Alex’s Blog / 03.02.09

Sometimes when a helicopter flies overhead on its way to the University of Iowa Hospital down the road, it reminds me of living in Los Angeles. For a while we lived in West Hollywood, right by the 101, where the news and police copters wore the sky out during rush hour. Sometimes at night their searchlights would cut through our bedroom windows. In LA they hunt criminals from above like owls hunt mice. I can’t say I miss the birds of prey that come with Southern California living. But I do miss. I miss my coastal cities. They answer only to the oceans.

In two weeks I will return to Los Angeles to play a show at the Hotel Café—one of the last songwriter haunts where important things happen if it gets late enough. I’ve never returned to Los Angeles. What I mean is, I’ve never gone back to that home. And for three years it was my home. I learned the freeways, side streets, shortcuts through Beverly Hills. I scaled Laurel Canyon on the backs of a thousand single-occupancy vehicles and cursed the bastards who cut me off. I have lived there, though I didn’t realize it until I was gone. There are people in LA I miss dearly and places whose doorframes I would like to touch. It will be nice to go back to Los Angeles. Falling in love with that place was the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done, ghetto birds and all.

See you at the Hotel Café for our West Coast record release party. Sunday, March 15, 9:30P.