Albuquerque Turkey

So we left Roswell a couple of days ago after seeing about as much alien memorabilia as humanly possible. We then headed to Santa Fe, which was nice but a bit of a disappointment, compounded with a bad night at the decidedly outdated Holiday Inn. We walked around town at night and in the morning, but we never connected with the place, despite the beautiful architecture and incredible light. We moved on to Taos and felt the same exact thing. Jona braved a crazy blizzard and managed to drive the leg of the trip to Albuquerque, where we are now. Already we're much more enamored with this city. It's a blend of old and new, with a quaint plaza in the old downtown and a modern downtown. We drove through Nob Hill, which is the new up-and-coming hip area of Albuquerque, and loved it so much, we're heading back there right now. See you later, turkey!

The Road to Roswell

Well, we're in Roswell, New Mexico, home of the aliens and their mothership... Allegedly...

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity: we went to see Zero 7 at the Orpheum Downtown (OK, but not as good as with Sia and Jose Gonzalez) on JM's birthday, then we went to the premiere of Werner Herzog's new film ("My Son, My Son, What have ye done?"), which had some great moments but was a mediocre film despite a great cast. On the plus side, the great man himself was there to answer questions from the audience and that was very cool. If you want an idea of just how crazy this guy is, rent or buy "Burden of Dreams" on Criterion, about him filming "Fitzcarraldo" on the Amazon. Then, to celebrate the holidays, we went to LA Live to see stand-up comic, George Lopez, who was hilarious. Over the next few days, JM was sick and Jona made tamales with her friend Leticia (yum!).

On Christmas morning, we left Los Angeles on our road trip and drove all the way to Tucson, Arizona. After spending the night there, we drove around Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, where there are more than 2,000 old airplanes resting in a graveyard field, which is quite a sight. Then on to the Titan Missile Museum, where a disarmed Titan II missile still rests in its silo. Visitors don hard hats and climb down the Cold War bunker to see the controls and the routines that staff had to deal with at the height of the conflict. It's a pretty overwhelming experience. Technical, yes. Geeky, yes. But it truly illustrates the folly of the Cold War and the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Next, we headed to legendary western town, Tombstone, to the east of Tucson. This is where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral took place, pitting Wyatt Earp, his brothers and Doc Holiday against the McLaurys and the Clantons. The town is amazingly well preserved and is probably one of the best "Wild West" atmospheres one can find nowadays. On the way out of town is the equally legendary/infamous cemetery, Boot Hill. We spent the night in Wilcox, and then drove to New Mexico to see White Sands national park, which is a breathtaking landscape of white dunes. We then detoured from our original plan and headed for Texas. We figured that El Paso was (sort of) on the way to Carlsbad Caverns, so we rode into town and had a humongous Texan dinner at a roadhouse (one of Jona's dreams come true). This morning, we woke up and drove around downtown El Paso, which is a pretty depressing place, with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico just within shouting distance and yet so visibly different. The drug war in Mexico is taking its toll and the US authorities are warning tourists not to cross the border. We stayed on the US side and explored town a while, but preferred to head back to New Mexico.

This afternoon, we reached Carlsbad Caverns, a deep and impressive sequence of caverns famous for its bats (didn't see them because they only fly out in the evening in the summer) and rocks formations. We both really enjoyed the mile walk and emerged into the cold afternoon air excited to reach Roswell by dark. So, here we are. It's a small/big town in the middle of nowhere, apparently built on the back of UFO mythology. We've already seen a fair few stores with alien memorabilia which we'll check out tomorrow, and the local Wal Mart and McDonalds both feature UFO/alien touches, which make them the coolest of their breed. We'll load all the photos when we get back to Los Angeles.

Tomorrow, we're heading north to Santa Fe, Taos and Albuquerque, weather permitting. It's about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) here, but it's a lot colder and snowing up north. Hopefully our frozen fingers will be able to type...

December already??

And so, here we are in the last month of a pretty bad decade... 2010 is looking promising and I hope it brings better times for everyone than the past few years.

Having said that, there have been good (even great) events along the way. I'm very pleased to say that Jamie and Victoria have joined the ranks of the newly married, Jamie to Yuri and Victoria to Mhairi, and both of them are truly lovely partners. We wish them much happiness in the years to come. Wish we could have been at your weddings, but Tokyo and Cape Town present certain logistical difficulties! Kieran and Rachel were married earlier this year in a beautiful ceremony and, unhappily, we missed out on their wedding too. Gari and Rachel (not Kieran's Rachel, rest assured) left Boston and moved to Oxford. Greg and Imogen (and Baby Leo) left Dublin and moved to Brussels. And Chris, Sarah, Claire and Baby Raphael are now happily ensconced in the south of Belgium. Globalization anybody??

We're still happily doing our thing, exploring the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. We managed to squeeze in a couple of films over the weekend: "Up in the Air" with George Clooney, which was sad but very good; and "Couples Retreat" which was entertaining but pretty dumb.

We're heading back to the Academy this week to see "The Prisoner of Zenda" with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., so we'll certainly have our fill of films. Other than that, we're getting ready for our upcoming road trip (yes, another one), this time to Arizona and New Mexico.

We hope you're doing well, wherever you may be (and that you're staying warm if it's cold!)

Giving Thanks

November is nearly come and gone, and no posts so far. Jona spent a couple of weeks with family and friends in Spokane, Washington, and JM joined her for a long weekend. We had lots of fun, meeting up with people and discovering new places. Spokane is the biggest little city we know of.

Back in Los Angeles, we've both been busy at work, with Jona processing the very last papers for her teaching credentials and JM receiving a promotion. In addition to this good news, we've been enjoying the warm weather on weekends. Hard to believe it's November. This weekend is Thanksgiving, so we're trying to connect and reconnect with all our respective families and mutual friends.

It's been a good month for movies, because a cinema finally opened Downtown. We now have a Regal 14-plex within walking distance, by the LA Live complex, and it's a treat. These small steps make the neighborhood so much more liveable. It's come such a long way in five years. We went back to the Academy for the first time in a while, and saw "From Here to Eternity" with a brief discussion between Ernest Borgnine and Lou Diamond Philips, and interesting combination, to say the least.

There's a new feature on this blog: if you click on the title of new posts, there will be an option for leaving comments at the bottom of the post. Keep it more or less civilized!

As we get ready for some quality time off, we'd like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Back in LA

We concluded our road trip, returning to Yosemite (which we weren't that impressed with, probably because of the hordes of tourists), then straight to San Francisco. By the time we reached the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, we decided we were ready for the city again. This trip through Mother Nature didn't pan out, but we figured our last trip (to Monument Valley, Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyons) was pretty much unbeatable. Our track record with San Fran wasn't good, but this time we were determined to have a better time. This plan was nearly derailed when we arrived in town and tried to find a hotel. We didn't want to stay in SF proper, but rather in Oakland, but we couldn't find any hotels (the Marriott doesn't count). Berkeley yielded the same result, as did Richmond (and it's huge bridge!) or San Rafael, so we decided to try driving all the way around the north of the bay (through the marshes at night along a single road with the sun setting, which was beautiful) and on to Vallejo. We FINALLY found a hotel by "Discovery Kingdom", a Six Flags roller coaster amusement park. At this point, we didn't really care where we slept, as long as it had beds and a roof, so, with these low expectations, we had a good night's rest.

The next day we drove back the same way and saw San Quentin (where Charlie Manson sleeps, oh how creepy!) and over the Golden Gate Bridge into sunny San Francisco. We drove through, over the Oakland Bay Bridge and checked into the Hilton Garden Inn (which we highly recommend) and then explored Oakland. In some respects, Oakland is similar to Downtown Los Angeles, with some first steps taken toward revitalizing the neighborhood, but I'm partial to our Downtown :) When we headed over to San Francisco again, we had a wonderful few days, walking around the Wharf, Chinatown, downtown, Haight Street, and we took a night trip to Alcatraz. All the photos of our trip are online here, and they tell a far better story than I can.

On our way back home, we stopped off in Big Sur for a night, because it's Jona's favorite place (possibly in the world!), sleeping in a cabin amongst the redwoods, making log fires and relaxing. Altogether the trip was good, but it could have been better. It's always nice to get out of the city to get some perspective, but I think we're explored California quite a lot. Next time, we'll head out of state again.

Since we got back, we've gone to a night at the new Grammy Museum Downtown Los Angeles, for an evening with Gloria Gaynor (who did sing "I will survive" that night). We went to the library with our friend Jim to listen to Tracy Kidder (whose "Mountains Beyond Mountains" you must read if you haven't already). We went to "Where the Wild Things Are" (good) and "Coco Before Chanel" (good). Last night, JM went to the library to listen to Irene Khan, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, and Jona made a Jello brain for Halloween, which looks very cool.

Road Trip!

We're on the road again, this time on home turf in California. We started off on a detour to Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara, for the Avocado Festival. We then cut over to the 395 via Ojai, the Los Padres National Forest and up to Bakersfield. We drove through Sequoia National Forest and spent a night in Ridgecrest, next to a huge naval weapons center in the Mojave Desert. The weather has been sunny and COLD. Yesterday, we drove up the 395, a beautiful drive in the Owens Valley (made famous as the valley Los Angeles stole water from in Polanski's "Chinatown", which is based on a true story). Owens Lake is the scene of a big water steal, diverting water from the once-lush valley to the budding metropolis. It's now a saline-alkaline stretch of desert with a fascinating history.

We also visited Manzanar, where 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. You can drive through the camp, although the buildings are no longer there, and there's a very good visitor's center which shows what the camp used to look like. Isolated and spartan. There's also an obelisk memorial for those who died in the camp, which looks stunning against the mountain backdrop.

We passed through Lone Pine, where everyone is getting ready for the annual film festival, then through Bishop where there are two businesses of note: a great independent book store on the main street and Erick Schat's Bakery which serves a mean sandwich.

Last night we stayed in June Lake, a remote lake off the 395, and watched "The Birdman of Alcatraz" with Burt Lancaster in preparation for visiting Alcatraz when we get to San Francisco later this week. Good movie, which we followed up with Mad Men.

After an uneventful stay in June Lake, we explored Mono Lake this morning, and it's definitely one of the strangest places in the States. We then headed to Bodie, a mining ghost town now a historic park. Luckily, by the time we went back to Mono Lake, the snow had melted in Tioga Pass and we could drive to Yosemite through the western side of the mountains. It's a beautiful drive and we reached Yosemite Valley by dusk, but all the hotels were fully booked. Here we are in Mariposa, about to call it a night. Tomorrow we head back to Yosemite and then onwards, back on the road...

Suddenly September

We've had a busy past month, with Jona's busiest teaching stretch and JM in Washington, DC for work. We just had a quiet weekend until last night, when we went to the Hollywood Bowl for Disco Fever night (Chic, Kool and the Gang, Village People, Thelma Houston, and others). It was hilarious seeing thousands of people dancing to the YMCA song!!! And Chic definitely stole the show. Kool and the Gang played only two tunes from their 70s catalogue (Hollywood Swinging and Jungle Boogie), the rest was all 80s pop, a great shame as they are still in fine shape. All in all a fun night.

World on Fire

It's that time of year again, when the world around Los Angeles is ablaze. From our window, we can see fire in the hills to the east of Downtown. It literally looks like the ski slope from hell, with fire instead of snow. The flames are clearly visible from here, about 20 or 30 miles away. This makes us grateful for the lack of green around here, although we feel for the firefighters who are stuck fighting this inferno. Updates on the LA Times blog.

The air quality here has been terrible this weekend because of the smoke, so we've stayed at home and only gone out to the cinema (Public Enemies, bad; District 9, good). DVDs: Adventureland, good; and Alias Jesse James, OK. TV: episode 3 of the new season of Mad Men, excellent!

And, slowly, we're labeling the photos on our Smugmug account. The rest of the website will be back up at the end of September. We're learning Dreamweaver.

Depeche Mode

We just got back from seeing Depeche Mode at the Hollywood Bowl. Great show and inventive set design. The lights and neon kept the mood and a ball in the middle of the center screen made a lot of the video footage pop out of the screen. They played lots of songs from Violator and Songs of Faith and Devotion, our two favorite albums, as well as lots of their 80s tunes and some from the new album. Unfortunately, Dave Gahan's voice was a bit shaky (they canceled their San Diego show on Friday), but Martin Gore stepped in and the crowd helped out a lot. All in all a very good night.

August and Everything After

Been a busy couple of weeks. JM was in Seattle on business and Jona's busy back at school enjoying the new academic year. We saw "Funny People" last week (very good, a drama about stand-up comedians) and "(500) Days of Summer" on Friday. The latter has some beautiful shots of Downtown Los Angeles, especially of our neighborhood, which appears in many films and most commercials nowadays. The area that it focuses on is different from other films though, so it was a nice, surreal surprise. The local video shop (Old Bank DVD) is featured and the Bradbury Building (of "Blade Runner" fame) has a beautiful cameo at the very end. Very sweet film and one which will always remind us of this area and the years we have spent here. We've signed a new lease, so we're here in the same apartment for another year. While the building needs some TLC, the views of the Hollywood Hills, Griffith Observatory, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall are priceless, so we're happy to call it home for a little while longer. The beach and the sea are starting to look tempting though...

Tune in Tokyo

Well, we're back. The migration process from our web host has been pretty painful and slow (pretty much like their service in recent years, so avoid Apollo Hosting like the plague), but we are now back online.

We are planning to re-do the site, since we're going through this transition anyway. We're actually going to switch to UltraverseProductions.com, although you shouldn't notice as UltraverseMusic.com will point to the same place. What does the change mean? Well, since 2003, we've focused more on a number of types of media and design elements, rather than just music, so a change is long overdue. When we launched this site in 2003, JM was DJing and putting out a lot of music. While that's still a focus, he's also deep into photography and design. With a little luck, there will be some t-shirts up for sale on this site in the next two months, and a slimmed down photo section that will serve as JM's portfolio.

In the meantime, only the News section is up and running, so check back soon, as this format allows more frequent updates than previously. We'll see if we can get something more substantial up over the weekend.

Movie Madness

Well, how good was the Mel Brooks tribute at the Academy on Friday? It was fantastic. It was just so nice to see the best excerpts of his greatest films (from The Critic to The Producers to Blazing Saddles to Life Stinks) on a big screen. Many of his long-time collaborators were on hand, including the hilarious Carl Reiner (know to most as the old guy in Ocean's 11). Mel Brooks was also there in person, so it turned into an emotional night, as we watched footage of his departed wife, Anne Bancroft, dancing and seducing her audience. Of course, it was plain funny too as Brooks has funny bones, but the evening provided a nice balance for a tribute to such a mensch.

Saturday, we drove out to Santa Paula, Ventura and Camarillo. And, Sunday we went to the farmer's market in Hollywood, which has grown tremendously since we were last there. A weekend of errands, and then back to the Academy last night for the penultimate film in the 1939 series: Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, with Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. Great film. Next week is the last in the series, The Wizard of Oz.

Signing Off... For Now.

So, here's the big news: Apollo Hosting, where our website has been based since 2003, is changing management, so we're switching to FatCow.com, which looks very promising. Until tomorrow, the website will be down, as the site transfers, and then we'll have to rebuild the site from scratch. This might be that golden opportunity to finally switch over to DreamWeaver. The site will look different from now on, but the update is long overdue. Thanks for sticking with us.

Nothing will happen tonight, as we're very excited about going to the Mel Brooks tribute at the Academy. More about that soon.

Render unto Caesar...

A while back, I read an interesting article in the New York Times about the home of the Caesar Salad. I was intrigued by the concept of it being created by an actual person, Caesar (originally Cesar) Cardini at the Restaurant Caesar in Tijuana, Mexico. I was even more intrigued by the fact that the restaurant is still around and still serving Caesar Salads, which most tourists are too scared to eat because of the raw egg involved. I sense a trip to Tijuana coming on. In the meantime, El Coyote in Los Angeles serves a mean version of the salad.

Total Eclipse

Today there will be a total eclipse of the sun, which can be seen throughout Asia, but also online.

We're having an eclipse of our own in California, with a horrible new budget for the state.

On the good news front, Downtown Los Angeles will see its first new cinema opening in decades this November, so we'll be able to avoid reality far more easily and far more often.

Speaking of films, the Academy's season of ten nominees for best picture in 1939 continues and we saw the great "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" on the big screen last night. Timeless classic. More relevant than ever. And this Friday we'll be back for more, as the Academy is hosting a tribute to Mel Brooks. Saddle up!

Yow!

Very sad about the news coming out of the Beastie Boys' camp this morning. We were looking forward to seeing them in concert at the Hollywood Bowl this September, but it turns out Adam Yauch (see title of this post for pronunciation) has a form of cancer in his throat and will go in for an operation next week. The good news is he's expected to make a full recovery; the bad: no new album or tour for a while. Our thoughts go out to him and his family. Check out the BBoys website for a very honest video explanation from the man himself.

Here's what the Hollywood Bowl website is posting:

"Adam "MCA" Yauch of Beastie Boys was diagnosed last week as having a cancerous tumor in his left parotid (salivary) gland. Luckily it was caught early and is localized in one area, and as such is considered very treatable. It will however require surgery and several weeks of additional treatment. Fortunately the cancer is not in a location that will affect Yauch's vocal chords.

Beastie Boys have canceled all upcoming concert appearances to allow time for Yauch's surgery and recovery. The release of the band's forthcoming album Hot Sauce Committee Part 1 will also be pushed back.

Paraphrasing from a video statement on Beastieboys.com, Yauch said, "I just need to take a little time to get this in check, and then we'll release the record and play some shows. It's a pain in the neck (sorry had to say it) because i was really looking forward to playing these shows, but the doctors have made it clear that this is not the kind of thing that can be put aside to deal with later."

Outsourcing

I've wrestled with an easier way to update the News section since we started this site in 2003. I abandoned this third-party blog after a few months back in 2005, as we were still posting a lot of photos in the News section. We're still using old software to update the site for the moment, so it's been pretty difficult changing the pages on a regular basis. We're switching back to a third-party blog service, as we need to update our site faster and from any location. Just as with the photo section (outsourced to a fantastic service called SmugMug), we're going to start using more dedicated services to run different parts of the site. In 2005, blog software was still in its infancy, but it seems to have caught up with our needs, so we have no more reservations. Hopefully, we can find a decent place for the mp3 mixes we host as well. In the meantime, here's another change and a new look we hope you'll appreciate.

As for news, we had our first "lazy" weekend since April. Friday, we went to see a great little documentary (Food, Inc.) at our favorite and cheapest cinema in Pasadena (the Regency). On Saturday we visited Jonna and Le to see beautiful Baby Addison in Orange County, and on Sunday we relaxed around the house, staying cool because outside it was hovering around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer's here, at long last.