Artist: Weinland
Track: God Here I Come
This track is available on 
When I interview an artist, I always ask six questions. In every artist feature, like this one, I always include five of those. I don’t edit these interviews (the way someone writes — grammar, syntax, et al. — can reveal as much as what he’s written,) so that one dropped question is the only editorial control I allow to weed out the duds (and I ask plenty.)
My questions can miss their mark for two primary reasons. First, unlike the usual music and art interviews, they’re rarely about music or art, so they can catch the asked off-guard. Second, they can be so open-ended that they may appear unapproachable. Together, these qualities can make my queries just sound dumb, like the one I dropped from this feature: “Life-altering experience. What comes to mind?”
The first thing that comes to mind is the similarity between this question and the questions on my college application. Anyway, I’m on a health cleanse right now and I haven’t ate, drank, or anything else in almost 6 days so all I can think about is tacos. I can’t really think about anything complicated… tacos.
My dad used to say, “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.” Looks like Weinland’s founding member, John Adam Weinland Shearer, just proved him wrong.
Who is John Adam Weinland Shearer?
A man for his place and time. I wouldn’t say hero, cause what’s a hero.
Who are Weinland?
A band to watch, proven to deserve your attention.
Why do you create?
We create because we’re drawn to create; like a mime to the ill at ease.
“God” begins both the song and its title. What is faith to you?
Two nights ago we played a bar in Salem, OR. When we were about to go on we noticed two ministers in full garb sitting at a table in the back. We played “All To Yourself” first and the crowd was receptive. Then we played (after announcing the title) “The Devil in Me”, and the general crowd was receptive. Then we announced our third song, “God Here I Come”. The two ministers rose from their table and exited the building. Faith demonstrates its significance in the lives of a lot of people (one way or another), and clearly the discussion, question, or embrace of it is frightening to many… including to those who dress in the uniform of experts.
Julie My Love and I are planning to leave L.A. this year. Vancouver (British Columbia), San Francisco, and Portland are top candidates for our new hometown. As a Portland native, would you recommend your city or not? Why?
I’m actually a Montana native, relocated to Portland in 1997. I recommend Portland to you if you enjoy a comfortable and unpretentious city. It is an amazing community, particularly for musicians and fans, as this is the place where the line between rock stars and rock fans is thin and at times not present. I think lots of people move here to be normal. Our last home show was a secret show (prior to tour) at a dive bar here in Portland; the guitar player for REM (Scott), the drummer for the Decemberists (John) and the bass player for the Thermals (don’t know him) were all in the audience drinking and having a good time. They enjoyed themselves without the pressure of their success… to my knowledge anyway. That’s a good city.
If I were to click on just one of your link page friends, whom would you recommend? Why?
Click on Norfolk and Western: They are the gateway drug to Portland indie-folk-chamber-pop-music galore.
My thanks to Weinland for sharing their art. Please visit weinlandmusic.com for more.
I love the Los Angeles Times. I hate L.A., but its newspaper is great.
I used to walk to the store and pay $1.62 for the Sunday edition. When the Times offered to deliver the paper to my door Thursday through Sunday for $1.50 a week, I became a subscriber (an exception proving the rule.) Now, thanks to my “self-employed” lifestyle, my weekend feels four days long, as I spend more mornings than not reading the most incredible things about the most fascinating people by some of the best reporters while lying on my couch.
Many blog-reading people get their news online. This should not negate the need for a newspaper, however, as the experiences are wholly unique.
Online news sites are fast and efficient — click<back, click<back and in two minutes it’s on to e-mail or Perez.
Reading the newspaper — the type that’s printed on newsprint — is a ritual, too, but in a pleasant sense. I retrieve mine from outside the front door as soon as I get up. I pull it out of its plastic protector and sort through the fresh contents. The front page, California, and the Calendar I keep (as well as Opinion on Sunday.) The rest goes into the recycling bin.
A small pot of green tea and a few slices of toast (Whole Foods’ freshly ground honey roasted peanut butter on one and organic Adriatic fig spread on the other) offer sustenance on the coffee table. I lie on the couch, with the rising sun glowing across the twice-folded paper I hold one-handed above me, and revel in our world. Now that’s what I call a ritual.
If you’ve never read the paper on a regular basis, or not since current events in second grade, pick one up this Sunday (a good one, like the L.A. Times or The New York Times.) Give yourself an hour and a latte, and indulge in an entertaining education.
In my self-assigned duties as L.A. Times advocate, I’ll intermittently (or until I receive my next cease & desist) feature select sections of the articles I enjoy. You can click on the title’s link to read the full story online, but it’s so much harder to hold this computer over your head when you’re sprawled upon your settee (and fig jam’s murder on a keyboard.)
New phase seen in Mexico’s drug war
May 18, 2008
Millan Gomez’s schedule was a closely guarded secret, known only to a few associates, officials said. But as he headed home accompanied by two bodyguards in an armored sport utility vehicle, four cartel hit men were waiting behind his front door.
The bodyguards dropped off Millan Gomez, who entered his home alone. Seconds later, they heard gunshots.
Though wounded by at least eight shots, Millan Gomez was able to grab one of the attackers, officials said.
“Who sent you?” he demanded. “Who sent you to kill me?” He died at a hospital, the third high-ranking federal police official killed in Mexico City in a week.
Young China quake victims fear loss of parents
May 18, 2008
The worst natural disaster to strike China in three decades shredded tens of thousands of families in Sichuan province in the blink of an eye. Many of those who died were children, killed when their schools collapsed. But many of the youngsters who survived now face the grim prospect of possibly living the rest of their lives as orphans.
On Saturday, a group composed of about 70 high school students who had lost contact with their parents was brought to a medical university here in the provincial capital. Each member was then paired with a college student who had volunteered to adopt him or her as a pal until the young survivors might reunite with their families.
“Don’t lose hope until you know for sure,” medical student Zhang Lei, 20, told Wang Chao, 16, who had yet to find his parents and 14-year-old sister.
As they ate lunch in a cafeteria packed with teens, a girl broke out in hysterical sobs that made everybody pause.
A crucial chapter for the storied Chelsea Hotel
May 18, 2008
“This hotel does not belong to America,” wrote playwright and onetime resident Arthur Miller. “There are no vacuum cleaners, no rules and shame.”
In these rooms, Leonard Cohen met Janis Joplin on an unmade bed. Bob Dylan stayed up for days, longing for his estranged wife. Both men memorialized the hotel in song. In one room, Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again,” and in another Arthur C. Clarke penned “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The poet Dylan Thomas spent his last days at the hotel before a drinking binge finished him off in 1953. And 25 years later, the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious was charged with stabbing girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in their room at the hotel.
Item: My Other Penis is Smaller 
bumper sticker (10″ x 3″)
Price: $3.50
Buy it: cafepress.com/yorkrules
We visited our old hometown of San Diego this weekend. We moved away almost a decade ago, before the infestation of lifted trucks took hold. The sweet bras (named for the slang they speak) who build these beasts would find the eccentric passions that I dispose my income on just as ridiculous, but I had to make this bumper sticker to finally banish the thought from my brain whenever I saw another monstrous truck growling down the 15.
The four of us sat around the squat, square table on those preschool-sized stools that come standard with every sidewalk barbecue business in China. The food, accompanied by the ever-present (though not always cold) magnums of Tsingtao, was a welcome respite from another day’s rough ride on our Chinese motorbikes.
It was one of those nights that earns July its off-season status, and families strolled by us on a cobblestone street of the old inner city, hoping to cross paths with an errant cool breeze. A woman and her daughter passing by overheard our talk (or perhaps it was our overt Americaness, noticeably adrift in the midst of this foreign land.) The daughter, subtly prodded from behind by her mother, asked if she could practice her English with us.
Education is considered essential in China (though learning seems less stressed,) and we were always happy to oblige these regular requests (often overwhelming with our American exuberence those whom approached us.)
We paid our bill (another five dollar dinner for four,) and walked with them along the ancient alleys of Confucius’ home town. “How are you?” “What is your name?” “Where are you from?” By the time we had exhausted every line of inquiry the young lady had learned, we were at their house.
The mother invited us in and gave us frozen Chinese push-up pops to chew upon as we toured their humble home. We snapped a group picture, thanked them for their hospitality, and continued on our trip.
Four days ago, a massive earthquake rocked Western China, over eight hundred miles from where we met our fleeting friends. I haven’t been to Sichuan province, where the quake was centered, but the collapsed city centers and parents grieving great loss all seem so familiar to me.
Here in the United States, we are distant from China in many ways, but at this time of tragedy in the East, I wish them well from far to the west.
Although I’m still mired in the final throes of my current book project (this writing stuff sucks!) I’ve already begun compiling the material for my sophomore effort, Don’t Eat the Buttons, or as it will appear on the cover in its entirety:
Don’t Eat the Buttons
A Book of Haikus About
A Cat Named Haiku
It will be composed of one hundred haiku poems about my cat, Haiku. Each will be matched with a photo of her, so wherever you open the tome, you will find one haiku and one picture. The book, which I’ll self-publish through Lulu, will be an 8 ½ square inch perfect-bound full-colour paperback.
Beginning with Lounging in the sun, I’ll be posting individual two-page spreads here on yorkrules. You will see a project in process, and I’ll be motivated to steadily make progress. Who knows? I may finish my second book before my first.
My thanks to friend Zach and Julie My Love for encouraging another York idea. Your comments are welcomed on this and all future posts.
Item: 4 vertical sticker (3″ x 5″)
Price: $3.50
Buy it: cafepress.com/yorkrules
When I created my Boo!Qaeda bumper sticker, I was criticized for excessive enigmaticism. It’s a valid critique. Yorkrules is avowedly inaccessible because my perspective regularly lacks exposition. (The frequent alliteration and multisyllabic lexicon further muddy my intentions, I know.)
4 is fairly self-explanatory, of course, but as I appreciate the constructive criticism regarding my clarity, I’ll add a little explication.
The grammatically correct tag line of this design would read VOTE DEMOCRATIC. I’ve removed the “ic” to reinforce the ickiness. Democrat, when used in reference to the party, is considered a “political epithet.” A verbal flick to the ear, a minor moment of disrespect, it’s simply stated name-calling. It’s what our current president does.
This is a rare example of subtraction from a man who’s quite accomplished at addition (The Iraq War, for example, has cost over $517 billion, and is expected to climb into the trillions over the long term.)
With this sticker, I embrace such name-calling as emblematic of our present political era, and I look forward to the day* when we can move beyond such silliness and see what this country can really amount to.
My thanks to friend Memo for suggesting that I convert a recent post into this sticker.
Julie My Love explained in her Minute by Minute feature why she recently added a new tattoo. Now here’s more about the tattoo itself.
The art she imagined was made up of several flowers, each representing someone of significance in her life. (Being an Asian-loving iconoclastic half-Canadian, I asked to be Japanese Maple leaves.)
She found pictures of the specific flowers online, and I arranged them in Photoshop to create this pre-visualization.
She used this pre-vis to explain her idea to the artist, Hannah Aitchison, who then sketched out her own interpretation.
The work of translating the image from paper to flesh began…
… and three-and-a-half increasingly painful hours later…
Julie My Love had her new tattoo.
Here it is in detail.
Bringing the creative process three-quarters full-circle, I then coloured in Hannah’s sketch with Photoshop, a sort of post-visualization of her interpretation of my pre-visualization of Julie’s original idea.
