Namaste, SoCal

Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009

We kicked off our day by meeting a fellow Buckeye while getting the oil changed in our trusty minivan, Richard Hughes. The guy's son had gone to OSU, and he compared the noise of a football game at the Horseshoe to that of a jet engine. O-H! I-O! Then we grabbed some breakfast and drove up to Forest Lawn to visit Jenny's lola and lolo, Amada and Benjamin Basa Sr., who passed in 1988 and 2001, respectively. I have never seen such a magnificent cemetery. Huge rolling hills overlooking Hollywood. Solemn and peaceful, we stood and prayed over the graves.

Back at the Glendale house, Jenny led Tita Josie, Tita Raquel, and myself through some yoga poses. Jenny is like a pretzel; we were more like hot dogs. Then Jenny and Tita Jo showed off their hula hooping skills. Who's envious? This guy. I think my personal record for hula hooping is three spins before the thing clanks to the ground. I went out on a short run through the hills of Glendale, and to all y'all runners looking for a challenge: this is it. Forty five degree angles up and down - my lungs felt like they were going to pop. But it was great to get out there and work on rehabbing my leg.

After we said goodbye to Tita Josie, we packed up the car (now with the addition of a new hula hoop and tons of clothes for Jenny and her fam; thanks so much for everything, Tita Jo) and slid ourselves into LA traffic for the last time. Cars were crawling along the 101, and we agreed that we wouldn't miss LA's crazy seven-lane, thousand-car shuffles. We stopped in Newbury Park to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant with Jenny's Ninong (godfather) Rudy, his wife Norma, and their son David. Black pepper beef and scallops, oh my. Back at Rudy's house, we coaxed David into playing some classical guitar for us. It was absolutely beautiful (have I overused the word 'beautiful' in this blog yet? That's just been the most fitting word for so many things). David agreed to play before our wedding next June, and we couldn’t be more honored to have him.

Then it was on the road again, Willie-Nelson-style, with Richard Hughes nosed towards the Bay Area. I had never been to San Fran, and after hearing many good reviews from many good people, I was excited to check out the city. Our specific destination for tonight was, as usual, a restaurant. The goal was the Absinthe Bar, whose bartenders’ book The Art of the Bar was one of the first bartending books I bought as a young bartender (‘cause I’m so damn old and wise now). I even jacked the recipe for their Ginger Rogers – don’t worry, I asked permission via email – and we sold it as a Ginger Mojito at Casablanca in Harvard Square. Anyway, we had to make it there before the kitchen closed at midnight, so we banged out the six-hour drive in closer to five. As we entered SF around 11, we found that the Bay Bridge was closed until Tuesday and so we had to loop way around to the Golden Gate. The clock was ticking. Twenty minutes and ten dollars in tolls later – the Bay folk make you pay for their beauty – we were cruising over the famed reddish-orange bridge, fog and darkness all around us, doing our best to snap pictures out the side windows as the front one was caked over with dozens of bodies of kamikaze dragonflies from I-5. (Jenny hates the fact that I mentioned this as bugs are probably the only life-forms in the world she is NOT friendly with.) ANYway, we made it into a back corner booth at Absinthe, had some excellent oysters, and one of the best burgers we’ve ever had the good fortune to feast on. The only downside was the very detailed description of, well, how should I say this, behind-closed-door-sports that was broadcast loudly from the man-slash-woman sitting next to us. Hey, that’s San Francisco for ya. Giddy up.

When all was said and done, we tucked ourselves into a cheap motel on Van Ness Ave, prayed that the ceiling fan wouldn’t fall on us, and thanked Tiny Baby Jesus for another great day in the state run by the guy who said “If it bleeds, we can kill it” in one of the best films of all time.

Muscles and Hula Pie

Friday, September 4, 2009

We woke up in Culver City at my cousin, Amanda's house. After breakfast, Amanda headed off to work and was kind enough to let us use her place as we explored Venice beach.

Venice beach was full of visual stimulation. J tried to work out at muscle beach, but decided he didn't want to embarrass the other guys, so sat it out

.

We also saw a guy putting on a street show where his performance was jumping on broken glass.

That was not the amazing part, the amazing part was that there were a lot of people watching and then giving him money to do this. We gave him $2. After purchasing a painting from a street artist named Kai- which is Hawaiian for water, or hippie- whatever, walking past the self proclaimed local wine-o who was singing the song: "give

me a dollar, so I can go to the liquor store," and dodging all the other Venice beach color, we headed back to Glendale to battle the traffic once again- I sense a theme here in LA.

Tito Jun, Tita Josie, Tita Racquel and my newly met Tito-

Ian took J and I to Dukes in Malibu. We drove up the Pacific coast line, which was as beautiful as it looks on postcards. Good thing Filipinos are small- white people in front, Filipinos in the back. At Dukes, we all did as the locals and drank tropical drinks until our

table was ready. I had a Lava Flow, which tasted like a fruit smoothie and J had a fancy margarita.

It was the Tropical Itch drink however, that took my Tita Raquel under. After one, she was done. We dined flying forks style and ended with Ian's favorite dessert, Hula Pie. After Tita Raquel booted in the bathroom, we headed on our traffic filled journey back. A few hours later and a few pictures of Tita Raquel passed out in the back seat sent to my dad and cousins, we came back to Glendale to where Amanda and her boyfriend, also named Jason, also a tall white guy, were waiting for us to drink a bottle of wine on the deck of my Tita's house, which overlooks LA, to talk about water polo on the west coast and just how interesting and "direct" people can be (see J and J glossary).

As the night closed J and I finished our laundry and prepared for the next day, which has us moving on from LA. We will miss you LA, but we will be back again soon.

jb

City of Angels and Expressways

Thursday, September 3, 2009

It's always good to wake up laughing.

"Jason! Get up! You on West Coast time now! No more East Coast time!" These words from Uncle Goody pried me from one of the

deepest sleeps of my life and started off our first full day in LA. Tita Josie (to all my fellow non-Filipinos out there, tita means aunt in Tagalog) had kindly taken off work in order to give us a tour of the city that really is, as one person explained to us, more the size of a state. We buckled into her Mercedes and buzzed out to breakfast at a Cuban bakery called Porto's. There's nothing like a little Cuban bread to warm up the stomach for a

day of new sights.

Next Tagalog language lesson: lola = grandma. We headed to Forest Lawn cemetery to visit the grave of Jenny's

lola as it was her birthday on Tuesday. You would think

cemeteries keep pretty open hours during the day, right? Not much would cause such a place to close its gates, or so one would think. Except for Michael Jackson's funeral. The road into Forest Lawn was blocked off with police barricades. We couldn't go see Jenny's lola because the "King of Pop" was being buried somewhere across the lawn from her plot. Los Angeles: city of stars, rising and falling.

Next we drove out to Hollywood Boulevard, where Jenny met up with her old friend Dorothy (she used to dog-sit for Toto), and I happened to bump into my man Samuel Jackson. I tried to get Samuel L to flash` some deuces for my amigos back in Central Square, but he's a pretty serious dude and wouldn't budge. We were about to melt, Wicked-Witch-style, due to the extreme heat, which clocked in right around 100 degrees. So then it was off to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, where I almost convinced Jenny to trade in her engagement ring for 1/10 of a diamond studded parrot we saw in the window of Tiffany & Co. She didn't go for it. Ah, class versus character. Class wins out way too often.

For lunch, we met Uncle Nanding and his son Kel at a Dim Sum restaurant in Chinatown. Again, to all of you who may not have witnessed or shared in the awesome eating habits of the Basa clan, I urge you to find the nearest Basa and go out to Dim Sum (read: buffet on wheels) with her or him. Then, like me, you too can munch on chicken feet and live to tell (or blog) about it. We left Chinatown feeling full and having acquired a special Majong table for Jenny's parents back in Michigan.

Tita Josie's fantastic LA tour continued through downtown and Little Tokyo, where we had some delicious yogurt at a sort of DIY yogurt place called Yogurtland. (Dear Yogurtland: please expand to the Midwest and East Coast ASAP.) Tita Jo wrapped up her whirlwind tour at a massage center in Rosemead. When we walked in, Tita Jo went up to an employee and said "We want men. Three men." The employee, a large Asian man, glanced over her shoulder at me. Sure, I thought, that sounds right; men. I guess we want men. And she was right. These guys weren't messing around. My hombre dug into my back with his forearm like he was trying to

pile drive me into the ground. Is this pain or pleasure? I thought. This is cool, right? I'm still tough and all, aren't I? Masculinity schmasculinity. When all was said and done, we soaked in the relaxed feeling of our muscles having gone to putty, had ourselves some green tea, and drove back to Glendale.

But the night wasn't over yet. We had to cruise out to Las Feliz to meet Laura, one of Jenny's friends from way back in grade school, for dinner. After embarking onto the Los Angeles freeway system (read: a web of seven-lane mania guaranteed to make even the toughest sphincter tingle) without our trusty tour guide from earlier in the day, we promptly got lost. We almost fired George, our GPS. Twenty or so unnecessary miles later, we made it to Laura's place an hour late. But no matter; Laura and her boyfriend were super cool, and they had a game plan already laid out for food. Sushi it was. And let me now (earmuffs, Jenny, if only the earmuffs worked for reading) declare my love for our waitress, a tiny Asian woman whose voice sounded like she had smoked four packs a day for fifty years and then exchanged her vocal chords for the pipes of a computer from 1985. Sexy roll? You want sexy roll? Beautiful. Yes, there really was a sexy roll, yes, of course we ordered it, and yes, you bet your best booty pants it was dead sexy.

Then it was off to Jenny's cousin Amanda's apartment in Culver City, which is further south and closer to the water than where we had been staying in Glendale. The 10 degree drop in temperature was a much-welcome change. Amanda, who was kind enough to put us up for the night, managed to somehow escape any photos (we'll get you tomorrow, Amanda...). Before bed, we toasted glasses of a wine called Irony. We got a kick out of the name. Irony is all about messing with expectations, right? At least, that's what I tell my students in basic literature classes. One of the great things about this trip is that we aren't expecting too much. If anything, we just want to have a good time. With all the good people we keep coming across, that's an easy expectation to meet.

The quest for Basas

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Waking up in Vegas is always hard. This morning was especially difficult not because we went to bed when the rest of the time zone was waking for work, but because we had to part from the third member of our road trip duo, Matty J Stipe.

After finding Richard Hughes between the slot machines of the Imperial Palace, we headed to McCarran airport to deposit our friend for his 10am flight.

From then, still half sleeping, J and I head back on the 5 towards my Uncle and Aunt's house in Las Vegas. Stomachs still mad at us for all that we consumed over the course of well, our lives, we were happily welcomed by some homemade Filipino food. The rice, eggs and longanisa were well welcomed by our bodies and J drifted to a nap shortly afterwards. The thought of putting a CareBear (TM) tattoo on him while he slept crossed my mind, but I decided against it as J's next task was to meet the rest of the Basas in LA.

Time went quickly as my Uncle told us stories of how my dad would wake him up in the early morning hours after being at the bar all night

to ask him if he "wanted girls?" We ate again, as Filipinos make sure you do when you arrive and depart a place, and headed to make our deadline to LA to see my cousin Leigh and her boyfriend Eugene before they head East.

We made it to Los Angeles in time, thanks to holding back the urge to follow the burrito truck we saw on the highway. J was driving, which was for the best, I may or may not have peed my pants again as J maneuvered through the 5 sometime 7 lanes of traffic of LA.

We caught Leigh in time to visit for a few minutes and then moved on to Glendale to meet more Basas (we are everywhere). At Glendale, we were welcomed by Tita Josie and Uncle Jun and in true Filipino style, delicious food.

As J tried to keep the names and titles straight, I walked outside on the deck and caught the smell of the Angles fire just over the mountain. I will always remember the LA fires, not because they might be the largest recorded fire in history, but because they were burning as I was realizing how nice it is to have family.

Tomorrow we see what LA has in store for us.

jb

Deer and Loving in Las Vegas

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I do not drink Red Bull. At all. Not even a little bit. As far as I'm concerned, it's strawberry-and-sweat-flavored rocket fuel.

But that all changed at the end of a day that started at 4:30 a.m. with me and Stipe trying to figure out how the hell to get out of Colorado Springs. Jenny was threatening to puke in the back of the van after a beer pong victory just three hours previous. George the GPS was shook up and confused and we had to let go of the safety net of technology and consult the good ole' fashioned road atlas to get us routed toward the Grand Canyon. The night

was pitch black. With the Eastern range of the Rockies humming by the right

of the van at 80 mph, the rock-solid Matty J kept me awake on the first leg with a conversation about music, life, love, and the value of great service and a great meal at a great restaurant. Sometime after dawn, we loaded up on beef jerky and Sonic. Then Stipe took the wheel and nosed us toward New Mexico. By the time Jenny rotated into the driver's seat, I was in desperate need of a nap. When I woke up, there was a string of Ristras Chilis hanging in my face. Jenny and Stipe had purchased them at roadside stand from one Fadama Martinez, who not only took checks, but also thought that Stipe was Jenny's husband. Sorry Stipe,

seat's taken. The sun rose; the world started

to get hotter. We stopped to pee on the side of the road behind some construction equipment. Jenny may or may

not have peed on her pants and then may or may not have been forced to change her clothes. Rock formations and plateaus jutted up out of the land that was suddenly a living thing. Mule deer ran across the road. We decided to jump off the highway for a while and take some less-traveled state routes through New Mexico. The switchback roads slowed us down quite a bit, but the scenery was fantastic. Somewhere in either New Mexico or Arizona, I bought fireworks - maybe for myself, maybe for my nephew.

We got to the Grand Canyon around six p.m. And yes, it really is a pretty amazing hole in the ground. Neither words nor pictures do it justice, but then again, that could be said about a lot of this trip. We jumped back into the van and motored off toward Las Vegas. On Highway 93 in Nevada, we suddenly found ourselves stopped at a security checkpoint. Baby Stipe w

as sleeping in the backseat; Jenny had just recently smacked a CareBear (TM) tattoo on his arm. After the cop shone his flashlight over the borderline-dead body and the string of roughly three hundred chili peppers, he let us pass. The next thing we knew, we were driving through and then over the Hoover Dam. We had had no idea we were coming up on it. A lot of dam, no doubt about it. As we slowed down to take pictures, we heard guards yelling at us to move on. I had images of snipers training their rifles on our blue minivan with Michigan plates, and needless to say, I stepped on it. When we popped out of the mountains, there was Las Vegas, shining golden and obnoxious and fantastic in the middle of the desert. Before we made it to the strip, we stopped at an In and Out Burger, which Jenny had been talking about since roughly Chicago. It was a pretty damn good burger. The grilled cheese, which Shannon in Colorado had promised was excellent, was, well, it was lame. It was a cheesburger, 86 the burger. Nothing grilled, nothing gained. Terrible call, Shannon. You're super cool, but no more fast food consulting; stick to Snoopy Dancing. Jenny took the wheel and guided us into the strip, into the glittering throat of Vegas. I was exhausted. Three hours of sleep the night before. Three hours the night before that. I was ready to go to sleep. But I wasn't ready for the night to end. There were stories in Vegas; I just had to stumble into them.

And so I did it. I drank the Red Bull.

I haven't had a cup of regular coffee in almost four years. No, my eyes didn't bug out and there wasn't steam coming out of my ears all Loony Tunes like, but the jolt was there. I was on. And the proverbial it was on as well. We checked into the Imperial Palace. It smelled like dirty carpet and cigarettes. Stipe bought a six-pack of Coors. No Coors Light in this corner of Vegas; just the big boys here. We showered. Is there anything more refreshing than drinking a beer while taking a shower? Then we hit the casinos. And let me say, I'm not a gambler. Or rather, I wasn't. But Jenny taught me how to play Roulette, and after I got the hang of it, I started to flirt with a little beginner's luck. But wait a minute; we were in Vegas. What does a starry-eyed - and might I say good looking - couple do in Vegas? That's right. They get married. Again. For anyone who knows us well, they know that what happened next was Wedding Number Two for Miss Basa and myself. We were married in August in the Flint Courthouse by the Honorable Richard Hughes, the man who we named our trusty minivan after. And you know what, we're going to have a third wedding - and this will be the big family friends reunion party of the year - next June. But ANYway, in Vegas, with the help of wedding planner Matt Stipe, all-night sushi waitress Choi, and cab driver Manny, we found ourselves renewing our vows at the Little White Wedding Chapel, where people almost as famous as us -Michael Jordan, Joan Collins, etc. - have also tied the knot.

And let me be truthful here - we didn't actually get inside the chapel; it was locked. And it was actually Manny the cab driver who performed the service. Sure, he forgot our names in the middle of the vows, but let me tell you, he's a hell of a guy regardless for driving us all the way out there and stepping into the chaplain role without even flinching. So, with my new wife on my arm, it was back to

the IP, where my luck at the Roulette table continued to roll on. I went to bed married and $100 in the black, my belly fattened with chicken fingers and frozen pina coladas. What's better than that?

JN

Gods, Games and Good Company

Monday, August 31, 2009

"I get by with a little help from my friends."

I grew up listening to my dad tell me that "we are lucky if we come out of

life with 3 really good -true friends." Real friends, the kind that you call not only to say hello or tell about your new job, but the kind you call when life hits you so hard you can't say hello- or anything for that matter, but they understand your silence, and are there for you.

If this is the case- 3 is lucky, then I should probably buy a lottery ticket. When you take a trip like this, you expect to learn a lot: how long you can go without showering, how

much beef jerky one person can possibly eat in a 24 hour period, how to get the camera ready in time to capture the 100 foot Jesus on the side of the road - you get it. I guess I didn't expect that a phrase I grew up hearing would find me feeling unexpectedly blessed and grateful.

I knew this trip would not be possible without my best friend and co-pilot, J. This was the journey we signed up for. However, little to our knowledge did we expect how much having our friends and family helping us along the way mattered - from places to stay, cat sitting, van borrowing, offers of food and drink, sharing glory days, a spare eggshell mattress to sleep on, boat rides, or spending 96 hours straight with us, we have encountered friendship, generosity and kindness of all kinds. Today is the day I realized that this trip is not just about J and I driving across the country and testing our relationship endurance, but everyone else that we

encounter along the way.

I woke up this morning to the smell of a homemade breakfast and the sight of good fortune as I looked around and saw J, Eric and Stipe at the breakfast table ready for our next day of adventures and reeling from the previous day's misadventures.

We started off at Garden of the Gods where camels were kissing and a man name Cliff just said no to "head change",

because a Dijerido was all he needed.We toured Downtown Colorado Springs and Old Colorado City where we lunched at "Meadow Muffins" and discovered that Stipe was the Rain Man of Big Buck Hunter.

In the afternoon, Eric helped me escape from the fellas to have some girl time getting pedicures. Though I couldn't convince my large firefighter friend to get his toes polished, he did enjoy the massage chairs.

Eric’s roommate and our gracious co-host, Rudy, welcomed us home from my escape with homemade fajitas. Firefighters feed you well. Bellies content, we headed to visit Shannon, Eric’s girlfriend, back at “Good Company,” where she works, also the bar we previewed the night prior, and the place where Stipe discovered that a splash of Mountain Dew can be life changing.

We were disappointed to find out that we needed to show up 2 hours prior to enter in the beer pong tourney. However, the Wii system the bar had to offer tempered this disappointment. So we played Wii tennis and Wii bowling in addition to trying Wii ATM, Wii beer drinking, Wii painting and other homemade Wii activities.

J dominated tennis and bowling, which gave him the title of Wii Champ for the night. I was happy to beat Eric at Wii baseball and after my disappointing performance at Wii bowling, this was the boost I needed for our next game. J and I wandered over to the beer pong tables in an attempt to challenge the tourney champs to an off-the-record match. Instead we found John and John who did not win the tourney, but were up for some Midwest competition. Mountain rules are different than how we play in the Midwest, but J and I were game and after a few sinkers including one where the cups were rotating, we won beer pong in time for last call.

We retired to our temporary home and decided to get an early start to our travels to the Grand Canyon. At 4:30am, I reminisced at the feeling of getting up in anticipation of doing 1000 jumpies and rowing the Cuyahoga. Stipe and J took on the first leg. I was able to crawl up in the back and tried to reset my body from the last few days, laughing to myself as I thought about what great dancers we all were.

-jb