The lifestyle of a musician that is performing as well as spending time writing and recording is a bit counter-current to the rest of society and one of the biggest benefits, especially in a city like Los Angeles with it's horrendous traffic, is being able to drive the roads in relative solitude; however the drawback comes in the form of physical exercise. I have been here in the San Fernando Valley about a month now and the weather here is special, special in the way that someone has forgotten to close the door to a room sized kiln when you are happily set up working just a few feet from the portal to the inferno, it must be the way an iron smelter feels as he wrestles with molten steel in crucibles and the forms that he or she intends to fill. To lighten the mood that oppressive heat tends to induce I keep shouting to the non-existent baker or potter "SHUT THE DAM DOOR WOULD YA!"
Over near the coast its not so bad and the pacific breeze tends to lift away some of the sweat that beads up on the skin but here in the enormous valley the stagnant prevails. I wait for the cool of the evening but with so much concrete and asphalt there is not much respite until the wee hours of the morning when it all stars over again. I mean the sweating is as much cooling action as it is purification of the skin and glands so maybe I don't need to run since I am working in an oven set at 110 degrees but it would be nice to think about the possibility of walking on pavement in shoes and not feeling like a melting crayon subjected to hot-plate coloring.
Maybe tomorrow it will break or might I break an egg on the sidewalk and watch it fry? For now no running just glistening in the kiln.
