Part One: June 1 - June 6, 2023 - Preparing for Austin and Orlando

June 1, 2023 6:33 pm San Francisco

Someone recommended a serial killer series on some network or another, as if there aren't enough of them. I took the bait and started watching it at around midnight last night. I was exhausted by the time episode 1 started. I'd walked five miles with Kurt yesterday, came home at around 4:00 pm to rest my legs, had a boxing lesson at 5:30 pm, then met Tony for dinner at Tommasos. 

Maybe thirty minutes into the multi-episode documentary, I fell in and out of sleep. At 4:00 am I woke up from a nightmare while the TV show was still playing. In the nightmare, I was fishing with a goth couple in Europe. Our lines were way out in the water and I was catching these very long fish that looked sort of like Northern Pike. The goth woman's line had something pulling on it, but she was relaxing on the beach, indifferent as to what was on the end of her line. 

I asked her if she wanted me to reel it in. She nodded Yes. The line was snagged so I walked out there in what ended up being knee-deep water. When I got to the end of her line, I reached down into the water and pulled up an enormous fish head; the body was missing. I showed it to her from about twenty yards out into the water and said, Look, you caught a fish head!

I brought it up to her while she and her boyfriend got a closer look. The fish head had a tasty looking, smaller sized fish inside its mouth; a perfect sized fish to carve up and eat. But the fish somehow slipped through the enormous fish mouth and I didn't see it go out the other side of its head.

I woke up at that point, wondering who the goth couple was, if they were people I'd actually met and what part of Europe we were in. I shut the TV off and woke up at 11:00 a.m.

Caroline and I met for lunch at Molinari. After lunch, I went over to her place and played with the cats, who are still getting used to me.

Those cats love me when I'm around for a week, but then I disappear for a while, come back, and they're shy around me.

I came back from Caroline's clean and very well-organized home and started doing some deep cleaning of my own, which I've been enjoying. 

Dusting, vacuuming, polishing old antiques, watering plants. I'm doing these chores in between practicing songs for the upcoming Austin and Orlando shows.  So far I've rehearsed Alesund, Duk Koo Kim, Trucker's Atlas, Black Kite and Black Perch.

During recent shows, fans were calling out for Modest Mouse songs, because of Jeremiah Green's passing. I almost went into one of their songs but didn't want to fuck the lyrics up, considering the circumstances. I'm still consumed with the passing of Mimi Parker. I still can't believe she's gone. I remember our conversations from the mid-1990s like it was yesterday. 

My friend Ariel also lost both his mother and sister this past December. The older we get; the more people pass away.  When I found out that Jeremiah passed on New Year's Eve at 45 years old, I didn't have room to process it. So many deaths in November and December 2022.  I was with Ariel and Lindsie the day he buried his sister in early December. I helped them put a Christmas tree up the day before. I woke up the next day to a sad Los Angeles morning, seeing Lindsie dressed in black. She asked Ariel to put on a nicer shirt. He came out of their bedroom with a nicer shirt and asked me what a pallbearer was. I told him that meant he'd be carrying the coffin. 

Nobody who died over those months were blood relatives, but that doesn't mean that I don't have sympathy for what their loved ones are going through. I feel things. That's what makes me the human being I am and the artist I am. One of my favorite Atticus Finch quotes is: To understand someone, you've got to get in their shoes, and walk around in them a little bit. 

I've walked around in the shoes of Ariel, Isaac, and Alan (of Low), and it doesn't take much effort to get a sense of the loss and the heaviness that they're dealing with.

I knew Jeremiah only in brief passing. Isaac is the guy I know from Modest Mouse, but I'll never forget what a solid drummer Jeremiah was. The best I've seen them was at The Fillmore in 2001. They were a four-piece at that time. I rank Modest Mouse up there with Led Zeppelin and Bad Brains as one of the best three bands ever. No weak link.

Isaac didn't know what to think when I first released my Modest Mouse cover's album. It wasn't until 2014 that he thanked me for making it, at a Festival in Austin Texas. Modest Mouse and I shared the same tour manager for a while. The tour manager once told me, "Jeremiah loves the album. But don't tell Isaac I said that!"  

Trucker's Atlas will be on the list for Austin and Orlando as well as Dramamine.

There's still sunlight coming in. I'm going to do some more cleaning.

June 3, 2023 8:51 pm San Francisco

I spent yesterday afternoon looking over song options for the upcoming shows. Gustavo jumped out at me as it gets requested at pretty much each show. It's fun to play and pretty much works in any atmosphere. Seated crowd, standing crowd. Doesn't matter. Gustavo works like a dependable medium-priced pen that's been around for years, that for some reason, doesn't run out of ink. 

When I'm preparing for shows, I have a small table to my left, with a small boombox, and a shoebox full of my CDs. On the coffee table in front of me are set lists and lyrics from various shows, sometimes going back four to five years. There is also a capo and a clip-on tuner. I leaf through the CDs, set lists, lyric sheets, and see what gets my attention.

When trying to remember the chords of Gustavo I went through some live CDs until I spotted Gustavo on The Kids: Live in London.

I did what I always do. I listened to the song two or three times to get the song back in my head. I then learn the chords and see how well I can get through the words without the lyric sheets. If I can't remember the lyrics, I make cheat-sheets where I only put the first line of each verse, which cues me on the remaining three lines. The next step is asking myself a question: Now that I sort of know this song, do I enjoy playing it?

If the answer is no, I try to change the tempo, or the key, to see if I can bring some life to it. If I'm still not feeling it, I scratch the song and move on.

Gustavo was as far as I got yesterday. At about 5 pm I walked down to North Beach and met Caroline for dinner.

Today, I went over Gustavo again, plus Trucker's Atlas a few times and Carissa.

I may attempt I'm Not laughing At You from the I Also Want To Die In New Orleans album, as spoken word. I got the idea from this Fante book where the character Henry goes on about how much Dostoevsky changed his life. I've only read The Crocodile by Dostoevsky. I reference the book in I'm Not Laughing At You which is how I got the idea to try the song again. The music is fun to play with a band, but I'm playing solo and I'm not multi-faceted enough to do the words and music all at once.

I've got maybe sixty pages left in The Brotherhood of The Grape. Dostoevsky is referenced enough times in this book that I struck up a conversation with the guy at The Beat Museum about Dostoevsky's writing. He recommended Notes From Underground, which the store didn't have, so I picked it up at City Lights. I have no idea when I'll get to it. After The Brotherhood of The Grape, I want to start reading this book my friend Jeshel sent me as he'll be visiting from New Zealand on the 10th through the 15th of June. It's an interesting looking book called On The Chin.

Caroline and I had a nice dinner at Tommaso's tonight. I ate all vegetables, no meat. It's nice being here with her and the cats.

Clover is being especially playful. She's got about six areas of the living room and she's been running back and forth to each area, playing some kind of game. She'll be wrestling with a green alligator for a minute, then come and tap my toe with both of her paws, then go play with Caroline's feet, then jump up on a chair, then wrestle with the alligator again.

June 4, 2023 5:54 pm San Francisco

I haven't been outside all day other than to get a bagel and an iced coffee down on Polk Street. I've been rehearsing various songs including The Possum, You Missed My Heart, I'm Not Laughing at You, Richard Ramirez, and Dramamine.

The Possum has proven to be the most difficult. I've not played it in years. I've listened to it on CD to get the song in my head and have done my best to re-learn the chords. I've also printed the full lyric page.  I may also play Damian -  an unreleased song recorded in 2021 -  just after a third cousin of mine passed. The song will be released before my L.A. show, July 11. 

In between rehearsing, I've been separating pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters and foreign change from large bowls in my hallway. It's therapeutic. It clears my head in between rehearsing songs and gives me a chance to stretch.

I've also been doing dishes, laundry, and I've cleaned my whole bathroom.

I've been rehearsing from about 2 pm until now, so I'm going to give it a break and meet Caroline for dinner.

Tomorrow I'll have to go over songs that I think I have memorized. It's a terrible mistake to think you know a song by heart especially when a few months have passed between shows. You think you have it down, then the third verse comes around and you’re lost.

I'm almost done with the Fante book. Henry's dad went into some kind of a diabetic coma in Donner Pass while they were building a smokehouse. 

He was hospitalized in Auburn. Things aren't looking good for Nick Molise, Henry's dad. I won't spoil the ending, but I'm pretty sure this brings me to the end of the line with John Fante books. 

When my time comes, I want to be cremated along with some of my favorite things. Any John Fante book will do.

June 6, 2923 12:48 pm - SFO to Austin

Just sat down at a UA gate. Heading off to Austin.