It was cold and windy by the time I
made it to Venice Beach, but I didn't care. For the past week and
change I've been within a hundred miles of the Pacific Ocean, but my
schedule has kept me just slightly inland. And at heart, I am a water
pokemon or whatever the hell the astrology thing is. This is Pen Pen
pretending that it's not way too cold to be at the beach right now
and he's having a really good
time.
The long days of driving gave way to
long days of hanging out with the wonderful Bob from Global Rev in
Hayward and Lindsey in Oakland. (And not Jesse or Carrie because
they're both dead to me now.) Performing is fun and will always be
where my heart is (and I suppose technically that's what I'm here to
do...), but there is little in this world better than staying up
until preposterous hours talking politics and economics and revolution and life and
the universe and everything over a few beers with old friends. It's
weird to think that just a year ago I didn't actually know either of
them. But then, it's always weird to think how different my life was
just a year ago. This is Pen Pen and the Anonymonalisa.
Back to Venice Beach. I had an hour to
kill before my show in LA so I wandered around for a little bit.
Growing up in the Northeast, my relationship with palm trees has more
to do with dinosaur movies than California. This is Pen Pen being a
dinosaur, which he is, because birds are dinosaurs.
At the venue, that old panic began to
set in as 8 o'clock got closer and the room was devastatingly empty.
Slowly some friends trickled in. Then as I started playing, more and
more people, until by the time my set was over, there was a pretty
solid crowd there. We all stuck around, and my cousin Jason ended up
jumping up and doing back-up vocals for Emily who played after me. It
was one of those moments that make touring wonderful. When for a few
brief minutes a whole bunch of strangers form a community based
solely on unanimous love for the song “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me)
Higher and Higher” and a complete lack of shame or
self-consciousness. It was glorious. This is Pen Pen being welcomed
to LA by the official welcome monkey.
The next day was my day off. The one
and only day off on this tour. That was probably a mistake. But I
made the best of it. I went to the beach for real for a bit,
reading anarcho zines and my cousin's (not Jason, Ciara...all my cousins are writers,
apparently) latest book. This time, Venice Beach was warm. The sky
was clear. Soon there'd be a long drive to Arizona. Soon there'd be
another week of shows as I begin the long trek eastward. But for a
few hours in LA, I actually made an earnest attempt to relax. This is
Pen Pen just kind of wanting to give the Myspace folks a hug for not
giving up.
