Author Archive for tmangan

Yosemite: a preview

by  • September 11, 2005 • 1 Comment

I’ll write more about Yosemite when I’ve got more time, but for now, here are
a few pix to whet your appetite.

Wednesday morning along the Tuolomne River on the Glen Aulin Trail, a segment
of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Thursday morning on the Panorama Trail, overlooking the Half Dome.

Friday morning near Tioga Pass in the Yosemite High Country.

Friday afternoon at Tunnel View.

Saturday afternoon near the base of El Capitan.

Lots more pics and a bit of commentary at my
Flickr photo-sharing page.

When the levee breaks, you’re busted

by  • September 6, 2005 • 2 Comments

When we were leaving for Lassen last week, one of the last news items I noticed
was that the levees keeping water out of New Orleans were starting to give way.
While we were camping the city of New Orleans filled up with water, turning something
nasty but containable into a certified national disaster the likes of which the
country has never seen, not even on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

As the Led Zeppelin song went, “when the levee breaks, got noplace to stay.”

Or hide, in the case of the Bush administration, which is looking like the
gang that couldn’t shoot straight. But you know what? The Bush gang did a fine
job of cleaning up Florida — you know, that key state full of swing voters
— in an election year when three hurricanes struck in a single summer.

But no levees gave way, leaving, say, Miami or Tampa under water.

Since Bush is the boss of the whole country, he’s got to take his lumps on
this one. Disaster happens on your watch, the response is a national shame,
you have to face up.

Truth is, though, that the your everyday cynical political calculation is the
real culprit here. What happened last week was that Bush & Co. knew from the
get-go that they had few friends in a 60-percent-black city like New Orleans.
They were in no hurry to help because they had no votes to gain, and they gambled
that Katrina would be a three-day story that disappeared once the waters began
to recede.

Only the waters didn’t recede after three days. They kept rising. Once the
Bush gang knew they had a genuine 9/11-style catastrophe on their hands, they
had to do something about it. But by then the city and all its infrastructure
was ruined. So it took a few more days to get military boots on the ground to
restore order and usher in relief supplies. Add it up and you’ve got thousands
of people suffering for a week with no electricity, no fresh water and only
whatever food they could scrounge or steal.

The Bush people made a similar calculation during the California energy crisis
of a few years ago. Nothing was done to intervene when canny energy speculators
were manipulating the state’s energy market and costing its taxpayers billions
of dollars and forcing rolling blackouts during the hottest days of the summer.

Why didn’t Bush act? Because he had nothing to gain in helping a state that
didn’t help him get elected. If the California equivalent of the levees giving
way — a devastating earthquake — had happened during the electricity crisis,
Bush would’ve been in the same jam he’s in today. He and his people rolled the
dice and lucked out. And guess what: California voted for a Democrat in the
next election, just as his people predicted.

You hate to think of politicians making these “what’s-in-it-for-me” calculations
when thousands of lives are at stake, when a jewel of a city has been turned
into a steaming toilet bowl. You hate to see people pointing fingers when they
oughta be lending a hand.

But this is how the world works and, I suspect, always has.

And with that thought, I’m leaving for Yosemite National Park, to walk in the
woods and gawk at big trees and amazing rocks, which always seem to avoid getting
themselves into these predicaments.

Something more than a footbridge

by  • September 3, 2005 • 0 Comments

This is my last post describing our trip to far northern California last week.
(Our camping trip here;
my Lassen Peak hike here.)

On Friday morning we left Lassen
Volcanic National Park via the northwest exit and headed to Redding to check
out the way-cool Sundial
Bridge, which was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and
opened to the public on July 4, 2004. I saw a documentary about the bridge’s
building earlier this year and knew I had to see the thing up close.

Here’s one look at most of the bridge, commissioned by the McConnell Foundation, which apparently wanted to build something
unforgettable and opened its wallet wide. Final cost: $23 million, of which the foundation supplied more than half. As much as
I hate to quote the Mastercard commercial, here’s one case where the result
is truly priceless.

The bridge has only one job: giving pedestrians and bicyclists a quick way
to cross the Sacramento River. You can’t see it from this angle, but the supporting
spire rises at the same angle as the riverbank, making it seem integral to its
surroundings.

The spire practically begs a photographer to capture it from numerous angles.
They’re all pretty cool.

Note the sun’s rays seeming like more cables from the bridge. I can’t imagine
the architect had this effect planned out, but the guy is a genius so
one never knows.

I’m especially fond of the solar-eclipse effect.

One more angle from the nearby shore.

Salmon spawn nearby, so the the bridge was designed to span the river without
touching its waters.

A sculpture by the architect is beneath one end of the bridge.

The Sacramento River glimmers in the morning sun.

OK, one last look from the opposite bank.

This one little project in a small city 200 miles from the nearest metro area
seemed to define why humans have had this perpetual urge to create wonderful
public art. The art is never exactly necessary but once finished it seems absolutely
essential.

It reminds me of the Sistine Chapel, whose ceiling would’ve required some kind
of a paint job. Any old painter could’ve put a nice, comforting tint up there.
But one pope decided he wanted something special up there, so he hired one of
the best artists of his time — Michaelangelo — to paint biblical scenes on
the ceiling.

I’m not saying the Sundial Bridge is in the same league as God’s finger touching
Adam’s, but the idea is similar: taking something that is merely useful and
making something amazing. Not all the motives were the noblest: just as the
city of Redding enjoys the tourism dollars spent by folks coming to see the
bridge, it’s a fair guess that the pope who hired Michaelangelo was flattering
his own ego and hoping to create an attraction that would fatten the Vatican’s
receivables. But if greatness happens, all is forgiven.

The documentary about the bridge’s construction featured interviews with befuddled
people of Redding who didn’t quite know what to make of the bridge, particularly
during the mess and tumult of its construction. Even after it was done, they
couldn’t figure out what the fuss was about; some thought it was an eyesore.

I practically shouted at my TV: People, one of the world’s greatest architects
is building something remarkable that he’ll get no use out of but you’ll get
to use as you please for years to come. It’s not costing you much. Try to
show some appreciation.

People usually get what they deserve, but the magic happens in those rare instances
when they get something better.

(If you’re curious: a blogger from southern Oregon has a pair of interesting posts about the bridge here and here. The San Francisco Chronicle also has a review of the bridge.)

Camping in the volcano’s shadow

by  • September 3, 2005 • 1 Comment

The idea of a camping trip started with a reservation made a few weeks ago. This town
called Mineral is just down the road from Lassen
Volcanic National Park, where I’d been itching to visit and climb
Lassen Peak. Mineral is home to fewer than a hundred souls, a few of whom
run the Mineral Lodge and Volcano Country Campground. I found out about this
place online and reserved a tent-camping site. It never occurred to me that
there would be any issues with a campsite that’s inside the city limits, considering
these limits are so, well, limited.

Well, we got to the campground, paid our nonrefundable $36 for two nights,
and checked out the campsite. We had an unobstructed view of the next-door neighbor’s
back yard, and were serenaded by the lovely chatter of a chainsaw. "This
is it?" Melissa asked, with some skepticism.

I looked around. Well, there were a few pine trees but it’s not the
kind of campsite you’d want to hang out at, unless you were pals with the neighbors
or talent-scouting for chainsaw jugglers. Melissa suggested checking out the
campgrounds in the national park, so we bailed on the Mineral campground. It
looks like a fine place to park your RV, but if you’re looking to pitch a tent
in a somewhat wilder setting, the park’s a better bet.

Lassen Volcanic has a nice walk-in campground at the park’s southwest entrance.
We picked this choice location not far from the bathrooms, which had running
water and flush toilets. All in all, a nice clean place, and a steal at 14 bucks
a night.

The setting sun warms the sides of our tent, while the fire burns down to coals
for dinner.

Another great thing about this campground: We had most of it to ourselves.

There were almost no bugs, except for these bees, which showed up every time
we had a meal. They dodged our swinging arms pretty well and didn’t sting in
retaliation.

Night falls. It’s dark at 8 p.m., which is when we bunked for the night. That
meant we were up before dawn, which gave me a bright idea: let’s drive down
the road a ways and watch the sunrise.

My timing was uncanny — this is just minutes before the sun rose over a ridge.

A red sky reflects on our shadows across the road.

There it is, just as it has been for lo these billions of years.

Rising and setting suns always light up the sides of mountains. That’s Brokeoff
Mountain looming behind Lake Helen.

This is a little pond called Emerald Lake. In the morning its water is still
as a mirror.

Nothing like a lake that sits still to have its picture taken, eh?

The required big-dead-tree pic.

Back at the campsite, it’s time for breakfast.

A scrub jay stands guard over the anti-bear box. Supposedly there are black
bears in the park but we never heard so much as a growl, though Melissa is pretty
sure she might’ve seen a mountain lion on the next hill over.

Before lunch I did my
Lassen Peak climb; after lunch I scouted out some of the park’s geothermal
features. The volcanos are inactive, but there’s still lots of hot lava beneath
the ground throughout the park. In a few spots, the lava is close enough to
the surface that it sends plumes of steam up between cracks in the ground. In
other places it melts clay and emits a rotten-egg smell that comes from a sulfur-based
chemical reaction. This picture is part of the Sulfur Works, which stinks to
high heaven but is pretty cool otherwise.

Steam rises from a vent in the ground.

Deep down in this hole, a pressure builds below a bunch of molten clay — it
makes this remarkable glub-glub-glub that echoes off the sides of the hole,
creating a racket that sounds almost exactly like a bear tearing up somebody’s
garage.

Bumpass Hell is another geologic area named for a guy named Kendall Bumpass,
who explored this area in the 1860s. The "hell" part is what it smells
like after you hike a mile and a half to see the area.

The hike isn’t too tough, with this trail here. It rises about 500 feet from
the trailhead, then falls another 400 into Bumpass Hell. Because, you know,
you must descend into hell. Somehow Mr. Bumpass got back there with no
trail, no rubber-cleated hiking boots, no hydration kit. Americans were a lot
tougher back in those days.

A guide post explains how there used to be a gigantic volcano that would’ve
filled this entire picture. The volcano collapsed in on itself, leaving Brokeoff
Mountain at the left and the two craggy peaks on the right.

At long last: Hell. The ground here is hard and brittle, and a wrong step can
send a foot down through the crust into boiling water warmed by the lava below.
Mr. Bumpass suffered precisely this fate, which scalded one leg so badly that
it had to be amputated. Bumpass Hell, indeed.

Water, soft clay and God knows how many obnoxious chemicals.

A giant steam vent makes a rushing sound audible at our campground a couple
miles away.

Another of those holes with the burbling mud deep down inside. This one reminded
me of the giant creature in the third Star Wars movie that Jabba the Hut ordered
Luke and the gang thrown into. Come to think of it, it sounds vaguely like Jabba
gasping for breath because a scantily clad princess has a chain wrapped around
his throat.

Mud dries in the sun.

Chemicals bleach the hillsides. The stench is dreadful, but at least the wind
blows it away somewhat.

A bit of standing water appears to be crystal-clear. Just keep in mind that
sulfuric acid is see-through too.

I fled Bumpass Hell as soon as I could. It’s interesting from a scientific
standpoint, but it’d be nice if there was a park ranger handing out gas masks.

The next morning I took one last picture of Lassen Peak reflected in Lake Helen.

I slept so soundly that I missed the arrival at our campground of a small family
who showed up at approximately 2:30 a.m. with screaming toddler in tow; pitched
their tent not 50 feet from ours; and managed to set off their car alarm —
all this was related to me by Melissa, who was awakened by these people’s racket
and didn’t get back to sleep for several hours. The only thing that amazed her
more than these people’s boundless lack of quiet-hours etiquette was my ability
to sleep through it all.

The Peak and Bumpass Hell are the two must-see (and smell) locales at Lassen
Volcanic National Park, and you can do both in the same day if you’re feeling
energetic. The rest of the park has miles and miles of trails and enough lakes,
crags and extinct volcanoes to keep you busy for a week or two. Just keep in
mind that the park’s buried in snow most of the year. Don’t come out in April
thinking you’ll experience Springtime in the Cascade Range. Most years the snow
is piled high on the peak through mid-June. Late August and early September
are the best times, because the days are not too hot and the nights are not
too cold.

Come during the week after school’s back in session and you’ll have the place
pretty much to yourself. It’s very much worth having.

Me vs. the volcano

by  • September 3, 2005 • 1 Comment

Rule No. 1 for hiking up hills might well be: If you can hear your heartbeat, it’s time to slow down.

When I do training hikes, huffing it up steep trails, I know I’m not really pushing myself until my heartbeat becomes so intense that my auditory nerves start noticing the internal vibrations. If I’m feeling ambitious I’ll keep up that pace for a few minutes, till my legs start to complain or exhaustion starts to set in, then I slow down till the pumping noise subsides.

I do reasonably strenuous training hikes a couple times a week, so I’m used to the sound of my own heartbeat. I’ve trudged up most of the steepest trails in the Bay Area in the past year, but all along I’ve known that if I ever wanted to hike on the really cool trails that go up the sides of really cool mountains, I’d be in for something radically different.

I learned about that difference last week at Lassen Peak (summit: 10,462 feet), the centerpiece of Lassen Volcanic National Park, where Melissa and I camped out for a couple nights. In the high country, it takes about 30 seconds for the heart to start hollering "slow down!"

Highlights of my hike:

Here’s the sun warming the east face of Lassen Peak just after dawn of the morning I climbed it.

I was the first arrival at the Lassen Peak trailhead. It’s best to arrive early to a) beat the crowds; and b) avoid afternoon storms, which are fairly common in the summer. I couldn’t have been on the trail for more than five minutes when I noticed the audible-heartbeat thing. Walking at my usual pace, my legs weren’t feeling tired, my lungs weren’t gasping for air, but my heart was pumping like a machine gun. Amazing how the body knows to adjust to new surroundings. Lungs and large muscle groups are shouting "we need more oxygen down here, dammit," and the heart does its duty.

The only way to slow my heart was to slow my feet. I mean, yeah, I could’ve kept up my usual pace and my ticker might’ve held out all the way, but I’d be all sweaty, tired and unlikely to enjoy the scenery, which is utterly spectacular. The heart-pounding hikes can resume after my vacation’s over.

A turn in the trail during the first half-mile, right about the time when I decided to slow down and enjoy the sights. The distance and elevation change at Lassen Peak — 2000 feet over 2.5 miles — are about the same as the route I take at Mission Peak. At my comfortable high-altitude pace it would take me just about twice as long to cover the same distance/elevation at Lassen.

A bit of history, before we continue the climb: Before Mount St. Helens famously blew its top in 1980, Lassen Peak was the most celebrated volcano in the United States. It erupted in such spectacular fashion in 1914-15 that Lassen Volcanic National Park was created in its honor in 1916. By 1920 the peak had returned to its slumber. It’s not extinct — it’s just resting from the labors of blasting millions of tons of rock into its surroundings. With no sexy volcanic explosions to amaze the masses, the park draws small crowds these days, which makes it an excellent place to get away from people and their attendant noises (which will seem fairly faint once the volcano reawakens).

A twisted tree, with Brokeoff Mountain in the background.

An amazing chunk of rock juts out of the hillside. And an amazing shrub grows out of the rock.

This is about how steep the hillside would be if you were loony enough to go straight up. That rocky backbone up there is called a talus.

A long, smooth hillside, looking up toward the summit. Every winter this face is covered with ice and snow that daring skiers ride to the bottom.

Around here I started getting a bit of a headache. I assumed the altitude was to blame, so from here on up I made it a point to take a couple extra swallows of water every time I felt thirsty. Worked like a charm. Breathing isn’t the only way to get oxygen into the body, just the most obvious.

Pinnacles jut up from the rocky landscape.

Is that a cool rock, or what?

The trail nears the talus. It seems to tower above the trail, till the trail towers above it within less than a mile.

These yellow flowers look like alpine dandelions.

Two summits lie at the volcano’s rim. This is the first, about 50 feet up the trail.

A chunk of the volcano’s rim. Mount Shasta is faintly visible in the distance. It’s faint only because of the limits of my camera; it’s obvious to the naked eye.

A small ice field must be crossed to reach the second summit.

The ice is still pretty deep, compared to the height of my hiking poles.

Getting to the second summit requires a fairly tricky rock scramble. I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous, just difficult in places.

Speaking of difficulty, this little plant overcame some to grow up through a crack in the volcano at over 10,400 feet.

My scramble almost ended here, between a couple big chunks of rock. I knew there was noplace to go over to the right side of the rock, so I doubled back and found another way.

There’s this wacky-looking weather station at the second summit.

This rock is about as high as the volcano goes. I’m sure some brave souls have climbed up there; more power to ’em. I tend to be afraid of heights and I’m up as high as I need to be, thank you.

Self-portrait, which results from being the first and only person at the summit at the moment.

Another look out over the crater, whose rim is barely discernible because the volcano blew with so much violence.

OK, back down the mountain. There’s always stuff to see that you missed — but your mom would’ve seen because she’s got eyes in the back of her head.

A twisted old tree, as required. Brokeoff Mountain, in the background, used to be part of a massive volcano that towered over Lassen Peak but collapsed in on itself hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Near the end of the trail. The hike took me about four hours, three on the way up, and one on the way down.

Another look at the peak, taken later the same day.

I had been assured that Lassen Peak was an easy hike. Turns out that it was, but only because I took it really slow, drank lots of water and had great luck with the weather. The trail might best be subtitled "Altitude for Newbies" — a good place to prepare for hiking up there where the air begins to thin.

After Labor Day, it’s five days at Yosemite, where everything worth seeing has altitude issues. Check back after the 12th of September for more updates.

A jazz Saturday

by  • August 15, 2005 • 2 Comments

I had all day Saturday to kill so I dropped in on the San Jose Jazz Festival.
There’s no admission to the fest, so to some extent you get what you pay for.
So much attention goes into fundraising and cajoling bands to come to San Jose,
I suppose, that such things as program guides or maps of the festival are things
which you have to get along without. Well, if you’re too lazy and unmotivated
to ask somebody where such things might be found, which describes me to a T.
I had no idea, for instance, that there were at least three indoor venues
featuring interesting and wonderful jazz artists. Of course, sitting on the
couch back home in my Friday edition of the San Jose Mercury News was a complete
guide to the festival with maps and arrows and advice on the must-see acts.
Heck, anybody can find cool stuff that way.

So anyway, if you Googled San Jose Jazz Festival and happened upon this page,
be assured it is not representative of the mind-boggling range of talent that
appears at the festival every year. It’s just some stuff I saw on a Saturday
in the summer of 2005.

The first cool thing I saw was this cop on horseback riding his horse right
into a tent where they were selling beer. He only jokingly ordered a draft from
the tap.

I wandered down to the blues stage, where Lara Price and her band were belting
it out.

The Salsa Stage drew big crowds all afternoon.

Vission Latina keeps the crowd grooving. I seem to recall the lead singer mentioning
he was from Cuba.

The crowd endorses the Salsa sound.

Over at the Big Band Stage, a bunch of people who’s great-grandparents were
into Benny Goodman keep the swing, well, swinging.

Dancers with long hair often produced the coolest photos.

I got these pix sitting on the sidewalk about eight feet from the stage, which
is one of the great things about checking out the less-popular venues: you can
always sit up front and see the expressions on the faces of the performers as
they perform.

The Main Stage is roped off down at the front and you have to have a special
wristband to get in. I have no idea where to get the wristband, no motivation
to find out. The grounds nearby are full of people with blankets and lawnchairs
… it’s a nightmare to navigate so I end up avoiding the Main Stage. This is
Soul Live on stage; I’m sure I’d have loved ’em if I could’ve gotten a seat
up front.

Back at the Salsa Stage, Eric Rangel y su Orquestra America have taken the
stage. One of Eric’s bandmates was doing one of those silly things bandmates
do because the lead singer is too busy singing to do what comes naturally, which
is to say, elbow him in the ribs or perhaps bop him in the jaw. He’s up there
singing and one of his cohorts is behind him running his hands all over him
with mock-homosexual ardor. It’s pretty funny until somebody takes a picture
of him doing it.

Back to the blues stage. Graying white guy wearing strange shirt: this is perhaps
the modern blues audience personified.

That’s the De Azna Hotel down at the end of the street. It’s where I spent
my first night in San Jose — quite a swanky joint, provided somebody else is
paying for your hotel room.

More Salsa Stage grooviness. I don’t recall seeing a flute in a jazz band before.

I’m not sure who these guys are, but they belt it out in Spanish with impressive
gusto.

A man and his trombone at the Latin Stage.

Back at the Big Band Stage, all the big bands had gone home but a Spanish/gypsy/mambo
flavored band called Alma Melodiosa got everybody moving for a segment called
Jazz After Dark.

Alma Melodiosa is a great combo with pleasing eye candy in the form of this
backup singer who had these castanet-thingies draped over her nether regions,
providing backing rhythms as she grinds out fetching belly-dancer moves. I sorta
felt sorry for the lead singer, who had a powerful, haunting voice, because
obviously all the attention will be drawn to the gyrating babe to her left (who
was a fine singer in her own right, but I don’t think many people were paying
attention to her voice. Well, a least not the guys).

Low light, moving musicians and an unsteady photographer’s hand provide novel
visual effects.

I’m sure there was more to see but at this point I’m jazzed out.

Another day among the comma quibblers

by  • August 8, 2005 • 1 Comment

The organization of copy editors of which I’m a member has flattered my ego three times in the past two years by inviting me to give presentations at training events the organization, well, organized. Curiously, all these invitations have been sight-unseen — that is, they don’t much know what I look like, nor have they seen me give a speech. They are bold, risk-taking people, which is to say, anybody who doesn’t have a speaking fee has a chance.

My latest presentation happened yesterday in Sacramento, where the summers are so hot that it’s easy to see why precious few sane people lived there for the 10,000 years before the white folks started showing up for the Gold Rush. Now I understand why they were so avid to find gold: to buy boat tickets back to a cool climate.

Anyway, ACES, the aforementioned organization, has a new chapter for Northern California, and the chapter brass asked me to speak at its first all-day conference. My topic was the ever-popular Banned for Life list, which I’ve maintained off and on for the past eight years. Got some good laughs, because Banned for Life readers are brimming with amusing vitriol regarding the most annoying media cliches. Note to would-be standup comics: when all else fails, go for the enema joke.

My favorite part of the presentation (apart from the applause), was something I called An Annoying Narrative, a story built completely from cliches submitted to the Banned for Life list. It goes like this (annoyances in bold):

I want to tell you about a special man, a man we all know as John Q. Public.


Mr. Public is an endangered species these days, a man determined not to re-invent the wheel.
 Mr. Public has drawn a line in the sand with his rivals, determined to go the extra mile and take no prisoners.

These traits allowed Mr. Public to succeed beyond his wildest dreams.“

But alas, his dreams turned to a nightmare … it turned he’d been on a slippery slope all along, that he had failed to develop a worst-case scenario.

Mr. Public was a disaster waiting to happen. In the end, he fell on his sword, after which, of course, authorities found him in a pool of blood.

This bit got great laughs, I swear, but you really had to be there.

The event drew about 80 people from papers around the region. A couple of my co-workers from the Mercury News also gave presentations, but we couldn’t coax any more Merc folks to come up for the conference. The Chronicle, in San Francisco, also had a couple people giving talks but apparently their staff, as well, couldn’t be troubled to drive a couple hours on a Sunday.

I’m a bit shame-faced to see that the two largest employers of copy editors in Northern California, the Merc and the Chron, having so few copy editors interested in getting involved with others of their own kind (though, admittedly, if you knew us you’d understand the qualms. We’re like people who’d never join clubs that’d have us as a member).

I had dinner with my buddy Will from the Fresno Bee. His boss had a great idea: she promised a free meal and transportation to Bee copy-deskers who wanted to come along. A couple carloads of Fresno Bee deskers came up, many of whom had like two hours of sleep because they worked saturday night and had to leave Fresno at 5 a.m. to get to Sacramento in time for the first sessions.

My presentation was my abiding obsession for the summer, but with that out of the way I guess you’d call me obsessionless. But never fret; something always turns up.

Prix games

by  • July 31, 2005 • 2 Comments

If you’ve been stopping by long enough, you know the three things I’m apt
to write about: being outdoors, listening to rock ‘n’ roll and gawking at cool
cars. I got a chance to experience all three Saturday in downtown San Jose,
which is having its first-ever Grand Prix race this weekend.

The car race has to be outdoors, and only cool cars are allowed to race. That
much is obvious. The rock ‘n’ roll connection is more subtle, until it, too,
becomes obvious. I noticed it as soon as I passed through the gate and started
walking toward the race course. A high-pitched roar approaches from the right,
getting louder and more intense as the car gets closer. The deafening blast
hits its climax just after the car passes (sound traveling slower than light,
you know) and I notice an adrenaline surge that feels exactly like standing
in the front row of a really loud rock concert when the rhythm guitarist is
pounding out his power chords.

That realization guaranteed I’d get my 35 bucks worth, though I never saw any
actual races — just race practice and qualifying runs (there was only one race
Saturday and I had to be somewhere else when it started … naturally I didn’t
know this until after I’d bought my ticket and had been inside the race grounds
for a half-hour). The real race happens today, but watching it is hardly necessary.
In fact it’s slightly beside the point.

The best place to see a grand prix race — if you care about the actual competition
— is from a couch or barstool, safe from the noise, the sun, the exhaust fumes,
and secure in the knowledge that well-informed commentators will keep you apprised
of all critical developments and will provide replays of the really cool crashes.
You get none of this at the actual race; either you pay double for a grandstand
seat and you’re rooted in one place (and missing nine-tenths
of the action), or you buy a general-admission ticket and you wander along the
race course, realizing you can’t see squat through the fence and would’ve been
better off ponying up for a grandstand ticket.

Race fans come to the track anyway because a big race is a big event, like
Fourth of July fireworks. Happens once a year and they go for the experience
of being there. And their brains will store the experience of the guitar-chord
adrenaline rush to provide a little context when they’re watching races from
the couch or barstool.

At least that’s what I think. I took my camera long, of course; the highlights:

Race organizers set up a bunch of grandstands along the race course,
which goes for just over a mile through downtown San Jose. This is one of the
smaller sets of bleachers near one of the sharp turns. Racers can do two interesting
things on turns — pass other racers or crash — hence the necessity of having
people nearby to watch it happen.

The fence is the permanent reality of having a general-admission ticket. People
in the grandstands have giant-screen televisions to keep ’em up on the action
but here at ground level, all you can see is cars ripping past at impossible
speeds. This is one of the first cars I saw in a sports car-class practice run.
In the sports car class, the cars are pretty much like the ones you’d see on
city streets, but with the interiors ripped out and the mufflers removed. They’re
plenty loud but not nearly as fast as the open-wheel racers in the grand prix
class.

The litter-intensive underside of the main grandstand. Imagine what it looks
like on race day.

The second event was a practice run by "vintage" stock cars — ones
that you might’ve seen in the 1980s if you went to NASCAR races back then. The
San Jose track has a long straight-away that takes a mean U-Turn which forces
the cars to slow to a crawl. Normally the cars are zipping by so fast that I
have a hard time getting a picture with a car in it, so I went down to this
turn to see if my luck would improve. The car’s close enough that you could
almost spit on the windshield from here, which is one of the nifty things about
buying a general-admission ticket. The cars pass right next to you, something
you’ll never experience in the bleachers.

One of the many giant-screen TVs placed strategically around the race course.

Hey look, it’s somebody sitting on a Mercury News box! (It’s Friday’s paper,
alas.) You can’t really see it in this picture, but the Knight Ridder sign above
the Knight Ridder Building is also at the top of the frame. (Knight Ridder is
the heavenly father of the Mercury News and many other fine newspapers that
your grandparents read). See, the Merc is always in the business of providing
a better perspective on the news, even at the Grand Prix!

All men know this and yet they are powerless to act upon this knowledge.

(The T-shirt says "If it has wheels or a skirt, you can’t afford it.")

After awhile the really fast grand prix cars show up — these are qualifying
runs for Sunday’s main event. Normally you have to shoot though two rows of
fences so the pictures aren’t particularly satisfying, but there was one break
in the main track fence here, so I had only one fence to shoot through.

The view improved a bit when I figured out I could rest my camera on top of
the fence here and aim it down at the track. Then the trick was to time it so
that a car was in the frame when I clicked on the shutter button. This is the
best picture I got, which sorta sums up the difficulty in photographing car
races: It’s all about the motion, and photography is all about stopping the
motion for a fraction of an instant. Professional photographers have all sorts
of tricks to make racing pictures interesting but the first requirement is being
next to the track with a wide range of perspectives. The second requirement
is knowing what the hell you’re doing. Lacking both of these prerequisites,
I don’t feel so bad that I managed to get one car in the frame out of a dozen
attempts.

Kids can get a better perspective if they’ve got strong-shouldered grownups
to help out.

Because it’s not actually race day, it’s a good time to check out all the exhibits,
most of which have to do with cars. I’m guessing I looked pretty much like this
kid the first time I saw a race car up-close.

The ever-popular Cosworth Ford race-car cutaway, with other a couple Ford Mustangs
nearby. It’s uncanny how Ford has milked the Mustang mystique for 40 years.

The race goes right next to San Jose’s convention center, which has been filled
with all manner of race-car coolness. Oblivious to all this automotive goodness,
kids make good use of the fountain outside the convention center.

In the convention center foyer, it’s one of my favorite classic cars: the 1955
Chevy Nomad two-door.

In the exhibition hall, it’s wall-to-wall race-car paraphernalia

Goodyear Eagle racing tires. Ever wonder why race car tires don’t have tread
like your car? It occurred to me awhile back that it’s simple physics: the more
rubber in contact with the road, the better the traction. Grooves in a tire
mean less rubber against the road, hence less traction. The grooves channel
water away from the tire, making a car safer to drive in the rain. Some races
are rain-or-shine events, which obliges pit crews to switch over to "rain"
tires, which have those grooves, allowing a measure of safety racing on slick
tracks (they still go too fast for common sense, but it wouldn’t be a race otherwise).

There’s an inevitable testosterone rush from driving a car fast, offering inevitable
marketing tie-ins.

The Marine Corps’ "chin-up challenge" attracted a bunch of muscular
guys. A T-shirt went to anybody who could chin up to this bar 20 times; this
guy had a surfer’s build and looked plenty strong enough to do the whole 20.
He quit after five, which made me wonder if he looked down at those Marines
starting to like the looks of him and started wondering if the grand prize was
an all-expense-paid trip to Baghdad.

Dusting off the Pixies

by  • June 1, 2005 • 1 Comment

I saw the Pixies play last night in San Jose’ s Civic Auditorium. The stage looks out over an old basketball court, which seems fitting because the concert proves there are no slam-dunks in rock ‘n’ roll.

The Pixies played two sold-out shows Monday night in San Francisco, and seemed content to pick up an easy paycheck for another 90-minute stroll down memory lane 40 miles south in San Jose on Tuesday. How hard could it be to fill an old auditorium that holds maybe 2,000 in a city with a population of 900,000-plus?

Harder than the Pixies’ handlers expected, I imagine.

I noticed it the first time the light show cast those big white high-beam headlight spots out from the stage onto a room barely half-full.

Granted, San Jose’s live-music scene is on life-support at best. But the Pixies are legends, even if they haven’t had a great album in 15 years. Frank Black, the chubby bald lead singer, has had some interesting solo albums and Kim Deal, the bass player, had a good gig for awhile leading a band called the Breeders. The Pixies were all the rage back in the late ’80s: way cool, way ironic, way sarcastic. Indie-rock darlings adored by all right-thinking fans of piercing, catchy guitar licks and songs about the lighter side of debasement and toxic sludge from New Jersey.

A band this cool could never become a nostalgia act, right?

Well, it must be time to officially welcome the Pixies to the oldies circuit — what else to say when the band plays so many gems from its beloved “Doolittle” album that you’d think it’d been released last week rather than 1989?

In the Pixies’ prime, the lead singer called himself Black Francis. He sang demented songs with a sarcastic edge that told us he was really just sorta kidding around here. And his lead guitarist, Joey Santiago, coined blazing riffs that cemented the sarcasm theme. Together with a killer rhythm section of Kim Deal on bass and David Lovering on drums, the Pixies created a screamingly catchy sound.

Last night, it seemed like Black Francis/Frank Black and Deal were punching the clock. The Black One’s voice has none of the edgy wail of old, and Deal looks like the mother of a couple middle schoolers who’s playing in a rock band to pay for their summer camp. They’re credited as the creative force behind the Pixies but they’re not showing me much, enthusiasmwise. At least Deal smiles most of the way through.

Santiago, though, seems genuinely proud of those riffs he came up with way back when. He plays with verve, determination, precision. I knew last night that no matter what supremely cool lyrics Deal/Black wrote, Santiago’s the man behind the Pixies’ signature sound.

Lovering pounds his drums with equal power. At one point, he throws a drumstick over to Santiago, who does some slide work with it at the top of his guitar’s neck. Then he throws the stick back to Lovering, who catches it on the fly and doesn’t miss a beat.

Nice to see two guys having some fun up there.

The Pixies played for about 90 minutes, clocked out and moved on down the road to L.A. They were worth seeing, another of the greats from way back when to add to my life list.

So today I’m thinking about those blinding lights shining out over the audience. Those lights are not about us, they’re about the rock star’s desperate need not only to hear the fans, but to actually see them.

What comforting lies do they tell themselves when those lights illuminate the reality that they can’t fill this room on this night? The bandmates could tell themselves, “well, San Jose’s just a lame town with no taste in music.” Or it could think “well, everybody in the Bay Area who wanted to see us got their chance at the Warfield on Monday.” But I can’t help imagining them seeing their future in the empty spaces at the San Jose Civic.

A rock concert makes us vividly aware of the fact they — the band — are up there, and we, the fans, are down here. There’s something wonderfully equalizing about seeing a once-great band up there trying to prove it still deserves that spotlight, and looking around the room and realizing how many people think otherwise. Because apart from the 500 or so of us in the room, it’s damn near everybody.

That’s more than equalizing, come to think of it. It’s downright humbling. I’m not sure I’d wish it on anybody.