer exists, swimming with fish that are now extinct.

Since we went to The Tech on a Wednesday morning after summer vacation had ended, the facility was virtually empty and we had the opportunity to play with everything. Carlos posed with a Kenny Rogers display (I think it had to do with memes, I can't remember).



One of the coolest aspects of The Tech is that you can record your scores on games and keep copies of pictures taken at different displays. Everytime you use something, you scan your ticket. Once you're home, you type the code on the ticket into the site and tap into your personalized page. The only problem I had was with the downloading the viewing software for the 3-D portraits that Carlos and I made of ourselves. Here's a photo of us on the Northridge earthquake simulator.



We also had the chance to see test piezoelectricty, play in astronaut chairs and even had a robot draw a picture of us.

And then we got to ride Segways.





Segways, by the way, are no easy ride. Everything relies on upper body movement, so you essentially have to move like a joystick to make it run and stop.

If you're in the Bay Area, check out The Tech. It's only a half-mile or so away from the Caltrain station, so you can take a train down from San Francisco and get their easily. If you can't make it to The Tech, you can check out some of the museum's online exhibits.

The Quest for Finger Food

Did you know that San Jose is actually more populous than San Francisco? Es verdad.

Maybe we would have had a different impression of San Jose if we were staying in one of the hotels by the museums and nightclubs, but, no, I had to be cheap and pick a Howard Johnson's outpost based on it's tagline as Downtown hotel. I was thinking, tiny motel in the middle of everything. Instead we got a motel in what looked more like a meth-addled suburb. Oh, this block of San Jose turf had Cops scrawled all over it. In fact, we saw what appeared to be the beginning stages of a sting operation at the hotel next door. I should have taken a picture.

But there was one highlight of our location. Thanks to Yelp, we learned that the Wendy's establishment one block over from our digs is *the* Wendy's, as in the one where a lady claimed to find a finger in a bowl of chili. As it turned out, she actually planted the finger in the chili, but that doesn't make this spot any less heinous.

This particular Wendy's is about as classy an establishment as you can imagine for the setting of such a notorious tale.  Frankly, I think that even we were surprised by the amount of prison tattoos visible inside the fast food joint at 11:30 a.m. (and, as Carlos said, that was just the women).  This too, I should add, is an observation coming from two people who have in fact eaten, or tried to eat, at the TV Cafe in Downtown Los Angeles.

We stood in line casually, trying not to obviously stare at the haphazard spiderweb pattern creeping up the neck of an older lady.  Then Carlos placed our orders, perhaps because subconsciously, we were thinking about making the chili a punchline.  When Carlos ordered and the clerk turned around, I whispered, "hold the fingers."

Carlos thinks I whispered a little too loudly.  It's probable.  After all, loud whispers are an Armenian trait.

We watched and, fortunately, nobody spat in the food.

Surprisingly, Wendy's chili isn't bad.  And it's even better if you don't add a finger to the mixture.

The Coolest Cab Driver in San Jose

Jay is a bus driver in San Jose. He is young, maybe still in his twenties, and speaks with a thick Indian accent. In our conversations, we learned that he can't stand the traffic in Los Angeles, particularly in consideration of that night when he was stuck in gridlock at 12 a.m. But he loves San Jose and he is the raddest, yes, I said raddest, cab driver we have had in all our travels.

Jay picked us up from a hotel that is supposed to be in downtown San Jose, but is actually a minimum $8.50 cab ride from the center of the city. It's basically like getting stuck in Highland Park, when you thought you would be in downtown L.A., something that is particularly annoying when you don't have a car with you. We asked him to take us to Smoke Tiki's, which we found on Yelp. He knew the place, although he hadn't been there himself. We pulled up to the restaurant/nightclub and, alas, it was closed. Jay could have left us to our own devices. Instead, he drove us up a few blocks to where he knew there was a string of restaurants, clubs and bars. Then he gave us his cell phone number to call him when we needed to go back to the hotel.

We grabbed a very late dinner at The Loft Bar & Bistro, where we dined in hip surroundings with a bunch of people who are probably high-powered geeks. The Loft is pricey, but the food is worth it.

Afterward, we walked around trying to find something to do. A whopping six cop cars lined up in front of the sports bar across the street from the loft. We then scoped out Toons, where we heard a mix of commercial hip-hop music and saw a large sign that read "Dress Code Enforced." A few doors down was The Dive Bar. Although it was smaller in size than Toons, it appeared equally unappealing.

Finally, we stumbled upon the Voodoo Lounge. This bar/live music venue is similar in style to Safari Sam's in Los Angeles, but, stylistically, it seems to cater to, as Carlos noted, a "Long Beach" crowd, aka punk guys and rockabilly girls.

There was no band playing tonight, and so there were maybe fifteen people inside the club at it's peak. Most of the club was blocked off by leopard print and red velvet curtains.



The club also has a door guy named Wolfe, which automatically makes it a cool spot, and the bartenders pour stiff cocktails. Two hours later, I'm still buzzing off of two vodka tonics. Nice.

There's apparently a metal show tomorrow night at the club, so we might head out to that if we aren't too exhausted after we complete the Quest for Finger Food (more on that later) and our trek to San Francisco. I might break the bank at the Sanrio Store. You never know. Regardless, I hope Jay is working tomorrow night because this guy is a godsend for those of us who can't even discern north from south in San Jose.

The Way to San Jose: View from a Train

There's a face hidden in the above photo.





Carlos took this picture of the front end of our train.

Leaving L.A., Just for a Few Days

Carlos and I are heading up north.

If you know of anything interesting to do in San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento or (possibly) Berkley, list it in the comments section.

Thanks.

I'll be posting here and on Twitter.

That is all.