"2000 Light Years From Home"
The Rolling Stones

"Satanic Majesties" gets a bad rap.  Seen as a lame imitation of "Sgt. Pepper" at the time, it’s been almost completely forgotten.  Nobody’s searching for all four Beatles’ faces in the 3-D cover.  The only song that was a hit, if you can even call it that, was "She’s A Rainbow".  But that’s pretty good.  As well as Bill Wyman’s "In Another Land" and the precursor to the subsequent masterpiece, "Beggars Banquet, "Citadel".  But the true keeper, the FM late night staple thirty-odd years ago, is "2000 Light Years From Home".

This is a Stones that has been forgotten.  Buried by the lame oldies act raping aging baby boomers who weren’t there the FIRST time around.  That’s why we believed in the Stones.  Alone in the dark high as a kite listening to "2000 Light Years From Home" was us.

On some level, Vail is 2000 light years from L.A.  There’s the altitude.  The winter weather.  The snow.  But today, you take home with you.  If you’ve got a cell phone and a laptop, or maybe just a BlackBerry, home is wherever you are.  You don’t have to return to your base to check your messages, you’re plugged in EVERYWHERE!  Which begs the question why you have to even LIVE in the metropolis.  Where you can’t drive anymore anyway.

"Can’t Find My Way Home"
Blind Faith

Speaking of late night classics.

I don’t think the kids have discovered this yet.  Steve Winwood made some inroads into the jam band circuit a few years back, but that’s an older generation.  That’s not the teenagers sitting in front of their computers discovering Led Zeppelin, the Doors and Hendrix.

Somehow Clapton gets the credit, whereas it’s really Stevie Winwood.  They both do the song in concert.  But Stevie’s version kills Eric’s.  He too can hit every note on the guitar, but his voice…that’s something that Derek can’t equal.  There’s no comparison.  Actually, it’s not only Derek who can’t compete…

Well I’m near the end
And I just ain’t’ got the time
And I’m wasted
And I can’t find my way home

Yes, we were VERY worried we wouldn’t be able to find our way home.  Because, you see, there was a gigantic blackout in the Vail Valley yesterday at 10 a.m.  We were waiting for the Mountain Top Express.  And it suddenly stopped, and didn’t start running again.  Which is so rare with high speed lifts, which slow down so you can get on and get off.  Felice wanted to punt.  But then I noticed that the Vista Bahn, which we’d just exited from, was stopped.  As was the nearby Wildwood.

And twenty minutes later, after the fifteen minute hiatus, after the Mountain Top Express started running again, we heard this STAGGERING noise as we approached the point of disembarkation.  One of diesel engines, struggling.  Yes, all three lifts culminating at that point were running via alternative means.  The Back Bowls, our destination, to ski the groomed Headwall in Sun Up and then the never groomed before In The Wuides in Blue Sky Basin, were closed.

We were flummoxed.  We headed down to Northstar with the teeming masses.  I wanted to go to Highline to ski the plowed Blue Ox, a black bump run groomed once a week, but the Riva Bahn Express was closed, was the Highline lift too?

"Homeward Bound"
Simon & Garfunkel

I’m sittin’ in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination

Were they even selling any more tickets?  If we skied back to the bottom would we be booted off the mountain?

The Host suggested we avoid the crowds and go to Lion’s Head.  Which we did.  It was inexplicably empty.  Which was good, but we’d skied it enough already.  Then again, some of the snow was perfection.

"I’m Coming Home"
Michael Hedges

There used to be a soft rock station in L.A.  93.1 KNX.

It went through phases.  Sometimes too wimpy, sometimes just edgy enough.

It was on this station that I discovered Michael Hedges.  From the album that he first sang on, "Watching My Life Go By".

If you’ve got more questions than answers.  If you see options at every turn.  If you don’t just venture forward blindly.  Buy this record.

The song that hooked me was this.  With Hedges’ stinging guitar.

Around 1, Felice wanted to go home.  To the condo.

Rather than descend via Giant Steps, or Bear Tree, we went the other way, to the usually overcrowded Riva Ridge.

Riva Ridge is Vail’s Spar Gulch.  Oh, they’ve flattened Spar Gulch in the middle.  It’s less of a disaster area than it was in the seventies, when it was a V-funnel, the easiest way down from the top of Ajax in Aspen.

At the bottom, Felice said this was the best run of the day.

And it was.  Perfectly packed powder in the sun.

Riva Ridge is one of Vail’s original runs.  And it’s still its essence.  A wide tilted boulevard with just enough rolls, just enough changes to keep you entertained.

"She’s Leaving Home"
Tori Amos

This is far from the best Tori bootleg on the Web.  But, if you’re into covers, Tori’s the queen.  Make sure you take "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" and "A Case Of You".

I’d say leaving Vail was bittersweet.  But, really, other than obligations, there was no reason to come home at all.

It’s a strange rhythm.  Skiing every day.  Wearing yourself out makes you feel good, like you did something, like you’re ALIVE!

Getting off the grid is appealing.  There are millions of people not caught up in our city lifestyles.  Maybe they’ve got it right.

"On The Way Home"
Neil Young

With modern transportation, sometimes you don’t even realize you’re away.  You might be a thousand miles from home, but somehow you still feel like you’re at home.  But driving to the Eagle airport, seeing the bands of red rock in the mountains by the highway, I realized I was in Colorado.  The Colorado of my dreams as a college student back in Vermont.  Part of me wanted to stay, having taken this long to get there.  On a regular basis.

"Take The Long Way Home"
Supertramp

The best song on Supertramp’s breakthrough album, "Breakfast In America", which killed the band.  It was too pop.  This wasn’t the band of "Crime Of The Century".  Boppers now loved them.

Still, when I hear that wailing harmonica…  And that high-pitched voice…  This was an FM staple before they ONLY played staples.  It was the ’94 earthquake anthem.

Usually flights leave on time.  They push the plane away from the gate to make sure they keep their on time average.  Even if they stay parked on the tarmac for another half hour.

But this American flight left an hour late.  They said they had to refuel.  Refueling takes an HOUR?

And despite being a 757, despite being in the wide open Eagle, the plane took off like a much smaller jet in Aspen.  It shot straight up, and then did an almost instant 180, turning around and heading for California.  Up, up and away.  To clear the mountains.  Hitting turbulence every mile.

"Mama, I’m Coming Home"
Ozzy Osbourne

Before he became that cartoon on MTV, Ozzy was God.

Oh, they gave credit to Randy Rhoads.  Who WAS great.  But how does that explain the nineties masterpiece "No More Tears"?  A headbanging record with as many gems as "Appetite For Destruction".  This was a big hit.  But, back before the album format died, when the non-radio tracks were still important, Ozzy included two killers on this record.  The Lemmy cowrite "Hellraiser" and the brain-savaging "I Don’t Want To Change The World".

I don’t want to change the world
I don’t want the world to change me

If that ain’t the rock and roll ethic.  If that ain’t completely different from the mission of today’s world domination-desiring acts.  The bands of yore broke through, became worldbeaters, based purely on their TALENT!  Not their game plan.  You couldn’t keep great music down.

If only the world took on Ozzy’s ethic here.  If everybody minded his own business.  If people stayed out of MY business, I’d stay out of theirs!

"Long Ride Home"
Patty Griffin

All I’ll say is it’s tracks like this that give me hope.

This is a masterpiece.  Along the lines of "Can’t Find My Way Home".  In an era when everybody’s shooting to be on the Super Bowl, to be in a commercial, thank god some acts are still staying true to their art.  Trying to tell their story.  Not worrying about the audience.

If you don’t know this, I feel sorry for you.

"My Hometown"
Bruce Springsteen

Funny how in the eighties a track like this could still become a hit.

Los Angeles is not my hometown.  Fairfield, Connecticut is.

I still feel like a newbie out here, even though I’ve lived here much longer than I ever spent on the east coast.

But those were formative years.

Part of me loves L.A.  The options.  The Tommy’s Burger in the middle of the night.  The car dealership only blocks away.  The ability to buy everything I need within a drive.

Then again, I can fly to Vail quicker than I can sometimes get to the other side of town.  Well, not quite, but close.

I don’t see myself leaving.

Then again, I wonder who I really am.  The person who lives here in Santa Monica, sitting in front of a computer all day, or the kid who had to go to college in Vermont, so he could ski every day.

On some level, that old life seems meaningless.  And on another, it’s the only thing that has meaning at all.