The Hazel Project

WARNING: This post contains language that happened in real time.
This disclaimer is mostly for Betty.

You know holding a sign for honks looks easy.

I beg to differ.

I was out there 30 minutes and the sun was setting and Echo Park was getting colder; I know, I was surprised too. My arms were getting tired from holding the sign over my head and over the curb so motorists could it. I think my sign said, ‘Stop the War in Iraq.’ Somebody had to do it so Bart could play accordian properly. i will admit, I questioned if his playing helped get more honks, he was a friendly conversationist though.

Every so often a group of people waiting to cross the street would give us a positive nod.
One group of guys who had been at happy hour, already lubed up, thanked us considerably, taking out his Veteran’s card and showed us proudly. Twice. Crying.
We refrained from receiving hugs.

So we’re out there. Getting honks. Then a cat holding a sign across the street, runs
ahead of the peds at the crosswalk screaming at the stopped traffic. He was adamant. His girlfriend was over in Iraq, and he was super worried for her, he told us later. He continued this behavior as if we were getting paid by the honk. He pridefully showed us the best technique. This consisted of mostly yelling “can I getahonk?” and any gesture short of collapsing on the cars while they were stopped at the red light.

I was just as happy participating in the larger Echo Park neighborhood community. I thought about all of us out there, doing this thing, letting people blow their horn during rush hour, blowing off steam.

Then I wondered if I was going to be written down on a special list for holding such a sign.

I thought it was good clean entertainment at reasonable prices UNTIL:

Two stop light cycles later I hear incessant honking. I looked across the street and a woman wearing tights, was walking with the peds honking a bicycle horn. Cussing, and approaching me at quite a clip; all I could think was how I wished she was wearing something other than tights. Her body shape was quite larger than Heidi Klum’s.

We thought she’d pass through with the others. But instead she wanted to yell at us a little more. I was first. With her bicycle horn at my ear squonking it, she screams
“How do you like that motherfucker!”

It was hard to hear her cuss at me because the horn was so loud, and the closer image of her tights so strikingly bad. But the message was sinking in.

I stood there in shock.

Mostly hoping she’d go away without hitting me. ‘Was she homeless?” I thought.

She had more:

“Every Friday night it’s the same thing, it’s all I hear in my apartment, and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT! I HATE YOU GUYS!

I thought she had soiled herself.

(After one example of her fine command of expletives. I ‘ll let the reader fill in the last quote with their own imagination. Use a lot of them to get the full effect. Scream it too, if so inclined.)

All I could say was, “Thanks, have a good day.”

I expected the FBI to show up any minute.

Bart said he could understand how people who lived closer to Sunset Blvd would be really angry on Friday nights because of the encouraged honking.

I held the sign for an hour. And at 6:00 I handed it back to Bart and said, “I’m done for today man.”

He and Lisa thanked me holding the sign and let me know they’d be out there every Friday night at 5:00.

I grabbed my bag of fresh AA batteries and headed back to my supper of black bean burrito with avocado and red bell pepper. All complemented with a fresh glass of Charles Shaw Syrah.

Also known in these parts as “2 buck Chuck”.

Thanks for Checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

A new vibe I noticed in Echo Park is a barrage of honking.

This polyphony of sound occurs between the times of 5 and 7 pm at the corners of Echo Park and Lemoyne.

I believe there is a trivial pursuit question that asks “what pitch is a car horn tuned at.”

I believe the answer was F or Bb. Either way, even if it was tuned to this interval, it’d be wrong.

Itjust sounds like lots of honking.

Fortunately I live on top of a hill, so to hear the honking I actually need to be on Sunset blvd.

Other neighbors who live closer to Sunset get to hear the honking throughout Friday night rush hour.

Why all the honking, I wondered?

Signs.

The honking was in response to signs to stop the war in Iraq. A group of people go down and hold big signs that say “bring the troops home” and “Honk to stop the war” and other short slogans that are in a 2 foot point font.

A recent Friday night I was at “Jumbo Bargain” to buy fresh radio batteries for a clean reception of coast to coast. “jumbo Bargain” is a Korean owned dollar store. 4 AA batteries for $1! They also have religious paraphanelia: a set of Buddha & Ganesh figurines as well as Blessed Mother candles. You know the tall skinny white ones.

I digress, I dig the Jumbo Bargain.
Yes, Larry, I admit it is the Echo Park version of Wal-Mart.

AS I enter the sidewalk I look down Sunset to where the honking is and there is a cat holding a sign with one hand and playing accordian with the other. I’m amazed that he’s able to pull it off at all. I offer to hold the sign so he could use both hands to play the accordian. He was with a woman getting Lots honks, of course from holding her sign way up in the air.

Their names were Bart and Lisa. Or that’s their sign holding names anyway. And we had areally nice conversation about living in Echo Park, Pre-Katrina New Orleans, and L.A. traffic.

Thanks for checking in

Stephen A. Thomas

One of my favorite bands is American Music Club. I’ve been listening to their music since 1993. ‘Big’ Will of Flinghammer, would play the CD “Mercury” incessantly at Bebop on Countyline Rd. This is Madison Mississippi by the way. I became hooked.
The first song on that cd is a slow 6/8. Open, vulnerable, haunting and beautiful.

The song is called “Gratitude Walks”

the chorus is “Gratitude walks on sixth street.”

A couple of weeks ago I went on a hike in the Angeles National Forest and Tim was playing this song in the car.

Somehow it took on an entirely new meaning for me. Or maybe I got it for the first time. I mean internally instead of just in my head.
As we drove up the mountains above the fog engulfed L.A. A cloudless blue sky and warm sun appeared. I scanned the view and listened deeply.

I began thinking back what I used to believe gratitude meant.

There was a time, I admit, I was grateful and thankful one day a year. Of course for standard reasons. It seems misdirected to me now:
To be out of school. To get to sleep in. To shop on black Friday.
Then I worked in music retail. I became so resentful having to work the day before and after Thanksgiving, it became difficult to be thankful for that 1 day.

I only knew what thankfulness tasted like; a 12 hour smoked Turkey with trytophan hangover.
The past 20 months have revealed a feeling place of true gratitude & thankfulness that have taken new meaning for me; feeling apologetic for my past insolence, and thankful to recognize thankfulness!

I’M THANKFUL FOR FORGIVENESS:September 29th I received an e-mail from Fellini’s Raincoat guitar player. Our friendship began to disengrate 10 years ago. We went 8 years without speaking. We had played together, 7 years in 2 different bands; AMC’s “Mercury” being part of the soundtrack for that time. A huge musical influence for both of us.

Since October, he and I have been e-mailing at least 2 or 3 times a week.

He and I have re-established our friendship in the most profound way.

It took a lot of honesty & forgiveness from both to do this. The unfolding was both exciting and terrifying.

What if I was rejected? What if I really burned the bridge to this friendship?

Both questions were put to rest quickly.

What we both realized is that all the meanness we performed in the past, the friendship has remained. Awakened out of an 8 year hibernation.
We are still writing about past stories because they need to have their place;but the point is we’re willing to explore and hit edges.
The miracle of e-mailhas given us a “real time” reminder of what forgiveness looks like.

Participating has helped me forgive myself for what I had done.

I’ve been told forgiveness helps the forgiver.

This time, as I listened to “gratitude walks” in Tim’s car; I understood this concept.
I felt a depth of gratitude for the act of forgiveness, and forgiving.

Depth that goes beyond words. It brought me to tears though.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Stephen A. Thomas

I’ve uploaded a piece called November.

It reminds me of Fall in North Carolina. I wrote it in 2004 when I lived on Bernard St.

I was in School, working at Jillians on the weekend and at Mayview during the week.

One of the  last pieces I did on that Piano.

At the time I was into Harold Budd. A composer that I believe lives in L.A. .

He has this ability to create sound and melody that fit the seasons quite well. Especially Fall.

This piece has a “cloudy sky at dusk” vibe to it. And it’s interesting that it came out this way during this period of my life.

I cut the piano first and then overdubbed minimoog bass line on top of the piano arpegio. (sp)
At one point it goes out of sync from each other. I left the flaw because I like the filter sweep at the end of the take. So I chose to keep the end and live with a couple of wrong notes.

At the end I keep a descending line going all the way down the piano keyboard while keeping the left hand arpegio going. This is the point where it the right hand and left hand crash into each other. All that tonal tension is finally let go with the minimoog filtersweep at the end. some Disolve (sp)

Tell me what you think.

Thanks for listening

Stephen A. Thomas

Tonight is the Rolling Stones concert at Dodger stadium.

I’m off to Trader Joes for some very non-stones fare.

Bruchetta and a nice Syrah.

My plan is to take a lawn chair out to my back yard that over looks dodger stadium, and enjoy the 7 second delay.

I’d like to hear, “its only rock n roll” and “start me up”- for my short infatuation with Heidi Klum. And “emotional rescue”

To be honest I’m more of a Beatles fan than a Rolling Stones fan. But good music is good music. It’ll be great to hear people as old as Herb strap on a guitar and get all swampy.

I wonder if they get their blood transfusions before or after the show?

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

Here we go.

This is a five minute clip from the infamous Thanksgiving episode.

Happy Early Thanksgiving everyone

<> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZByndN_ffyw&mode=related&search=

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

Hello everyone,

Today is my Brother Phil’s Birthday. I thought he’d get a kick out of this story.

Last night when I was driving home from Culver City, I had turned on the radio to get a traffic report. Well, that and the Coast to Coast line up for the night.

Usually the 10 freeway going toward downtown is pretty clear;l until I get to downtown. It’s a real bottle neck there. Navigating L.A. traffic kinda requires a Forest Gump approach. You never know what you’re gonna get and need to take it as it comes. What you can count on, is somewhere there being ’slow and go’, or a ’sig alert’. Sig alerts mean there’s a wreck and traffic is backed up heavily.

About 10:30 PM, I was revving the VW in 3rd gear to a whopiping 63mph. I lost track of my gear shifting because I was trying to figure out why Pat Boone was the guest on Coast to Coast.

Then it came time for the traffic report.

And as always, there was a crash. Apparently, there was an overturned box truck. That’s kinda normal I’m figuring out. What was different this time was traffic backed up because the box truck had dumped it’s contents all over the Freeway.

At first I thought “what’s a box truck?” then the announcer said,

“That’s right folks an overturned box truck dumped Frozen Pigs all over the freeway!”

I’m contemplating; “I guess they call it a box truck cause it’s easier to say than refrigerator.”

FROZEN PIGS?

I began to laugh at this just because I was glad to be far away from the frozen pigs. Think of all the car body damage that would do!

Then I felt bad for laughing thinking of all the fellow motorists on that freeway. I envisioned lots of swerving, honking and expletives. All trying to dodge frozen pigs while going 80 miles an hour.

When Phil and I were kids we watched a lot of “WKRP in Cincinatti.”

Although a very different scenario, it had that WKRP vibe. Remember when Arthur Carlson threw Turkey’s out of a helicopter at a Cincinatti Grocery store as a Thanksgiving promotion? Needless to say it was a disaster.

Very close to “God in the machine.” At least from the perspective of innocent people being pummeled by Pigs or Turkey’s.

“…as God as my witness I thought turkey’s could fly.”

-Arthur Calrson

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

Well, I looked at the blog today and had 6 prefabricated comments from an e-mail address
that was listed as “Buy Viagra”.

Apparently the spammers have found the hazel project.

The past two weeks have been amazing and interesting in ways for my own personal growth but little in the way of ‘off the cuff’ stories.

There have been a couple of posts I started to write and another video but they need work.

I admit I get frustrated easily in such matters.

For instance. The Yom Kippur video that I spent an afternoon getting to work and link properly, only to have a bizarre mishmash of pictures to show for it. A disappointment.

Also the link at the top of the blog that says “contact” takes you somewhere completely different than my e-mail address. My threshold for such things to work properly is low. About 4 hours tops. Then I get frustrated and need to step back. sometimes for a couple of weeks.

I recognize this characteristic within myself as throwing myself out of balance though. I divert my attention to generating ideas instead. The danger here is that I end up with folders of enough creative ideas to fill a filing cabinet but the energy for implementation has actually been spent; all on creating more ideas.

It’s being in the forest.

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON:

In order to vote I had to get a CA driver’s liscense. I decided it’s a good idea if I plan to drive too.

It took a total of 4 visits. Spending approximately 45 minutes to 2 hours each time. Listeneing to a computer generated female voice call out line numbers.

“Now Serding. B22 at window 11.”

Yep. She said, ‘Serding!” It took a while to get use to that.

The aesthetic vibe at the DMV is stark. Although the people who work there are very nice and helpful. Probably because they feel safe.

All the DMV employees are separated from the customers by 2 inch thick bullet proof glass.

Except the DMV driver’s test proctor.

She’s separated by 4″ of bullet proof glass.

When all was said and done, the Califronia DMV, was more than happy to let me drive my salvaged VW to the tune of about 500 bucks. (That includes a $25 warning to put the front liscense plate on. I call it a warning because the real ticket price is $66 if they catch you without it a second time.)

HOWEVER;

I finally did get my CA driver’s liscense on Friday.

I remember the guy taking the picture asked laughingly,

“So you trying to outdo your old liscense picture eh?”

I remember it happening so fast. He snapped it before I had a chace to stand up straight.

Think E.T.’s posture with spongebob’s eyes when they glaze over and get real big before he says, “Reeaally?”

The thing is the people who managed the voting station just shuffled me on through.
I was on the right list and came prepared but they just had me sign without aksing for the liscense. (I had a temporary liscense with proper paper work as of last Tuesday btw.)

As far as voting, I rely on Larry and Dan as my gatekeepers to keep me up to date.
Well Tim too, because he actually studies the book about all the propositions.

ANOTHER NOTE:

Last week I delved into writing some music for kids. It was a lot fun to write this music and bolstered my spirits a great deal. So far I have a fanbase of four 1 to 5 year olds.

The week ahead? My theme for the week ahead is Balance. Balance between the job search & my musical endeavors; as well as balance within: Mind, Body & Spirit.

I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks for checking in.

Stephen A. Thomas

I voted.

I’m announcing it because this privalege ties into my experiences at the DMV.

more later.

Stephen A. Thomas