The Tempest

 I primarily listen to classical music.  Because I wasn't allowed to listen to modern music growing up, and grew up playing classical music, it is really the root of my musical obsession.  I mean, I named my recent daughter Eroica, and my first Adagio, so nothing about this statement should really be too revealing.  The only radio station I listen to is KUSC, which is Southern California's flagship classical station, if not the only one left.  Aside from being the primary soundtrack to my life, as I do listen to a lot of indie music in the betweens, I use it to center myself before shoots, or shows, or events, or whatever performance before which I may need centering.

 While KUSC has many "bounce" stations, from Palm Springs to Morro Bay, there are none in San Diego, where I was yesterday, and I needed it.  I scanned the radio stations for an equivalent, but only found hippity hoppity music, a little severely dated "rock", some Jesus stuff, and a bunch of people speaking Spanish, so I resorted to my cds.  I was about to throw in Sigur Rós' Valtari when I remembered some Beethoven sonata cds I had compiled as calming driving music for the birth of Eroica (during which we ironically only listened to Sigur Rós [I just found https://vimeo.com/53394874 by accident, so now I'm crying]).

 I threw in the first disc I saw, which was the second disc I compiled, having no idea what was on it, and, to be perfectly honest, having grown up loving Beethoven and later naming my daughter after his third symphony, I am still baffled by how much music he actually wrote that no one even knows exists.  I arrive at my destination an hour early, because that's how my brain works, and I Zen out on music that has been idly living in my car for a year and a half, having been unknowingly created for this specific moment.

 I woke up yesterday morning before the sun came up, knowing I would have to dig out my car from the first real snow storm we had this very warm winter.  Late the night before, after a couple days of trying to figure things out, I locked in a dancer from the east coast that I had been wanting to work with, but figured, as with most that I would love to work with, that she didn't ever really venture to the southwest.  I don't have the money to lure models this way, so I have to settle for who decides to come this way for bigger and better things.  I missed her travel schedule involving SoCal, and happened across a post with a "next: San Diego", so I quickly sent her a message.

 There was some confusion and mixed information, but we finally decided on Black's Beach, on a February Tuesday afternoon with a forecast in the mid 50s and a 60% chance of rain.  Poppyseed Dancer jumped in my car around 2:15, immediately pointed at my car stereo, and said, "I've played this."  She couldn't remember what it was, so she asked me.  I, of course, could only answer that it was Beethoven.  He wrote a lot of damn music.  So she pulled out her phone to find out exactly what it was:

Piano Sonata No. 17, in D minor...

The Tempest.

... and that pretty much summed up our day.

When we parked the car at the beach, the sun was out and there were a few little clouds on the sky.  It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold, so I left the wool trench coat and the towels I keep in my car for models.

 

 As soon as we got down to the beach, a giant distant cloud covered the sun and the temperature dropped.  It then became a struggle with cold, and I was immediately proved a fool for thinking everything would be fine.  I had just come from mid 20s, so mid 50s was fine, but dancers and cold don't go well together.  She suffered the elements and gave me some amazing things, which I will always appreciate.  We spent most of the time talking, or silently watching the storm slowly pass over the Pacific Ocean.  She did one final push in the cold, then we headed up the dreadfully steep road back to the car.

I've been putting off my milestone blog post.  Things in my little world have been stressful lately.  It's been 10 years since I accidentally killed someone, lost my wife, did my last performance on stage, crashed my computer, almost accidentally starved to death, et cetera, then decided to strive to become who I'm becoming.  I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around a lot of things, so that significant milestone is really weighing me down.  This last minute shoot, regardless of whether the weather cooperated or not, was a nice little breath of fresh air.  Now I've got to figure some shit out.