Day Five – Palm Springs, CA to Los Angeles, CA Via Joshua Tree January 10, 2009

Apologies for the delay in posting this! I’d like to blame Internet troubles but really I’m just lazy.

On my fifth day I took the very round about way from Palm Springs to L.A. with a circular detour through Joshua Tree National Park. However, before leaving Palm Springs I lounged around my hotel…and lounged…and lounged. There were some water problems the night before and in the morning their credit card machine wasn’t working so, in exchange for paying cash I got a nice discount and a robe. Yay! Seriously, if you go to Palm Springs do stay at the Del Marcos. It’s adorable.

My GPS took me an entirely differnt route off of I-10 to Joshua Tree – some back road way to the Twentynine Palms Highway. It was pretty and I got a good look at the windmill farms. Have a photo. During this drive I was listening to Alex’s playlist which injected a much needed soulful touch. Two notes: I have been entirely unable to account for the Alicia Keys song and I cannot believe you gave me a ten minute version of “Mustang Sally” (I made it through 8 minutes).

Everything was beautiful and strange and instead of trying to explain it to you I will just post a photo. Not one person recommended I listen to U2’s Joshua Tree album for this drive but two (Anne! Alex!) suggested Gram Parsons and one (Josh L!) left me a Fbook comment about it after the fact. As such I put together a little Gram Parsons playlist from those recommendations and it was perfect.

When I left the park and headed back towards L.A., I put on a mix I’d made myself to pshych me up for all the ch-ch-changes. I’d stopped feeling nervous and started feeling just plain excited/elated circa the Coachella Valley so happiness abounded. I was especially stoked on Highway 60, which were some of the most scenic drives I’ve ever seen – really, could have been straight out of New Zealand.

Finally, years later, I actually reached L.A. and put on Jay B’s playlist to help me not be lost. Very ecclectic, very pefect for driving in L.A.

So, as a footnote, you’ll all be glad to know I reached my friend Russ’s house with only a few minor fuck ups and I found an apartment on Saturday morning! I did not come here to play around – I move in on Wednesday and it’s lovely.

Thanks for all the mixes! Read the list for this trip after the jump.

Alex Gets All Soulful

• Alicia Keys “Teenage Love Affair”
• Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band “Express Yourself”
• Jay Mitchell “Mustang Sally”
• Girma Beyene “Set Alamenem”
• Stevie Nicks “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (I was totally obsessed with this song in Texas and we need to make a pact that if we’re ever in the same city again we’ll go karaoke and do this)
• Stevie Wonder “Send Me Some Lovin’”
• Kurt Vile “Freeway”
• Mittens on Strings “Big Brother”
• Los Lobos “I Got Loaded”
• Alton Ellis “Land of Loving”
• Arthur Russell “Don’t Forget About Me”
• The Wave Pictures “Spare Afternoons”
• Buck Owns “Close Up the Honky Tonks” (great)

Courtney’s Ch-Ch-Changes (and various songs she just likes dammit)

• David Bowie “Changes”
• CSS “Move”
• Wilco “Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Again)”
• Linda Ronstadt “Different Drum”
• The Velvet Underground “Beginning to See the Light”
• Pavement “Your Time to Change”
• The Lovin’ Spoonful “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?”
• Spoon “Small Stakes”
• Emiliana Torrini “Big Jumps”
• Luna “California (All the Way)”
• Nick Drake “Northern Sky”
• Centro-matic “For New Starts”
• John Lennon “(Just Like) Starting Over”
• PJ Harvey “Good Fortune”
• The Autumn Defense “The World (Will Soon Turn Our Way)”
• Beirut “Scenic World”
• Cat Power “Free”
• The Band “The Weight”
• Johnny Cash “If We Never Meet This Side of Heaven”
• Maps “To the Sky”
• R.E.M. “How The West Was Won and Where It Got Us”
• The Flaming Lips “Race for the Prize”
• Wilco “Jesus, Etc”
• The Allman Brothers Band “It’s Not My Cross to Bear”
• My Morning Jacket “I’m Amazed”
• Sly & the Family Stone “Everybody is a Star”
• The Beatles “Here Comes the Sun”
• Thao & the Get Down, Stay Down “Big Kid Table”
• The Replacements “Hold My Life” (BTW my friend Russ lives next door to Tommy Stinson, who I haven’t celeb sighted yet but I hope…)
• Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers “California Desert Party”
• R.E.M. “Feeling Gravity’s Pull”
• The Thermals “Returning to the Fold”
• Elton John “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”
• St. Vincent “What Me Worry”

Jay B plist

• Led Zeppelin “Bron-Yr-Aur”
• The Cult “Wild Flower”
• Reverend Horton Heat “That’s Showbiz” (painfully true)
• Cycle Sluts from Hell “Bloodlust”
• Carpenters “Top of the World”
• The Black Crowes “Wiser Time”
• Gary Numan “Cars”
• Stone Temple Pilots “Hello It’s Late” (this song was much better than I thought it was going to be, well played)
• Mr. Bungle “The Air Confitioned Nightmare”
• The White Stripes “Conquest”
• Liz Phair “Wind and the Mountain”
• Faith No More “Easy”
• Chet Atkins “Armen’s Theme”

Ending note for Josh L: your California songs are being put to use as I drive around L.A., completely and hopelessly lost. You’re the soundtrack to my paranoia.