xtcian

1/11/03 Day XXI of the

1/11/03

Day XXI of the Cream Cheese Crush Almond Endive Hors D'Oeuvre Road Trip of Spoiling Your Dinner With Finger Food

St. Helena, CA

Dad and Carole threw us a great little engagement party tonight, and it was a lot of fun meeting their friends in the Wine Country. I'll give this place one thing: you end up here for weird reasons, and invariably the clientle is going to be way more interesting than if we had done this sort of party in other towns our parents have lived (say, Houston, TX or Norfolk, VA). There is a curious combination of leftist thought and serious money here, which makes it very similar to New York. I made a comment over dinner about how the last election made me hate Americans, and I didn't even get into too much trouble for it.

Dad prepares a tenderloin amidst some damn fine smelly cheese

The food, as always, was impeccable: Carole made something with cream cheese, almonds and endives that I secretly scarfed down all night, and Dad's roast was the kind of meat that makes vegetarianism so hard to contemplate. Is there a sort of "compromise vegetarianism" you can adopt? I think I'd accept the following rule: Thou shall not eat any meat that takes less than 20 minutes to prepare. That would take care of fast food, and there would have to be a special "antibiotics and hormones are verboten" rule as well as a "we encourage free-reign" sticker. Asceticism is nice and all, but I've already given up Coke and Afrin.

Tessa has been knee-deep in fixing the DVD cover to her movie Five Wives. The packaging company chose to put a picture of Muffet (Blakey's fifth wife) on the back cover, which is not only confusingly off-topic and slightly disturbing, but might incur a lawsuit. The movie is being released on DVD in a few months, but the company has been dragging oar about the changes ('cuz, you know, nobody likes to do anything) so I came up with the lowest-fidelity option I could muster. I took a digital picture of the last scene of the movie, cleaned it up slightly and shrunk it down to the right size:

Blakey and Tessa's final emotional scene

And if the DVD art company can't do better than my crappy 5-minute solution, then they should be selling Herbalife instead.

1/10/03 Day 20 of the

1/10/03

Day 20 of the Soggy, Musty, Hampy, Ubiquitous Wetness of the Perfect Grape Season Road Trip of No-Longer-Allowable Delights

St. Helena, CA

Sometimes I begin these things at precisely the right time, other times Tessa and I get on the internet and spend 2 1/2 hours downloading PDF's of the trail map to Taos Ski Valley and figuring out how to make it to Park City and everywhere else in the West using Yahoo!'s driving directions feature. Tonight was the latter, so I am left with precious few minutes of awareness to dash off today's missive. Perhaps I should write these things during the day, but then something always happens that alters the plot, or perhaps I abandon a long-held theory, so writing just before sleep is the only way to ensure accuracy.

We're in the stormy, foggy, pissin'-down-rain valley of Napa today, and the place has a soggy, moss-encrusted beauty that is hard to explain. Even though our last trip here (which coincided with the first day I started writing this blog in earnest!) was sunny and gorgeous, I usually equate Napa with terrible weather. I always have a great time here, just not outdoors.

Two great meals, of course, bookended our day: the first at a Mexican restaurant on the main street in St. Helena best guacamole I've ever had outside of home – and Tra Vigne, an Italian joint that was way too good to be referred to as a "joint." I don't even remember seeing pasta on the menu; instead, we went straight for the stuff guaranteed to give us the most gout. In between meals, Tessa clothes-shopped for tomorrow night's party, and ended up with a very expensive and very fabulous shirt that should have the locals not looking at her face, if you know what I mean.

Oh yeah, and she had a Mexican Coke (pure sugar, no high fructose corn syrup) right in front of me today. Fully knowing that I can never taste that ambrosia, that carbonated milk from the nipples of Venus, without risking a kidney stone. Sometimes I think she does stuff just to make me krazy.

1/9/03 Day 19 of the

1/9/03

Day 19 of the Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Road Trip

Mammoth Lakes, CA to Napa Valley, CA

Blues like an underwater glacial tone, one note, disappearing into thickest fog, barely any time to react, should some harm come. Lake to the right, ice statues holding sturdy, in and out of view for a split second. Fog parts, expanse revealed as an epiphany, an immense idea that disappears just before grasp. Alone and silent, save for the low bass of the moving car, swimming headfirst into a horizon that is no longer possible. Some moments are beautiful because all went as planned; others more so because nothing can.

1/8/03 Day XVIII of the

1/8/03

Day XVIII of the Don't Wear Cotton Because it Doesn't Wick Worth a Damn and It'll Make You Miserable Road Trip

Mammoth Lakes, CA

I'm sure it's the same way when you learn languages, or you have a speech to deliver in the morning, or you're working on the final scene of a script: most of the night before is spent in a suspended pre-memory of the day to come, making your muscles memorize where they are supposed to be, planning it all out. I was that way last night with the slopes, since today was to be our last full day on Mammoth Mountain, and there were some particular trails I've had my eye on since I stopped skiing like an epileptic cow.

I woke up before Tessa (which has only happened maybe three times in as many years) because I was night-into-daydreaming jump contingencies in case the lift broke and I had to find a way to get us down. This sort of crap proved enormously unhelpful.

I'd like to add to my list of conquerings of late: I actually skied down a blue diamond hill today. Taking up most of the left side of the mountain seen in Figure 3-b below, the "Quicksilver" trail features a set of steep downhill bumps that put me in a physical and emotional Cuisinart. The best I can say is that I never lost my skis. Tessa (who went with me for moral support) was treated to three spectacular wipe-outs, the last of which actually hurt. After that, though, I sailed the rest of the way, and for the first time, my body started doing things correctly without me thinking about it. I was actually skiing for the fun of it, a glorious place that I don't think I even knew on the violin.

Granted, the violin is a lot harder. 20 years of lessons and I never got to ski Mount Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, but that's another blog altogether.

Back at Todd's place, we gathered all of our Pink House movie press kits together (the Macs had been printing all day while we were skiing how's that for multitasking?) in preparation for our trips to Napa and Texas. All of our backs were hurting, mine most dreadfully, so we put queued up some more printing jobs and got into the hot tub.

Look, I know it's decadent, and 130 million kids will never see the inside of a school in this wicked world, but if I allow myself one guilt-free luxury, it's a goddamn hot tub. Even if Tessa and I end up in a shithole shack in East Ronkokoma, I will find a way for us to have one, even if I have to hire old German ladies with huge wooden spoons to stir the murky water for us.

we always spring wedding favors on Todd while he's in the tub and defenseless

1/7/03 Day XVII of the

1/7/03

Day XVII of the Ass-Kickin' Pile-Drivin' Eat-my-Extreme Powder Dude! Dude! DUDE! Road Trip

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Yeah, you got THAT right. We're young, we're mean, lean and IN YOUR FACE! Don't even front your stale fish around us, young bucks, 'cuz we cook up more trouble during a LUNCH SHIFT than you've seen in your lifetimes! Try to say hi, see what makes us tick, but it's too late, 'cuz we've ALREADY BLOWN RIGHT BY YOU! BURN, MUZTHAFORKA, BURN!!!

Figure 3-b

Okay, so this may mean nothing to any of you (and it's not like I force you to read this, mind you) but I conquered the St. Anton trail today, shown by the red line in Figure 3-b above. This is a trail that you need two chairlifts to find, and the last lift dumps you out in a steep drop with ten giant moguls with mouths open, desperate to bust you in the ass.

And so they did. I had some trepidation about going that far up the mountain, because once you're there, you're pretty much going to have to ski down, no matter what kind of childhood control issues you might be hanging on to. I put on a brave face and hit the first mogul; it threw one of my skis down the hill, a pole into my face, and I slid about thirty feet with snow being forced into my sinuses.

Ten minutes later, I was all bundled up again, and put on another brave face then I cleared the moguls and spent twenty minutes going down the face of Mammoth Mountain, sliding to a graceful stop at the lodge, where Tessa and Todd were waiting. It was a pretty huge victory for me. I only ate shit one more time the whole way down, and that shouldn't count because it was a huge bank of ice. All of which is not bad, considering I never learned to ski as a kid, and only skied about four times before this trip. It's like waking up one day and knowing all the subjunctive verbs in French.

1/6/03 Day XVI of the

1/6/03

Day XVI of the Chemical Toe-Warming Substance Guaranteed to Last Five Hours (Or More) Road Trip of Steep Learning Curves

Mammoth Lakes, CA

The thin air above 8,000 feet tends to take it out of ya, but we rallied this morning for a half-day of skiing on the brilliant north face of Mammoth Mountain. It turns out that Todd Walker the other Director of Photography on the Pink House brouhaha (and our charming host) – had coupons for insanely low lift tickets this week. Add that to our equipment, which we bought for 1/3rd of the price during a blowout sale last muddy spring in Columbia County, and we've got state-of-the-art stuff skiing one of the world's best mountains and we hardly spent any money doing it.

That's what I keep telling myself as the super-hot bronzer-doused blondes whiz past me both on the slopes and the express lane at the grocery store; I love keeping my life lo-fi while still enjoying the unbelievable opulence of America's vacation culture. I think my dad was the master of that, and I took notes.

Tessa, me and Todd ride the lift on Mammoth Mt.

One thing I did today I thought I'd never do: I actually skied down a "blue" hill. Blues are one step above greens, and greens are one step above bunny slopes. Blues have steep dropoffs that would have had me shit my pants last year, but now I look at these things the way young math students approach a geometry problem: I know where to go, how to get there, and certain rules apply for both. This was only my sixth (or so) time skiing, so I thought a blue hill was a pretty cool accomplishment, especially as I feel like my body has been battling me all year. I only ate shit six times, and none of them were spectacular.

Back at the condo, Tessa made a spicy pasta, and Todd and I fiddled with the non-functioning airport that has been flummoxed since Jason and Tim's DSL befuddled it utterly. Then I learned about the "hard reset," which requires a paper clip, four hands and a contortionist but now the damn thing in buzzing away like the day we first bought it. Sometimes I wish the human body had a reset button for bullshit ailments, but then again, we'd spend all day pushing it.

1/5/03 Day Fifteen of the

1/5/03

Day Fifteen of the Toothpicks Shoved Into My Lids to Keep My Eyes Open Road Trip of Seeing Haystacks in the Highway

Hollywood, CA to Mammoth Lakes, CA

I fought my most serious fatigue of the trip on the way from Jason's place to here in the Sierras, battling crosswinds in the Mojave Desert that attacked the Thule luggage compartment like it was a windsail, throwing us willy-nilly into oncoming traffic and keeping me in a state of horror and beleaguerement at the same time.

There is so much and so little to say about the desert at once you know, so cold and so hot, so lifeless and so full of animals, so desolate and yet so pretty – all the clichés that end up adorning the walls of uncreative dentists.

I'd say more, but my frontal cortex is about to flutter me into R.E.M. sleep ("Gardening at Night" was always my favorite) and all I can give you is a picture. Click on it if you've got a broadband connection and huge screen, OK?

our car casts a small shadow into the brush of the Mojave Desert