I feel fine

So this is how the world ends…not with a bang, but with a…well, not a whimper either. It was more like a chorus of people wishing me a “Good morning!” Cause that is what happened.

Was the Apocalypse supposed to come complete with a nice breakfast? And how come the weather was heavy clouds and moderately wet – pretty typical for Washington state – rather than raining hellfire and brimstone?
 

My last day on Earth was spent visiting my girlfriend’s family for the first time. I couldn’t have asked for a more delightful group of people to spend Armageddon with. Maybe my own family, but they don’t offer me the same amount of courtesy and respect; they just have chores for me.

I explored their small farm, helped transport some hay, had a lovely dinner, and saw The Hobbit. No sign of the Four Horsemen riding down upon us to herald the End Times. A coyote devoured a couple of chickens – that was the only destructive force of the day. 

Although I was about ready to unleash my own version of Hell upon the teen girls sitting behind me during The Hobbit. I don’t care if “Travis is hot” and is a Tolkien fan who you feel you need to impress by watching a movie you clearly aren’t interested in. If you don’t sit still, stop talking, and stop bumping the back of my chair, things are going to get uglier than Gollum eating a goblin.

All in all, a rather pleasant end of the world. And the days since haven’t gotten much worse. In fact, we’ve successfully reached Christmas Eve! For my immediate family, Christmas Eve is actually a bigger deal than Christmas Day.

So this is how the world ends…with feasting, merriment, caroling, gifts, gingerbread houses, and NBA matchups.

We should have Armageddon more often. Does anyone know of another extinct civilization with an obscure calendar we can reference?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine - REM

A prayer for the souls of the departed

I had been planning to tell a hilarious story this week about a time I went a little nuts in 4^th grade. However, in light of the events that occurred in Connecticut on Friday, I have decided to postpone this story. It doesn’t seem appropriate at the moment.
 

That whole day was just sour for me. I spent Friday just waiting for my little sisters to get back home so I could give them each a big hug. Days like this aren’t easy for parents, and they aren’t easy for big brothers.

I’ve always disliked guns. Period. Don’t like them. Have never had a need for them. I don’t enjoy killing animals for sport or food – I can get all the food I want at the local Safeway, where it’s already dead, prepackaged, chemically altered, and everything (although I am rather fond of fishing). Despite the scary neighborhood I once lived in, the idea of a gun in my household frightens me way more than any of my neighbors once did.

After Friday’s shooting, I couldn’t even build up the familiar anger about our lack of gun control that strikes me during moments like this. I just felt sadness. Sadness for the young lives lost, and sadness because I expect absolutely zero change in policy.

I understand that other people do like guns. They make for good sport, they are useful for hunting food, and offer a measure of safety for the individual gun owner…at the expense of others. So this is why I’m willing to compromise. Compromise is how democracy is supposed to work. 

I don’t expect compromise these days.

This data collected by The Washington Post pretty much covers anything else I’d have to say on the topic. It’s very illuminating and upsetting.

The Constitution allows for a “well regulated militia.” Tell me, what about Friday’s shooting seems “well regulated” to you?

I promise next week’s post will be lighthearted. Until then, hug your loved ones close and let them know how you feel. And offer up a prayer for the souls of the departed.

Farewell, San Francisco

Farewell, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss your cool summer breezes
That chill me to the bone
And your warm autumn days
That remind, oh yeah,
This place does warm up once a year.
I'm just usually not there.

Good-bye, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss that familiar skyline of downtown
And the hustle and bustle of Chinatown.
I'll miss the sights and sounds of North Beach
And the quiet tranquility of Ocean Beach.
I'll miss the organized chaos of Union Square
And the hopeless maze that is the Presidio.

Adios, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss your people
That make The City feel so vibrant
And alive.
That make The City
Period.

The hipsters in their coffeehouses
The hippies in their tie-dye
The weed-stenched panhandlers of Haight-Ashbury
And the urine-stenched panhandlers of Market Street.

I'll miss the sober businessmen of the Financial District
And the colorful personalities of the Castro
(Less so the rampant nudity)
That highlight the spectrum within The City.

Au revoir, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss the varied dialects of the Mission,
Japantown, Little Saigon, Inner Sunset,
And the foreign tourists that flock to the "Full House" houses.

I'll miss the colors of the people.
The orange and black
The red and gold
Even blue and yellow started to make a comeback.

Chao, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss the crack of the bat
And the roar of the crowd
At AT&T Park.

I'll miss the lights and parties of Upper Haight
And the dark mystery of Golden Gate Park
At night.

I'll miss the flocks of wild parrots,
The inner city farmers' market,
And the random herd of bison
That all seem so out of place
In this urban setting
Yet feel so right
For San Francisco.

Ciao, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

I'll miss my friends across the bay.
There will be a large decrease in time spent
Zombie killing,
Sports arguing,
Nerd talking
Without them.

Auf wiedersehen, San Francisco
(yes, I did have to look up that spelling)
I shall miss you.

I've always left my heart with you,
San Francisco
But now my heart calls me elsewhere.
To "Seattle"
Where my heart belongs to another.

Ma'a as-salama, San Francisco
I shall miss you.

But worry not, San Francisco
I shall see you again.
When the time to ring in the New Year
Begins.

After that, who can say?
Something I've said a lot
About life these days.
Many things may change in the
Weeks,
Months,
Years ahead
But I've always returned to you,
San Francisco
And I know I will again and again
Come what may.
But until that day...

Farewell, San Francisco.

The ghosts of our pasts

I laughed, I cried, I danced (in my awkward white guy way) with ghosts on Friday night.

Someone once described a Bruce Springsteen concert as being 1/3 political rally, 1/3 spiritual revival, and 1/3 house party. That was definitely my experience Friday night as I attended my eighth Springsteen concert since 2003.

My passion for the music of Springsteen knows no bounds. Before I found religion, I had Bruce Springsteen. I probably pray more to The Boss than to God. 

It is as much about the quality and meaning of the music as it is about a strong connection between me and my parents, especially my father. I grew up around his music. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of his songs.

By 7:00pm I was practically bouncing with excitement as we entered the arena. With me were my father and a couple of friends of ours – all diehard Bruce fans.

Bruce took the stage at 8:26pm accompanied by his mighty E Street Band. A band that started out in 1973 with just five members, but now features 15 onstage – plus Bruce but not including his wife Patti, who was absent for this show.

Absence was a major theme of the concert. This tour is the first Bruce and the E Street Band have conducted without Clarence “Big Man” Clemons – Bruce’s closest friend and the best damn saxophone player I’ve ever heard. Clemons died last year, making him the second band member to pass away in recent years. Organ/accordion player Danny Federici died in 2008. Both men had been with the band since its inception. More on this to come…

The show kicked-off with “Land of Hope and Dreams,” sort of a modern rock version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” With spirits high, Bruce and the band took the audience into a set of intense songs early in the show: the pleading “Cover Me” (featuring solos by all three guitar players onstage), “Adam Raised a Cain” (lots of Bruce guitar work, a personal song about his love-hate relationship with his father), and the rare “Something in the Night.”

After “Hungry Heart” became the first audience sing-along of the night (plus Bruce crowd surfing, and the audience refusing to take him back to the stage at one point), we hit a trio of new songs off his latest album: “We Take Care of Our Own,” the title track “Wrecking Ball,” and the Irish-march “Death to My Hometown.” 

The first and third songs focus on the tough times our country has faced the last five years, bemoaning the lack of cooperation and goodwill within our society, the advantages held by upper class, and the lackluster, divisive political leadership we’ve seen in response to the economic crisis.

“Wrecking Ball,” while ostensibly a song about the destruction of the original Giants Stadium in New Jersey, at its core is a song about Bruce and the band. They have been together for so long and endured many hardships along the way, losing beloved band mates and dear friends, but still they persevere. The song is a challenge to stand up against everything that might tear you down in life.

Then we reached the emotional highpoint of the show – for the audience, for Bruce and the band, and for me personally. 

“My City of Ruins” is a song Bruce wrote in 2001 about his beloved Asbury Park, a once popular tourist town sitting along his native New Jersey shore that has hit hard times in the last 30 years. Before starting the song, Bruce reminisced about Asbury Park’s glory days and how it had just started thriving again, only to suffer catastrophic damage at the hands of Hurricane Sandy a few weeks ago. So Bruce dedicated the song to “the ghosts of our past…the ghosts of people and places that remain with us today.”

Halfway through the song, Bruce stopped to introduce the band members, allowing them each their own solo. After the band intros, all the lights went out save for three spotlights: one on Bruce, one on the organ that Dan Federici used to play, and one on the spot where Clarence Clemons traditionally stood. I had tears in my eyes as Bruce repeatedly sang, “I’m in a sad mood tonight,” before asking the audience, “Are you missing anybody?” After a moment of silence, the band jumped back into the song as I wiped away tears before they started streaming down my face.

Following all that emotion, Bruce lightened things up with “The E Street Shuffle” and by wading into the audience to take sign requests. The first he granted was a request to “Dance with a Hungarian girl.” After the sign holder was identified, she was brought onstage to dance as Bruce played the intro to “Pay Me My Money Down,” a folk classic he covered on a 2006 album focused on the roots of early American music. That album and musical styling heavily influenced his latest album and current format of the band. The lucky fan then got to waltz with Bruce as the band kicked in – the horn section especially stood out, a recurring theme on the night.

Three more sign requests followed (all song requests this time), most notably an intense rendition of “Devils & Dust” – sounding much better with a couple guitar solos and backing horns thrown in than the original album version.

The crowd really erupted for the last two songs of the main set: “Badlands” and “Thunder Road.” Two absolute classics from the 70’s that get even the more laidback West Coast crowd up and moving (Bruce has always been more popular on the East Coast, although now Europe is apparently the place to see a Springsteen concert). 

Jake Clemons, nephew of the late Clarence Clemons and a great sax player in his own right, led the horn section in the concluding solo to “Thunder Road” that his uncle played for so long. All night, whenever Jake stepped up to the plate, the fans showed their appreciation for the nephew of the E Street Band’s most popular member.

With barely a break in-between, the encores began with the jazzy “Kitty’s Back,” an early Bruce song that allows the band to improvise with plenty of solos going around. 

After the iconic “Born to Run” and “Dancing in the Dark,” Bruce pulled a Santa hat off a fan he had brought onstage and led the band through a rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Three more Santa hats were thrown onstage to also be worn by band members. I’ve been waiting a long time to see this holiday classic played lived at a Springsteen show.

To close the show, the band fittingly played a song Bruce wrote about the formation of the band. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” features the classic line, “The change was made uptown, and the Big Man joined the band.” This time around, following that line, the band stopped, and on the giant screens above the stage images of Clarence and Danny in their prime appeared as the crowd positively roared in response. After Bruce egged on the crowd for more, the entire horn section played the usual sax solo that follows and Bruce and the band finished off the song and the show.

It was 11:30 by this time. Another successful 3-hour show. 27 different songs. Impressive considering he and most of the band are 63 years old (they played a 4-hour show earlier this year).

I was drenched in sweat, arms and legs tired, but my spirit was soaring. It was my spirit that had to carry me home from there, because my legs certainly couldn’t carry me by that point. Still, as I wearily returned home, I couldn’t help but hope to do it all over again next year – hopefully he’ll come to Seattle this time around!