Commentary

February 5: Hill climb & pano

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The winds have been blowing off & mostly on for more than a week. When we had measurable rain a while back I allowed myself a bit too much optimism, at least as regards the drought.

Now that optimism is being blown away and that’s a lousy feeling. The only benefit of Santa Anas this time of year are cloudless, scrubbed-blue skies and fantastic visibility. Even though the winds were less intense today, the skies were still quite clear.

My valley to valley hike is front of mind. I’ve been looking for a map that shows all of the fire roads in Los Angeles and Ventura counties but I haven’t found one so far. I made a trip to REI today since they have a good selection of maps and guides on hand but they didn’t have what I needed. There was an interesting trail map of Conejo to the ocean that should have easily covered the entire relevant area except that the folks at NatGeo decided to plop the map’s legend right over the west end of the valley, where it meets up with Palo Comado. Oh well. What do those folks know?

This is iPhone pano looking northish (those are homes in Bell Canyon on the left).

This is a nastyish hil climb I use to inaugurate my legs and lungs every time I use the Victory Trailhead. From the middle to the top you actually ascend on toes. It’s possible to descend it but if it happens to rain again this hill will be impassable both up and down. The photo doesn’t do it justice; it’s damn steep.

No hike is complete without a refreshment and today I promised myself a blood orange IPA from the pizza and beer tavern at the intersection of Victory & Valley Circle. Somehow I’ve managed to miss the name of the brewery both times I’ve enjoyed it there. That fact gives me a good excuse to drop in for another pint someday soon.

Tonight’s writing soundtrack is He’s Fine from The Secret Sisters 2017 record You Don’t Own Me Anymore. It’s far and away the best song on the record; clean, simple and bound to no genre or time. It’s fantastic.

Thanks for reading.

February 5: Hill climb & pano

February 4: Not quite as big as I hoped

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The week I mean…

I should have known better than to look forward to a week that felt big, let alone was big. There aren’t many of those and this certainly wasn’t one. I didn’t get Cottonwood to the formatter. Instead I spent too much time noodling on the question of whether it needed a preface or some kind of introduction. I imagined something that linked Cottonwood gracefully back to John J. McDermott & the 1971 U.S. Open but in the end I just didn’t want to. I suppose I can rationalize the decision by my thought that even though both books are connected, they are intended to be capable of standing on their own, and I hope they do.

The whole deal found me learning about a mistake I made in JJM. I wrote the foreword. By convention a foreword should be written by someone other than the author.

That error, unsurprisingly, got me thinking about other introductory elements of a book’s front matter.

Beyond foreword there could be a preface, a prologue and an introduction. I suppose a writer could aspire to have all of them in one book but somehow for Cottonwood it feels to me like none of them fit, or are needed, so I have elected to leave them all out. Plus, it will keep me from writing another foreword that should really have been a preface or an introduction.

I should have known better than to expect a lot from a week because I felt like I needed a lot. That’s never worked, at least not in my experience. I had a zoom with one of my clients in Japan tonight. He seemed a little bit at odds as if he too was looking for something to happen, because he needed it to happen. I saw his situation totally differently than he did. I saw only his energy and dedication while all he could sense was a need for progress he couldn’t quite define.

I wanted a big week and he wanted a big whatever and neither of us got our wish.

Big week or not, I should have accomplished more this week than I did. I know that’s true but I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is follow my advice to my young client in Japan; just keep at it and don’t let up. You cannot control events, you can only control your efforts and choose where and how to apply them.

Maybe someday I’ll learn the lessons I try so hard to convey to my clients.

I know I’ve neglected my writing soundtrack the last couple days. The truth is that I’ve not been listening to much music the last couple days, other than the LPs I’ve managed to upload. Tonight’s different and so I have a different kind of writer’s soundtrack that anyone can enjoy. It’s The Shins Live at Hurricane from way back in 2012. You can easily find it at YouTube and it’s worth the search.

They were really a band in full back in 2012 to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe. Deep Sea Diver’s Jessica Dobson was still serving as James Mercer’s guitar hero back then (there’s yet another longish blog post I need to write) and the band effortlessly flowed and ripped and glided their way through a rainy outdoor set in Germany. I’m not sure who owns the rights to that video but I hope it stays on YouTube forever because I really need it from time to time…like tonight.

Thanks for reading.

February 4: Not quite as big as I hoped

February 3: Century City

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It’s a been a good long while since I’ve been to the Century City mall.

How long? I am guessing it was right around 1990. Our office was at the then Fox Plaza, 2121 Avenue of the Stars. Ronald Reagan was a floor above us on 32 while Marvin Davis occupied the 33rd floor. Another Davis was the reason that we were in that building but that’s a story for another days. Three of us from the old firm had lunch today and reminisced about the times when each of us got to share an elevator with Reagan. He must have been about 78 at the time and while he still looked great in a blue suit you could sense the most subtle hints of cognitive decline. Has anyone even written more eloquently than the man himself?

“I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.”

Sunsets seem to be everywhere these days. So many of the people I know and love are holding them off, doing all they can to stay in the day’s light, whether the challenges they face affect themselves or their own loved ones. Both of my dining partners have dealt with it, through the illness of an adult child and the death of a spouse. I know it is hard to each of them to find a way to look ahead toward something good when they have seen the challenges of today and the near past.

Still, we ate, we remembered back to working at 2121, and we drank an excellent red blend called, La Croce.

Too bad there was only one bottle.

The weather was perfect. Only one day before and we would not have been able to dine outside without a good deal of shivering and cold Italian food that’s meant to be served hot. Our mood was lightish and plans were made for another lunch, a happy hour this time, were made. I’ll be really happy if we manage to pull that off soon.

Back to the last time I was at that mall and I’m guessing it was also in 1990. Wait, first I have to say that the mall is not the mall I visited all those many years ago. It was closed for years while undergoing a massive renovation. Going there today was like going back to a place I have never seen before, even though everything, the Hollywood Hills and the many towers of Century City were right where I left them.

Back in 1990, I shared lunch with the great love of my life, the woman who is still the love of my life. We ate at a little Japanese place that served excellent teriyaki. That’s a day I will never forget. I’ll never forget the food, I’ll never forget where it was (I’m sure I could walk to the point where our table stood, even though there’s no restaurant there anymore) and most importantly I will never forget what it felt like to be there sharing it all with the person whom I was lucky enough to be with. It’s been thirty years and I still feel lucky every time I share a table with her, or a kiss, or a touch, or a smile.

Sunsets come to each day and every person’s life. There’s nothing to be done about that. All we can do is share the daylight of our love and fondness for the people in our lives as often as we can, and always savor the sweetness of the wine and the warmth of the sun.

The three of us did a little of that today and I’m glad we all made the trip.

February 3: Century City

February 2: Turntables, continued & concluded

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Anyway, the days of Kuzma and Dynavector lasted as long as my days of a reviewer. Great tables, arms and cartridges (not to mention superb phono preamps) can give a careful listener a look within that little else can. Eventually, though I bought my first REGA Planar 3 and used it as a kind of everyman’s table reference. That second REGA served me well. Somehow, it ended up on the other side of the table when I got divorced. Also, I lost a good number of LPs (well over a thousand) and my beloved Magnepan MGIIIa to a flood of hot water caused by a plumbing leak, when there was no one around to simply turn off the damn water.

That was then and the is now and I have another REGA Planar 3. It was set up for me by none other than the legendary Brooks Berdan. If you’re interested you can read about it here. If you’re not, just know it’s a been a great table and I’m happy to be giving it some exercise during the transfer of my remaining LPs.

I am sentimental about this particular table but not about analog generally or LPs specifically. They are the technology I grew up with and while I find their miniature renaissance amusing, I am under no illusions that they create a corner on the market of musicality.

In the early 90s, it seemed like they might. Early CDs were abysmal for a number of reasons, most notably lousy DACs and misunderstandings about how digital recording changed and didn’t change the requirements of microphone placement. The truth is that things got better fast when it came to CDs. That said, a CD is not an LP and there is no reason to expect one to sound like the other. It’s rather like tubes which is, if I decide to go down that particular rabbit hole, a question with a longer answer for another blog post. I am not immune to nostalgia but I am when it comes to the mechanisms that deliver my music, I simply don’t care what device or technology brings me decent sound, I just want it. Thanks for reading. Tomorrow, no more turntables…I promise.

February 2: Turntables, continued & concluded

January 31: More about pCloud than you (or I) ever wanted to know

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It’s true, pCloud is coming into the home stretch though I will remind you that the upload process has been very slow (but steady) at least after fooling around with the upload speeds in settings.

There were about 9,000 digital files to start. Owing to its unbelievable initial sluggishness I began to plot its progress to see if I had tossed $50 into the street (yet again).

8057 files were ready for upload on last Sunday:
7916 3:22pm Monday
7767 8:08pm Monday
6658 10:23am Tuesday
6582 2:38pm Tuesday
6442 11:57am Wednesday
6385 3:10pm Wednesday
6274 10:23am Thursday
3902 10:30am Friday
3026 11:09am Saturday
2024 12:04pm Sunday
1288 11:36pm Sunday
1018 11:19am Monday (today)

Right now, it has 50 files (6.33GB) to go but it’s stalled (which seems to happen a couple times a day). When I’m done with this post I will quit and restart which is the recipe to getting things flowing again. Check that; it’s uploading again…44 files remaining (5.87GB) estimated as an hour and thirty-seven minutes (I’m guessing around 12 hours of actual upload time).

Off and on I’ve taken look at the pCloud app, which looks like this on my iPhone:

The pCloud iOS app Home Screen

Now let me explain what I think (and I emphasize the word think) we’re looking at. First of all, the top three folders labeled My Music, My Pictures and My Videos have absolutely nothing in them. That explains why they’re at the top, doesn’t it? I am genuinely unsure if they’re intended to be placeholders or samples or just something to look at.

It’s very weird and significantly kludgy.

But wait, look below and you’ll see a green folder labeled pCloud backup. Now we’re cooking! That’s full of good stuff like what pCloud refers to both within the app and the desktop app as the MacMachine pCloud is Swiss, you know).

The whole deal looks like something AOL would have considered cutting-edge back in 2003.

As I mentioned before, once I’m done with the digital stuff I plan to add a folder called LPs to the upload. It’s good to know approximately where this will live once it’s on p’s cloud.

My hope remains that pCloud will do exactly what I want it to do when it’s all done, house my digital music in a non-Apple cloud as well as the AAC files of my LPs. I’m cautiously optimistic. If it works I’ll be more than happy to pay for a lifetime subscription which is something under $200. I’ll keep you posted.

My musical company this evening is Remembering Mountains sung by Sharon Van Etten from the 2015 record, Remembering Mountains: Unheard Songs by Karen Dalton. Unheard indeed. The record has fewer reviews (18) at Amazon than my first novel (20).

Oh well, I’ll boost the count up to 19 once I’ve penned mine. The title song is fantastic and at least two others (Don’t Make It Easy and At Last the Night Has Ended) are very good. So, here I am listening to and buying songs by a songwriter I’ve never heard of until a couple weeks ago. Who said the internet wasn’t amazing (as well as occasionally horrible, intrusive and possessed of post-apocalyptic potential?). I’m going to try to read up on Dalton. Don’t surprised if you read more about her from me soon.

January 31: More about pCloud than you (or I) ever wanted to know

January 30: A big week ahead

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I’ve realized that I’m hanging on to Cottonwood quite a bit more than I should be. It’s time to format the book and move it toward publication. The cover art is coming. I’m confident in that. And, the book is what it is and I think that’s pretty good.

To think that at one point I thought that I would have it published in time for Christmas of last year.

So, I’m thinking maybe by mid-week I’ll take another quick look at it before sending it off to the formatter. It’s not the end, I have to keep reminding myself of that. After the manuscript is in the formatter’s hands I’ll still have another crack at it before the final EPUB and PDF files are ready for upload.

It’s never done until I say it’s done.

It’s looking more and more like tomorrow will be the last day of the first month of 2022. That’s a quite a surprise, no? There are 11 more months on tap but I need this week and all of those that come afterwards to be big weeks, or at least big-ish and surely not small.

The clock is ticking and I have lots to accomplish.

I must admit that I’ve not come up with any solid ideas for the next book but I’m still hopeful and I keep reminding myself that there’s time enough but none to waste. Tonight I’m listening to Nat Johnson’s song called Dog from her 2014 record, Neighbour of the Year. I have to confess that I’ve not heard any of Johnson’s other work, or even this rest of her record.

There’s something else I need to do this week.

Anyway, it’s a great song and I listen to it a lot. My favorite lines are these:

It’s important to walk 
There are friends yet to meet 
My dog says “Forget about it!” 
My dog says “Let’s run in the woods”

I love the wisdom of dogs…thanks for reading.

January 30: A big week ahead

January 29: Working backwards, as always

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I’ve developed a concern that my San Fernando to Conejo Valley trek may be more challenging than I anticipated. I need some maps, both topo and trail maps, and I’ll get them as soon as I can. Until I do, I am guesstimating the hike will be right around 18 miles, one way.

That distance assumes a relatively easy hike with very little if any scrambling.

While I wait for proper cartographic evidence I decided that a couple trips into what I regard as the hard part of the trip would be wise.

The choke point seems to be north and west of Kanan, extending as far as Westlake Blvd., where the good restaurants, bars and hotels start becoming prevalent.

So, I made a run out there on this cloudy Saturday to see what I could see. The short story is that I have sense there are usable fire roads between those two roads, but I’m still not sure.

My first trip was to the end of Westlake Blvd. It terminates at the foothills and while there is a trail very near its end, it would seem to be a loop trail. It’s called the Autumn Ridge Trail.

So, I went back toward the 101 and my real target, the trailhead near the Chumash Museum further south on Westlake Blvd. I’ve never been there before today but it was very interesting though the museum is closed (temporarily one hopes) because of COVID. There’s a really nice, shaded trail that parallels a steep, rocky ridge to the south. It’s covered with oak and vines. Dead ahead is what appears to be an insurmountable (for me, anyway…I’m sure Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell could get over it barefoot, hungover and half-asleep) rocky peak that looks very much like the rock formations near the northern edges of Rocky Peak Park, south of the 118 and Topanga. As the trail I was on today trends south and east, the rock formation falls away and at the end of the trail is a single-track connection to a promising SE fire road.

As I said, there are many more questions to answer and many ways to acquire each. I now think the trip would be doable without threat to life or limb anytime between now and mid-June (June gloom might save the day).

Here are a few quick photos…

As I said, this was an unusual day. It was supposed to be much more sunny that it was. Instead, it was cloudy, especially on the trail. It actually got a little chilly especially since I had on only shorts and a t-shirt.

Hey, this is Southern California after all.

Things are looking promising but there is still more I need to know before next steps are taken.

So, as always, thanks for reading.

By the way, today’s writing soundtrack is I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty from his 2015 record by the same name.

Look, this is some weird shit. I think you should just buy it.

I love it, but then again what does that tell you?

January 29: Working backwards, as always

January 28: More informal research on the valley to valley hike

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I did a little more informal research on the valley to valley hike. It would appear there’s a cook point of sorts north of Kanan, in the area of Oak Park. I think it can be overcome but I’m not sure. I will have to take a couple short hikes in that area and consult Mr. Google and perhaps some actual paper maps. The park cane be worked around but only with a lengthy street hike that I don’t want to do. As I said, lots more questions need answers.

Today was windy, not quite enough wind to keep me off the trail but enough to make hiking into the breeze, especially up hill a real challenge. Here are a few photos from the day:

Looking north and east. That’s the El Escorpion trail at the end of Vanowen, center left.
Looking northeast…a fire-scarred but hopefully still living Valley Oak.
A less fortunate victim of the flames, its dead leaves still singing to the living.
Bible rock.

By the way, pCloud is positively sprinting toward completion now. Only 3298 files remain, with an 18 hour estimate for those that remain. If the upload is done by the end of the weekend I’ll be surprised.

Call me pessimistic.

Tomorrow I will start the LP upload in earnest. I don’t intend to sync to pCloud until all of the digital stuff is on p’s cloud. And, once I do start to upload I intend to upload one LP and then sync to pCloud so the system is never choking on a whole bunch of huge files.

Seems like a prudent plan anyway.

Tonight’s writing soundtrack is Emily Barker’s Letters from her 2015 record The Toerag Sessions. This solo version differs significantly from the version where Barker is accompanied by The Red Clay Halo on their 2013 release. Not surprisingly, the solo version is a bit more raw and elemental while The Red Clay Halo brings a gentle opulence to the arrangement. Listen to both, buy both, is my motto!

Thanks for reading.

January 28: More informal research on the valley to valley hike

January 27: Audacity

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2021 was apparently the first year that LP sales eclipsed CD sales in decades. It was a small surprise to me and more of a comment on the fact that CD sales are so minimal rather than LP sales being so strong. I am not especially enamored with the LP. It’s just that it’s the best playback method I know of, though it is badly flawed, and that’s before we start talking about the inevitable issue of LP wear. Ugh.

Still, today was an important day. I uploaded my first LP to my Mac. Audacity is both relatively good and totally free. That’s impressive in a day that finds every software company looking to maximize profits. I was stunned that on my very first effort I ended up having a playable side of a decently clean demo pressing of Dylan’s Street Legal. I chose that LP because it was in fair shape (I didn’t know how many times I would have to play it) and because I happen to have a CD of the same record right in front of me.

The initial results were hideous. The RIAA equalization on the front end of the A/D I used was (and I shall not slander the company who made it here), how shall I say this, marginal or worse. So, I climbed around behind my vintage Salamander Designs rack and took the analog feed from the record-out of my preamp just to see if my suspicions were correct.

They were.

Once I was taking the data from this line-level source, one side of the LP came in at a shade over 62MB. Not bad, certainly much better than a FLAC file will alter. I judged the resulting AAC file to sound pretty Ok, in fact significantly better than I had hoped. I’ll do some more careful listening tomorrow before considering uploading the LP side using FLAC. If I use AAC all of my LPs would occupy only about 55GB, which would leave me plenty of room for extra storage mischief (read, the acquisition of more music in digital, CD and LP formats).

The Audacity UI looks like it’s from twenty years ago but it is relatively simple in operation and very well executed. The folks who developed it knew (and know) exactly what they’re doing and exactly what they’re up against. I have to remind myself that none of what I’m doing was anticipated by the originators of any of the technology employed during the creation of the source material. This ability to move analog to digital in this way is all a manifestation of software developers adapting to what came long before in an effort to preserve music that was acquired many years before the technology was anticipated to be able to move it around.

How often does that work out in favor if the music lover / consumer?

In other words, the future of music, at least insofar as how we can store it, would seem to be in good programming hands, as of this writing.

More, as ever, later. Thanks for reading.

Tonight’s writing soundtrack is Richard Thompson’s (Guitar, Vocal) 1967-1976. Yup, even the CD is costly today ($25 at Amazon) but you should have it anyway.

Any lover of guitar must…

January 27: Audacity

January 25: The pCloud plan, etc.

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The other day I mentioned that I had dropped $50 on a year’s worth of pCloud’s 500GB storage plan.

At the time I was waiting.

Right now, I’m still waiting.

Files are being uploaded at what can charitably be called a leisurely pace. There are 80GB still to go and the estimate for completion is 5 days and change. All of that is Ok if far slower than I would have expected. But, if pCloud is choking on the compressed digital stuff I’m a little concerned that uploading the FLAC files of hundreds of LPs could necessitate a digital Heimlich Maneuver.

I’m going to start slow, however, when it comes to the LPs. In fact, I’m going to upload just one LP. The first upload will be of an AAC file and the second will be FLAC of the same LP. Then, I’m going to listen to both, and I’m going to be cruel. If I don’t find a significant difference I’m going to do the rest of my LP collection via AAC and I won’t look back. You see, I’ve decided if this all works I will probably end up keeping all of my LPs.

That’s not a difficult decision. I love my old Per Madsen rack. It just stands there, not bothering anyone holding hundreds of LPs and CDs (sans jewel cases, of course). Even if were to start buying LPs again regularly, and I find that doubtful, I would be unlikely to buy all that many. Who knows, maybe a handful a year? I may even institute a One In, One Out policy as I do with new shirts. That would work for a while since I have a good number of duplicate LPs and some I will never play. I can pretty much promise the second (and maybe the first) copy I own of Pat Metheny’s Chautauqua is on its way out, one way or the other.

The music management process feels good, if a little tedious like the upload speed of pCloud. I’m actually looking forward to playing every one of the LPs. Some of those guys haven’t been spun in a good long while. They’re all fairly clean but should a dirty one find its way onto the REGA’s glass platter my trusty Nitty Gritty record cleaner is right where I left it on the top shelf of my closet. I’ve got a nice collection of good quality poly sleeves for both LP and CD, too. My guess is I’ve got enough LP sleeves for all of the possible acquisitions I might make from now until the end of my LP spinning days. CD sleeves are another matter. I have less than one pack of 100 left, and I’m using them for my jewel case elimination project. And, the company that sells them keeps pushing their availability date back month by month, with the last being November of last year. My optimism is waning and I’m not aware of a suitable substitute.

Who knows? The ones I have may be the last of their kind, as everything is eventually.

Tonight’s writing soundtrack is Giant of Illinois from Andrew Bird’s 2014 record, Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of… It’s an odd, personal and evocative song I find myself listening to again and again.

January 25: The pCloud plan, etc.