Beatles, yay!

When Mah, The Killer Lady, and I went out Saturday night it was really fun to learn that Mah is also a big Beatles fan! We sang all the songs the Hoot performers played, ans compared the songs we don't like. Neither of us like Run For Your Life and believe that Girl and This Boy are two of the most boring songs in the book. I must admit that I've never warmed up to Come Together, either, though the KL and Mah both like it. I like the lyrics, but not the song.


I used to be a real Beatles geek: In tenth grade, I wrote a fifteen page paper on the Beatles for my English class, titled "It Was Twenty Years Ago Today." Because it was the 20th anniversary of the Beatles' first trip to the US, there were tons of reference materials available, and my paper was seven pages longer than the assignment required. When I was a sophomore in college, I listened to the Beatles so often that my housemates stopped asking me to choose the records. I still know a lot about the Beatles, so it must be true that the stuff you learned while you were writing papers sticks in your head (I still know how chlorophyll works, too). I probably still am a real Beatles geek, it just doesn't show so much now that I'm addicted to NPR.


When we were kids, we learned how to use a record player with three records: A song about Muhammad Ali, Rhinestone Cowboy, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. I remember most of the words from the first two records, which were singles, and every word, in order, on Sgt. Pepper's. Why is it so much easier to memorize a song, not to mention an album, than a poem?


I thought I would be a John, but it seems I am a Paul. I always liked George best, anyway. His songs are so strange, and he was so handsome in the photos on Sgt. Pepper's.

When you've seen beyond yourself
Then you may find
Peace of mind
Is waiting there

And the time will come
When you see we're all one
And life flows on
Within you and without you

A Summer Evening

I learned that Jerry Garcia died while I was at work one morning at Coffee People in Portland. One of my customers came in with the newspaper and over the whine of the milk steamer read the relevant paragraph to me. I didn't know much about Garcia's personal life at the time, though I knew he'd been ill - I saw him play in Golden Gate Park shortly after he came out of the diabetic coma in 1986. When you don't know much about someone famous, he or she can be larger than life, and that's how I felt about Jerry, like he was the heart of a band that had supplied some of my life's soundtrack (and no, I wasn't a Deadhead; given a choice, I'd take the Beatles anytime).


That evening, or maybe the next one, a radio station hosted a memorial on the plaza outside the Rose Garden Arena, which was new at the time. I didn't know anyone who would be interested in attending with me and I was getting used to doing things alone. I was carrying a sweater, but the plaza was warm, filled with bodies and burning candles, on that summer night. The radio station was playing on big speakers at the front of the crowd, but due to noise ordinances, couldn't really pour on the volume, so the deejays asked folks to bring their boom boxes and there were small stereos (and not so small) all over the place. Signs and drawings were propped up all over, against walls, trash bins, and posts. The age range was, unsurprisingly, very wide.


At one point toward the end, Ripple was playing:

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again.
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night.
And if you go, no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

I looked over my shoulder and saw a boy who looked to be about fifteen years old, his hands cupped and held forward and up from his body. He had long straight blond hair, was wearing a dirty white t-shirt. His eyes were closed and he looked sad, prayerful, as if he was both holding his cup to be refilled and also as if he had just let a bird fly from him.


(After hearing Ken Kesey give four different interpretations for Sometimes A Great Notion, I tend to be skeptical about annotations and literary interpretation, but this annotated "Ripple" is interesting.)


When the memorial was over and people were starting to disperse, I wasn't ready to go home, but as I was alone, I didn't know where I could go, either. I was walking as slowly as possible back to my car when I bumped into someone I had worked with when I was subbing around various Coffee People shops, before I became a regular at my shop. He looked like I felt, and he invited me to his house.


He had a large backyard that was bigger than the house. We sat outside, each with a bottle of beer, and he had his guitar. Together we sang "Sweet Melissa," a song I didn't know I knew until that evening. Night had come, but it was still as warm as the daytime. The stars shone through the city's light, and the crickets chirped. It seemed that time was slowed down, and this man I didn't know very well and I were connected by the death of someone neither of us knew but with whom we also felt connected.

The Night of Pockets

The Killer Lady, Mah, and I went to Cafe International in SF this evening to attend a Hootenanny Night; this month the songs were all British Invasion, with a heavy rotation of Beatles tunes. The KL has moved to the East Bay, and we decided to take BART, which worked pretty well though the long wait for the Muni made us much later than we would have liked.


The Hoot was really fun, with people taking turns singing and lots of audience participation. Going by BART is like having a curfew, so we chose to leave the cafe at 1045 (right after "Lady Madonna") to make sure we wouldn't miss the last train back. Going home, we didn't have to wait long for a bus, which was pretty full even though it was an extra-long articulated one, including some other people who had been at the Hoot as well.


A couple stops after we got on, a young man in sagging pants and a drunken angry face got on the bus. We were closer to the front than the back and could see some drama going on. He checked all his pockets, though his pants were sagging so low that it took him several tries each time to get his hands into his back pockets. When he shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie his phone clattered to the floor and down the steps of the bus. I don't know why the driver didn't kick him off when he threw a couple of coins into the coin box. When he walked past us he was on his phone: "I lost my m---f--- transfer, n---, can you believe that s--?"


A few stops after that he ran up to the front of the bus again. The KL pointed out that it may have been because of the police car driving alongside the bus, that perhaps he was afraid that they were going to take him off the bus. The same thing happened again, including dropping the phone into the stairwell. This time on the way back he was purposefully bumping people; the KL said that he hit her on the butt and Mah said that he tried to hit her but she dodged it, and that he was hitting people all the way to the back of the bus.


There was a man sitting in the back of the bus who had been at the Hoot. He had been easy to see because he was easily six and a half feet tall. This guy stuck his foot out to trip Transfer Boy, so of course Transfer Boy started a "You want a piece of me?" thing, even after the guy from the Hoot stood up to tower over him. I didn't see this, but the KL said the man sitting next to the tall guy took off his belt and wrapped it around his fist.


Suddenly the doors opened and I saw we were at our stop. The KL said that when I said, "This is our stop" she wasn't sure whether it really was or if I was just saying it was. A lot of people left the bus when he did, including both the tall guy and the man with the belt on his fist, but not including Transfer Boy who was still posturing and shouting as the bus pulled away.


We jumped onto our train and were laughing about Transfer Boy as we sat in the seats behind the three young women sitting in the quad (two sets of seats that face each other). At the next stop a man who was intoxicated or tweaking got on the car. Very shortly afterwards he focused on the girls in the quad and sat in the empty seat with them. He was talking to the woman across from him and showing her his wallet and his cell phone. She ignored him.


I noticed that everyone but one person in our end of the car was watching this interaction. One man who was sitting about fifteen feet away stood up. The man in the seats in front of the girls pulled his cap around and started watching, and the man across from him was watching out of the corner of his eyes. The man sitting across from the tweaker kept his nose in his newspaper. Mah and the KL were watching by looking at the reflection in the window across from them, and I was watching the tweaker directly - I had a good look at him as he was blocking them in the quad.


He started pulling things out of his pockets: First he pulled out a hair pick and a pair of haircutting scissors. Then he threw at least ten Sharpies, some other pens, mints, some Starburst candies, and another pair of scissors on the floor. That was when everyone became alarmed. I got up and pressed the button to talk to the train operator. The first guy to get up stepped forward, covered the scissors with his foot, and pulled them away. I made my report to the operator and requested BART police to escort the tweaker off the train; when he asked if he had a weapon, I said that he had scissors that had been secured but he was threatening some teenaged girls.


We got to West Oakland and the tweaker got off the train by himself. I thanked everyone who had been part of this little drama because I felt really supported when I saw everyone's eyes go to this man. Usually people on BART don't get involved in stupid stuff, so I wanted to thank them so if it happens again they'll do it again, and I had felt really supported, and I knew that the girls in the quad would have been as well, had they seen what was going on with the rest of us because they kept their eyes down the whole time.


We transferred at 12th Street, talking about who saw what and what Mah - who has excellent hearing - had heard. We were laughing about how pockets had played such a big part in both dramas. The young women who'd been with us on the first train got on at the next stop, and we told them that we had vetted this car and no one had any pockets. They thanked me for calling for the BART cops.


As soon as they got off the train, a man who was obviously under the influence of something got on. As he went by, Mah heard him say, "The gummint's what's wrong with them," but he apparently didn't stay on the train very long and didn't cause a scene. All of us noticed that his pants had pockets, but he was wearing jeans that fit more tightly and wouldn't have held more than a small cell phone. Mah, the KL, and I started laughing as soon as he got on.

The Orkin Man

Zirpu and I came back from Las Vegas to find ants in the freezer. They are terribly strong, but not terribly smart - the half dozen that had gotten in (I don't even want to think about how) had frozen themselves to death. Other ants were climbing up and down the outside of the refrigerator.


Zirpu goes into vinegar battle with the ants just about every morning and evening these days. We have been told that they are in search of water in this hot and dry summer weather. Zirpu is getting sick of fighting the ants and our half gallon jug of vinegar is missing a couple inches already.


This evening Zirpu announced he's going to work from home on Monday so he can meet the Orkin Man. I guess they don't have any women working for them... It seems pretty old-fashioned, when most companies have moved away from gender-specific titles (like Orkin Man). Whoever comes, I am thinking that they will stop those ants from coming in the house.

Las Vegas Photos

I was going to post these yesterday but I was having trouble uploading photos.

In the "O" in Revolution, the "Beatles interactive bar," at the Mirage, into which we didn't actually go.

Interior design shopping at the Bellagio.
















Flair show from the bartenders at Kahunaville at Treasure Island.

Motorcycle viewing at Treasure Island.

A mini Warp Core Breach at Quark's in the Hilton (which has a very lemon-lime flavor to it).



















At MGM, the King of the Jungle.



After sandwiches at Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris: Psycopat, KT, No, Zirpu, me, Paulo, and Dre.

These Days in Las Vegas

Sunday, Sept. 2

As usual Zirpu and I got to the airport two hours early. No, KT, Paulo, and Dre were on the same flight and they appeared shortly before we got on the plane. When we arrived in Las Vegas, a friend of No's picked us up in his limousine, and after checking in at TI Zirpu and I had our inaugural games of video poker and comped drinks. No's friend came back to take us to Del Frisco's for dinner, during which we had a good syrah and a fabulous GMS blend, both from Australia, plus wonderful steaks and we all shared a lobster tail and sides of macaroni and cheese, creamed spinach, and creamed corn. At the end of the meal, the waiter brought us slices of a good lemon cake with candles in them in honor of my and Zirpu's birthdays.


A conversation about free agency and athletes vs. team owners started. I didn't follow it that closely, but I observed the dynamics of the conversation. No's friend Psycopat, who I mentioned in the wedding post, is someone who likes an argument. No asked Psycopat if Psycopat was trying to have a conversation with him, or if Psycopat was just trying to push his buttons. I admire that in No... when someone pushes my buttons, I just get annoyed. Instead, No was sort of laughing at his friend. I drank my wine and huddled with Macho, talking weight-training.


The dinner was expensive, but delicious and the restaurant's reputation is well-deserved. Of course it helped knowing that what we were going to spend. The company was wonderful - Dre had organized the dinner for us, and Psycopat's posturing was more amusing than anything else. One thing I learned in Mexico: I really dig vacationing with a group of people.


Monday, Sept. 3


Zirpu and I came here for our first anniversary. Because it was a three day weekend the year that we got married, our anniversary always falls around Valentine's Day, and the casinos were swarming with wedding parties. At one point, Zirpu and I were sitting a (relatively) quiet part of one of the casinos, playing video poker and drinking comps, when a couple came and sat at the end of the bar. I guessed they were in their late 50s, he a freckled African American with freckles in a tuxedo and she a dark-skinned woman in an embroidered white dress. They ordered champagne and fruit juice and when the bartender came back to our end of the bar I told him that I wanted to pick up their tab, as a wedding gift.


This couple had run away from the Bronx to Las Vegas to get married because when they announced their engagement to the adult children from their first marriages, the children went crazy with planning "suggestions": A church wedding with all the daughters and sons participating followed by a big reception, with invitations for this cousin and that co-worker and these people from the old neighborhood... They just wanted to get married so they ran to Vegas. The bride told me she'd already had a wedding like that and one was enough. The groom said he hadn't had a hand in planning his first wedding and he didn't want to do that again.


Tuesday, Sept. 4


Someday I would like to come back to Vegas and do some old-school Vegas stuff, like attend a headdress-and-feathers show, go to the sign graveyard (though it's so hot in Vegas that doing anything outside doesn't sound like very much fun), see The Fremont Street Experience, and even catch an impersonator show (I'd prefer the Rat Pack but if Desi insisted on Elvis, I would do that too). I could never get Zirpu to do any of those things - he doesn't have the fine appreciation for cheesiness that I do.


Of course I really really want to see Cirque du Soleil's new show Love (the CD is great, with Beatles mash-ups!), and someday I will get to O.


Wednesday, Sept. 5


Speaking of Cirque, Dre, Paulo, No, KT, Zirpu and I went to see Ka last night. I've seen Mystere a couple times, Alegria and Quidam on TV, and Zumanity so I know that Cirque shows' storylines are hard to follow. In Ka, it seemed like the storyline was more important than it is in the others, so the show was pretty confusing. Afterwards, we figured out that each of us had picked up on a different element of the story, but none of us totally understood what it was about. Also, there was less of what I think of as more typical Cirque activities, like acrobatics, dance, rope swinging, and trapeze art, as the first portion of the show is all about martial arts display. Zirpu and I were both distracted by the mammoth set: One of the two stages moves in all three dimensions, and it's disappointing that the Cirque site has no images of how this works because I just can't describe it. For much of the show one of the stages is at an angle (often 90 degrees) to the floor, and most of the time the artists are wearing harnesses because they are forty feet (or more) in the air. When they weren't, I was terrified one of them would fall.


In the airport waiting to go through Security, there was a young woman in the line next to us whose blue hair was shaved in streaks for her head. She wore heavy blue, silver, and black eye makeup and a big smile on her face. Even for Vegas, her presentation was kind of out there. I told Zirpu that I thought she might be a Cirque artist going home for a visit. Even the fearless have families.

Love Synchronicity

It's hot! I had a headache so I went to the gym, and when I came home I took a cool shower and laid on the ballroom floor to listen to Prairie Home Companion. My favorites on PHC are "Guy Noir, Private Eye," and the Ketchup Board ads, and I always enjoy the music. Of course I like the Lake Wobegon stories, but my favorite part about them is the way Garrison Keillor speaks... A quiet lull, smooth rhythm, evocative of what I imagine Minnesota looks like, regardless of the season.


Side story: I once knew a man who was from a small Minnesota town who had married a woman from northern Italy years before. He said that she told him that she had learned to understand him and his culture by listening to Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories.


One of the skits this evening (which hasn't been posted in the archive yet; it was performed at the Minnesota State Fair) was about a woman (played by Sue Scott) from Minneapolis who approaches a man from Wilmar. The man (played by Garrison Keillor) is showing a chicken at the Fair, and she invites him for Pronto Pups and a ride in the Tunnel of Love after the judging. Twice, she sings an inner monologue of four lines to the tune of "You Are My Sunshine" about showing him Minneapolis and introducing him to yoga and soy lattes. At the end, the man sings about how "I kissed her then and there... And that's what I remember from the Minnesota State Fair" to the same tune.


Zirpu walked in at the end of the skit, and when the new lyrics morphed into the original lyrics, he laid on the floor with me to kiss me. When we were first dating, I sang the song to him whenever we were in the car, and Boegle rewrote the lyrics so it would be an appropriate wedding song, which she and Appa Jooz sang at our wedding.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

The other night dear as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke dear I was mistaken
So thought I'd tempt you with some of my charms.

I'll always love you and make you happy
If you would only say the same
I'd show you pleasures beyond all measure
And deepest love and kindness the same.

You told me once dear you really loved me
And no one else could come between
I am so happy you chose to stay with me
You are the life come to all of my dreams.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll always know dear how much I love you
For with me, the sunshine always stays.