A Whale of a past few weeks...

...and that's both good and bad. I'm not usually a big believer in the "death comes in threes" superstition that my mother subscribes to, but it did strike me when the great Lou Rawls' death was immediately followed by the death of the matriarch of the Civil Rights movement, Coretta Scott King and then, this past Friday here in LA, producer Jay Dilla. Dilla's really shocked the hell out of me because he was only 32, and I had no idea that the disease he was battling (lupus) was fatal. I also wasn't aware that he had been battling the debilitating disease over the past several years.

Those who know me also know that I have been a huge Slum Village fan from the jump. I still consider the casio-inspired "Raise it Up" to be a Dilla masterpiece, "Welcome to Detroit" to be one of the great unheralded hip-hop albums of the past decade, and I recall very fondly picking up SV tracks in London (a year before before their first album was released in the States) and the great atmosphere of the last SV show I attended in Michigan. This is a HUGE blow to the hip-hop community...

Funny chatting with friends in NYC and hearing them sound so annoyed about the big deal people in other places were making about the snow. Reminds me of when I lived in Minneapolis, and family would always call to find out if I was alive after a news report of the record cold temps. Now maybe they'll stop calling me every time there's a forest fire in the O.C. to find out if my place has burned down.

All has not been doom and gloom. Had one of those "I never thought I'd get to do that" experiences just this past weekend, when I took my daughter out to Long Beach to go on a whale watching cruise.

Rather than battle the weekend traffic, we caught the subway do Long Beach. I got this great picture of the Wiltern Theatre before we hopped on the Metro at Wilshire and Western:

Wiltern Theatre
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

The ride to Long Beach was nice, as the Blue Line is all above ground. You pass right by the Watts Towers, and straight through the city of Compton. I'm always amazed by how much nicer Compton appears (from the subway, at least) than Watts or any of the other communities we pass through.

The weather was nice, but Mackenzie had to wear her furry poncho, because it got MUCH colder when we got out onto the ocean.

Mackenzie at the fountain
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

The boat was a comfy research vessel called the RV Challenger. When they told us our cruise would be three hours, I couldn't get the Gilligan's Island theme out of my head, and kept checking for cloudy skies.

RV Challenger
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

Now for the good news. We did see a whale, and very close up at that. About 45 minutes into the trip, the heart-shaped blow of a grey whale was visible off in the distance. The captain then deftly spun the boat around, and the whale actually popped up just off the boat's stern. It was quite a sight, barnacles attached to its head and everything. Mackenzie was really excited. I think she (like I) questioned how much of any whales we'd actually see, so it was nice to see the entire creature so close up.

The bad news? Well, I was so busy trying to check off "Grey Whale" on the "Sea Animal Bingo" checklist they gave us that I forgot to take a picture. By the time I got my camera out, the whale was gone. Got a nice picture of the water though...

The say looking at the water makes you seasick...
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

As well as some eerie pics of the Queen Mary as we pulled back into port.

She looks like the Titanic...
Originally uploaded by Powerkeni.

I can't recommend whale watching enough. Being out on the ocean, you never expect so much sea life to be visible just a couple of miles from a major city. An equally enthralling and humbling experience.