RobertSpuhler.com

Car Trouble (It Must Be Summer)

It's easy to forget that the desert gets cold at night. Especially when the wind is blowing as hard as it was Tuesday evening (30 to 40 miles per hour, said the weather guy on television).

So I found myself in a cold swirl of sand at midnight this past Tuesday-into-Wednesday, stranded by the side of the road about a half-mile away from the California-Nevada state line. When I started my car, it sounded like the engine rods were banging on the hood. It wouldn't move. And the battery had gone with the engine, meaning that my headlights, and, importantly, my hazards would not work.

Let's back up.

Nov. 16-25

I'm kind of an idiot.

When DC United was flying high in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer, and with the MLS championship in Washington DC this year, I decided it would be a good excuse to fly back for the MLS Cup match on November 18th, the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Thus far, not too stupid.

Upon Return

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you to Dave, Chris and Danielle for letting me crash on your couch for a week.

Thank you to everyone who made time for lunch, dinner or bowling.

Thank you to Juniper Lane for showing me the 9:30 Club dressing rooms - after all the concerts I've covered there, that was the first time I had ever been up there.

And most of all, thank you to Jonathan and Radhika for letting me share your special day.

Photos after the jump and at my Flickr page.

Notes From the Road

SILVER SPRING, Md. - A few notes from the last two days:

• I am done, completely done, with United Airlines.

Airline Love

Nothing beats a 28-hour trip.

I went back to Denver yesterday for my father's birthday (dinner at a seafood restaurant, then tickets to see a fantastic 3-1 win for America's Team, the Colorado Avalanche over the Detroit Red Wings). Left LAX at 10:55. Back in LA at 3:30. Stupid snow in Denver caused a nearly-90 minute delay.

However, I would now like to announce that Frontier Airlines is the official airline of RobertSpuhler.com.

1) Short check-in lines
2) Easy e-ticket kiosks
3) Cute animals on plane (for the record, I flew with Sarge to Denver and Carl back)
4) Cheap
5) If your flight is delayed, you get free in-flight DirectTV
6) Flies everywhere I've flown in the last three years (really just LA, Denver and DC)
7) Best commercials in the business

It's kinda rare for me to say anything nice about an airline (I was once on a carrier that went out of business while I was in the air), but I'm a Frontier backer.

(NOTE: This was originally going to be my San Francisco weekend. It's been postponed.)
(MORE NOTE: This means I'm going to try to get to the Emily Haines show Tuesday at the El Rey.)

Need SF Advice

So, if I were going to San Francisco for a couple of days in January...

1. Where in town should I stay?
2. How rough is the drive (keeping in mind that I'm the guy that drives 13 1/2 hours to western Colorado for holidays)?
3. What is the Great American Music Hall like?
4. Where should I go and what should I do?

Sleep Comes Like a Drug...

Up since 3 a.m. Jittery. Right leg shaking. 2nd Slurpee.

I spent a lot of time on a plane, walked out of an ACT lesson (kid kinda had it coming - didn't do homework, didn't bring a calculator and didn't seem to want to do any work), bought flowers, delivered flowers, drove to the Valley, did a commercial spot in a workshop with a cute, married Canadian woman.

So, I'm going to bed. But before that happens...

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight...

I went to the premiere of "Six Years Later," the last film I shot in DC, tonight and got to see all four minutes of my screen time. It was fun, and the crowd seemed to like it. It’s very, very easy to start making a film, but damn near impossible to finish one, so congrats to Nestor and his crew.

I’ve had a lot to drink in the last few days. I love me some Metro.

DC United played horribly on Saturday night, but I did get to go to RFK Stadium, a sort of mecca for me. No trip back to DC would be complete without one trip there.

Line of the trip thus far: "There’s a point where ‘licking your wounds’ stops being about healing and starts being very masturbatory."

Off to Baltimore tomorrow. Back to DC Tuesday. Back to LA on Wednesday for tutoring, a casting director workshop and confrontation.

Having a good time. Wish you were here.

DC According to NY

It’s a couple days late, and the DC blogosphere has already ripped it to shreds, but I’d like to take a couple of quick shots at Adam Nagourney’s travel piece on Washington D.C. in the New York Times that ran last Friday.

First, if you promise something in the lead, follow up on said promise. The “36-hour trip,” he says, “should also include excursions to places that perhaps if less famous, are all the more interesting.” NONE of the places mentioned here are “less famous.” I mean, a nighttime tour of the monuments? Café Milano? The Spy Museum? Good lord. Even his music choice, in a poorly-planned effort to look “hip,” falls flat; the 9:30 Club is recognized often by PollStar as the best small concert venue in the country and it runs full page ads in many DC publications. You couldn’t even have gone for the Black Cat instead?

While on the subject of the 9:30 Club, no one – NO ONE – would ever tell a waiter that they “have a 9:30 to catch.” That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard. Please tell me the editor accidentally cut some words there.

Also, are there African-American people in DC? I only ask because Nagourney’s little tour never really takes us too far out of the comfy (read: white) confines of upper northwest, other than the monument tour. If you want DC cuisine, at least go to Ben’s Chili Bowl.

Finally, if you every wonder why New Yorkers get the reputation for being elitist [expletives], read these sentences about why he recommends a restaurant: “’It feels like New York,’ a friend said at dinner one recent night. Precisely.” If you want New York cuisine, you could always, you know, stay home.

I don’t want to put all the blame here on Nagourney. There is not a city in America that can reasonably be boiled down into a 36-hour itinerary. Hell, even Los Angeles can scrounge up enough stuff to keep someone occupied for at least 96 hours. And the audience he’s writing for is the type that would think of the 9:30 Club as daring (and “in a bad part of town,” gentrification aside).

But man did he seem to miss not just the boat, but the entire bleedin’ ocean with this one.

[Reunion] Friday Late Night

I’m back in (sweaty, hot) Los Angeles, after a nice, short vacation in (sweaty, hot) Glenwood Springs, Colorado for my 10-year high school reunion. I’m still processing bits and pieces of the stay, so in the meantime, here’s a story from last Friday night…

In the Glenwood Springs I remember from childhood, stoplights start to blink around 11 p.m. Almost everything closes early. The streets are barren when seen while driving home from the late movie (never to begin after 9:30).

Today, Glenwood Springs has a nightclub.

And more hippies/ski bums than I remember.

But let’s focus on the nightclub, shall we?

It’s called Club Roxie, and it lives just under the bridge, in between Grand Ave. and the Brewpub. It’s exterior looks less like the nightclubs popular in cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas or New York City and more like the alcohol detox center (drunk tank) located about a half-block away – blacked out windows, decrepit walls.

I made my way to the nightclub (mistake #1) at around 1 a.m. with some friends. There was no line, which tells me that Club Roxie is behind in its promotional techniques (Rule #1: Always, ALWAYS keep a line outside). We arrived in time to see a very, very inebriated guy standing in the doorway, saying something to someone.

I say “someone” because I did not know the target of the monologue.

I say “something” because this man had left consonants behind a long time ago.

His hand went down toward his belt line, and then there was a push, and then a bum rush from the target and his friends. A bouncer, weighing about twice as much as me (making him kinda weak, really) carried the drunken guy outside, threw him to the ground and restrained him. The Glenwood police showed up moments later – thankfully, the incident happened during a Last Call with Carson Daly commercial – and carried him off.

My friends and I made our way inside (mistake #2).

Friends of mine whom have gone abroad have described what they call the “culture hole.” Invariably, these friends will head out to bars or nightclubs and be besieged by music popular anywhere from three months (western Europe) to two years (Russia, former Bloc, South America) ago here in America.

In Glenwood Springs, the culture hole is about a year deep, if the Ciara and Eastside Boyz spun by the DJ are indicators.

Anyway, we made our way to the bar (mistake #2), allowing me to survey the room. What jumped out more than anything else was the generally through-the-motionsness of it all. The singles mingled, the couples ground (grinded?) against each other, everyone else drank heavily. But all of it seemed shackled by the familiarity – can you really let yourself go when there’s a better-than-even chance that your neighbor is the next person through the door. Say what you will about Las Vegas (and oh, have I), but at least drunken debauchery there is many miles away from home.

These are the thoughts running through my mind as I sipped a Jagerbomb (mistake #3 for allowing my friend to buy me one, mistake #4 for sipping it, as the reason it is usually chugged is it spoiled Robitussen taste). The one last thought…

Which is worse: Growing up in a small town, or growing up in a small town that thinks it is a city?