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I guess I should say that day one for me is really day six for The Jonbenet, the band I’m on tour with, but we’re just gonna go ahead and call it day one. I left my apartment this morning at 5, got into LAX 12 hours later, met up with a guy from Houston named Jason who drove me out to Escondido to meet up with the band. My flight was freezing cold and I was locked into the window seat and couldn’t get out to hunt down a blanket. It was like being a prisoner on some kind of flying ice chamber of death. It was horrible. 

Also, another note: Los Angeles is huge. There was nothing but mountains and desert and tiny little towns for hours and then all of a sudden, there was was LA. grids of houses and buildings extending to the horizon in every direction. No other city on earth can match this one in terms of sprawl. It’s amazing. 

Escondido is either a southern suburb of LA or a northern suburb of San Diego and it took us about two hours to get there from the airport. Get this though: Jason had french friend from Del Taco waiting for me in the car. Can you believe that? The guy’s a real class act. He proved it again later when we stopped in San Clamente for soft serve from stand by the highway called Burger Stop. (Note to Californians: if you’re ever in San Clamente, it’s worth checking out. 24 flavors of soft serve, and also the home of the “Chile-Dog”.) The first lick of my ice cream sent it plummeting earthward, my camera breaking it’s fall. So bullshit. The nice lady behind the counter was nice enough to give me a new cone.

The gig was at a space and sci-fi themed pizza joint called Killer Pizza from Mars and the place looked like it hadn’t changed since it first opened in, if i had to guess, 1993. The dudes there were crazy hospital though. They feed and watered us, and let us hang around long after closing shooting hoops on their old school arcade thing. Three local bands played, and I took pictures of some of the funniest looking people. It was good. The kids at the show were all in high school and they seemed to dig the Jonbenet guys the best, and they unloaded a bunch of merch.

We’re in the van now, driving along the Pacific Ocean. Can’t see it because it’s totally black, but I know that it’s there. Kind of awesome. We’re heading 9 hours up north, straight thru the night, to Chico, which, we were told buy the guys at Killer Pizza, is the point of origin for much of California’s medicinal marijuana crop. It’s by a massive state park called Bidwell, so I’m hoping we get to hang out there for at least a little while to capture the scenery. 

So that’s the deal so far. Sorry this is a rushed post, I’m dying to get some sleep, so future ones will hopefully be a little more thoughtfully crafted. And there’s so much hilarious shit that’s happened that I’m leaving out, so I’ll try to be more on top of it for the sake of posterity starting tomorrow. And, obviously, there will be pictures and things and I’ll introduce you to the dudes as time goes on. K? Later.

I dropped a cool $300 at B&H today on these 45 rolls of film and a tripod. In about an hour, I’m flying to LA to meet up with a guy named Mike. Mike is going to drive me about 100 miles south to Escondido, where I’m going to meet up with The Jonbenet, the band I’m going to be touring with for the next three weeks. It’s gonna be killer. And I don’t mean to get myself in over my head here, but I’m going to try and do a post every couple of days from the road. Talk to you then.

Something that’s going to bum my mother out when she gets the New York Times tomorrow: Robert Rauschenberg died on Monday, and for some reason we’re just finding out about it now… a whole two days later. 

I don’t have a whole lot of insight to add on this other than to say the most interesting thing I learned about Rauschenberg recently was that he and Jasper Johns were lovers on and off for the better part of forever, which, you know, makes a whole lot of sense. 

Also, he said once, “The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history,” which is pretty spot-on. Not sure he’s the first to have ever said that, though. I was.

Also worth nothing: doing a google search Rauschenberg pictures evently leads you to this guy’s myspace profile.

Here’s a whole slew of obituaries to read.

Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82
Robert Rauschenberg, 82; influential artist mixed painting, sculpture and cast-off items
Obituary: Robert Rauschenberg

Washington, 2007

We Wasserstroms attend Syracuse University commencement every year even though we haven’t sent a student through there in decades because there is such a thing there as the Wasserstrom Award for Something or Other set up in memory of my grandfather and my grandmother really likes us to be there when it’s given out. I’ve never been before because I until now I’ve had the luxury of not living above the Mason-Dixon line. Now that I’m here in the City I don’t really have an excuse, so off I go. Not that I’m nto perfectly happy to do it, you know, my grandmother, who is 86, is always pretty hilarious during these family things. 

The only reason I haven’t left for the airport yet is because I have to wait for the cleaners down the block to open at 7 so I can get my nice clothes. (My grandmother has suggested that I “look nice” about 500 separate times, in phone calls and in emails.) So, I’m sitting here pondering my trip, initiating all the scrabulous games that will have to keep me entertained all weekend and, of course, packing. And so I have this kind of funny realization. My bag of gear eclipses my bag of clothes and whatever but like 100%. It’s bigger. It weighs more. 

I’ve basically brought the same shit with me on trips for the past year or so, though there are a couple recent additions that, out of context, seem pretty crazy. I’ll start with the normal stuff though.

• Mix and match combination of cameras depending on length of trip, type of trip etc, but not usually fewer than 2.
• Film
• Computer
• Various cords and chargers
• Cellphone tap
• Digital recorder
• Between 1-3 New Yorker magazines
• Mobile broadband card
• Sketchbook
• Drawing pens

That’s the real list. I’m not even kidding about any of it. And all of this shit fits neatly into one of those camera-and-computer bag/backpack type of things, and I carry it all on with me lest things get manhandled or broken. I often have to stand shoeless at security, explaining what various things are, that this is not a video camera, it’s a still camera, it’s not digital so I can’t turn it on, etc.

You may be wondering why I need a cellphone tap and accompanying recorder when I travel, or, perhaps, why I would need these items at all. Broadly speaking, I need them for the same reason I need the sketchbook and the various back issues of the New Yorker: I get ambitious when I travel. When I travel, I expect to use the extra time sitting on planes and in airports, waiting out delays, etc, to do all the things I’ve been meaning and wanting to do but haven’t had the time or inclination in the midst of the daily grind.

So the tap and recorder. There are all these stories I have bouncing around in my head that, if I actually get around to writing them, could be sold to any one of the news sites I’ve written for in the past couple years. So they’re for all the phone interviews I would conduct doing the reporting for these stories.

• Total number of potential interviews: 23
• Total number of trips I’ve brought the recording equipment on: 4
• Total number of Interviews conducted: 0

But, you know, maybe this time will be the time. Anyway, I have to go to the cleaners and then get to JFK. Talk soon.

Team Gallery, April 2008