Hello and welcome to Wrong Pressions. Many people have been asking if I can sing a song, Me for Track Man. They have. It's true.
They perrenioed. MC around these wrong pressions parts. I'm happy to play a song today. No one to tell.
I didn't even know if they would do them. Do the show today. They're here. I think.
I can't see them. We are here. I'm trapped in a fake machine. Get used to it.
I wanted to cheer them up with a John T. Paul song. Lou and Adele went to Wisconsin and Lou has bequeathed several song books. One of which is a Peter Paul and Mary song book.
And containing all of these, a beautiful thing for songs. From the 1950s. From the 1960s. I wanted to play this song.
It's the cheer them up because they're feeling a bit down. They're feeling a bit introspective. You know, wondering if they should just start talking about themselves in the time and we're thinking about other people. But hey, I just thought I would get this off to a start with this.
This, this, this is all. Puff the magic dragon. Live by sea. And frolored in the audience.
In a land called Haldy. Little Jackie P. Love that rascal puff. And rotten strings and ceilings.
And other fancy stuff. Oh, of the magic dragon. Live by sea. And frolored in the audience.
In a land called Haldy. It's a page of sample. Of the magic dragon. Live by sea.
And frolored in the audience. In a land called Haldy. Kind of. And back to chords.
First page with the lyrics. It's hard to sing and play from a song book. I can't remember the chords. And then sing this verse.
It's just, ah. Anyway, that's probably enough. I'll be back with something else a little bit later. Oh, if you want me to be.
Only then. Fucking out power calls. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you everyone for tuning in.
As it were to run precious. Run precious. Thank you. Take it away and do it in the down.
Thanks for the track man. Yeah, but don't let her back from a trip to Wisconsin. We went to visit her mom for a couple days. Yeah.
It was a very emotional, beautiful visit. It was. It was. It was really nice to be there with you and no kids.
Just so that we could really be present and helpful and quiet. Just kind of, there's a lot of needing for quiet because just regular day-to-day activities is very tiring for my mom who has ALS. And we are trying to be very respectful of what she needs right now in her time. And it was really nice to be there with you.
And I felt a lot of things because as we were there, then I woke up after a first day there and saw the news about L.A. and so it was a lot of things. Like juggling the feeling of being with my mom and in this like frigid icy place. It was really good.
It was very cold. By the way, people from Massachusetts. Yeah. They called here.
It's not. It's really not cold. It's true. It practically felt balmy when we came back.
I was like, where's my t-shirt? Where are my flip flops? Yeah, where's my shorts at? So it was a pole of many places in my heart and I know for you as well when we were there.
It was complex. Yeah, it's a bit of a stark landscape in Wisconsin in the winter. But they live on a lake and there was no snow on the ground. So the lake was just ice.
Like you can see the ice. It was very, and the ice would sort of shut her and make these deep groans. Moning sounds as it moves and shifts and cracks and then refreezes. And we just sat there and just talked to your mom and we put away the Christmas tree.
We put away the Christmas tree which was, I felt kind of honored to be there, honestly. Yeah. Because she was telling the stories of each ornament and she was putting them away in the boxes. And Valerie Atkinson, my mother-in-law, she's got stuff as tight, wrapped, boxed, sacked, and covered and I mean really well organized home.
Yeah. She has also her life organized, beautifully organized. And yeah, I came across these. I don't know what made me, oh I was just downstairs looking for something.
Yeah. They're basement area. They have a finished basement and in their house and it also was where the storage is for, you know, the Christmas ornaments and things like that. But then they also have a bookcase down there.
Yeah. And we were just sort of wandering over there and looking at things and then a couple of art books would catch our eye because both of my parents are artists. Beautiful old art books. Yeah.
Modern art books, classic art books. And then I found this absolutely gorgeous, drop, I just dropped my fact notebook. I found this beautiful Joan by a song book which is a song book of the folk songs that she's sang. And the folk songs are actually, they're not from the 60s, actually a lot of them are blues and country, you could even say country songs.
There are songs that I know from country artists but just these old songs have been passed down through the generations as folk songs, blues songs. Yeah. My mom had, and my dad both, they, I'll just say they have really good taste in music. They were cool.
They were beatnicks and artists and like straight up had incredible record collections and my mom went to Woodstock and she loved Joan Byers, loves Bob Dylan and my oldest brother is named after Bob Dylan. And I had just seen the Bob Dylan movie with the two older kids. Yeah. And that was fun for you to be able to talk about that to my mom.
That was, yeah, because I, you know, I think she'll be able to see it. I hope so. On TV pretty soon because movies do that. They move to TV pretty quickly.
I think she'll really enjoy it. It's a really fun film. Yeah. So I had folk music on my mind and just that explosion of folk music and that sort of tumultuous time of the very early sixties when Bob Dylan came to New York City from Minnesota and his relationship with Joan Byers has really explored and sort of elaborated on.
I would say they took a lot of liberties. It's not factual, I would say, but it's fun. They arranged the facts in a fun way. And so being there and sort of in your mother's presence and realizing the importance of Joan Byers to her and what I had just sort of experienced in the film and that being fresh in my mind did make me really, it was fun to reconsider folk music, you know?
Yeah. Interesting thing is that the Bob Dylan movie doesn't really, there's only one mention of Peter Paul and Mary, but Peter Paul and Mary were really the ones that really popularized his music. They put out, blown in the wind before he did. And the movie, they sort of say that Joan did it first, which she may have as well, but Peter Paul and Mary had a number two hit with it.
Well. And Bob Dylan made $5,000 from that. Wow. Which was like the most many you've ever made.
Yeah. But that's something that's interesting. The movie, they don't really like linger on Peter Paul and Mary in the movie. But I'm Puff the Magic Dragon as a hit from 1960.
Let me pick up my dropped book, my dropped back book. What happened? Everything okay? Are you still rolling?
Still rolling. I have to. Hold this. I'm like trying to send my throat, but I'm okay.
Mm. Sit there, so sorry. Okay. Puff the Magic Dragon was a hit in 1962.
Yeah. And it's one of the most, I thought it was, I actually sat down with your mom like, oh, I'm saying it was about marijuana, which it's not. I said that Hano Lee refers to Hano Lee Bay in Kauai, which it absolutely does not. Wow, you're just.
I was really, I'm looking back at, because recently when I've been talking to people, and then I sort of like a few hours or days later, I reconsider what I go through and I said, I'm like, that was absolute bullshit. Lou Fax, we've been talking about that. And I'm a podcast listener who's been here from the beginning now. Oh my God.
And your father is actually the most knowledgeable person. I know. He is like a walking encyclopedia. He's very quiet.
So I'm home now thinking about this. I think he must have just been sitting there. I think, well, no, no, not really. Nope, that's probably not true.
No, I mean, I know. I know. I'm just like, I'm just like, oh, you like correct, correct her. But he didn't, he didn't actually correct me.
I'm, yeah. And I'm home. I'm like, oh God. That's right.
You're selling like a kind of full of shit. Oh my God. And your mom's just looking at me blinking on like, he's telling me his affects. Puff the Magic Dragon is from a poem from 1959 by a friend of Peter.
I remember it when I was little, like an elementary school, early elementary school, a singing it. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, it's like one of the most popular children's songs all the time. And it's fucking depressing.
I read, I'm like, that's the thing, you know, a four-track man is talking about an uplifting. The song is a, it ends horribly. Like, Puff goes back into it. Like, the kid dies because he's human.
Puff lives forever. Oh. And he just walks, he goes into a cave as his scales fall off and disappears into the cave. I don't think I ever really listened.
Oh, I'm looking through these books for something else to play. Is he, is he heard me playing it and was like, oh, dad, that song is really sad. Oh, Puff. Interesting.
She actually picked up on that too. Wow. Well, I'm just sitting. Yeah, I was sitting, playing guitar or a four-track man was sitting playing guitar.
He was thinking of another song to play from the folk songbooks. And he was thinking about how, what happened this week in the city that we love and where we met. Something really catastrophic happened. And it's been very vivid for us because we live in that area.
We visit that area regularly. Altadena in particular, Pasadena, Burbank, Glendale, all in sort of the same northern part of Los Angeles County where we lived. And I think what happened there is certainly worthy of something really beautiful because what a beautiful song. But any words would be, words absolutely, I can't think of anything to say.
I think we're both so unlord by it. Yeah. And I, you know, you see it on people's comments and things that you love and to people out there. And I know I can sound hollow or generic after a while, but I feel helpless.
And I do send to my love and I hold everyone there so close. And it's thoughts and prayers and money and donating to GoFundMe's, which I'm doing. There's tons and tons of information out there. You can find it all, how to help people.
And, you know, it's individuals. And I think that's been hitting me so hard is just all the individual stories of people and how they've lost everything. And close friends. Yeah.
It's, it's, and oddly a friend of mine from a long time ago who's a Minnesota transplant L.A. actually may have been the person to even notify authorities of the Eaton Canyon Fire, which is wild. It like started in his backyard. The first 911, he was the first 911 call.
It's, it's, it's so odd. And, um, it's odd for some of the, the, the relevance of him and our lives. And now, uh, and Adele and I first got together. We actually spent some of our first nights together as a couple in his house.
Yeah. And on and on, he actually, um, enabled a single that I recorded with a mod wasif called Trespadres. Um, anyway, anyway, we're just, I'm a mod lost his house in the fire. Yeah.
His house in the fire as well. And it just, it, um, you know, her from bands, Blaine among other things. And I mean, it's, it's funny because people have asked me many, many countless times since moving from Los Angeles. Why, why do you like it there so much?
Because it, it always comes up how, um, how much I love L.A. And I miss it. And it's just so, it's such a part of me. And it's so personal.
It's so hard to put that into like a neat little box for someone to make them understand. And it's not for everyone. It's not a city for everyone. And that's also okay, you know, and I've had people who've gone there and it didn't work for them and they left and they're like, that's not for me.
Um, but it's a city that when I was there in my early twenties, uh, I'll call her she, I don't know, she unfolded and opened up to me over a period of time and, uh, really, really cradled me during some of the hardest times of my life. And I, so I feel forever indebted to that city. And when I go back there, it, my love has never changed. And I always feel immediately right at home.
I slip right back into it and, um, when I go back every year, sometimes more than once a year and, uh, it's, it's just very near and dear to us. And I actually have tickets to be there in a month with Izzy. And we don't even know if my Airbnb is still standing because it's right on the border of Pasadena and Altadena because that's our place and we love it. So I don't know.
And I don't know how to talk to Izzy about it. And I don't know, I don't, there's a lot of things that are question marks right now, but we, we are, uh, very much holding LA close right now and sending our love. Yeah, that area was really, it's where we met, like I said, it's also where I, I spent some really difficult and very enlightening times in my life. Um, but one of my, one of my favorite memories, I have so many of these really strong visual memories and, uh, there's a street avenue, Las Felis, Boulevard, I should say, Boulevard, Felis Boulevard, it runs, it runs from Hollywood into, um, San Fernando Valley into Glendale.
And at some point, as it, it has the, if you're going west, you have Griffith Park on your left and there was a fire there when I lived there that was terrifying. I mean, both of them, they were, um, I mean, silver, like, um, didn't know each other. But, um, boy, I mean, I saw that was my first wildfire that I saw from my house, which was terrifying. Same, yeah.
The color of the flames, the red, blood red color of the flames and the embers falling around the neighborhood. We were neighbors and didn't know it. And I was, um, on the same hill in LA and Silver Lake. And I had a balcony view looking also at the Hollywood sign and the observatory, which is inside of Griffith Park.
And, uh, when, yeah, I was watched, I watched that in terror. I was so scared. I was, people didn't seem, I seemed especially un, I felt especially unnerved by it. But my memory, you know, was driving on Las Felis Boulevard and sort of cresting this hill and then coming down.
Yeah. And to Glendale. And I did that once while Van Halen was playing, I don't know, like ain't talking about love or then like incredible Van Halen song. And it was just before we met.
And my life at that point was sort of, it was at this strange, I just felt this strange, there was change in the air. And things felt especially crisp and beautiful because I just, I was very open at that point. You know, I felt something and I felt also that my time in LA was sort of cresting. Like I had come from a really hard point in my life and had come back from that and was rediscovering myself and re just and feeling better about myself and realizing that so much of that was due to surrendering to the beauty of the city.
And you and I talk about this a lot. Yes. That's what called both of us. Yeah.
And I'm listening to this wild sounds of Van Halen and this view too overlooking, I mean, sees as far as Altenita really. I mean, if you just see this, all sort of the city spread before the foothills there and I'm listening to Van Halen and just like the windows down and I'm like, ah, and I just, I remember just feeling so thankful and so and just so surprised that I felt like a city, like a place that I was was actually part of this rejuvenation and this rebirth in me. You know, I really felt that. And I had many moments like that.
Me too. In my latter years in LA. You know. Me too.
And, you know, and you and I also. Does this four track man? I think this is like the instrumental of the prize of his wordless wordless song. Well, we and the palisades and everyone affected.
I mean, God, I drove that Sunset Boulevard from Silver Lake all the way to the ocean was one of my absolute favorite drives. I only did that twice. Oh, I loved it so much. I did it when my parents came to visit and we were talking about that.
Yeah. How when you get dumped out? We did it with your parents. Did we do it with them too?
Yeah. We did it with the playboy mansion and that was one of the your father's a very I mean, look, very tasteful guy. But when we were first learning about the fires, he said, Did the playboy mentions? I wonder what happened to the people mentioned.
I said, well, I think it's okay. It's still in Bel Air. I believe it's in Bel Air. But yeah, it's a we that drive is just it's it takes your breath away.
And that was the thing about LA is it took my breath away again and again. And you could take Sunset all the way to PCH and it just dumps you out. And you'd see Pepperdine on your right and the Will Rogers beach stretched out in front of you and just the sparkling ocean and. It's truly breathtaking and my fantasy life is an older gentleman.
Ironically was I know. I was living Pacific as AIDS. You know, Lou had dreams of wearing white linen and padding around and maybe going for coffee at a little local place there. And then just going to Will Rogers beach.
Yeah. It's a very long beach, you know, walking into the ocean like up to my to my to my hips and then dunking down in the water splashing the water in my face and then walking back to my I mean, you did. You had a very well developed fantasy. Just walk into the ocean and walk back home.
I know and I was like, well, if we're going to retire this the dream life in Pacific Palisades, I thought, Oh, maybe I'll have a tiny little Barlow family general store right there in the little town because Palisades, the thing is LA is a huge, huge city filled with many different towns within it. They all have their little downtown and Altadena had one, Pasadena has one, Glendale, you know, they all have their little kind of center and Pacific Palisades was no different. And, you know, that was a fantasy. It was a fantasy for sure.
That area. I mean, a bit of a guilty favor, I would say, for me, it's very affluent. But I really, that was a dream. But a little more kind of, I'd say an unexpected place to drop versus like, you know, Beverly Hills and stuff like that.
It's like, you know, so I don't know what to say, but just we love you, LA.