Left Coast, Finale

The trip comes to an end and I debate what it is exactly that I had accomplished.  I also buy way too much junk at Amoeba Records in Hollywood!  More after the jump!



     I woke up in Hollywood and crawled downstairs to find a coffee machine.  CNN was proclaiming a famine in north Africa while another of those strange waffle machines dripped uncooked batter into a plastic cup.  It didn't look any more appetizing that it had in Santa Barbara.   I didn't have much money left to spend, but I knew where I was spending it- Amoeba Records.

    What can I say about Amoeba Records that hasn't been said a thousand times before?  That it's huge?  Because it is- two stories and more space that most warehouses packed to the lid with CDs and DVD and LPs.  Their jazz section is bigger than my local record stores entire stock of product.  I'm going to a few things that you don't know about my trip to Amoeba in Hollywood.

     1.  They had Mr. Vampire on DVD. Even if you don't care at all about Chinese cinema or Kung-fu movies, do yourself a favor and see Mr. Vampire.  It will best your expectations.  It's produced by Sammo Hung, and has a pretty well written storyline with interesting subplots interwoven.  A Hopping Vampire escapes his grave and it's up to a Taoist ghostbuster and his two students to stop it using peach-wood swords, magic charms, and good old fashioned ass kicking.  It's so good, it practically created the Comedy/Horror/Kung-Fu genre.  Think of it as the Taoist version of Evil Dead, or the ancestor of anything by Stephen Chow. Oh, that got your attention, didn't it?  Watch this movie.

2.They had a used copy of the unedited Red Cliff, on Blu-ray.  I mentioned in an early post being a Romance of the Three Kingdoms nerd, and I'm not sorry to lay it on thick here.  This is a 2 part film about the epic battle of Red Cliff (Chi Bi) that took place at the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period- directed by JOHN WOO.  It's not like it's hard to find a copy, but getting it for 10 bucks is like finding a diamond stuffed in a chocolate truffle for me.  I don't really expect most people to run to their computers and Netflix this movie, or care about how brilliantly cast Takeshi Kaneshiro is as Zhuge Liang.  Regardless, put this in the queue of movies you intend to watch but won't have the time.  The sequence where Zhuge Liang plays the guqin (chinese lap lyre) is so ridiculously powerful it borders on psychedelic.  If my ranting about how fantastic the Three Kingdoms Saga has piqued your interest at all, this film is a fine entry point into the vast narrative.  Then you can read the book.

3. CLEARANCE BLACK METAL.   We've got record stores in Phoenix, even specialty shops like Metal Devastation to service your need for obscure thrash/death/grind/doom bands.  But the Clearance section alone contained subheadings for genre and had 1 dollar albums that, so far, have not disappointed.  I ended up buying a stack of bands I'd never heard of in addition to the few I was actively looking for.  I know, you don't get why anyone would listen to this stuff.  I don't know exactly why either.


4.  They also had a sealed (and used?!) copy of "Turn Your Radio On," an amazing collection of Merle Travis radio broadcasts that include Boogie versions of classics like "Cinncinati Lou" and a weird jazzy version of "Sixteen Tons."  In addition, there's a ton of great banter captured and released exclusively on this album. 

"Are you ready, Travis?"    "Ready as a field mouse."

This is the only type of country music I can listen to, and this album hasn't left my car's CD changer since I bought it.

     After blowing most of my day in Amoeba, salivating and rubbing myself on the product, I piled it all into the car and pointed myself back towards Phoenix.  I had driven in the shape of a great exclamation point or weaving snake across California.  I had seen family and friends I hadn't expected to, ended up places I didn't know existed, and visited basically no tourist destinations.  I rested on the grave of the Emperor, I slept at my Grandma's house, and I passed out on the beach.  I ate fried seafood entirely too often.  On the way back to Phoenix I had a long time to think, and over the 8 hours I found myself thinking more and more about the job I didn't want to do anymore. I knew that, when I got back, things were going to be different, but I didn't know exactly how.  Driving towards the city of Phoenix with the sun setting behind my back, I couldn't have known that in just a few weeks I'd be on a plane to New York to work tech booth for my friends at Space 55, nor that I would be quitting my job to do so.  Traveling alone for the first time, I found that I was more adaptable than I'd ever suspected.

     Closing in on the city I call home, I was eager and excited to be driving directly into that wall of 114 degree heat- something I never thought I'd feel.  When I gave my two week notice just days later, I hung up the phone with a passive satisfaction, resiting the urge to rage-quit and realizing that there were always opportunities ahead of me, if I was willing to take the risk and grab them.  Within a few weeks, I'd be waving goodbye to Phoenix at 30,000 feet on my way to JFK airport and a week on the Right Coast.

    But that's for later.  Thanks for coming.