I WAS SO HEAVY, MAN, I LIVED ON THE STRAND; Part Two

 

I WAS SO HEAVY, MAN, I LIVED ON THE STRAND 

(PART TWO)

Beautiful Rincon Point near Santa Barbara

SO, ANYWAY, WHERE WERE WE?

Oh, that's right, we left off around hanging out in Hollywood. Okay, so we had nothing book related scheduled for the next day (but wait…we’re getting there…) so Stewart and I headed north along the Pacific Ocean, our destination - Santa Barbara. Before I explain what can be viewed roadside on this drive, I want to tell you about the etiquette of the ‘All American Freeway.'

Hold on while the dramatic music is cuing up…

What a messed up system..! Other than surfing, celebrities and all year round sunshine – Los Angeles is famous for one other thing - traffic – and lots of it. Stewart gave me a brief history lesson in ‘Carpool Lanes’ (a whole inside lane ‘the fast lane’ to you or I) that is solely reserved for cars with a driver and a passenger. Yes, that’s right - if you are driving with another person alongside you, you can sail past the traffic…  Most people on the road out here are sole drivers because Los Angeles barely has any public transportation, and the city is so vast and spread out, that driving is necessary; but not quite justifiable. Everybody in LA drives as a result, just to get around and roads resemble a rollercoaster version of our UK  ‘Spaghetti Junction’. 

Remember, I am British. In the UK we have a solid public transportation system, so I was just not used to NOT having public transport… ALL THE TIME!

The drive to Santa Barbara is varied and ultra scenic, from picturesque red foothills to vast valleys of citrus fruit, you just end up with retina strain trying to soak up the visuals. It was at this point that I remember zoning out and listening to the radio, which was playing an array of Mariachi, I realised a ‘non-point’ that Stewart had been driving with one foot on the dashboard pretty much the whole time we were on the freeway - as most cars in The States are automatics with cruise control, not stick shift like back home. So, yes, just a side note. Sorry. 

We took a break at Rincon Point, a famed natural point break surf spot with a horizon and surroundings that has to be witnessed. It’s so beautiful! In total cliché, I perched on some driftwood and cooled myself in the sea breeze watching the surfers hanging for waves and smiling at the passing ladies. Being a fan of our animal friends I was super happy to spot some sea lions swimming alongside the surfers, I rolled up to Stewart grinning and pointing like an idiot to which he informed me is a bad sign, as seals being so close together usually means sharks in the area or at least attracts them in this environment. Oh shit, of course, they have fucking sharks out here, I am petrified of sharks.

We jump back in the car and soon enough we pull into Santa Barbara. We take a walk around and find ourselves on the main high street that is cluttered with cool craft shops, weird high-street bronze statues that look like everyday workers cleaning windows, super high-end designer stores and various eateries. We look around somewhere suitable to feed and find a Vietnamese place, which was just incredible. Planning our next day over a mountain of food, we walked around a little more and headed back to the rental car. It was somewhere along the trip back where I remember I could barely keep my head up…I remember thinking… 

 “I wonder if I ate something that doesn’t agree with me? I feel like shit!”

 I felt like my body was made of lead and I just fell into the deepest sleep, which leads me to my next point; The Mysteries of Jet Lag. The thing about Jet Lag is it is never finished in one sitting; it hits you like a wave and just comes out of nowhere…I’ve never had it that bad visiting the US before, this time it just floored me and pretty much finished me off for the rest of the day. So in the car we climbed and all that I remember was, well, the next day.

The next day, Stewart had arranged for us to go for coffee with a guy called Robert Arce. 

If I remember correctly – Robert used to work for SST (Black Flag’s homegrown label) and is currently in the process of making a Black Flag documentary in the vein of 2007’s American Hardcore. We met up and he showed us the trailer on his laptop, it looks like a great project. Over coffee we talked about the string of interviews that Barred For Life had conducted thus far and the interviewees and just general geek Black Flag trivia. We explained to Robert how tough it was for us trying to reach Raymond Pettibon (Greg Ginn’s younger brother, and exceptional artist for Black Flag and others), and Robert kindly he gave us his home address – which happened to be in the Venice Beach area. After a little debating in the car park we decided to just head out there and go knock on his door and see what happens. 

An hour later we arrive in Venice Beach, and this is what kind of went down…

There is a fine line between wanting an interview and stalking a man, and both can be risky business.  Happily we were not stalking, but Raymond didn't know that. If legend is to be believed, Raymond is notoriously reclusive, so the thought of disturbing him was awkward and weird – but totally worth a shot if we could secure an interview for Barred For Life. So we parked and walked along Venice Beach Boardwalk, which has to be witnessed with all it’s human oddities and accepted pan handling freaks…

We soaked in the visuals and simultaneously psyched ourselves up. Venice Beach is amazing and terrifying all at the same time. It is a melting pot of every type of culture you can imagine, and completely full of whacko’s and chancers. We watched a Jimi Hendrix look-a-like (played a left-handed Stratocaster strung upside down) on the beach, saw the beefcakes pumping iron at the outdoor Gold’s Gym (hilarious), amazing Skateboarding in the bowls and I got totally hustled by some Hip Hop guys giving me a signed ‘free’ CD and then trying to charge me for it. The whole experience of Venice Beach can be summed up as WEIRD. 

We finally located Raymond’s house and rang the bell. Dammit, Nobody home. I spotted a telephone book lying next to a gate; we looked him up. R. Pettibon was listed. What the fuck. We called his home number and got his answering machine. His answering machine gave us his studio number, and his receptionist told us he was out with Thurston Moore ‘on the town’. So, we were close. We talked to his gallery rep, we sat on his front stoop. We called his house, and at one point Stewart talked to somebody, who could have been Thurston Moore or David Markey (he was also mentioned along side Thurston Moore by his rep). Well, you can’t win them all. We cut our losses and went to eat gigantic pizza to calm our stomachs, and to give a chance for Stewart to give a call over to Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag’s original bass player), who lived just up the street from Raymond. 

Okay, so this is where the story gets even weirder, so I may as well cut it short and pick up from this point next time. Hope that you enjoy the images, and thanks for reading…

Regards,

PJT

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 

ALL THE WAY FROM MANCHESTER, UK

I PRESENT TO YOU

PHILLIP TORRIERO

...for this one I used my special "cyclops" eye lens...

???WHY A GUESS WRITER???

I met Phil completely by accident, and now we are life-long friends. While I don't live any place close to Manchester, UK, I sure do like a lot of bands from there; most notably THE FALL, THE SMITHS, THE STONE ROSES, CHAPTERHOUSE, and so many other amazing bands of the shoegazer classification. So, at least in theory, Manchester has a very particular place in my heart, musically speaking.

Panic on the streets...

Well, things change. Now, instead of me just having this slight interest in going to Manchester to see Mark E. Smith get in a fist fight outside of some backwater pub or another, just like I saw him do the last time I saw THE FALL play in Philadelphia (disappointing, disappointing, disappointing), I honestly consider Manchester a place to go to hang out with the friends I made there in December of 2009. 

AND, THAT IS WHERE IT ALL STARTED, REALLY...

I blab on a lot about the 2009 tour, mostly because it was sort of my crazy Aquarian version of the mid-life-crisis sports car, 20-year-old-girlfriend, reliving my highschool football years, etc. You get the picture. It was a big deal, but mostly to me, and a few hundred people who are going to be in Barred For Life, and for those who became my new friends all over the country, and, predictably, all over the fucking world. 

Phillip, day one...

Booking the European part was not easy. I didn't really want to go, except for the fact that my friend was able to get me dumpster-bottom prices on airfare, and that I had a few connections over there already, and that I was going to head over for a break in Italy for the Christmas break anyway. So I did it. Sadly, I have no idea or recollection as to how I met Phillip, but I do know that he sort of came out of nowhere.

One day my tour assistant, the lovely and talented Audrey Traum (formerly Dwyer) were sitting and making our travel plans, and next thing I know MANCHESTER, UK is on the itinerary (I put it there). Phillip, or PJT as he likes to be called sometimes, was probably the most amped person regarding this project that I'd dealt with up to that point, and I happily allowed him to throw together a party for us just a few days after our shoot in London. 

Arriving at the rail platform in Manchester, we were late-as-hell, and yet PJT grabbed one of my bulky bags, shook our hands, and ushered us to the spot where we'd be shooting pix all day. We met a lot of amazing folks there, and so Ms. Audrey and I decided to stay for about a week. In that time we were introduced to so many cool people, taken to so many cool places, and did so many amazing things, that I think both of us remained friends with at least a handful of the people we'd me there. It was, if nothing, a very easy thing to do for a person who'd been on the road for almost three months without a significant break. 

White Balance Model

THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED...

Over the next few months Phil decided that he wanted to be part of the book crew, and given his strategic location in the UK (they speak English pretty well over there), he became my European Promotions Manager, and has been at that post ever since. He, more than any other person connected with Barred For Life, seems to take it more seriously than even me sometimes. He is, as you may have guessed, amazingly on it. 

I am happy that we became such good friends. 

GO WEST YOUNG MEN 
(well, at least one of us is young)

Phil, and the amazing Mr. Edward Colver

When I told Phil that I was flying to California to interview noted photography legend, Edward Colver, and with the hopes of interviewing Raymond Pettibon, he decided that he wanted to join me. Phil bought his ticket, made it a mad ruckus to pick his sorry ass up at the airport in LA, and then we just had the best time imaginable. Setting up shop at the home of another friend named Phil, we rented a pretty nice car and just spent 10 days playing around in California, going to shows with Keith Morris, taking more photos of Kira Roessler, interviewing, videotaping, and hanging out with Edward Colver, and camping out on the doorstep of Raymond just praying that he would agree to an interview. He never did. Doesn't matter. We hung out on his doorstep for hours. It was a blast.

Kira's house

So, anyway, I am going to turn over the controls of this blog to Phillip for a few posts about his experiences on our trip to California. Sadly, by the time we'd gotten there I was just not taking a lot of photos of my surroundings (and was quite focused on getting shots of the people who were to be in the book), so Phil will give you the straight dope, as where I might just talk your ear off.

If you would like more information about my guest blogger, he fronts a pretty cool photo blog at http://peejaytee.tumblr.com/... Look for his first post next this coming Monday. He took notes on the trip. I was just relaxing.

Sincerely,
Stewart.Dean.Ebersole.2

BEHIND EVERY SUCCESSFUL MAN IS A LONG LINE OF UNSUCCESSFUL YEARS

-HENRY FORD-

And yesterday it hit me, the book is going to be released this year. After nearly seven LONG, LONG years of gathering images, writing, traveling, editing text, editing photos, and now in the layout stage, Barred For Life is about to stop being a concept that I talk about in a sort of reverent future tense and become a fucking book; a beautiful 8x10, black-and-white, 450-page book. It is astounding to me. The completion of Barred For Life will represent the most important event in my post 40-year-old life to be sure. And surely the book I have planned to follow it up (you'll have to wait for me to release details), will be the pride of my 50's.

BUT (slowly building) TO THE POINT

I was walking home from the project's new "layout guru's" manhattan home last night. I was walking out of Manhattan just as everybody else was coming into the city, and this is a lot like how my life has become in the past two years; I am not a lot of fun. Sadly, or possibly happily, I've become a GET THE FUCKING BOOK DONE machine. Richard, the guru, wanted to show me some layout that he'd constructed for the interview section of the book, and as usual, after viewing the material, we settled onto his comfy couch for an hour to talk about book related, life related, couch-related and Punk Rock related stuff. Well, I do a lot of the talking because I love to talk. That is just me. Who I am I guess.(?)

On the walk home I was thinking about how when my ex-girlfriend told me that her son had just turned seven I blurted out, "Barred For Life will be seven next August," and it occurred to me that I've been working on this project more or less as long as her son has been a son, and it made me think back to the very beginning. The subway ride home yielded a flood of memories, mostly concerned with me and my crew's efforts over the past two and a half years since completing the three month tour, and much of what I annexed was, well, a bit of a bummer. I was reminded of the story of the man who was sentenced to push a stone up a hill for eternity; after reaching the apex, the stone rolls down the other side, and from there he must push it up the hill once more. In an effort much like this, I must say that the "collection" phase of BFL was way more coordinated, focused, and, well, fun. The "synthesis and completion" phase was kind of the opposite. And now the stone is going up the hill for the last time.

AMAZING

That's all she wrote... Final cover design by Matt Smith

Any person who knows me, or has ever been close to me, understands implicitly that I don't always have the most 7-Second's'ie positive attitude about life, but being a product of two working-class German folks, I am nothing if I am not adamant about finishing what I start. I am far less likely to talk about something I don't intend on finishing unless, all of a sudden, I plan to finish it. So, yeah, if you know me, or you've read back over the blog, you will probably realized that right around the San Diego leg of the trip I hit a wall of depression that could only be described as EPIC, that has just recently subsided. It is where I found myself doing a lot of talking and not a lot of DOING...

Depression is kind of like debt. If you don't start paying off your debt (doing things to counteract depression), you debt just moves into a realm that is overwhelming. You eventually don't want to even try to rein in your debt. You just let it compound until it is a crushing weight. It makes you do shit you wouldn't normally do, and for me it turned me into a crabby-ass-bitch. Depression sucked the life out of me wanting to finish the book. Add to that bouts of unemployment, bouts of dating all of the "WRONG" people, and bouts with trying to maintain a life that had become far too complex to maintain simply, Barred For Life was derailed. At times even even seemed unfinish-able.

My last "tour" blog entry back in early 2010 heralded the efforts of the crew behind BFL. Trust me, what I wrote was a vast understatement. While on tour Stefan Bauschmid single handedly dealt with the effects of me falling apart, and he deserves more than praise; he deserves a fucking medal. Audrey Traum not only came to Europe on her own dime, but she, too, nursed me through some darkness over there and never asked for a fucking thing in return. I have been surrounded by some VERY, VERY, VERY (never mind the hyperbole) supportive people, and as a result of depression, I more or less pushed them right out of my life on some level. Not that I am not still friends with these fine folks, but for most people this tour would have been a bonding experience. For me it was more of an alienating one; which went dead against the actual premise of the tour which was to bring people together.

Diary of a Madman. Me at the start of tour. Happiness factor = 0

Laying in my girlfriends bed in January of 2010, I remember getting a long email from Ron Reyes (second singer of Black Flag, aka Chavo Pedarast on Jealous Again). We had become friendly after our interview in Vancouver, and since he was my favorite Black Flag singer, I felt more-or-less massively honored by his attempts at keeping a line of communication open to me. He made a statement that was certainly true, but kind of improperly timed (meaning everything happened, just not in the order he espoused). His eerie statement, "Man, you've invested so much time in this project that it is like it is your kid. What is going to happen to you when your kid moves out; when you finish the book? Man, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. It might take you a while to recover. It is going to be some dark time following that one probably." Thanks Ron. I don't think that Ron knew at the time just how dark things were for me right-then-and-there. They were dark. Let's just keep it at DARK, okay..?

So, I guess I got the DARK TIMES A COMIN' out of the way first, right..?

Back to the point. So, for two years I can easily chart my efforts to get BFL back on track, and I can totally see a sort of manic-depressive switching up of my efforts whereby I invest heavily for a few weeks and then withdraw for a few months (and get into something totally different). But these moments of light are not for naught. In fact, had I not decided to retrace the last days of tour, return to my friend's home in Italy last April and May, I don't know if I would have had the time or energy to complete the text here at home. Instead, the Gambino family not only made me part of their family (as they always do) for the Easter season, but they didn't mind that I would hole myself off in a corner during the festivities when I felt inspired to write a chapter or two, or to edit the chapters that I completed. Had I stayed at home I probably would have just laid in bed and read a lot when I wasn't working. The trade off of running-and-hiding worked way better than the staying-and-wallowing option. Plus, I officially wrapped up the text on the same couch where I changed my flight plans with the AMAZINGLY AMAZING Steven "88" Wade over a year before as I prepared to come back to America with my tail between my legs after having been identity thieved, robbed of my savings, and sent emotionally packing from the remnants of my tour. But I didn't do much with the text after that.

"simpler"

I guess that what I am saying here, and maybe I am even doing it so passively-aggressive that I should apologize in advance, is that I now realize just how huge of a success the tour, and the efforts following tour, was, and I really need to thank the people who kept me afloat (which I will do in my own time and in my own way). Leaning very heavily on a lot of people for a lot of things that I could not do myself, I guess that I became a sort of wolf-in-sheeps clothing by using and not building-on-friendship bases with these amazing people. Maybe the fog of depression is finally clearing. Maybe I finally got rid of some of the people who needed to go because they were just distracting me too much from seeing this project to the end. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

This was meant for somebody else, but it will work here, too...

No matter how you slice it, over the past two-point-five years I burned some bridges that I hope to start mending very soon. Sadly, until the book is completely finished I may keep on stressing at the foundations of other bridges, but for those of you who are with me now, who were with me in the past, and need to be acknowledged for your participation, please accept my invitation to rebuild in 2013. I know that it is a lot to ask to hold off for another year for me to really appreciate you fully, but it is necessary. For now, just understand (as I have come to understand) that being undiagnosed (though knowing it fully) depressive is not a very awesome way to live a life. Now that I am on the mend, now that I am working on simplifying my life and deleting some of the complexity, a party in all of your honor is necessary.

Yeah, I think of you all daily...
Don't think that I don't...

Most Sincerely
Stewart.Dean.Ebersole.2