Saturday, not in the park

But close enough to the fourth of July to be remotely relevant

Here are the next round of CORRECT guesses for the June music madness.

Only 21 more guessing days until contest’s end on June 29

Entering the Fray at 9:55 AM, Michael Bachelor takes time off from his taxing and demanding role as “house bitch” to offer the following:

27. High, higher than the sun. Elevation, U2 (All that you can’t leave behind, 2000 Interscope records.)4 points, 5 bonus points , and 5 more bonus points for getting me a ticket to see this concert, as described below.

No-one said it was fair

So, I like U2. I always have, and this album was a novelty, since I had heard absolutely none of it beforehand. 2000 was a very interesting year for me, as I was making really good money, had recently received a hella huge bonus check, and was really enjoying my life and friends.

So what do I do? I bought a truck. This truck sucked some $22K out of my pocket over the next 2 years, and may well be the last vehicle I’d ever own. I grew to hate it with a passion that would not die, but in April, 2001 it was still new to me, and I was enjoying the upgrade from the smaller one I’d been driving around the previous few years.

So, me and my truck decide to head to NorWescon, a Science Fiction Convention I’ve been attending since forever ago. It’s held down in Seatac, a good drive from the homestead, but close enough that I don’t need to spend extra cash on a hotel room. Good thing , too, since Mike had called me up a few weeks earlier, and mentioned that he, his very pregnant and beautiful wife Paula, and another friend were going down to Portland , to see U2 in the Rose Garden.

Now, I’ve been to Portland lots of times, seen concerts, and listened to a lot of U2 songs. But never had I done these things with Mike and Paula, so I was all for it. Besides, yet another road trip in my brand new truck seemed like A Hell of an Idea, so I said, “Sure, I’d like a ticket.”

With my Sunday plan in place, I enjoy the hell out of the weekend. As is usual for me over a convention weekend, I run into a number of old freinds, new freinds, and drink a great deal. I’m playing Dungeons and Dragons like a madman, drinking like a dehydrated irishman on a brewery tour, and cutting a swath through casual accquaintances and anybody else caught up in my wake. During those days of wonder, I kept bumping ino my freind Sarah, with whom I had a strange, but very satisfying relationship several years earlier. While it didn’t end the way I had wanted it to, it still finalized in a friendly fashion, and I was not at all averse to this circumstance.

During an intermission in our Saturday night debauchery, the Danceys, Miltons and I were heading back to the room parties, to score more free booze and vittles. Careening through the hallways, I am myself swathed when Sarah grabs my arm and plants one on me. Certainly not a bad place to be in, and I wave my happily married friends down the hallway as we continue our reaqquaintance.

For, you see, while I have been drinking, Sarah is smashed out of her gourd. Not so drunk she doesn’t know what’s going on, but judgement and motor reflexes are definitely impaired, and I get really sober, really fast. Later (much later) she informs me that I saved her life that night, as she was planning on driving home to the hinterlands of Snohomish. We get her car out of hock, put some non-poisonous fluids into her, and do some very life-affirming things. That truck was very useful after all, and as mentioned previously, it’s but a short drive to my place.

Whatdoes this have to do with U2, you might ask? Well, unbeknownst to anyone, we actually pass a U2 concert in progress while driving back to casa de Bhagwan, as the tour had added a stop in Seattle very late in the schedule. But I digress, and Sunday morning comes with plenty of warning. Pouring some coffee into my deficient and addicted bunkmate, we head back down to Seatac, and continue our respective paths through the convention. Sunday evening comes, and as per schedule, I drive down to Portland to meet up with 2+1 Bachelors +1.

It’s a good drive, and goes by quickly. So in short order, I’m parking and walking around the downtown area. Ticket secured, I discover that Micheal has gotten us down on the floor, right in front of the stage. being who I was at this point in my life, I manuever us up to the lip of the stage while opening act P.J. Harvey is playing. All that stands between us and Bono Vox are two very nubile young ladies, neither of which was alive when MB and I heard our first U2 song.

Ahh, youth.

The lights go down. The stadium grows quiet, the opening riffs come of the Edge’s God-given axe, and the crowd starts jumping. We were like a single organism, pressed tightly and contributing to the vertical lift of all around us. I swear we all had the same heartbeat for the next 3 minutes and 47 seconds.

And then the Voice begins, and I’m singing along with him. I know all the words, all the chords, and this knowledge is a part of my very being. At this time, please reference my opening statement, wherein I reveal that I had never heard this album previous to the concert.

It was trancendant. Never before, and never since have I ever had that pure feeling of belonging and understanding. I can’t hear those opening chords without the memory flooding my senses. I will remember that weekend until I die, and years later, MB got me a recording of the concert.

It’s not the same at all. But sometimes, when I’m in just the right frame of mind, it can get me really close.

Advantage, Irish.

28. Some will strut and some will fret Virginia Woolf, Indigo Girls (Rites of Passage, 1992 Sony records) 15 points

Simply put, this album got me laid. A lot. It also helped that I was 180 pounds, very muscular, and I had a wicked high tolerance for alchohol.

That, and this was my gothy, introspective phase, and everybody wanted to play White Wolf’s Storyteller system, usually with me running the games. With this permanently ensconced on the soundtrack of my life, I decide to join the Camarilla, the fan live-action roleplaying organization based at the time out of Seattle. I was the first person to sign up for thier mailing list (back when such a thing actually involved mail) and still have my membership card, proudly emblazoned with #14.

The first “conclave” took place in Bellingham, as an adjunct to VikingCon. why not, says I, and My Friend Brad decides to come along for the ride. At this time, I’ve been attending Conventions for about three years, and more or less know what to expect. But, this is a show in Seattle, and while I’ve been to them before, I’d never driven it.

Driving involves cars, so now you get to hear about mine. When I first got back up from Phoenix, I needed a car. My mom has always been blessed with really cool co-workers, and one of them had a car sitting around doing nothing. for $200, it could be mine, and I snapped it right up. A 1972 Buick Skylark, with a Ginormous V8 and room to sleep 7. I drove that car every which way but loose, and it had some very distinguishing features. First and foremost of which is that every panel was dented in some way. Somewhat of a badge of honor, really, and sometimes I would kick it just for the hell of it. The second was that the motivator arm for the Winshield wipers was broken. Both of these factors come into play, and remember, this is ultimately about me getting laid. It bears mentioning at this time that the co-worker in question turned out to be the father of a girl I dated /crushed on after High School, and before College.

Go figure. Small towns really, really suck.

It’s the end of summer, and I have to drive the pass. So instead of finally buying a new motivator for the wipers (total cost, $20 at the junkyard), I decide that what I really need is two coats of Rain-x (total cost, $8.99). Congratulating myself on my ingenuity, I go to pick up Brad. Brad, as always, is late. and then he tells me that he can’t go yet, since he has not picked up his paycheck. He also has not gotten out of bed, nor has he showered or dressed. It is noon, and I have timed the drive to seattle at about 4 hours. I want to be there for opening ceremonies, so I give Brad an earful, and make him get dressed and ready. During the intermission, I go get us some sodas and snacks for the trip

Now it’s 1:30PM. Brad has not picked up his paycheck. Instead, he has been waiting at his house for me to come get him, and drive him the 8 blocks to his place of employment. Sigh.

2:00PM. Brad is in the car, and now needs to cash said check.

2:30 PM Brad realizes he has not packed enough black for the weekend (don’t ask),and says we have to go back to the house.

3:00 PM. We get on the highway. It is three hours later than I had anticipated, and Seattle is 350 miles from our present location. This may daunt a mere mortal’s plan to attend opening ceremonies at 6 Pm, but they did not have access to Starship Bhagwan.

Pedal hits the medal, and we cross the Washington Border doing 99 mph. This is the last time we have a double digit speed on our trip across the Evergreen state, save for those moments dictated by our need for gasoline (20mpg, $1.05 per gallon, 24 gallon tank). Right outside of Spokane, we notice that we are not the only centarians on the road, and a Geo Metor has somehow broken the time barrier to share our commute. We play tag accross the state, and I finally lose them somewhere outside of Ritzville.

On the other side of that rubicon, I-90 was a long, flat stretch of two lane. I open it up, and leave all of our cares behind. My speedometer pegs out at 120, and the needle is buried far past that. Zoom , Zoom, and the Indigo Girls are blaring away on my boombox, which is on the seat between us. The jackass in the Monte Carlo to our right refuses to let us pass, somehow unaware of our superiority and prime position on the Washington State highways. I need to pass this jerk, and he just doesn’t understand my desire to make opening ceremonies.

And then I see it. On the horizon, at the edge of my then moderately sharp vision, there is a spec. Not far removed from college and my studies of Physics, a quick calculus problem informs me that I REALLY, Really Need to PASS, Right Bleeping now! (the fact that there were two pedals available to me was not relevant to the situation at hand.) At this point, I notice that my accelerator pedal still has about 1/2 inch of give. With the words, “hold on to something,” I remove it.

Ther is an explosion. There is acceleration. There is speed. There is passing, and there is a whoop and a holler.

What there is not is the last four inches of my tailpipe, and most of the fuses controlling the rear of the car have blown, a result of sharp metal entering the wiring system at great speed. Meaningless, I know, but it comes into play later.

Then there is the pass. We have decelerated somewhat from our breakneck pace, and hit the mountain at about 110. As I had predicted, rain-X is really effective at that speed, and the downpour does nothing to diminish our spirits. We are almost to Seattle, you see, and we still have time to make the Opening Ceremonies.

Sort of.

In Issaquah, the traffic begins, but it doens’t gridlock until we get to I-5, at the Convention Center narrow.

At the tone of my honking horn, the time will be 6:15PM I/we have been in traffic averaging 8 mph for 15 minutes. But Brad has tuned my stereo a Seattle station he has heard about, aand the Indigo Girls play for us.

At 9:30, we park up at the Student Union. We have made it. Althoguh opening ceremonies have just ended, and now need to check in to our rooms. Everything is fine, even though we have no taillights, and are unable to get any until the morning. Our room is right next to a very large television, rented for the weekend so that we may have anime and other animated goodness through out the show. It is manned by a thin young man wearing black denim, with large glasses and a black hat. We will call him Paul, because it pleases us to do so.

4 years later (and coincidentally, wearing the exact same outfit), Paul introduces me to Sarah. In Portland, no less, with the words, “That’s Scott. Don’t sleep with him.”

Advantage, Bhagwan.

P.S. Monday, we drive back to Couer D’Alene. Heading up into the pass, I get a speeding ticket for doing 69 in a 55 zone. Brad and I were laughing so hard that the trooper nearly pulled us out of the car to check us for drugs. It was the first speeding ticket of my entire life, and I still have it somewhere amongst my things.

Some trips, you want to remember.

30. I think it’s getting to the point where I can be myself again Call and Answer, Barenaked Ladies (Stunt, 1998 reprise/WEA) 7 points

Watch this space for a really cool story regarding this band, and the first time I ever say them. I really ahve to eat something, otherwise I’d type it now. Honest.

To whet your appetite, I leave you with this little known fact.

They are gamers.

More later, but keep those guesses coming!