Adventure #89: Hayward, CA and Los Angeles, CA

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.

Adventure #53 and #54: Summer Tour 2012, Sacramento and San Francisco, California

Touring can be so bipolar sometimes. You're playing and you're getting a good response and you're just on top of the world. Even if there's only 30 people, you're really connecting to those 30 people. And then a guy walks by in a wife-beater that proudly shows off the giant swastika tattoo across his chest and the day is just ruined forever. So that was Sacramento.

We were doing 2 shows. The first on a stage at a mall because I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm really into corporations. I mean, some of my best friends are corporations. And then a second show at a fancy bar downtown. The Nazi was in the mall. Mall Nazis are like Mall Goths, except, you know, they want to exterminate me and my family. Whereas Mall Goths just want to write poetry about their feelings. It's a subtle, but important difference. This is Pen Pen looking for Electric Tree Nazis, but only finding artichokes, which are roughly three times smarter.

The show at the fancy bar was better, if only for its pronounced lack of Nazis. Joshua's brother (not a Nazi) met up with us and was a lot of fun to hang out with. But I decided the most responsible thing to do was to do my nails and get very very drunk to try and forget about the Nazi and have a good time (didn't work...) so the rest of the evening is a little blurry. I probably sang a few songs. Odds are good “Family of Ghosts” was one of them. This is Pen Pen having stolen an artichoke from a tree on the capital mall to throw at Nazis because no matter how many times he types IDKFA, nothing happens.

It was as the show was wrapping up that our place to stay fell through. Being clear headed and sober, I did what any responsible mature adult would do and started to panic. We decided we had 3 options. Drive an hour and a half inn the wrong direction to stay at Jesse (Joshua's non-Nazi brother)'s place, spend all our food money on a hotel room in Sacramento, or see if anyone in San Francisco could house us. I figured it couldn't hurt to send out a tweet to some of my Occupy Oakland friends that I'd been planning on meeting up with to see if anyone had a place we could crash. Amazingly, a guy named Bob who I'd never spoken to before got back to me and said we could stay at his place. I know there are people who have their beef with Occupy, and there are as many fair criticisms as there are unfounded ones. But one thing you can never say is that Occupiers don't take the principal of solidarity very seriously. I make a lot of stupid jokes in my blog, but I remain honestly and sincerely speechless with gratitude. This is Pen Pen bored already of Nazis.

We got to Bob's place, who turns out to be one of the kindest and most generous humans alive. He and I stayed up talking till 5 or so. The next day I decided to head to the Occupy Oakland General Assembly to see if I could connect with any of their puppeteers. None of them were at the Assembly, but someone gave me the phone number of a guy. After, I headed back to Bob's and Holly trimmed my mohawk. For the first time in 3 months, I felt like myself again. Barely 24 hours from being sent into existential shock at the sight of a Nazi in Sacramento during my show and my faith in humanity was mostly restored. This is Pen Pen making a wig because maybe skinheads are just angry that they're going bald and can't grow a luscious Jewfro like me.

The show in San Francisco was fun, though the guys at the venue clearly couldn't care less about it. But a few #OO friends showed up and there was a decent built in crowd. Punkboy livestreamed it and I got some really nice comments from a bunch of folks who watched it online. Talking to Julie Meyers, who was playing after me, I realized there's a decent chance we're remotely related through our Ukraine Jew families. So that was awesome. After the show, we headed off to Punkboy's husband's birthday party and I finally got to meet a bunch of people I've only known through twitter in real life. An essentially perfect day ended back at Bob's place. I can't say enough about the spirit of generosity and support of the Occupy Oakland community (even EastBayRadical...). So touring is pretty bipolar. There aren't a lot of just OK days on the road. But sometimes a really upsetting day can turn into one of the best days I've ever had on tour. This is Pen Pen looking out over at Oakland and wondering if it wouldn't make more sense to cancel the rest of the tour and just not leave ever.

This is a song I wrote one time. You should download it and share with your friends.