Archive for October, 2002

Last night I went to see Paul McCartney at Arco Arena here in Sacramento with 9 friends. Truly, I tell you, it was one of the most amazing and moving shows I have ever seen. I suppose it was as close to seeing the Beatles as I’ll ever come, barring time travel.

I drove home from work last night to pick up the tickets, check my e-mail. I’m having a conversation with the one and only Tough Street Otter, Anthony Berno, about a problem I’m having on my site, BearFinder.com, with users being unable to upload pictures to the site for their personal ads, and also about an essay he wrote about how to successfully shop for truffles, and where in the Bay Area one can purchase them. Anyway, then I took off to Ned’s house to meet the other members of this happy party – Ned, his wife, Terrie, his sister, Dena, her boyfriend, Robbie, Ned and Dena’s mother, Carol, their brother, Jared, friends Angela and Christina, and my ex, Rick. With parking gougingly priced at $10.00 per car, it makes sense to carpool. So with Angela, Dena, Robbie, and Rick piled into my car, and the rest of them in Carol’s, except for Jared, who was still driving up from Irvine, we head off for the arena.

Strangely, Jared actually gets his ticket from under the frog statue at Ned’s porch, and is only two minutes behind us. We meet in in a happy coincidence in the parking lot, only a few cars from us.

After going through the casual search by the security of the place, which we joked was really some strangers off the street who just wanted to feel us all up, we make it to our seats. From there we see Jackie and Mark sitting two sections over, and we all act like fools and wave and make noises at each other. The place is completely packed.

The lights dim. Last minute concertgoers are scurrying to their seats. The blue spotlights are aimed at several people walking slowly down the floor aisles. At first, I thought that they were just fooling around, but then I notice their clothes: a Marie Antoinette, A Louis XVI, a flamenco dancer, a Briton in a suit and umbrella, a Victorian lady, others. They are all walking gracefully through the audience toward the stage, like someone lost and coming upon a strange new civilization.

The costumed people ascend the stage, looking out into the audience. Screens placed above and behind the stage start displaying images of ancient religious buildings – mosques, churches, temples to various gods and goddesses. Then images of these gods. One of Ganesh in particular stands out. It’s a familiar image: Ganesh, seated in the lotus position, hands open and outstretched to the sides, his elephant head looking gently directly into yours. I was wondering if some of the people realized what they were seeing?

Then some music started and the people on stage started dancing, gently, then picking up pace. A strongman came out with a giantic dumbbell, then three Graces were rolled out on a platform. They stood this platfrom still like statues for many minutes, the suddenly started gyrating and flailing arms, twisting and ducking. A contortionist was carried out in a tiny lucite box, eliciting gasps from the crowd. A guru levitated out, ballet dancers on toe, the Graces ran off the platform, becoming, I suppose Maenads, bacchanalian women of wine. The strongman ascend the platfrom, becoming Atlas supporting the world. Louis XVI walked out balanced on a ball, the flamenco dancer stomped. All in all it was a wonderful scene.

Then they were all chased off stage by the arrival of Paul. He opened with “Hello, Goodbye” to the roars of an appreciative audience. Next he sang “Jet,” and the band was off. Rolling through over forty songs, spanning his entire career, including some songs he had never performed live before, like “She’s Leaving Home.” Every time he moved to the grand piano, Paul would introduce a member of the band, who would talk to the audience for a moment while Paul readied himself at the piano. He had o
n stage with him a drummer, guitarist, guitart/bassist, and keyboardist. Each of them also sang backing vocals. Paul’s voice was in fine fettle, clear and high. For a man his age, and at this late stage of the tour, one would think that his voice would be tired, but amazingly, this last song sounded as beautiful as the first. A tribute to his health regimen, I suppose.

He performed an lovely rendition of “Blackbird,” explaining to the audience that the song was about the Civil Rights struggle of the ’60s. It put a fresh perspective on the song, that you could hear in the audience. John Lennon was memorialized with a new song Paul wrote after his death, and George Harrison was as well, with a ukelele performance of “Something” that had the audience laughing and crying at the same time.

I left the arena sweating from having danced my ass off, exhilirated from the incredible energy of the evening, yet very tired from having worked all weekend on Flugtag, and TFO, 5 hours of church singing for an ordination, and 6 hours of driving to and from San Francisco. A strange combination of feelings, to be sure. I just wanted to get home and get a shower and then off to bed.

An as amazing show I have seldom witnessed.

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bang bang

i sit bolt upright in bed.  did i just hear what i thought i did?

bang bang

i definately did.  they’re coming from the alley right outside my balcony.

bang bang

i grab for the phone.  9-1-1.  i tell them what’s up. “I just heard
6 gunshots in the alley behind <my address>.”

“Someone will be right over.”

5 minutes later, a K9 unit of the Sacramento Police Department shows up driving
with his lights turned off to the front of the building.  Jack and Tim,
two of my neighbors are also standing on the sidewalk with me, waiting.

He drives off.  A few minutes later, I’m standing in the parking area
right off the alley, smoking a cigarette.  Jack, who also recently moved
into the next door unit with his wife, and I are getting acquainted.  The
police car approaches.

“You’re the one who called?”  the officer asks.  ”Where are the bushes you saw someone hiding in?”

“Yeah, I called.  I didn’t see any bushes,  I was sleeping when
I heard the first two shots.  Then the next two came, and the final
two came off moving down the alley.”

Behind the officer, in the direction of the last two shots, I can see a shirtless
goateed man, in shorts and a ball cap, walking toward us.

The officer walks over to him, but not after I thank him for arriving so
quickly.  He smiles briefly, and starts questioning the newcomer.

Jack and I say goodnight, as we walk back to our homes.  Tim is coming
out of the laundry room with clean clothes in a basket.  I introduce
myself.  He’s a member of a band called Red Tape, a hardcore punk band,
and he lives in the front unit.  

I wanted to live downtown, to live more of a city life, but geez!

Read this and despair…

I was hoping that someone would have read that entry and make constructive
criticism.  Then I remembered – I hadn’t asked for any.  So now
I do.

Let me know what you think of the story – you can, of course, make any comments
you want, but I’m more interested in what you like and/or dislike about the
way it’s written.

( Contains sexually explicit material )

i was supposed to go camping this past weekend with friends. it’s our annual columbus day dylan’s beach trip. about thirty or so of us show up with lots of guitars, drums, and booze, and proceed to make merry from saturday’s sundown to the wee hours of sunday morning. the next day is filled with clothes that smell of smoke, sand in inappropriate places, and a three hour drive back to sacramento. at least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.

instead, i decided friday afternoon that my time would be better spent preparing the new apartment for occupancy. yes, all of my things have been moved in, with small exceptions, but my kitchen is chaotic, my living room is festooned with plastic storage bins of books and stuff, my bedroom is a just a bed, and the computer room looks as if some strange bird tried to make a nest out of data and power cables. i feel somewhat daunted by all of this, not having lived by myself for the past 18 months or so, i almost feel as if i have forgotten how to run a household.

then there’s http://www.bearfinder.com/ that still needs maintenance. i have gone over my storage limit, so i had to prune back on the naughty galleries. i accidently uploaded whole directories without culling the worst photos. thank goodness for dreamweaver’s synchronize with delete capabilities. but this task took many hours of deciding if a particular photo was hot enough to go on my site.

also, http://www.smutminer.com/ has work that needs to be done, primarily research. i have been looking to see if an opensource video chat solution exists, or if i’m going to have to use ms-netmeeting.

i fell asleep at the keyboard friday night, and i knew that it was time to get up and get out of the house. so off i trotted down to the levies, cruising for cock, but really just taking a long walk. there wasn’t anyone in particular down there that struck my as bloworthy, but the walk certainly helped.

saturday morning, i awoke to more culling. those usenet newsgroups certainly have a high signal-to-noise ratio. i’m going to have to filter out images smaller than 10k, i think, and larger than 80k. that might help get rid of the porno-video-covers, the white rectangles, and the giganto penis pics. people just think that uploading a 1600×1200 image of their prick is somehow more enticing? i dunno. it will definately cut down some of the work i have to do, though.

sometime around 3pm or so, i get a call from my friend, jared, to inform me that a ticket was available for that night’s bob dylan show at the greek theater in berkeley. do i want to go? i jump at the chance, even though i know that there is still much to do around the house and online.

the dylan show was fantastic, not as good as last year’s concert at memorial auditorium in sacramento, but mostly because he has a new drummer, who is not as fast on the uptake as his last, but also because bob dylan on piano is not the best choice for him. he did a minimally palatable job, but he’s best on guitar and harmonica.

we drove home. jared and i sat out on the patio, smoking cigarettes and chatting about our current events, then jared hit the couch. he had to drive back to irvine the next morning, in time to grade the latin test he gave his students, and still be fresh for monday morning.

sunday morning, i bid jared a fond adieu, and i was back upstairs, culling pics. then off to the bloodbath and beyond, to buy a shower curtain and hooks, some coasters, soap dispensers. over to the house in elk grove, to pick up yet more bins, a duvet, more clothes, the new cpu and motherboard i got for a song.

back at the apartment, there was more work. then, i went off to chuck and gordon’s for a visit. it’s amazing how much more social i am now that i live in a central location. i suppose there is a certain aspect of loneliness, too, but it’s was a ten minute drive over there, where it would have been double or triple that when i was in elk grove.

sleep came at around 11pm, then i woke up, took a shower behind my new shower curtain (hooray for dry floors!), dressed, a
nd drove to work, to find me with nothing to do, and a manager who is not particulaly interest, or perhaps too busy, to assign me anything.

i’ve been sitting here now for the past few hours with nothing to do. i detest boredom more than anything else.