started the recording last night. pretty cool. until about 10 minutes ago when the leaf blower guy showed up in the middle of recording. i am kicking off my west coast tour next friday, beginning at spaceland (see profile picture). spaceland has always been a little hit and miss for me as far as performing goes...but they got nice sound. then up to the make out room in s.f., then oregon...wow...if i dont move back to l.a. in june then i am moving to new york city in august. acutally i have already agreed to move into an apartment in williamsburg, brooklyn. i have never been there. to the apartment or to brooklyn. i love l.a., but...i never been to ny. so why not, eh? i miss the northwest so much but i know if i move there i will be bored out of my mind. i love l.a. but i want to see ny. all in all really all i care about is ellies dog, i will miss him the most. thats the only thing making me hesitate on the east coast thing. in the mean time me and anthony (the engineer) are waiting for the gardeners to leave, they are being way to loud to record. and the take they inturrupted was golden...john and emilys cat was making all this noise in the background. we are mic-ing the guitar with a vinatge nueman ksm124 small condenser, we are using neve pre-amps, and an old 48 channel api mixer. also we are using a big plate reverb unit, its about 8 feet long by 4 feet tall. its in emilys bedroom. pretty cool. i have to give an official shout out to emily kokal and john frusciante for providing me with one of the most amazing opportunities in my life. em i know you will probably read this (better watch what i say...) so i will thank you again. i will thank john later.

willis and i drove north of mammoth lakes about 30 miles and entered a road between two huge cliffs.  we climbed to about 8,000 feet, through pretty treturous road conditions, around two gates that said "road closed" and finally to a road block with conditions just beyond too messy to drive in.  we got out of the car, barely being able to breathe because the air was so thin, and started walking, well sort of walking, because the road so so muddy it was more like lumbering.  we kept going, straight up, to the top of the high sierra's...there was so much snow that we could barely see.  we found 3 set of sasquatch tracks and countless coyote tracks.  a flock of birds followed us, curious, all the way to the top, at which point we started the long decent into a valley, all the while willis still in dress shoes.  from afar we could see the now abandoned ghost town of bodie.  as we approached the first structure i opened up its barn like doors to an ancient horse drawn cart. it was huge.  it was a struggle walking the empty streeets cause of the 4+ feet of fresh powder. next we found one of the old bars.  the bar itself littered with beer bottles, most of which were unlabled.  bottles of booze sat on the shelves behind it.  next door was the general store.  fully stocked with items from the 1850's.  and next to that, the strangest thing of all, the coffin making shop.  there were 3 child coffins that were unfinished, a human shoulder bone, and a holy bible.  we wandered over to the office where all the telegraph/telephone epuipment still stood, with chairs, tables, and a safe that had been blown up so someone could get inside.  next door there was another bar, this one more eerie than the first.  an old pool table, with an inch of dust, a pool cue, and a cue ball, lay inside, as if ghosts were playing pool the night before.  there were plates and forks on the tables. and throught the windows you could see the kitchen was fully intact, with all the cooking supplies.  the chalk board sign on the wall said "liver and onions, 25cents."  next door was the school house. an old victrola was the first thing willis noticed, of course. all the desks were set up with books still on them.  maps of the world hang on the back wall.  chalkboard still covered in writing and information about assignments for the week.  on the teachers desk was her hat and spectacles. we wandered through the streeets, inspecting the empty houses, still furnished, pictures on the walls, chairs, clothes, tools, etc.  up the hill there is an abanded lumber mill, though people are not allowed to go inside.  the water stains on the ceilings of these old structures look like ghosts bleeding through the roof.  the church, all the pews in order, old pipe organ inside, and the altar...this was one of the weirdest days of my life.  bodie is the country's largest standing ghost town, now with only 40 structures out of the 1000 that used to exist, prior a massive fire in the 20's.  there actually were still a few people living there in the 60's, until the guy who owned the lumber mill and the bank bought up all the properties and turned it into a national park.  the walk back was hard, and we almost got stuck up there on that mountain as the roads were icing over really quickly. i made it back just in time to get hassled by more l.a. people staying in the mansion of madness.  

waiting for gill too show up with the syncopators and their live show that will follow. me and her. beck and pedro's kitchen. miss the northwest, love southern california.