More cruiseship daydreaming

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Work more or less blew today. It wasn’t really all that busy, but one of my machines went down about 9am and threw the whole day out of whatck. Didn’t help that I couldn’t get a tech in to save my life — eventually had to ask to elevate the service request to the managerial level. Theoretically I should be getting a call from a tech first thing in the morning — I just hope it’ll happen this time.

Was planning on heading over to Casey’s to toss all my Bumbershoot ramblings onto the webpage, but was tired enough after work that I just came home. After going strong all weekend, taking an evening to rest sounded like a good idea.

Ended up spending most of the evening hanging out on the porch (okay, it’s not really a porch, but that’s what I’m going to call it), talking with my neighbor Damon and his friends Erin, Cory and Patrick. Most of the time I was chatting with Erin while Damon and Cory wandered off to find Patrick. It’s been pretty cool — they’ve all been drinking since early afternoon, so Erin had a pretty good buzz going. Ended up being one of those free-form, rambling, everything-and-nothing conversations that go perfectly with a good buzz. I was sober, but I’ve been in enough of those conversations (both sober and not) to follow pretty easily.

After the drama queen hysterics of my other neighbor, Cody (the one that just bailed to Hawaii), Damon’s a pretty damn cool neighbor. Gotta say, though — and this is one of those horrid statements that just makes me feel old — he and his friends remind me so much of myself and my friends over the past 10 years or so. They’re all about 18-20, just a year or two out of high school, and fairly new to the “real world” of living on their own. This is Damon’s first apartment, and he’ll be starting school at one of the local colleges pretty soon here.

So, here we have a guy out on his own for the first time, away from parents (he’s from Billings, Montana), with a bunch of friends (also from Billings) also about to start school here, enjoying the last few weeks of summer. Up all night, joking around, tooling around the city during the day, taking advantage of every possible moment of minimal responsibilities…

…man, I miss that. :)

Of course, I have no idea how things are going to go for me in the near future. Every time I had to place another call to Xerox to see if I could get a tech to fix my machine today, the idea of spending six months — six months! — getting paid to spin for a club on a cruise ship sounded better and better. How many times is a chance like this going to come along? Many people pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to take a cruise for a few weeks — I might have the opportunity to get paid to be on cruises for half of a year, going who knows where, relaxing and touring during the day, and dj’ing for an upscale dance club at night.

Even if (assuming I am offered a contract) I do blow this chance at getting in good with Xerox, copy jobs and office jobs will still be around when I get back, and I’ll still have the experience to get one somewhere, if I decide that that’s what I want to go back to. The more this runs through my head, the more I think that I’d be a complete moron not to at least try for it. I’d spend the rest of my life wishing that I had.

So much of what Kevin’s done over the years I’ve been really jealous of — his seeming ability to just pick up and go, take a summer and go tooling around the states, take another one and go tooling around Europe. I’ve always been so paranoid/frightened of losing stability — be that an apartment, a job, a group of friends, or whatever — that I could never convince myself that I could actually do it. It wasn’t so much that I was tied down to where I was and what I was doing, but more that I let myself get tied down, and was scared to see what would happen if I let the ropes go.

Over the past couple years, though, those ropes holding me in place just didn’t seem as strong as they used to. And whaddaya know — after doing a whole lot of talking about it for years, I finally got the guts to pack up, turn my back on all the stability I’d built up for myself over the past years, say goodbye to my family and friends, and finally strike out on my own. Sure, I’d been out of my parents house almost constantly since I was about 18…but even with the slight ‘safety net’ of knowing a few people down here and having their help in the form of a couch to crash on until I found my own place, this move to Seattle has me much more own my own than I’ve ever let myself get before.

The best part is — I’m loving it.

And now, this possibility comes along. There are few times in my life that I’ve been as truly happy as when I’ve been in the booth of a club, looking out at a packed floor of people having fun, and knowing that I’m part of that. Watching people stagger off the dance floor, dripping with sweat and sportin grins wide enough to split their face because I’ve just worn them out. Feeling the enrgy flow through the room as a club full of people having fun thumps along through the night. Getting the grins, hugs, props, and accolades of people, both in the club during the night and on the streets during the days — some from people who didn’t know me beyond, “Oh, he’s that DJ,” and some from people who came out because they knew I was spinning and knew they’d have a good time.

If I never get to do that again, then the years I spent doing that will be some of the fondest memories for the rest of my life. But the chance to do it again has been a dream for a while now — and to do it like this? Cruising from port ot port, seeing places I’d quite possibly not otherwise see, and playing for people whom I’d most likely never get a chance to meet any other way?

I would be a fool not to do my damnedest to try and do this.

I’ll call the guy tomorrow.

Bumbershoot ’01: Monday, Sep. 3rd

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Just something amusing — just got back from getting breakfast and batteries for my camera. Turns out the drugtstore has to store Lithium batteries behind the counter because they can be broken open and used in the production of crystal meth. Bizarre.

On my way into the Center, I stopped off at the blues stage for a moment. The Northwest Connection Community Choir was performing — good gospel music. Got one picture, but then they went from uptempo, soulful, hand-clapping gospel to a slower devotional tune, and I wandered off again.

Now I’m sitting in the balcony at the opera house. There’s a comedy/revue performance that looked interesting — the Madcap Cabaret, with Kevin Kent (drag queen and MC for the show), Bill Dana (comedian), Kiki & Herb (drag cabaret and musical comedy), and the Tiger Lillies (Gothic folk trio — whatever that is). Should be starting soon — it’s about 15 minutes past showtime, and the natives are getting restless.

Kiki & Herb are in their encore now. I can’t really say that I’m impressed, though from the sound of the crowd on the main floor, I may be in the minority. Loud and obnoxious, for the most part, and not much of the humor has really been that funny, though there is an occasional laugh. Not something I’d ever pay to see again, though.

Kevin Kent’s MC’ing isn’t bad, if it weren’t for the ultra-annoying falsetto voice he uses for his “Cookie” persona. He’s back on now — Kiki & Herb finally finished up.

At least the opening act was good. Bill Dana’s a comedian who is most famous for his Jose Jiminez character. His section started with an ‘interview’ between Jose and Cookie — quite amusing.

“This says you were a doctor.”

“Yes, I was a Geneologist.”

“Oh, my notes say you were a Gynecologist — a Geneologist is someone who looks up people’s backgrounds.”

[Pause…] “Wasn’t my way of saying it nicer?”

He went on for a bit, then Cookie introduced Kiki & Herb.

Right now we’re waiting for the Tiger Lillies — apparently there’s some sort of sound problem with the accordion. Cookie had spent the stage change time wandering through the audience and thoroughly embarassing a young man named Adam. He took it pretty well, though. When they were given the okay the Tiger Lillies came onstage — and discovered the accordion glitch. Hopefully this won’t take too long. It’s already 3pm, and this show is scheduled to end at 3:30pm. If it takes too much longer I may take off — Taj Mahal starts in the stadium at 4pm.

I gave up waiting for the Tiger Lillies to get started — aside from an announcemnt over the intercom apologizing, no apparent action had taken place by the time I left. Grabbed some pizza on my way to the stadium, then found myself an open spot on the field just as Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band was coming on stage. Just a couple minutes later, I realized that Casey, Jen, Tim, and someone else were sitting just about 20 feet in front of me, so I moved up and am sitting with them.

The sun finally came out while I was in the opera house, too. What started out looking like a grey, drizzly day has turned into another gorgeous late summer day. I just know I’m going to get a bit sunburned again after this weekend.

More pot smoke drifting through the air. Pity I don’t like being stoned, since I’ve always liked that smell.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Well, I’m a little dumb (maybe it was that pot smoke?), but it’s not all bad. I forgot which stage I was aiming for and ended up at the rhythm stage, where WOFA is doing traditional African drumming. Got a picture of them and of the finished Bob Marley painting, but now I want to head over to the blues stage for the Zydeco band I was actually aiming for.

Good, good Zydeco. C. J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band — thought about picking up a CD, but I’ve spent way too much this weekend as it is, so I’ll look into it later. I’d also like to pick up one of the Bumbershoot shirts — will check their website soon to see what they’re not sold out of.

Back at my usual spot in the bowl of the fountain again. Some momo just dropped his pipe — a nice glass one, too. It didn’t break, but he did lose his bowl as it bounced down the slope. He didn’t seem to thrilled.

I’ve got roughly an hour to kill before Nikol Collars, the last artist I’ve got marked as a possibility for today. I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and head home after her. Since i’ve been here all weekend long I haven’t had a chance to do laundry yet, which would be a good idea before the work week kicks in.

This has been a hell of a weekend, though. Managed to hit most of the shows I wanted to see, and enjoyed everything except that Kiki & Herb cabaret this afternoon. One sub-par show over four days isn’t bad at all, though. Definitely need to thank Kevin again for the ticket when I get a chance.

Just ran into Ogre (the doorman for local goth/industrial club The Vogue, who Chad and Dez introduced me to when I first got to town), his wife Mickey, and a couple friends of theirs, Adam (?) and…well, a lady whose name I can’t remember. Chatted with them for a few minutes, then headed over to the northwest court stage for Nikol Collars.

Unfortunately, Nikol has apparently cancelled. Nina Hynes is playing instead, which is fine — I’d had one of her shows marked as a possibility earlier in the weekend and hadn’t made it. Guess I get a second chance.

I’m sitting at the bus stop to go home now. Nina was good, and very pretty — pretty girl, pretty voice, and pretty songs — but a bit more mellow than I was really hoping for. Watched about half an hour or so, then wandered off. Swung by the fountain to sit and check my schedule to make sure there wasn’t anything else that I really wanted to catch, and since there wasn’t, I figured it was a good time to head out.

So that was my Labor Day/Bumbershoot weekend. Not bad, not bad at all. This journal (and eventual post on my webpage) can’t even come close to capturing everything that went on, or even everything I saw and heard, but I tried to get as much as I could down. Very cool — going back into the workaday week tomorrow is going to seem almost depressingly mundane, I think.

Interesting — there’s a guy on the opposite corner of the intersection with a boombox, just jamming out to whatever’s on the radio — and he just switched it from buttrock to madrigals. Interesting combination, that’s for sure. As long as he’s happy, I guess.

Bumbershoot ’01 – Sunday, Sep. 2nd

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Just hopped on the #2, heading back out to the Seattle Center. According to my schedule, the DJ (group?) in the Electrodeck before the Black Crows was just called BPM. Well, whatever, it was fun to dance to.

There’s a few acts I’ve got marked out that I’d like to catch, but as is inevitable at a festival this size, some of the performances overlap. I’ll see who I end up catching eventually.

Anyway, possibilities I’ve got marked out for the day are David Lee Roth tonight in the stadium, Maria Muldaur on the blues stage, the Reverend Horton Heat at Key Arena, 5 Fingers of Funk and Critters Buggin’ at the rhythm stage, the Red Elvises (again), and Joe Matt & Sol Calderone and DJ Logic in the Electrodeck. The earlier shows don’t overlap too much, but the evening’s going to be kind of tricky. I’ll just have to see how it goes.

Writing on the bus is getting to be a pain in the butt, though, so it’s time to stop.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

I’ve got some time to kill before the first acts I’ve got marked, so I’m sitting in the bowl of the fountain again. There’s a giant puppet parade that goes through a couple times a day that I grabbed a few pictures of. And I do mean giant puppets — the dragon takes five operators from the looks of it. The smaller puppets only take one person — but they’re about 15 feet tall.

This looks like it’s going to be an absolutely gorgeous day. It’s about 12:30pm now, and we’ve got nearly cloudless skies with the sun beating down. Feels great, and it’s making for some cool rainbow effects in the fountain.

Sitting on the lawn at Maria Muldaur now. Not much better for a sunny Sunday morning than the blues! Where I’m sitting, I can get an occasional glimpse of her between the people standing up in front of me — I’ll stand up and try to get a pic or two in a minute.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

On the way from the fountain, I stopped off to watch a kid doing a juggling act. Had a very impressive finale that I got a picture of: balancing a spinning plate on a stick in his mouth and juggling three machetes while standing on a contraption of boards and blocks balanced on a rolling tube. Crazy, but he pulled it off — a far, far braver man than I.

Back at the fountain again. Hit the Electrodeck after Maria Muldaur and caught the end of Joe Matt & Sol Calderone and the beginning of DJ Logic. Stopping off here on the way over to check out 5 Fingers of Funk. Took a panoramic series of the bowl of the fountain — with the weather so nice, there’s a lot more people both at the festival in general, and playing in the water here. Gave me a chance to get a shot of it during a busier time than my first set of shots. Now, time to wander off again.

Nice — 5 Fingers of Funk put on a nice, sweet set. Once they were done I jumped offsite to get something to eat, and have been hanging out at the fountain for a bit now. I’m not hot enough to take a run through, but a breeze has come up that keeps blowing mist across everyone — a nice complement to the strength of the setting sun. I figure there’s only an hour or so of real daylight left, so I’m enjoying it while I can.

I’ve got a little over an hour before the next show I want to hit, so will probably kill that either sitting here or wandering around and peoplewatching.

Okay. Wandered around for a while, basically just people watching and following the flow of the crowd. Found a good spot for the Critters Buggin’ show, I think — as long as I don’t get too much of a contact high from the clouds of pot smoke that keep drifting by me. Can’t really say I’m surprised — most of the festival is kept pretty free of that, but the area around the rhythm stage has been given an “island” atmosphere in decor. Between that and the fact that the majority of the acts on this stage focus on funk, reggae, and similar stuff — it’s a haven for much of the crowd (hippie, rasta, etc.) that’s more likely to be getting a nice pot buzz when they can. Not a big deal, really — just hope I don’t get hit for a random drug test at work anytime soon. I don’t know if they do that beyond the initial screening or not — and a contact high probably wouldn’t be enough to show, anyway — but hey.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Caught another of the random street performers on the way over. He’d laid three kids down side by side on the ground, and proceeded to make three attempts at doing a skateboard jump with a 360 degree twist in the air over them. While he made it over the kids each time, he never quite managed to land without falling down — but the last time he at least kept his feet on the board and got back up, which was good enough for the crowd (and probably for the parents of the kids, too). I did manage to get some good shots of him in the air over the kids, too.

Critters Buggin’ got off to a late start. They were supposed to start at 7pm, but didn’t really get going until close to 8pm. Apparently there was some sort of problem with the sound system — which, unfortunately, continued during their show. Every so often all the speakers would go dead for a few moments, then kick in again. Was kind of a bummer for the crowd, but the band either didn’t notice — or (my guess) didn’t care, as they just kept right on playing and let the sound guys fight with it.

Other than that, it was really good — and, typically for Critters Buggin’, bizarre. A couple of brothers from Morocco opened the show with a set of about five traditional Moroccon pieces. It was good, but after an hours wait to get started, one guy on a Moroccan pipe and his brother on a drum wasn’t quite enough for some of the crowd, who took off. Fine with me — it let me work my way forward through the crowd.

When Critters got on, it was great. They’re a pretty powerful band anyway — two drummers, a bass player, and Skerrik (sax, electric sax, keyboards, lots of distortion, and a lot of noise). Then they bring on a host of additional people to keep the stage interesting.

First off, a little girl (maybe Skerrik’s daughter?) ran onstage and helped Skerrik with the keyboard for a bit, until her mom (I’m guessing) came to take her back off to the side of the stage.

Next the Cheeze Family came on — four drag queens with grossly exaggerated anatomies built into their outfits. After they left, Skerrik brought out the “Farther” (kind of like a Catholic Father, just different) to cleanse and bless the audience with what appeared to be a pair of rubber handcuffs.

For a while after that, there was some sort of mimed business between Pan and a woman in a Hironymous Bosch-style mask and a wedding dress, both of which she eventually stripped off (she was wearing a white bodysuit under the dress).

I’ll have to finish this on the bus — the police are kicking us out.

Back at home now. Next to join Critters was a figure wearing a red cape and a Charlie Brown mask, until he ripped off the mask to reveal — well, another mask, this one somewhat satanic. I’m not entirely sure who he was supposed to be, except that he was trying to shut Critters Buggin’ down. Of course, this didn’t work, as he was shouted offstage by the audience chanting, “No more smooth jazz!” while Skerrik assaulted him with blasts of noise from his sax. All very entertaining.

Not too long after that, I decided to head to the stadium. Because of the late start to the Critters Buggin’ show, I didn’t get to see the Reverend Horton Heat, which was a bummer, but I did want to check out the last part of the big show for the night — Dimond Dave himself, David Lee Roth.

Rather than staying twards the back as I had for the Crows, I decided to see if I could find a way toward the front — the better to immerse myself in a sea of true buttrockers, and the best Dimond Dave experience possible. I cut off to the right hand side of the stadium and worked my way up along the side, then when I got close to the front I started working my way in. I ended up a bit off to the side of the stage, but only about three “rows” back (though “rows” is a fairly loose term at an arena-rock show such as this). In any case, I had a pretty good view, and was buried far enough in the crowd to go ahead and break the no cameras rule and snap a couple shots off. I figured that even if security noticed it would be hard to track me down — and even if they did, they can’t exactly confiscate the film from a digital camera. No need to worry, though.

Anyway, whether or not you’re a fan, I gotta say that Dave is one hell of a showman. Lime green suit, white suspenders, no shirt, long blonde hair flying all over the place, and all the screams, jumps, and high kicks you’d ever want. Was actually a really good show, and he finished it off with a couple old Van Halen tunes that even I knew — the last song of the actual set was “Ain’t Talkin ‘Bout Love,” and his encore song was “Jump!” I tell you, the opening synth cords of “Jump!” brought me right back to high school. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

After Dave was done, I started working my way to the exit to catch the bus back home. As I passed the fountain there was still a big drum circle going on down in the bowl, so I stopped off there to sit, listen to the drums, and write things down — that’s where I was when I wrote that the police were kicking us out.

There had been a drum circle going on at the fountain all day long. It had started with just five guys and had been picking up more and more drummers as they day progressed. By the time I sat and was writing until the police came by and started herding people out, there were probably at least a good hundred people down in the bowl — a good half of them drumming, and the other half dancing or just hanging out.

After being told it was time to go home, I wandered out to the bus stop. Ended up getting into a conversation with a guy named Paul, who was there from one of the smaller papers in the area (I’m afraid I forget which one), and was covering some of the shows. We chatted during the bus ride, mostly about various kinds of music, pros and cons of the festival, and such.

As I got off the bus, a girl got off who I see most mornings on the same bus on the way to work. We joked that things were backwards, as we were getting off the bus at night, rather than getting on it in the morning. Turns out she lives in the same apartment building I do, up in 405. One of these days I should probably figure out what her name is.

So that’s it for Sunday. The batteries in my camera finally died during David Lee Roth (not bad, considering I bought the camera in late May), so I’m not sure if I’ll be taking any pictures tomorrow. I’ll look into how much batteries cost tomorrow morning, hopefully they won’t be too expensive — but since I need Lithium AA’s instead of standard Alkalines, I’m not sure.

Bumbershoot ’01 – Saturday, Sep. 1st

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The day started on something of a sad note — Dad called to let me know that Grandmother died early in the morning. It’s sad, but hardly tragic — she died peacefully, got quite a few more years of life than we all expected a few years back, and we all got to visit last November. Due to timing and finances, neither Mom, Kevin, nor myself will be able to be at the funeral, but Dad will be in Indiana this week for that.

And with that start to the day, I headed off to Bumbershoot….

Jason Webley, Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Walked in and watched Jason Webley — very cool. Accordion, percussion via coins in a plastic bottle, gravelly voice. I know I’ve heard the style before, but don’t know the name — think Tom Waits. Going to go ahead and spend some money picking up his CD’s.

Jason’s drinking song:

When the glass is full, drink up, drink up
this may be the last time we see this cup
if God wanted us sober
he’d knock the glass over
so while it is full
we drink up, drink up!

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Drumming workshops go on all day, every day. Now this is a drum circle!

Took a 3-shot panorama of the fountain and the people around it (I don’t have the panorama stitched together yet, however, so it’s not getting posted up here just yet. I’ll be busy enough tonight just getting all this typed in).

Wandered out for a few minutes for some cheap food.

Back in, sitting at Meshell Ndegéocello in the stadium. Sun’s finally starting to break through the clouds — been grey and cloudy all morning until now.

Lots of eye candy out today.

Can’t get any pictures here — no photography allowed in the stadium. No biggie — lots of other chances to get good pics.

Meshell just ended — time to wander around a bit. Loretta Lynn will be on here in the stadium in an hour and a half, planning on being here for that.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Sitting and watching kids play in the fountain. Darting in to try and touch the base without getting drenched. Doesn’t work very often. The spouts keep turning on and off, getting stronger and weaker. Makes it very hard to predict where the next open spot is going to be. The kids love it. Got one picture of a girl trying to use an umbrella to stay dry — that didn’t work too well either. Umbrellas are good for rain — not streams of gallons of water suddenly dropping onto you.

Nice background noise coming from the drum circle off somewhere behind me.

Sun disappeared again, though. Looks like it might stay cloudy the rest of the day — but with Seattle weather, who can tell?

Just saw a kid — couldn’t have been more than 18 or so — lie on a bed of nails. Then his partner put a cinderblock on his chest, and smashed it with a sledgehammer. The block broke, the kid survived — but he had a look on his face like eve he’d been surprised by the hit. Kind of amusing.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Listening to bagpipes now.

Wandered into the Electrodeck (the area focusing on dj’ing and electronic music) to see what was going on in there. According to the schedule, I hit the end of Brian Lyons’ set. I didn’t have a clue who it was at the time, it was just some decent house music. Since I still had some time to kill before the next performer I wanted to hit, I danced there for a few minutes.

Was a pretty interesting atmosphere. Since it’s in the middle of this huge music festival, even though it had the general ambiance of your standard rave, there was a much wider range of people wandering through than you’d normally see in that kind of environment. It was mostly the kids you’d expect to see gravitating towards it, but you also had everything from “normals,” hippies, even whole families checking it out — mom and dad standing against the wall or sitting in the building’s beer garden while their kids bounced around to the music.

After about 20 minutes or so I wandered out again. Went back across the center to the stadium to catch Loretta Lynn’s show. Sitting here just slightly over halfway back on the stadium field, I can’t really see the stage — it’s a little far away, and there’s a good sized crowd standing between me and the stage — but I can hear it fine, which is good enough for me at this point. If I hadn’t brought my backpack I might have tried to work my way through the crowd, but with the day looking grey when I left the house, I wanted to be sure to have my umbrella and a sweater along in case things got chilly.

I’m glad I did, too — I started off wearing the bowling shirt I got while I was at TimeFrame, and it’s been on and off all day as the sun appears and disappears. Haven’t had to break out the sweater yet, though.

It’s funny. I just brought this little journal along to jot down some quick notes of what I did, who I saw, and what pictures I took to help me get it all posted on the webpage next time I make it over to Casey’s. Friday’s notes are just that — barely over a page of quick sentences jotted down, and only about two-thirds of that even deals with Bumbershoot.

Today started out the same way, but each time I’ve stopped to put something in here, it’s been less and less just notes and more straight prose. Maybe it’s not quite ‘natural’ for me to just keep quick notes like I started to. Probably an outgrowth of my inability to say in less than 50 words what can probably be said in 5 — a tendencey I definitely get from Dad.

Since I dont have daily access to my computer to keep up the weblog there, maybe I’ll just keep carrying this book around. It’ll let me keep better track of what I do each day for when I do get to Casey’s to post on the page. I’ll have to see whether or not I actually keep up with this, but I may actually have started keeping a journal again. Every time I’ve done something like this in the past it’s been on a trip of some sort, and I’ve never kept it up much beyond the length of the the trip, if I even make it all the way through without letting the journal fall by the wayside.

You could probably see starting this one during Bumbershoot weekend as the same basic idea as starting one on my various trips, but maybe the fact that I’m not actually on a trip this time will prompt me to keep scribbling in here. Don’t quite know yet — guess I’ll find out in a few weeks if I’m still going.

Just got done watching the Red Elvises, and am sitting at the fountain again. It’s proving to be my favorite between-show spot to sit, scribble in this, and figure out what I’m doing next.

Red Elvises, Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

The Red Elvises put on a great show. Theoretically, they’re from Siberia (though I have no clue whether that’s true or not), and play a kind of rockabilly/surf combo. Very cool, and lots of fun. The three of them are constantly switching off who’s playing which instrument (bass, guitar, and drums), and they’re all equally proficient at each. During “I Wanna See You Bellydance” they brought a line of bellydancers onstage, and at one point a couple songs later, they all grabbed drumsticks and split the drumset in thirds — made for a very cool percussive section.

Anyway, great show — good enough that I hit the Wherehouse music stand afterwards and picked up a 2-CD live album from them.

I’ve got some time to kill now, and am thinking about wandering off to find some food — it’s coming up on 7pm, and the last show I want to hit tonight won’t be over until 11pm or so. Time to wander….

I’ll see how legible this is later. I’m sitting on the field in the stadium waiting for the Black Crows to start, and there’s not a whole lot of light. Hopefully I’ll be able to read this.

Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

Before I went off to find food, I watched some of Clinton Fearon and the Boogie Brown Band’s set. It was good, but downtempo raggae is more Kevin’s style than mine, and it was relaxing enough that I was starting to yawn. Decided that would be a good time to get moving again.

The Black Crows just got onstage — better see how quickly I can get through this!

Anyway, wandered off-site for food again (much cheaper than in the festival). Since the stage that Clinton Fearon was on was right on the outside edge of the festival grounds, I got to hear more of their set while I was walking. They picked up the tempo towards the end — good stuff.

Since I still had about 40 minutes before the Crows, it seemed like a good time to check out the Electrodeck again. Like before, I didn’t know who was spinning — and it’s too dark for me to try and look it up now — but the music was good. Better than the first time I stopped in today, actually. Dancing kept me occupied for about another half hour, then I wandered here to the stadium.

I had sat down next to a family in the stadium field, and they’ve been kind enough to let me squat down on part of the blanket they had spread out.

So now — time to quit babbling and watch the show.

Okay — last time I could hardly see what I was writing. Now I’m trying to write on the #2 bus back home. As if my handwriting isn’t bad enough already.

Kinda cool, though –the #2 bus goes from a block away from my apartment to a block away from the Seattle Center. Makes getting back and forth amazingly easy.

The Black Crows put on a great show. They’ve been playing long enough and have enough albums out that filling an hour and a half plus a bit for an encore is easy to do. Since the only album of theirs I’ve ever picked up is their first, those were the only songs I really knew, but even when I don’t know it by heart, straight-up blues-based rock-n-roll makes for a good show. “Hard to Handle” came in about halfway through, and “She Talks to Angels” was the first song of the encore, so I got to hear both of the songs I was hoping they’d play.

Jason Webley, Bumbershoot 2001, Seattle, WA

After they got done I started heading for the exit that is next to the stop for the bus, but then ran into Jason Webley giving another performance. This guy is rapidly becoming one of my favorite artists here, and he’s not even one of the main acts. Just a born entertainer, with great songs and a gift for working his audience. I’m hoping to run into him again tomorrow — he got shut down by the event staff before he had time to finish off with the drinking song, to the great disappointment of his audience.

After Jason stopped, I headed for the bus stop again, and on the way ran into Serafina/Amber, one of Anchorage’s old rave kids. Apparently she came down here about a year ago and is a preschool (or did she say kindergarten?) teacher, and mixing in her spare time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much time to chat as the police were shuttling everyone off the grounds as fast as they could.

Eventually, I made it to the bus, and am working my way home now. Time to get some sleep and rest up for another full day tomorrow!

Bumbershoot ’01 – Friday, Aug. 31st

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I took off from work and walked up to the Seattle Center and made it into Bumbershoot at about 5:30pm. Spent most of my first day just wandering around and getting the feel of the place — the only band I caught any of was The Dusty 45’s, a decent blues/rock-n-roll band.

I did run into my friend Adri there, which blew my mind for a couple reasons. First off, just running into her was surprise enough. Secondly, she was there on her honeymoon! Apparently she and her boyfriend Jory (I have no clue if I’m spelling that correctly or not) had just gotten married the week before. Completely caught me off guard — was not something I was expecting to hear — but hey, congratulations to the both of them.

After a while I decided I wanted to head home, change out of my work clothes, and head back, but I never made it back. While I was at home, Chad and Kim stopped by to kidnap me, and we all ended up heading out to The Vogue, a goth/industrial bar just a couple blocks up the street from my house. Ended up being a very cool night — ran into two more friends that I hadn’t seen in a while, Nate (who I’d last seen not long before I left Anchorage, he just moved down here a couple weeks ago), and Alex (who I haven’t seen in years, and is planning on heading back to Anchorage soon). This world just gets smaller and smaller all the time….

After we all finally decided we were done, we hit IHOP for some grub, went to our respective homes, and crashed.

Temptation!

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Ooers…talk about a (potentially, at least) agonizing decision.

A while ago, a guy I was talking to online about dj’ing pointed me to a webpage advertising positions for DJ’ing aboard a Carnival Cruise Lines ‘Fun Ship’. I figured what the heck, and sent off an e-mail. Yesterday when I was checking my e-mail, I finally got a response, inviting me to call if I was still interested.

So, now comes the question. Seeing as how I just landed this position with Xerox/Andersen, and that I know they’d like me to commit to at least a year, do I stay with the safe bet with good future opportunities? Or do I chase a dream to see if I can get a spot on the cruise ships? Ergh…I’m at least going to call the number I was given to talk to the Carnival people to see exactly what the deal is — talking can’t hurt — but until I know more about it, I’m not sure.

It sure sounds like a great opportunity, though. Get a six-month contract to go tooling around on cruise ships to who knows where, and have a blast doing it. Here’s a blurb from the webpage linked above:

The Carnival Disc Jockey entertains in the Dance Club each evening and at private events. During the light of day, he can visit beautiful tropical ports, relax at any of the deck swimming pools, or exercise in the fully equipped health facilities.

Sounds rough, doesn’t it?

Well, there’s no way I can make a definite call until I talk to the people.

Suicide isn’t painless

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I did want to take a moment before I went home to comment on the recent suicide attempt that has, apparently, been making national headlines (see Suicide attempt draws nation’s attention, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 30th; and Commuters’ mood turns ugly as suicide try snarls I-5 traffic, Seattle P-I, Aug. 29th).

Now normally, suicides — or suicide attempts — aren’t really newsworthy events (unless, of course, they happen to be by some already-noteworthy personality…and even then, I often question if it’s really that newsworthy an occurrence). However, this event has been garnering national media attention not because of the suicide attempt itself, but because of the depressingly horrendous way that people here reacted to it.

In a nutshell, an unidentified woman decided to at least appear to want to commit suicide during the Tuesday morning rush hour. Pulling her car to the side of the Ship Canal bridge, she got out her car and sat on the railing overlooking Lake Union 160 ft. below. Someone called the police who quickly arrived to try and talk her down, but by this point, the mood was already getting ugly. Someone sitting on the edge of a bridge is sure to draw attention, and the arrival of police officers drew more. As traffic was slowed by the gawkers, people frustrated by the slow pace started yelling at the woman, telling her to jump. Eventually, the comments and obscenities from the passing traffic were causing enough problems with the police officers’ negotiations with the woman that they found it necessary to close down I-5, causing a huge traffic jam in the middle of the morning rush.

About two hours later, the woman jumped. Surprisingly enough, she survived the fall into the lake, and was taken to a hospital, where her condition has gone from critical to serious over the past day.

The thing that gets me about all of this — and what has been getting to many people — is how horrendously people acted. When I-5 was closed down, it was not closed down because of the possible jumper. It was closed down because so many people felt that they had to insult and verbally abuse an obviously already distraught woman, to the point of purportedly yelling, “Jump, bitch, jump!” as they drove by. For a city that has an image of being one of the nicer areas in the northwest to live in, this seems to have taken quite a lot of Seattle — and the nation, from the ongoing stories — by surprise. It’s a sad commentary on things when something like this happens. A freeway full of people, and not one would pull over to try and talk to this woman, or to see if something could be done. Instead, they did their best to urge her on — because as she had the temerity to try to commit suicide in a public place during a high-traffic time of day (now, is it just me, or doesn’t that scream out “cry for help?”), she was inconveniencing them.

Right.

Anyway, there’s not much I can really add to the general onslaught of reaction to this travesty. I’m surprised and somewhat disheartened that it all played out like this, of course. It’s not at all what I would have expected to see happen. Hopefully the next time something similar happens (though, admittedly, it would be best if that weren’t to come to be), people will think a little less of themselves.

I’m not sure I’m too optimistic about that, though.

Kev, drama queens, and Bumbershoot

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Okay. So what’s gone on the past almost two weeks in my little corner of the universe? Hm…lots of little bits and pieces. This may not be my most fully-fleshed out post, as I’m pretty tired, braindead, and ready to head home…but I wanted to get at least a summary up here, and knew that I most likely won’t make it here this weekend. So — here goes.

Work-wise, things are plugging right along. John (the gent I’m replacing) has left his post to bigger and brighter things within Xerox, so this was my first full week on my own in the printshop. I think I handled most of it fairly well…about my only real headache was dealing with end-of-the-month inventory today. John’s a great guy, but not the most organized out there, and trying to track down where everything is stashed took a bit. Anyway, last Friday was his last day there, and we ended up having a nice little office party towards the end of the day as a combination “Say goodbye to John and meet the new Xeroid” shindig.

It’s outside of work where things have been more interesting of late.

Kevin, me, Seattle, WAFirst things first — my bro was in town! Kevin’s fiancee’s parents had given the two of them a Suburban, on the condition that they get it to Alaska. Since Emily is off in Ghana, Africa with the Peace Corps at the moment, it fell to Kevin to fly to Tennessee, then drive the beast up the Al-Can to Fairbanks. On his way north he stopped off in Seattle for a couple days, and we got to hang out and visit Saturday and Sunday evenings. Was all sorts of cool — what with him being a back-woods hick and me being a big-city boy (grin), we don’t get to hang out all that often.

Most of the weekend we spent either wandering around the streets of Seattle or kicking back in the ‘porch’ area outside my apartment, talking, having a few drinks, and watching the world walk by. Was a really good weekend, and to top it off, Kevin was kind enough to spot me the $40 for a 4-day pass to Bumbershoot, Seattle’s annual music festival that will be going on this weekend. Should be very cool — take some time to poke around their website and see if they’ve got a schedule up…it’s just amazing how much is going on.

By far the most entertaining aspect of the weekend, though, was my next-door neighbor, Cody. While I’d known that he was a bit of a drama queen (it’s pretty obvious, really), things apparently got too out of hand for even him to deal with — and so he decided to skip town. So, this weekend I was treated to watching Cody kick in his own door when he forgot his keys, toss what little clothing he was taking into a few duffel bags, and bail to Hawaii (at least, that’s what he told us), leaving everything else in the apartment to be cleaned up and parted out by his friends. It was pretty entertaining, actually — and I managed to snag his futon off of him before he bailed, so I’m not sleeping on the floor anymore! It’s a full-size futon, and isn’t in the greatest shape in the world…but hey, it was free, and it’ll do quite nicely until I decide I want something better.

So that pretty much wraps things up for now. Oh, last Friday I did get a chance to see Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back — very funny, and a fitting end to this era of Kevin Smith’s career. This weekend, I’m off to Bumbershoot to see what can be seen…fun fun fun!

Laters….

A few more movies

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I added three more DVD’s to the collection over the weekend. Here’s what they were:

The Black Cauldron: Based on a series of books I enjoyed as a child (The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander), this was one of Disney’s least successful animated films, but it always had something of a cult following, and was one of my favorites. Interestingly enough, the reasons that it failed are most likely the same reasons that I enjoy it — it is one of the few animated Disney adventures that is not a musical, and it’s more intense than most, to the point that it was Disney’s first (and, I believe, is still their only) animated ‘family’ film to earn a PG rating. It’s a good one, though, and this DVD was something of a revelation, as the original aspect ratio of this film is 2.35:1 — the really wide “scope” format. In other words, with the full-frame video that I’d had for years, I was literally only watching half the film! Only a few Disney animated films have been made with this aspect ratio, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this was one.

The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover: While not exactly a well-known film, this has been a favorite of mine for a few years now — and goes solidly in that classification of “oddball, screwed-up, disturbing” films that I enjoy so much. Much of the premise of the film can be inferred just from the title, but what that won’t tell you is just how visually stunning this work is. There are five major sets to the story, and each set has its own dominant color scheme to set the mood of the characters and action in that room — to the point that as the characters move from room to room, their costumes will change colors to match the theme of the room they’re in. Fascinating stuff, though not at all a movie for the masses — it was decried as pornography as much as it was hailed as genius when it came out. Ah, well…either way, I enjoy it.

From Dusk ’til Dawn: Just an absolute blast of a film. I’ll leave arguments as to whether it’s really “good” out of this — it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and that’s all I want sometimes. Besides, the first time I saw this (in the theater), I went in not having seen any previews for it, so the sudden change in tone halfway throught the flick caught me completely unawares…made for a very cool show. This edition of the disc is nice, too, as it is a two-disc set that includes a full-length documentary on the making of the film called “Full Tilt Boogie”. FTB’s just packed with fascinating stuff — as it’s an actual documentary, rather than just a 20-minute promotional fluff piece, it gives you a ton of detail on what it takes to make a film like this. Very, very cool.

Dub-yuh’s at it again

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Okay, let’s see if I’ve got this straight.

Dub-yuh and his financial people take a look at the budget a few months ago and see that we’ve got an apparent surplus — $281 billion or so, $122 billion once we set aside a chunk for Social Security. He then introduces his famous tax cut/rebate program, which not only reduces the amount of money that the government will gain through collecting taxes, but sends a huge chunk of the surplus out to the American public (and I’m still convinced that this $300/person ‘rebate’ check was nothing more than a bribe to get his tax-cut package through as easily as possible — kind of a ‘spoonful of sugar’ technique, only with poison instead of medicine going down in the end).

Then, when the economy (as it is wont to do) does something other than as predicted in the most optimistic forecasts, the government suddenly realizes that it’s got a whopping $600 million surplus — instead of $122 billion — and is surprised?!?

Ah, well. At least I’m not the only one with tight finances these days. But at least I didn’t blow $121.4 billion dollars to get there.