“They saw your car and took a picture of it.” “The city’s local Volkswagen club is looking for you,” their mechanic told them. They were two Brazilians in a strange town, but they received some unexpected help right away. The 1971 Volkswagen bus, painted in the green, yellow and white of Brazil’s flag, picked a good place to break down.Įmilio Zagaia and Felipe Luis da Costa had just arrived in the small Guatemalan city of Coban. On Latin American road trip, VW bus is charming, disarming #storysongs combo: “Reptile,” by the Church.

“Some fathers play ball with their sons,” Kenneth says. Hayden got a small grant from the Southern California Academy of Sciences to work with Pauly on the wall lizard project, and so one Sunday a month the Kirschbaums make the drive from their home in Santa Monica for this urban safari. Joining Pauly on the lizard hunt are high school sophomore Hayden Kirschbaum and Hayden’s dad, Kenneth. Today, however, he’ll be collecting specimens a little closer to home - scouring backyards and telephone poles in the not-so-wilds of San Pedro for bright green Italian wall lizards. Pauly, the curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, has caught snakes in the mountains of Venezuela and studied frogs in the Panamanian rain forest. It’s easier to noose a lizard than pounce on it, he explains. And you’ll also get the songs that inspired me while editing the stories, or reading them later if my fellow editor Millie Quan ushered them through. But then it reappears and I imagine all the great roads it’s been traveling and start daydreaming with my road atlas.Īnyway, in these roundups of the week gone by, I’d like to offer the first paragraphs of each Great Read (or, as they’re known in print, Column One) - maybe they’ll buy your eye and you can settle in for a good weekend read. Sometimes it’s gone so long I fear the owners have sold it. The other is all restored and bright green, and can disappear for months on end. One is beat up and rarely moves, so it’s almost a guaranteed wish each day. The buses are so feel-good, I make a wish whenever I see one - they’re a personal good-luck talisman. Last year, some friends and I rented one for a weekend, and even in that short time we felt the VW love from just about everyone we passed. The b-side was recorded at Black Barn Studios during rehearsals for a radio appearance.One of this week’s stories is particularly dear to me: the Great Read about two men taking a months-long road trip as the last of the iconic VW buses were being built in Brazil.Īlthough I’ve never owned one (I’m a stick-shift-phobe), the VW bus has always been one of my favorites. A limited edition 7″ of “ Woo Sé Mama” includes the b-side live cover of Eddie Floyd’s “I’ve Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)”. The song was released as a single in August.

The song features 60’s soul sirens PP Arnold and Madeline Bell on backup vocals which add to the R&B and Soul magic that sets the tone and energy for the entire album. “ Woo Sé Mama” is Track 1 from Paul Weller’s recent album, A Kind Revolution, which was released earlier this year, in May. It is 16 days until I get to see Weller live for the first time, so it seems fitting to spend the next few Weller Wednesday’s indulging in some live music goodness. This Week’s Weller Wednesday we take a Look and Listen to, a Track from Weller’s most recent album, A Kind Revolution, performed live on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, recorded live in New York City – “Woo Sé Mama”.

It’s here again! Weller Wednesday! The day we Listen to, Learn about, and Turn Up the Volume to the Quintessential Music of Paul Weller, in all of his many Musical incarnations.

Paul weller los angeles