It's not toasted It's not dated But look out-- It's imitated. Insist on BURMA-SHAVE

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more anon

Well, it's Poet's Day (Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday, for non-Brit kids). And Monday's a holiday. Celebrations are in order. Think I'll start by hitting the Indian Market after work and stocking up on Pakistani pineapple jam. I have not tried it, but the rose petal spread is thick as a bastard-- the consistency of date paste and sweet as your granny's kiss. Then homeward and into the arms of an organic fried egg sandwich. Followed by a lavish revel in Jim Carroll's Downtown Diaries, an orgy of sticky-taping more torn-out photos into those neverending scrapbooks, and finally--yes--the invocation of the otherworldly voices-- a.k.a. working on my latest novel while drinking cabernet sauvignon. My love life is diaphanous but a humdinger.

(The author raises index finger to sky. "Hey! Humdinger-- a Hummer that got dinged!")

Tomorrow I will take Demure Bikini to the beach. I have three bikinis in my quiver-- Killer Bikini (magenta paisley with golden-brown leopard pattern), Sportif Bikini (white/lime/mauve/orange Scandinavian Modern), and Demure Bikini (sky blue, scarlet-lined, with white and yellow plumeria and red hibiscus). They all need exercise occasionally, or they get lonely. Probably I'll go to Fort DeRussy Beach-- The tourists' facial expressions are better. (Yah, I hear Mike Skinner's exasperated voice: "You girls think if you just flirt it comes to you!") Lying face up in the hot sun, drying off from the swim, pale blue sun hat tilted over face at an extreme angle, I'll enter the mental War Room to map out the rest of the weekend's campaign.

Blink-182 at Blaisdell Arena -- August 13, 2004

They were excellent. Nice to their fans, and nice to each other. Travis is an incredible drummer.

The median age at the concert was 20 1/2, and there was I-- Humbert Humbert dreaming in a poppy field of nymphets.

Best t-shirt slogan:

stupidity is not a crime
so you're free to go

The Who at Blaisdell Arena -- August 3, 2004

The concert was fucking excellent. Roger and Pete looked very fit and alert, and Roger's voice sounds just like it did when he was 21. Pete's musicianship, of course, is the same as always. They were absolutely fabulous, a religious experience, the spirit of drama shimmering down the backdrop black velvet curtain and oozing over all, Dionysos in excelsis.

I was dead center in the very back row of the floor, which is precisely where Roger was looking at throughout the set when he was singing-- They can't see shit from the stage because of the lights, but still it gives you this feeling that you're getting a private performance. (I was similarly positioned in front of Julian Casablancas when The Strokes were here and will try for this seat or standing place always-- It's amazingly fun.) Plus, two young half-naked self-appointed male cheerleaders were directly in front of us, pogoing up and down and helicoptering their t-shirts, which gave me and the girl next to me, who was quite tiny and had to stand on her seat to see above them, an excellent excuse to stand throughout the concert, as, since Security wasn't making the two enthused guys sit down, it was obvious we had to stand as well or we couldn't see anything. I much prefer to stand at shows than sit. People kept standing up and also dancing in the aisles. And holding up cell phone cameras and frowning critically at the tiny pictures.

Stage was small and stark-- just the musicians and their equipment, black stage monitors and black Peavey amps. Very sharp. Lighting was very nice-- They had all the usual melting color changes as well as the odd moment of plain golden straight stage light, and toward the end they had a circle of lights which radiated alternate gold and red stripes--kind of like the Japanese flag--in rotating patterns out over the audience as well as behind the performers, and this evoked the lovely sensation of translucent, glimmering tents. And they did other things with the lights to give similar ephemeral and surreal effects. In the break before the encore, the light was all blue, while the galleries were dim-lit rusty orange with consequent dripping maroon shadows, as people moved, and it gave the impression of sitting in the Roman Colosseum or in a Greek ampitheatre or in ruins.

The music was spot on, just wonderful. When he got shy, Roger did seriously manic mic-swinging--fuck Eskimo yo-yos--and Pete is still very much into windmills and jumping on stage monitors. Roger was quite lovely, clearly happy to be performing, putting really genuine energy into every song, and lingering on the stage after the encore when all the others and a rather ironic (sign language version of "Lovely evening--thank you for coming--all things must come to an end--Get over it") Pete had left the stage, loking rather dazed and happy and charmed with the audience. (Remember, this is the same bloke of whom Pete said 40 years ago: "The singer's a Shepherd's Bush geezer who thinks everything's a disaster if everyone's not drooling with joy." Or words to that effect.) Roger at least gave the engaging, polite impression of: "I would really like to stay here and sing more for you, but we are tired." Though I think the emotion was genuine. He stated at one point during the show that the last time he was here he was 23 years old, and that the band had just missed us on their last tour back from Australia-- He added, plaintively, "What were we thinking of?" To which Pete growled, glowering as though viewing the cogitations of last year's village idiot: "What were we thinking of." All the band seemed extremely pleased with Hawaii. When Pete introduced the band, Zak Starkey, the drummer, flashed completely correct shaka signs. At the end of the show, all the band standing in a line with their arms draped over each other, Pete looked at Zak and lifted his hand to him inquiringly with a discreet, incongrous arrangement of raised fingers, and Zak reached over gently and folded the correct fingers down and up. Pete frowned at his hand like, "So that fucking means something."

Pete is so amazingly witty and buzzing with intensity, and his introduction of the band was sheer sardonic poetry. One of the most incredibly beautiful moments in the show came during the Quadrophenia songs. Quadrophenia was upon release panned by the critics, who in essence described it as an expression of Pete's delusions of grandeur. Well, that solo moment in The Punk and the Godfather comes, when Pete is flooded in purple light and sings, clear as a bell, "The numbered seats in empty rows/It all belongs to me, you know," and at this moment in time that is a chilling, deliberate, humorous statement of fact. It sent chills down my spine. It also opened up flood gate revelations about aging. If anyone has issues about getting older, my prescribed medication would be to go and see Pete Townshend. He's so there, so lean, so essence remaining with the chaff discarded, like the spiritual embodied reality of the skinny physical presence he was when he was 21. It's absolutely amazing. He's still very much the keen-eyed auteur-WWI infantry sergeant of the show who once yelled at Keith Moon, when Keith was nodding off during a Fillmore concert, "PLAY FASTER, YOU C*NT!" During the final encore, Listening to You, when for one moment Roger seemed to be about to drift off into an absent, perhaps mentally fatigued sea, Pete simply sang a bit louder and higher, and the sharp energy got Roger right back into it, like a kid driving a go-kart.

My most personal moment was when Pete hit the transcendental chord and they sang "I DON'T MIND..." getting started on The Kids are Alright. I frequently sing along with this song at home; it's one of the things, like The Vines' songs, that actually Makes Sense. I started singing along--very much on-key--with them there, and it was so incredible-- How many times during your life do you get to sing The Kids are Alright with Roger and Pete. It's like being in the best Dionysian church choir ever.

These signs are not for laughs alone The face they save may be your own BURMA-SHAVE

Buy Kevin's funky Hawaiian band's EXCELLENT CD HERE!

Avail yourself of Virginia's sharp and sleek web design HERE!

anon

Last night, around 8:30, I ran out of red wine, which I need in order to write. I hiked down the hill, winding around on the cracked sidewalk through the Japanese houses and the advent calendar lighted facades of lanaied apartment buildings, beneath giant dark tropical trees, the headlights on the feeder avenue roaring by in the hot blackness like streaming hell. I love walking around in the night when I'm stoned. The stars were outrageous, teary glow-in-the dark spangles on a witch's skirt. Passing the unlighted concrete post office under the freeway--space is at a premium; earthquakes are rare--I attained the 24-hour Safeway on the corner of Beretania and Pensacola, where the round white and red S lozenge glowed soft as a hospital sign above the black parking lot.

Sale refrigerator box of cabernet sauvignon retrieved and reclining gaily in white plastic hammock bag dangling from my fingers, I then proceeded at a tangent for two blocks past the florist and the incandescent Thai restaurant--DEW DROP INN--smell of curry and lime leaves hovering in the air. And the Burger King, and the luxury condo building where the huge vents blow hot air straight out onto the street-- free steam cleaning. And the modernistic Methodist Church, loud voices floating out from choir practice for Sunday service in Tongan, and the shambling Deco-Japanese stucco art museum. At this moment, the bus, the last one of the evening, thundered past down the hill, lit like a submerging submarine.

There are drawbacks to living near the top of an extinct volcano, killer though the view is.

stone the crows tis functional

hello and best wishes to all.
welcome to our humble theatre of the mind.
more anon.