Once upon a time I went to a lot of rock concerts. It all began back in high school with Jethro Tull -- I sat in the 4th row and wore my concert T-shirt to school the next day. I saw Yes (cool laser light show), Jeff Beck (loudest show ever) and Pink Floyd (giant floating animal balloons). Once I got to college I went to my first of at least a dozen Grateful Dead shows, I saw Springsteen when he used to run up and down the aisles, The Rolling Stones when they still had Bill Wyman on bass, The Who at Madison Square before Keith Moon died, Eric Clapton with Muddy Waters, the original Little Feat, the great late Frank Zappa and the legendary Bob Dylan. I saw Dylan with the Dead, Dylan with Tom Petty, Dylan when he was very good, Dylan when he was not so good and Dylan unplugged. I saw Crosby Stills and Nash without Neil Young. I saw George Harrison and Ringo Starr play 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' with Eric Clapton at Wembley Arena with Princess Di in the audience wearing a Sergeant Pepper outfit. That was pretty cool.
But at some point I stopped going to concerts. There weren't as many acts around that I really wanted to see. I tried to get tickets to U2 a couple of times but was never successful. And the ticket prices got so high, it didn't really seem worth it. I never heard of half the bands out there anyway and the ones I knew had either broken up or died.
So when my niece and nephew announced that they were going to a two-day concert festival in Las Vegas, I thought it might be fun to tag along. I didn't think that I would actually be going to the concert -- I figured I would lounge around the hotel all day and hang out with them after the show. But they went ahead and bought me a ticket and the next thing I knew I was road-tripping to the Vegoose festival with Chris (age 19), Annie (age 24) and Annie's boyfriend Tony (also 24).
We left fairly early Saturday morning, stopping for a ridiculously unhealthy breakfast at a fast food place along the way. People say it is a four hour drive to Vegas but those people are generally liars. Either that or they do not drive 4-cylinder Hondas with three passengers and they do not have bladders. Apparently you have to cross some type of mountain range in order to get to Vegas and in my car that means top speeds of 40-50 mph. Also I was guzzling iced tea the whole way, so pit stops were essential.
We arrived in Vegas around three after fighting some crosstown traffic to get to Sam Boyd stadium where the Vegoose festival was located. It was a pretty big deal -- there was a main stage inside the stadium and two or three other stages set up in a large field next to the stadium. There was also a carnival-like midway with various booths selling everything from vegetarian burritos to tie-dyed underwear.
We went straight to the main stage to see a band called "String Cheese Incident" -- they were pretty good, but the most entertaining part was the crowd. It seems that the hula hoop has made a comeback among the clove-cigarette-and-patchouli set and there were several slinky young girls gyrating quite impressively with their oversized and decorated hoops. Of course there were also plenty of skinny guys playing hacky-sack and frisbee as well. And since it was almost Halloween, about half the people there were wearing wacky costumes. There were a lot of pixies and fairies and other magical creatures flitting about. They all seemed to know each other.
I couldn't help noticing a familiar and rather pungent aroma wafting around the stadium. And this time it wasn't clove cigarettes. I guess concerts haven't changed that much after all.
The next band was former Grateful Dead bass player Phil Lesh and friends playing good old Dead chestnuts, but with a crispness and polish that you didn't always get back in the day. It helped a lot that Joan Osborne was singing vocals -- I swear those old songs never sounded so good. I was actually getting into it, standing up and swaying back and forth, singing along to every word. It was fun.
The last band of the day was Dave Matthews, who was joined by former Phish frontman Trey Anastasio. They played a few of Dave's tunes but the songs that really rocked the house were the oldies. They did Billy Preston's "Will It Go Round In Circles", Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", "Tell Me Something Good" by Chaka Khan, a scorching "Rocky Mountain Way" from Joe Walsh and "Up On Cripple Creek" by The Band. That's my kind of music.
We had a little trouble getting back to the hotel that night. Annie and Tony had dropped Chris and me off at the stadium earlier and gone back to check in at the hotel. They took a taxi to the show, so we had no car. There were supposed to be shuttle buses, but the line for buses was quite long and there were no buses in sight. We stood in a taxi line in the cold night air for about a half hour with no luck and finally ended up paying a limo driver $100 bucks to drive us back. That's Vegas, baby!
The next day I toured around the other venues a little more and checked out the midway. We saw quite a variety of acts including The Flaming Lips, Jack Johnson and Beck. I even shopped for a Grateful Dead T-shirt. I was really getting caught up in the spirit of things. The final two acts of the weekend were Trey Anastasio and Widespread Panic. Trey is accorded demi-godlike status by the post-Phish pseudo-hippie crowd and his every move was lauded and acclaimed. Widespread Panic is a band I've never heard before but they sure did rock the joint.
The drive back was kind of an ordeal as my three young companions conked out on me within minutes of crossing the Clark County line. I drove from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. with only a couple of breaks for iced tea and almonds. It was a challenge, but it also brought me back to the good old days, like the time I had to drive home from the Who concert on the old CT turnpike when they still had tolls in an old VW that kept stalling -- so I had to glide through the tollbooths with the car in neutral and keep the engine revving while rolling down the window and tossing coins into the basket then pop the clutch back in before the engine died.
We had such a good time at the Vegoose festival that we decided to make it an annual event. And I had such a good time that I've started going to concerts again. Last week, on my birthday, I finally got to see U2. And they were amazing. For Thanksgiving weekend I'm going back to Vegas with Annie and Tony and I'm seeing Paul McCartney at the MGM Grand. Paul will be the third Beatle I've seen in concert. Now I just have to see Neil Young and I'll be all set.
Yes, the internet is a wondrous thing -- a place of learning, a forum for the free expression of ideas, a global marketplace, a medium for mass communication, a community without borders, an international town square, and a pick-up joint.
Dating has never been an exact science, it's always been hit or miss, luck of the draw, a numbers game. But on the internet you can increase your chances of success by widening your universe of choices way beyond your circle of friends, co-workers or the regulars at the local bar. In addition you can avail yourself of highly developed selection systems developed by PhDs to help you narrow the field down to those with whom you are most likely to connect. It's like being a card counter at the blackjack table of love.
With this in mind one Saturday morning, I filled out a profile on Match.com and plunged into the brisk waters of internet dating. My interest had been stirred by a photo I saw on the Match teaser page of a nurse who lived right here in my neighborhood. I looked up her profile and found that we were quite compatible -- 82% compatible to be exact. How about that? Here's this attractive single woman living right near me with whom I have all of these things in common and we might never have met. So I wrote her an "anonymous" email, telling her how it was her photo that had encouraged me to sign up in the first place (they recommend a little flattery) and how remarkable it was that we were so compatible. This was very exciting, the possibility of making a connection on my very first day.
After I sent the first email, I instantly received several more suggested profiles of women who were similar to the nurse. One in particular was an adorable painter with a cheerful smile and smoldering eyes. I read her profile and found her utterly charming -- funny, intelligent and romantic. And wouldn't you know, we were also 82% compatible! I sent her an email right away, explaining that I was very new to all of this but I thought she was terrific and I wanted to find out more about here. I shared with her my understanding of the difficulty of reconciling the life of an artist with that of the workaday world. I felt we had the potential to make a real connection. Man, this was awesome. Compatible women virtually falling out of the trees everywhere you looked. I couldn't wait for their responses.
I probably checked my email about two dozen times that day hoping for replies to my earnest and heartfelt emails. None came. That night, however, I was at a restaurant with a friend waiting for our table when a woman walked in who looked strikingly familiar. But who was she? Suddenly I froze with panic -- it was the nurse! Oh my God, will she recognize me? Is she looking at me? Who's that guy she's with? Will we email each other about this and one day laugh about it? But then our table was ready and away we went. I never saw here or heard from her again. But every once in a while I check her profile and, sure enough, she's still out there looking.
The next day I was elated to find that my painter had "winked" back at me! And then she sent a follow-up email asking for my photo. That's when I realized that the photos I had uploaded hadn't been approved yet and there was no way the nurse could have recognized me last night. I explained to the painter that my photos would be online soon and she should check my profile again. Apparently she did because I did not hear back from her. Finally after two weeks I sent her another email in which I gave her my best argument: if someone has been dating for, say, ten years and they keep choosing the same "type" and none of those relationships have ever worked out, maybe their type isn't really their type. That got a response. She said she really liked my profile and I seemed like a great guy, but she'd already met someone and was going to focus on that relationship for now. Apparently she made the right choice, because when I went back to check up on her profile she had taken it offline.
Meanwhile, I had been sent another profile to check out -- a librarian/grad-student from the desert. She was very cute and her description was intelligent and very sensible. I really liked her sincere, no-nonsense approach. I emailed her and told her that I admired what she had written. Sure enough she wrote me back and said she was intrigued by my musical endeavors as she was a big music fan and used to work at a big-time publicity agency. We traded a few emails back and forth and finally I worked up the nerve to suggest a meeting. It took a few more emails to negotiate the appropriate time and place -- Saturday afternoon at a winery out in Santa Clarita -- and the deal was done. Wow. My first internet date and after only three weeks. I was so nervous Saturday morning, I decide not to shave for fear of slitting my own throat. I drove for nearly two hours out to the desert feeling like the people at MapQuest must be playing a sick joke on me, surely there was no winery way the hell out here. But then I saw the vineyards and realized that this was really going to happen.
I must recommend having a first date at a wine tasting. First of all, you're drinking wine. And even though you're only "tasting" it, after a half a dozen "tastes" you actually get a decent mild buzz going. Then there's the talking about the wine, which is very helpful for those potentially awkward pauses in the conversation. And, perhaps best of all, there's the wine steward, who comes by every few minutes to tell you about a new wine and pour some more wine into your glass and generally keep things flowing. We hung out at the winery for about 45 minutes -- after the tasting we walked around the grounds where they kept various animals -- horses, goats, peacocks, etc. I took a picture of her petting a beautiful palomino with a long golden mane that matched her hair.
We had lunch at a quaint little cafe around the corner and talked for about two hours covering every topic from work to cooking to music to family. She was really nice and smart and funny. She did seem a little awkward at times, but who doesn't on a first date. We hugged good-bye and made plans to make more plans. Driving home, I was pretty darn proud of myself. I had really done it, and I owed it all to the internet.
A few days later I got an email from her suggesting a sunset ride in the Hollywood hills complete with Margaritas and view of the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately I had to work that weekend so we had to postpone. I called her the following week to follow up, but had to leave her a message as she worked nights at the library. I waited a couple of days for her to call back, but didn't hear from her until Saturday evening. She sent me an email explaining that we couldn't see each other any more. She felt that she needed to focus on her studies and maybe she had rushed into the dating thing too soon and probably shouldn't have gone on Match.com in the first place. That was very disappointing but also understandable. I knew she was going to grad school and working nights and weekends. I emailed her and wished her luck with her schoolwork and said I understood how it was trying to balance several different pursuits and still maintain a social life. That was the last I heard from her.
Except that I still have her mini-profile saved in my list of women who have viewed my profile. And as it turns out that mini-profile is continually updated. For example, I can see that she is still active on Match.com, pretty much every day. I can also see that she has changed certain criteria in regard to who she is looking for. Originally, she had specified an age bracket that while it didn't actually include me, put me only slightly outside her range. Now however, she has revised it so that I am about ten years outside her range. I have to confess that hurt a little. But that's not what really got me. She also changed her photo. That in itself is no big deal, but it made me curious enough to go check out her full profile again. The new photo was quite flattering and would probably attract a lot of attention. In addition to it there were two others: one apparently taken in the same location but from a slightly different angle, and one of her petting a beautiful palomino with a long golden mane that matched her hair.
So, I think I will give internet dating a rest for a while. I still get the recommended profiles and every so often I check them out. One turned out to be a beautiful Canadian "model" who somehow ended up in Nigeria and desperately wants to come to Los Angeles. Another was a very sexy Russian woman who barely speaks English and is looking for the love of her life. Both of those are classic internet dating scams which end up with the women asking you to send them money for a plane ticket. It did seem odd that two such young, sexy, beautiful women could both be so strongly attracted to me so quickly. But it was fun to think it might be true, even if only for a few days. I'm much more sophisticated now and I don't fall for that sort of thing so easily.
A friend of mine who is a fellow screenwriter is writing a horror movie. Specifically, a teen "slasher" movie about a bunch of sassy-talking, shallow college students who go out to a secluded lakeside cabin to drink alcohol, say rude things to each other, and have sex, but instead end up getting killed in increasingly violent and disgusting ways. Apparently this type of movie is very "hot" right now. He already has a couple of pretty successful production companies showing interest in the project. The horror trend has been going pretty strong for a couple of years now and lately I've been wondering why.
Personally I hate horror movies, partly because they are completely contrived and formulaic and have no actual story or characters to speak of, but also because they are horrifying. To me there is plenty of horror right outside my window and the last thing I want to do with my hard-earned free time is pay $12-$14 of my hard-earned money to expose myself to two hours of gore and mayhem and sadism and violence. And as if that wasn't enough, you can play video games that allow you to pretend that you are the one who is dishing out the sadistic violent gory mayhem. A bunch of guys here at work spend most every evening playing on-line games in which they basically go around killing each other over and over again.
The weird thing is, some of these guys actually live in neighborhoods where drive by shootings and gang warfare are a reality. Not to mention that there's an actual war going on where every day people are being blown to bits by suicide bombers. Or a force five hurricane that almost completely wiped out one of America's oldest and most historic cities, leaving thousands of rotting corpses in its wake. Or the serial killers, child molesters and countless other psychopaths that parade across the seemingly endless succession of news shows on TV. Why do we need more horror movies?
The other day at work, I was passing by the conference room and I saw a group of people looking out the window. Naturally I went over to see what was up. Apparently, someone left a red tool case sitting on the street corner right outside our building. It had been sitting there for about two hours and finally security had called in the bomb squad. The streets were cordoned off and a group of brave men wearing protective vests was now approaching the suspicious case.
Where's the robot I wondered? Surely they're going to bust out the robot!
But no, instead they send one of the guys with the vests over to take a couple of x-rays of the tool case. Then he tied a string to the handle, looped it around the "walk" sign on the corner lamp post and brought the other end back to where his pals were waiting behind a large concrete pillar. One, two, three -- YOINK! They jerked the case up into the air. It flung open, revealing no bomb or even any tools inside, and hung there dangling from the lamp post. Those of us at the window were kind of disappointed. Not that we wanted a bomb to go off, but it did seem a little anti-climactic and totally low-tech. At least the streets would be cleared in time for us to get to lunch.
Maybe the world has gotten so horrifying that we need a jolt of blood-gutting mayhem now and then just to feel alive. The steady, familiar, day-to-day threat of being vaporized by the ubiquitous specter of "terrorism" has become downright comfortable. Last week, on the anniversary of September 11th, Los Angeles was issued a terrorist threat warning. On the 12th we all went to work as usual, nobody seemed particularly nervous or vigilant. Around noon I was talking to my cell phone company about upgrading to a better phone, when those annoying guys from security broke in over the intercom and announced a massive power shutdown. They were so loud I had to hang up the phone. They told us to stay in our offices and await further instruction.
I waited around for about twenty minutes but then I got really hungry so I went to the elevator lobby to see if the elevators were running. Apparently they keep one going in case of emergencies like low blood sugar. I went over to the food court where all the lights were off, but my pal at the sandwich place let me have a bowl of turkey chili. I sat and ate my chili near the window so I could read my book. It was kind of hard to read though, with the alarm beeping all the time and the intercom crackling with incomprehensible announcements about things like "emergency power" and "exits" and "evacuation." I wandered back to my building and found that it had apparently been evacuated. Fortunately the guard let me go upstairs to get my car keys so I could join the thousands of other idiots trying to navigate the hellish maze of L.A. traffic with the added benefit of no traffic lights.
I guess the bowl of turkey chili made me sleepy, because when I got home I took about a two hour nap. When I woke up the crisis was over so I made a sandwich and watched some TV. The next day everyone was talking about the big blackout and how they got home and how sore their legs were from walking down all those stairs (suckers!) By Wednesday it was pretty much forgotten. Just yesterday I was in someone's office when we heard several sharp, echoing POP-POP-POPs, that sounded an awful lot like artillery fire. We craned our necks to see where the sound had come from but couldn't tell. A few minutes later a blizzard of multicolored bits fluttered by the window. Apparently the sound we'd hear had been confetti cannons. Just another false alarm.
Maybe all these false alarms are getting on our nerves and we need to have something happen for catharsis sake. In that case, why not go see a really scary movie and scream your guts out when the killer pops out from behind the shower curtain.
At any rate I don't think it's a healthy sign when people need to be frightened out of their wits just to be entertained. But it's good for the movie industry -- horror movies are cheap and they rake in the cash. With any luck, my buddy's movie will be giving people recurring nightmares and influencing potential homicidal maniacs by next summer.
