Why do people root for a bad economy? I was reading two stories on Salon today. One was on the good job loss report. All of the comments there were all, "Yeah right. The government is just covering themselves. ADP knows what's really up." The other was on Goldman Sacks predicting a horrible forecast through 2011 and the letters there were all, "They're being optimistic. We'll be lucky to see 11% UE for the next 2 years."

There's a group of people who love to root for bad economic times and like to try to outbid each other, ("25% Unemployment? Pah! That's being optimistic!") over how bad things will be. Do they really think they'll be immune to the problems of another Great Depression or are their middle class lives so boring that they like to fantasize about societal collapse as a hobby? I don't get it.

Current Music: Billy and Liza - This Time

I wonder if I'll ever get tired of talking about this. Bard College's infamous Halloween parties were ordered to be toned down by the brand new "Dean of Alcohol and Drug Abuse" (yes, that was her actual title) Beth Frumkin. As a result, my friend Seth encouraged everyone in the community to drive down to Poughkeepsie to see some new band whose first album he had just reviewed (see page 6) describing them as, "[sounding] like Camper Van Beethoven covering Steely Dan or Steely Dan covering early Pink Floyd."

Well that did sound kind of interesting and I had nothing better to do that night, but mainly I was going for the opening band - Bard's own Shooky Bones. I talked to a member before I left and said, "This Phish band should open for you," but he was having none of it, saying that the guitarist was amazing.

So I drove down to the Chance, paid my $8 or whatever it was and went it. This show doesn't circulate on any tapes - not even the band has one - so all I know about it comes from my fading memories - and I was ... errr... distracted by a certain other audience member throughout the night, but that's a completely different and not as interesting as it should be story - and a review of the show in the next issue of the Observer.

I know my first show opened with "I Didn't Know">"YEM". I know there was a "Reba," probably the old arrangement. I know there was a costume contest in which I made the second round despite not wearing a costume because the half filled venue had 30-40 Bardians in it and they cheered for me. I know they played a "Colonel Forbin's" in which Trey said, "I know some of you are confused about what's going on now..." and then told some story which confused me more than when I thought it was just another song.

The main thing I know was the set II closer. It's hard to forget a "Harpua," even if you didn't know it existed; yes I got a double narration second set at my first show. I'm pretty sure the song that Jimmy was listening to was the Doobie Brothers, "Taking it to the Streets," and I remember the long, long buildup to naming the cat.

"I love you so much. I love you so much that when I first found you I had to name you this. This name that meant so much to me. The name... it's not Fluff. It's... it's... the name, the special name... (etc etc etc)... POSTER NUTBAG!!!"

It was at that moment - and perhaps later when Poster jumped off of, "the white... corduroy... shelf," that I was hooked. I didn't know it yet, but the whole, "It's not Fluff," thing caused me to buy Junta at the merch booth hoping that "Fluffhead" was the song that I loved. It wasn't, but I soon fell in love with "The Divided Sky," and the rest, well I'm about to fly to California tomorrow to see them yet again, 20 years later.

So thank you Seth for inspiring me to go see Phish. Thank you band for choosing to play "Harpua" that night - although I bet there were nights where you might have wished you closed the show with "David Bowie" and I never got quite so into you - and continuing to interest me throughout these years.

As the Dude of Life said on 11/28/03, "Here's to 20 incredible years of Phish! And most importantly, most importantly, here's to 20 more incredible years of Phish." My second 20 years starts at Indio and I can't wait!

Current Music: ...And The Gods Made Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

I can't believe it's been 20 years since this show. For those who don't know this story, Adam Katz disappeared during the setbreak at the GD Meadowlands show on 10/14/89. His body was later found at an overpass and he died the next day.

Though fans have always suspected that security killed him for some reason - there were fibers from a security van found on his body - no one still knows what exactly happened. As someone who was at that show, this always scared me. I hope his friends and family have finally found closure...

Current Music: Honkytonk Homeslice - Barstool

So close.

So so so so close.

So incredibly close.

What was I thinking?

The Internet didn't exist yet, so the rumor mill was kind of weird. It didn't matter how the news got there, everyone at Bard knew that "The Warlocks" were playing in Hampton. No one knew quite what that meant but it sure sounded interesting.

There were just two problems. It was a 500 mile drive from campus to the Coliseum and through a fortunate Tickettron lottery draw in Kingston, I had tickets to all 5 Meadowlands shows coming up the next week. Everyone else who was going had full up cars. While now 500 miles seems like a joke, at the time it felt like a long drive.

Still though. The Warlocks? What could that mean? I packed up my car and drove to the gas station to fill up. I made the turn onto NY 199. And then at the very last second, I made the last right before the Rhinecliff Kingston bridge and took the back way onto campus. I would leave this adventure for other people.

While the 8th was a decent enough show, it was tonight that I still regret, all these years later. The first "Dark Star" since 1984, the first "Attics" since the early 70s. What could have been my only "Death Don't Have No Mercy."

It's the post Drums/Space section that I still come back to. The "Death Don't"> "Dear Mr. Fantasy" > "Hey Jude Reprise" is my favorite thing that Brent ever did. When Brent died a year later, I brought that tape to the memorial at a Dead night in Towson.

I spent years trying to make up for this regret. I went to the secret shows in Hartford in 1990 and Hampton in 1992 hoping for a repeat. Despite the insanity of rearranging my schedule to see 8/9/04, I couldn't miss it just because it was at the same venue as my regret. Maybe today on its birthday, it's time to forgive myself? Nah. Tickets were on the ground everywhere. I should have gone!

Stream the show. It's really good.

Current Music: See post!

I had a dream about taking the light rail from home to Seattle Center during Bumbershoot - it was messed up in many ways mind you because they refused to label the stops with anything sane and they let cars drive on the tracks - and while it's true that Light Rail isn't going to be within walking distance of my house and I'm cool with that, can anyone explain why even with this new system, we're still not connecting Seattle Center to mass transit? The "get out and take the 40 year old monorail that might be working, oh and you can't use a transfer from a bus or light rail trip" plan is kind of weird. It would make a huge difference on Bumbershoot and Folklife weekends.

( Spoilers, obviously. )

So went spent about 6 years debating what to do about the viaduct and finally came up with a solution. Maybe it was suboptimal, but at least we came up with something and we're working on building it. Running on the platform of, "Ummmm, on second thought," might feel very Seattle to you but it's just serving to piss a lot of people off who are sick of talking about this while we're at risk of the viaduct collapsing. Following that up with talking about revisiting the monorail debate (only now it'll be surface light rail that probably no one will ride because it'll have the same traffic issues as cars) isn't helping.

I don't like your opponent too much either, but thank you for clarifying the election for me. At least Mallahan isn't promising to prolong the debates that already cause people to want to chop their heads off rather than hear one more ad on the topic. You're like that guy who waits until the end of a 4 hour meeting to say, "Excuse me, can we talk about items 1-4 again? I have some questions." Good luck again in 4 years; hopefully by then you'll understand why people hated you in '09.

Love,

Zzyzx


P.S. Yes, removing freeways does just cause cars to reroute around the delays; the problem is that they reroute to other cities that continue to build them. If you're a fan of public transit, you want as many businesses to be centralized in downtown Seattle as possible. Instead, they're all sprawling all over the place, causing people like me who live on a bus line and who would love to take transit to work having to drive. The main result of replacing the viaduct with a road with dozens of traffic lights will be to expedite the moving of all business to the burbs, turning Seattle into a residential/tourist town. Is that really greener?


[1] OK, fine, McGinn... whatever.

If you want to have fun, read Reason's attempt at Obama's speech. Not only should medicare be destroyed but the gap created by defunding it should be covered by selling off our national parks, presumably to developers. And when you finish picking your jaw off the floor from reading, "Since many on fixed incomes would have trouble buying even inexpensive insurance. I propose we sell off the 507 million acres that the federal government owns and give the proceeds to the oldest and most needy," go to the comments where that's not libertarian enough:

Why do the oldest and most needy get the proceeds? They've already proven they can't handle basic finances and, will rob their grandchildren into bankruptcy to get more sweet sweet meds.

How about you give the proceeds to people who've proven they can be responsible with money?

So an argument about health care becomes, "Sell off all national parks and then give the money to the rich just because." And Libertarians wonder why they never get their ideas taken seriously...

When planning a wedding, there are two schools of thought. One group likes to have everything scheduled and planned and organized. The other? Well that's the one that I'm in.

I had my old friend Mamakat do the ceremony. I figured it would keep it fun and entertaining and still have the benefit of being legally binding. Things were going well and being fun until the order of the ceremony changed. I don't know if we never quite understood what was going on - it turns out that a quick read through of the script isn't the same thing as actually rehearsing with props and stuff - and then Kat kept looking around over and over for the Loving Cup. The thing is though, that that was all fine. From the moment I asked her to do the ceremony, I figured it would go one of two ways, either it would run smoothly and be amazing or it would kind of fall apart... and still be amazing. I knew if nothing else, it would be a different wedding, and would be one that people talked about for a while.

I was questioning whether or not I should really do a full wedding versus just running off to Vegas, but when I think back on last night, on my niece Kimberly dancing around to my walk in music (the happy extra jam in China Rider from 1974), of my sister wearing wings and my mom wearing my new beautiful cape, of hanging in a hotel room the night before with Kat and Heidi and Jack and J'eliz and thinking about how much I love these people and how happy I was to see them again, well I wouldn't have done it any other way.

The biggest highlight of night occurred at the end. I turned up the volume on the MP3 player so we could do the Meatstick dance - thanks Elayne for that new wedding tradition - and suddenly the remaining people joined in a singalong to the Japanese lyrics (or what we could remember). By then the microphone started to make its way around the crowd and people were playing announcer and telling random stories and singing along to the music.

Unfortunately the playlist ended with 30 minutes to go and the party was just really getting going. There was only one thing to do. I plugged in my iPhone and put in the previous night's show. The plan was to listen to the Drowned->Xeyed, but unknown to me, the iPhone was in shuffle play. Instead of the Crosseyed, it went into Backwards Down the Numberline. That turned out to be the best thing ever. Elayne, Mel, and I gathered around the microphone and belted out the chorus to our favorite new song. I looked around, thought about the night, and the song never seemed more appropriate.

The food turned out to be completely amazing, the ceremony was funny - sometimes even intentionally so! - and I have a new lifelong memory or five. When I was making our invitations, I jokingly described the event as, "The wedding event of the century." Maybe I wasn't so far off after all. It was low key and kind of weird and constantly teetered on the edge of complete disaster, but that's always fun. Isn't that why we love improvised music? Lack of planning can sometimes lead to unexpected euphoria and when that happens, it's the best thing ever.

All my friends came backwards down the number line!

Current Music: Backwards Down the Number Line - Phish

Yeah yeah, I've moved to Facebook mostly. Sue me.

Here's what's up:

(1) I get married in 8 days! The weather is shaping up nicely (please stay that way), my ring has arrived, and my vows are in a usable state, but I need to work on them a little more.

(2) Phish Festival! Over Halloween! At the Coachella site!!! West coast! I'm not sure how I can get the money to go there and (presumably) Miami for NYE, but I'll find a way. This economy does sux0r.

(3) THE GORGE!!!! IN TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!

Errrr, that's probably been it. My life has been all wedding for the last few weeks, but it's almost over and I can get back to obsessing more about Phish.

9:44 - Of course NOW it's calling for scattered thunderstorms on Saturday. I don't think so! Weather.com has been known to be a little messed up in their long term forecasts so fingers will be crossed that it'll change back.

Current Music: Mojave 3 - In Love With A View