chinese broccoli

San Francisco, continued.

Though I had already spent a few days here in advance of meeting up with the band, having a day off in this lovely city was more than welcome. I had a few tacos and cups of coffee to catch up on before leaving town, and though I had the best of intentions to work them off at one of my favorite swimmin’ holes (okay, it’s a YMCA, but you still have to put the water in some kind of hole) I was thwarted by what we will without a doubt refer to through the ages as the great rain of October 26, 2009. In fact, later that day, the only subject of conversation seemed to be: “Where were you when it started raining really hard?” As I reconnected with the band over a simple 637-course meal at Quince (just an average night for Yo La Tengo) we compared notes on this shared civic tragedy — some of us were in bookstores, others coffee shops. Amazingly, though it really was, in fact, quite wet, we all persevered. The only person not to have a “trapped somewhere for an hour in the rain” story was front of house sound engineer Mark Luecke, because he was busy leaving his passport and man-purse in the teatime screening of Zombieland.

Yes, there’s nothing like a little misplaced identification drama to slow down a billion-hour drive to Portland, and obliging Frank The Bus Driver and various among us returned to the scene of the zombiefication and tried to turn up Mark’s belongings to no avail. Trash cans were emptied, allies scoured, teenage theatre managers shaken down. Curses! As stressed as the others must have been about the sudden “how to get our sound guy into Canada, Europe and Japan” problem, it’s also no fun to watch someone’s inner monologue shouting “stupid! stupid!” at themselves. Wouldn’t you know it, though, by morning those zombies had redeemed themselves and the same mysterious forces that couldn’t find Mark’s bag the night before had no trouble turning it up in the morning and overnighting it to Seattle. Crisis averted. Drama deferred…at least for now.

Portland

A long and soothing drive — in the iPhone era, you just wake up in the dark periodically and hit “locate”, which is kind of like being in a place, except even less than usual. I scramble to put shoes on in time to race Mark and James to the nearest Stumptown — there are as many of these in Portland as there are check cashing places in my part of Brooklyn, but the one we’re nearest is at the Ace Hotel. I run into someone I know from CoffeeWorld(tm) within .0004 seconds of arrival in the Stumptown, which is actually a little longer than I had expected that to take.

Half the crew takes off to go get free shoes, but I instead hitch a ride with a cute gay man who agrees to take me to more coffee shops and back to his place for a hot shower and some quality kitty time. We also squeeze in a little Mexican food. It was going to be Por Que No?, but they seem to have burned their kitchen down temporarily, continuing fate’s plan that I never, ever eat there.

Portland is having super duper fall color the day we’re there, and I think about how I was there almost exactly a year ago, and how I for some reason didn’t go to Portland for 10 years and have now been 4 times in the past 12 months. I’m sad the visit is short, but at that rate it feels like I’ll be back there next week without even trying. (Speaking of short visits, JJ, did you come to the show?) In other news, Portland is the home of the Voodoo Donut Bacon Maple Donut, which is every bit as right and wrong as it sounds. I finished up a solo dinner, made an obligatory Powell’s run (their selection of LSD-induced sci fi still the best in the nation) and walked through the gross, crazy-homeless-people-filled downtown to lie a couple of these sugary bad boys in reserve for later.

Over at the concert venue, Yo La put on a triumphant show, despite the extremely edgy, seemingly insatiable crowd. Really? What inspires that level of imbecilic shouting, audience participation and WTF-ness? And that was even before Ira digressed into a long defense of…Seattle. Well, you never can tell what the kids are into these days. This is the same night someone slips a note under the dressing room door professing their hatred for “seasoned” experimental noise. Would cut-out ransom note letters have been too much to ask for? These passive-agressive Pacific NW haters are so lazy these days.

The next show was in Vancouver but a morning stop in Seattle to pick up Mark’s passport while on our way north had me thinking I might be able to shoot for the holy donut 4-plex within a 24-hour period: Voodoo (Portland), Top Pot, Mighty O (both Seattle) and Lee’s (Vancouver) were well within my sticky grasp! Alas, it was not to be, as our stop at the parcel store was only long enough for me to get lost downtown in the rain trying to find a Starbucks with a public bathroom. You’d think they’d be every three feet in downtown Seattle but apparently due to earthquake-proofing they’re actually every six feet.

So, not long after this is when the trip gets weird. No, I’m not talking about the part at the border where guitar technician Gil is interrogated about his past theft of a rivet gun. I’m talking about the part where the bus driver goes all Dog the Bounty Hunter-ass CRAZY in the middle of Canada, okay not the middle, but whatever, and after a startling crash from a flying rock (some say boulder, some say softball-sized, depends on the retelling) — begins hot pursuit of a semi-truck (in Canadian: a “transport”). In the tour bus. With a trailer, I might add. And um, all of us who were awake in the front just kind of hanging on in shock.

Mark Luecke tells the official story better than I ever could, but suffice it to say I’d never been in a high speed chase of exactly that calibre and, uh, potential force before. Our bus driver was quite convinced — probably out of fear of reprimand or penalty from his motor coach company — that the errant, flying shard of the Canadian rockies that had smacked loudly into our winshield, spraying his Oakleys with glass-dust, was the fault of the creepy intermodal freight flak who was evading us in his dingy transport with the agility of a Manhattan bike courier. Ol’ “Laddi”, as his driver’s side door read, certainly wasn’t acting innocent, but then again, ol’ Frank wasn’t exactly acting sane. For those of us awake to be conscious of this wild ride —me, Joe, James, Georgia and Mark — our racing thoughts matched the speedometer, the needle wavering somewhere between “Is this actually happening?” and “I hope we didn’t run that car off the exit ramp.” and “How long are we going to have to chase this guy for? Load-in is at 1.”

Eventually the whirlwind detour of Richmond, BC drew to a close and I overheard Frank calling the RCMP (“Hello? Is this the police….of Canada?”) and everyone, both relieved and in a state of shock, went to a go-to stress relief method: eat all the snacks in the bus really fast. Thank god there was tapenade.

(Later, when the rest of the gang wakes up and hears the story of what they slept through (!?!?), vegetarian monitor guy Dutch will reach for the leftover donut supplies, only to have me try desperately to convince him that, no, I’m not actually kidding, he really doesn’t want to eat that donut, because it’s not vegetarian, a conversation I’ve never had to have before in my life.)

Vancouver

Oh my god, did we make it to Vancouver? Retro, seedy, weird downtown Vancouver, truly you are kind of gross. I point James towards the cool video arcade and walk the over the bridge to the good part of the city, stopping at the Granville Island market for snacks and to ambush a pal before taking the False Creek water taxi to a cafe I wanted to check out. I have been to a lot of coffee shops in my many travels, but this is the first time I took a boat to one. RIGHT ON.

One too-quick and awesome dinner with Vancouver pals later, I head back to the Commodore Ballroom (where I last visited on a previous tour-hanger-on-boondoggle with Awesome Color and Dinosaur Jr.). Someone told me once that this venue was once, in between being open as a music space, and being closed and left to lie derelict like a Vancouver junkie, a strip club…but I have yet to corroborate that. In any case, no clothing was removed during either Yo La’s or Rose Melberg’s set that night.

Seattle

WE’RE BACK IN SEATTLE! And so am I, for the fourth separate visit in three weeks, if you count that half an hour the morning before. Oh, hey Seattle. I leave (no one else seems to be around) to find coffee and who do I run into a mile from the bus but Mark Luecke, on his way to go get coffee or something. Now, this would happen in any city (and it does, I have run into Mark by accident at coffee shops in Portland and Brooklyn) but that it happened while we were actually travelling together is a new personal best. I drag him to Stumptown on Pine, though as anyone within earshot knows, he is more of a Vivace man. A real Schomer devotee, that one.

Seattle’s a work day for me — lots to catch up on, and even worse, I’m flying home tonight, not after but actually during the show, the last of the tour. To add insult to injury, the band is actually playing at a venue my cousin works at and will be tending bar at all afternoon and evening. I make lemonade out of these lemons by, at least, combining a brief cousin-visit with a ride to the Showbox Sodo, where all my stuff is trapped way south of downtown on the tour bus, and where he conveniently has to get to work (after letting me shower in his bachelor pad: I have never seen so much Axe Body Wash!)

My only Yo La show that day, then, is soundcheck, during which I use up my camera battery taking pictures of Joe Puleo hanging up shirts. Guess there are less majestic ways to wind down a trip. I pack my little vagabond rucksack and head back towards the big city, not knowing, for a change, which adventure is next. First, perhaps…a nap.

Shout-outs: La Taqueria, morning coffee with Maddy (woof), blue cheese + fig pizza at Starbelly, Clyde Common, Tartine, Toronado, Sutro Baths, Chris Baca’s Santa Cruz Excursions, Inc., Elysian Room, the Honey Hole, Brent Fortune’s car service, Fernando, Amber, TC, AC, Top Pot pumpkin old fashioned, that tiny cheese puff next to the shooter of pumpkin soup at Quince, well-timed text messages, red leaves in Portland, yellow leaves in Seattle, silver skies in Vancouver, and most of all, the ridiculous kindness of my talented and awesome-to-hang-out-with friends for letting me crash the last leg of their tour. Hey, that was fun. Thanks!