thursday night, at the troubadour, on the verge of hollywood, i saw todd snider perform. again. todd is an event. he has just released his brand new album 'the devil you know' and shared some of that album's content, as well as older songs the crowd all wanted to hear. can't fault the guy. he's pretty perfect. here's the problem. he hasn't played where i live in a very, very long time, at least not to my knowledge, in the time i have been aware of him and his music. i have such a strong love/hate relationship with LA. there is clearly an energy about the place that feels creative, fun, artistic, glitzy, trashy, plastic, boring - all coexisting with each other. depending on one's mood and emotional settings, the best of LA can shine and bring on the good times like no other city i know....or not....that's not the point here. in august the plimsouls are playing. in october roger waters is playing. in november the who are playing. there are others....the point is getting to and from, in and out of LA is an ordeal. it used to be exhausting. now it is almost unacceptable. there are a lot of thoughts that crop up while one is on the way to and from the city of angels. the first thought that cropped up for me, sitting in bumper to bumper world, was our continued refusal to accept that our main means of transporting ourselves -the car - is irrevocably damaging the planet. how are we going to heed the warnings and get on with better means of transportation. why do we ignore perfectly acceptable mass transit vehicles - wouldn't a train ride be fun?!? the second thought that materialized was the idea that we are all in these separate vehicles, determined to get where we are going and equally determined to ignore the indivduals in the cars surrounding us.
as we were driving home from the todd snider show - four of us carpooled up and back - there were a couple of girls - perhaps aged 12 to 14ish - in a car in front of us, waving to all the cars they were passing by. it was interesting to see how few people acknowledged them at all, much less waved back. we dEFinitely waved back. we even threw them our pez dipensers, fully loaded, and a candy necklace. we adopted their stance and started waving to other people in other cars as well. let me say, if the patrons in the other cars were not going to smile, wave and/or greet the little girls, they were rigid in their contempt and fearfully adamant about not waving at 4 adult women. it was all very disheartening....and by the fourth hour on the road, (in the dead of night it takes one and a half to two hours max to arrive at your destination), and still a very, very long way to go, i found myself forming the third thought which was the one about never coming to LA again. it wasn't worth it, even if it meant missing the plimsouls, roger waters and the who. i only wish the environmental problems out there on the highways or the pivotal real fear of relating to other humans could be as easily resolved.
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