An eventful day off begins with sleeping in. Though it has gone largely unreported by the mainstream press, recent studies conducted by fancy-pants researchers indicate that the longer you sleep, the better you feel. That must be why depressed people sleep eighteen or twenty hours a day — because it feels sooooo fucking good. Normally I’m awake at 9:00am every morning, but today I slept in, and by the time I got around to leaving the comfort of my bed for the big bad world outside, I felt like a million bucks (except a lot more jaded). I drove around town for a few hours running errands, stopping briefly to enjoy what I believe is the greatest croissant in the world, as made by the (I think) Vietnamese guy at the bakery down the street from my apartment. He’s like, better than the French at bread-making. Remember that scene in Apocalypse Now where the French plantation owner talks about how Vietnam is theirs and they fought for it? Apparently that never worked out for the French, but it sure helped the Vietnamese population master the croissant. After that I spent a few hours in Hollywood milling around, and then I left for Irvine, where I spent the afternoon with my cousin Mark and his family.
Until last month, I figured I had no family in California. Then a record came into the store by a guy named Mark LeVine, who recorded one psychedelic folk/rock album in 1968 (featuring Ry Cooder on acoustic lead guitar, electric bottleneck guitar and mandolin). I called my father asking if there was any chance we were related to the guy. After all, he spelled his name with the unique “LeVine” that my family uses, as opposed to natural (or “boojwah”, as I like to call it) “Levine” spelling. My father — never one to take a task lightly — put in way too many hours of work trying to figure out if and how we were related to Mark LeVine, and soon informed me that he had “no fucking clue”. But, he said, he remembered that we were related to a completely different Mark LeVine, who happened to be a former musician and current University professor living in California. I told him that was pretty fascinating, and said I’d have to meet the guy, seeing as how he’s family.
The first thing I noticed about Mark, after doing some preliminary Google searches for information on the other Mark LeVine was that he looked startlingly like a mix between my father and I, but with long blonde hair. See for yourself. Then I read about how he’s performed with Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Ozomatli and a host of other musicians. Not only that, he’s just had another book published that was reviewed by both the New York Times and L.A. Times, entitled Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam. I looked forward to our meeting as an opportunity to both meet a family member who I otherwise never would have met, and to pick the brain of a guy who shares many similar interests with me. From the moment I read about his book, I was fascinated (and, yes, slightly taken aback) by the fact that we both enjoy music and travel to the extent that we’ve both written about it. His book has been published and is currently available, mine has not been published, but I still felt like we would have much to discuss.
The day revolved around taking his children to a pool where Mark lives, around the University of California-Irvine campus. Between meeting his family, sharing a dinner with them, and returning to his house afterwards, we discussed music and writing at great length. Mark picked my brain about what I liked to listen to, my style of play, and what “scenes” were happening in New York and LA at the moment. He talked a lot about living in New York as a musician in the ’80s and how greatly it differed from what he understands it to be today. On the topic of blogging, we discussed advertising and how to generate revenue for a website like mine, and how to potentially turn it into a means for getting more work in the travel and/or writing fields. He asked if I knew of any magazines tailored to the blogger demographic that specialize in detailing how to become informed about different advertising opportunities if you’re a niche blogger, and, wouldn’t you know it, he just e-mailed me a link to an article from March about how Blogger & Podcaster Magazine expanded into advertising.
At 7:30 we left the pool and traveled to Mark’s house. While he and his wife put their children to bed, I sat on the covered patio in their yard browsing old photographs from Mark’s childhood. I found a picture of my parents at his Bar Mitzvah, and many photographs of my grandparents (Mark’s aunt and uncle). He told me how his father and my grandfather were instrumental in “building Paterson, New Jersey” through their work with the Board of Education and various planning committees. Suddenly, it clicked. My father’s long-standing feelings of civic responsibility and his obsession with local politics and committees became totally clear to me. We briefly discussed a weird connection between his father and my mother’s father: both men were podiatrists and they were both Presidents of the same society for podiatrists in succession. Somewhere, a photo exists of my grandfather (mom’s side) shaking hands with Mark’s father (dad’s side). This was long, long, long before even my parents met, and yet their families were already connected. Very eerie and surreal. Lastly, we talked about his book, literary journalism and breaking into the industry. Looking at his book and hearing about how he went about getting it written and published gave me hope that my project can someday achieve a similar end. I’ve felt somewhat despondent about the prospect of having my manuscript read, enjoyed, and published for some time now, but hearing a success story and getting to question someone who has been through the process from start to finish has inspired me to start more actively pushing to reach my goal.
We ate some of the cupcakes that I brought from Lark, and before I knew it the clock had nearly struck ten o’clock and it was time for me to head back north to LA. Tentative plans were made for me to see Mark perform with an Iranian metal band at the Whisky next week. Sorry this post is being made late (it’s almost 1am now, so I’m back-dating this entry), I’ve been busy uploading the album below and reading some of Mark’s articles along with those written about him. Also, you can watch him on the O’Reilly factor. No joke: I felt a bit of deja-vu watching that clip, as if I’d seen part of it before in a drunken or stoned haze and wondered whether or not the long-haired man in the video pronounced his name “Levine” or “LeVine”. In fact, it’s quite likely seeing as how the segment aired in the summer of 2004 and I was — at the time — routinely falling asleep to the lulling sounds of Fox News every night. Don’t ask me why. There was something serene and dreamlike about it, and it was quite a good antidote for restlessness.
It’s been a very long day. I’m watching 8 1/2. It’s hard. My penis, that is! Sorry, that was a horrible joke and an even worse way to end an otherwise vulgarity-free blog post. Really, I’m wondering why I haven’t kept up with my Italian since college. I was actually starting to feel confident about speaking it, but I haven’t done so in 3 years. Thanks for tutoring me, Marika, wherever you are.
