habit

well, i may have made the most hasty uninformed statement of all time when i predicted the weather for our little road trip to see the other ones was gonna be poifect. but we made it home alive.

it was an experience and a half. and an adventure and a half too. it was great.

joel and mike picked me up and we were on our way. we were practically through the border and the guard suddenly noticed me in the back seat. had i not piped up...man, i coulda been osama back there and gotten thru sans probleme. we stopped for gas in exciting downtown pottersville and got back on the road. i asked mike 'so how much was the gas' and joel piped in 'yeah' so we would know what to chip in, and mike just said 'oh shit'. you see, at the cash, the young blonde lady was rather flirtatious with mike, telling him some personal dating history, while me and joel stood back and watched mike score with the pottersville laydeh. it seems that though he paid for his oreos and such, the gas was forgotten.

the moral question was born: do we go back and pay and lose all that time? it wasnt a deliberate theft and we doubted that blondie would think so either. but we didnt want blondie paying for it out of her own wages....but we werent sure how that would work out anyway. we decided we'd go and pay on our way back less than 24 hours later. it wasnt five minutes after making that decision that WOOWOOWOOWOO...red lights and a siren behind us. holy karma return...we make off with free gas and BOOM: get slapped with a speeding ticket all in a ten minute radius. i was all paranoid in the back seat thinking we got pulled over for the gas thing and were gonna go to the slammer, but no...just a regular speeding ticket. phew, but bummer.

as we arrived at the hotel the weather started to hit. rain, freezing rain, snow. mega puddles and me in converse that have a hole in the sole of the right foot. but the hotel was sweet. a bank machine in the lobby (*awesome*) as well as a little shop that had snacks, magazines, toileteries, socks....good stuff. as well as a full dining area and kitchen area and fireplace for continental breakfast. it was no avante hotel but its where i'll stay next time i need to be in the area...which hopefully will be soon because it will mean pearl jam is there. but i digress.

we got to the room and relaxed for a bit, but didnt have alot of time. the time on the ticket was 7:30 and it was already 6:15. we decided to cab it so as not to deal with parking stress, driving stress or any stress...and called a cab. which was stolen by other concert goers. so there we are, 7:30, in the hotel lobby with the guy at the desk warming up his car to take us to the venue himself, because he felt so bad that our cab got away. but then lo and behold, an empty cab showed up...and the adventures began.

me and joel were in the back and our distinguished driver, adam 12, seemed to not notice the slush and ice and mess and freezing cold that was outdoors because both windows in the back were open. i asked him to close them, but because of protective glass seperating us and an apparently enthralling conversation with mike, he didnt hear me. the winds woke me up, and joel kept repeating how lovely and 'fresh' it is in albany. his butt was on the seat, and so was his head. finally adam12 noticed us all ducked down in back and told us how we were typical polite canadians.

en route we were driving behind a converted ambulance, now owned by a local church. it was painted over but still clearly an ambulance, so they went with the theme. it was hilarious. across the front windshield was written: DOCTOR JESUS. on the side it said: IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, CALL JESUS. hehehe, but the best, the best was the back...some other jesus comment and below it: a circle with a bar through it, like a no smoking sign, but instead of a cigarette there, it was a painted red devil head. its making me laugh out loud remembering it. NO DEVILS!! NO SATAN!! i wished for a camera.

anyway, the pepsi arena systems are retarded. we get there and there are a ton of people still in the street, lined up and being frisked. you then have to go up all these outside stairs and it took a long time. by the time we got in, and after the taxi travesty we had missed the opening three songs....2 out of 3 are no big woop to me...but fuck, we missed estimated. dammit.

so. it was a trip and a half to be there. first of all, the pepsi center is way smaller than i expected it to be...it would be a wicked pearl jam venue tho tickets would be a bitch. the sound in there was awesome though. it was like stepping back in time to be back amongst the deadheads, everyone was up, everyone was bouncing and dancing and cheering...it was a celebration.

after jerry died i stepped away from seeing any of the projects of the original members...i wasnt sure how id feel about that, and i miss jerry and and and. but it was time, i really wanted to hear these songs again, even if my favorite ones (mostly jerry songs) werent going to be played. the set they played at the bridge school convinced me of that.

well...wow. it was so great to hear that stuff again, it sounded amazing. our seats prevented us from seeing where jerry would have been onstage, and the keyboard player sounds alot like him...so it was freaky. it was happy and sad, great but a reminder of what wasnt there. it was emotional and, in the end, a great fucking party. it was great to be surrounded by people who were cool to talk to and were generous and open. nobody at a dead show is bitching about the song choice, they just dance. then again, the dead dont play the same song 18 nights in a row...but again, i digress.

the end of the first set was nice, with good lovin (a joel favorite) being outshined by an awesome casey jones that ended with the band speeding up (get it? high on cocaine? speeding up? clever and so fun) the end refrains more and more until it was nearly impossible to dance at the speed they were playing. wicked.

then robert hunter came out with a janet jackson headpiece and his acoustic and just belted, the highlight for me being deal > loser > deal. robert hunter is one of my writing idols, and it was a gift to be able to see him play his work, but i know why he gave those songs to garcia, whose voice could melt steel. hunter's style is gruff and coarse. jerry made those words shine.

then he walked off stage saying 'stay tuned for uncle john's band' which was awesome, and second set wasnt far off. we talked with the kid behind us from 'rawchestah' named matt, 22, former stockbroker, gonna break into msg for phish at new year's, loves canadians but not enough to share beer with.

second set was very cool. they played scarlet > fire, with mickey on vocals for fire, and then uncle john's band, with phil taking some vox. and again the bittersweet: it was a treat and supercool to hear them sing these parts which they usually never did...but its painful to be reminded of why, the mega obvious absence of jerry. out of drums/space this music started that i knew i loved, but couldnt quite place. i was up and dancing and finally it hit me and sunk in: it was terrapin station. terrapin, my favorite grateful dead song. terrapin...an epic song i was so sure i would never hear live again to the degree it wasnt even on my wishlist for that night's setlist...and there it was. i was so overwhelmed that i literally had to hold onto myself, my arms wrapped around my stomach. i danced my ass off and sang and listened to the other heads singing and it was...it was beyond my vocabulary. it was total sheer light happiness and joy. it was worth the trip, worth the stress over the weather...and they followed it with a gorgeous tribute to garcia, an instrumental stella blue.

i had only been to 11 dead shows, but i heard stella blue at a lot of them. its a gorgeous song, sad and beautiful and smart...and jerry could break your heart singing AND playing it. its captivating and you couldnt help but love it...and it was all jerry. so to have it play without a vocal...it was compelling and perfectly fitting and right, right, right. it was perfect and my heart swelled. it was then that i knew that i will be seeing the other ones again. and hopefully, again. and again. =)

and that was our show. it was back out into the rain and deep puddles and cops on horses to snag a taxi, which i did. we got the car at the hotel and went to denny's, where we received the slowest service in the free world, courtesy of dakota (not william), a lad whose haircut defies any logic. he has bangs and hair around the sides and back, but the crown of his head is shaved. mike and i found it an oddity, but joel will forever be disturbed. hehe.

we devoured our grub and were back at the hotel and asleep within the hour.

i woke up early to weather channel nightmares. the highway was to be all freezing rain, and snow snow snow. i was tense and went down to get coffee, and when i came back the boys got up too. they were both totally chill about the drive, so i tried my best to be too, tho i wanted to get on the road as quickly as possible. and when i tell you that the entire drive through new york to the border was smooth as a baby's bottom with the exception of like 3 rainy patches...you'll have to believe me. the fucking weather people had me all wound up for nothing, tho its more my fault than their own. ONCE AGAIN i learn the lesson of: there is no sense in being afraid of the future and instead to just enjoy the moment i am in, to NOT get ahead of myself and work myself into a state of near panic. joel is the essence of this philosophy...he never worried and since there was nothing to be worried about in the end...how foolish i felt. i keep relearning this and relearning it....hopefully one of these days it will stick.

and now im home, post step class and pre shower. one more dead show under my belt (kinda), a great adventure come and gone in less than 24 hours with a good friend, a great show, a great band, a good time and having met the gentleman and scholar who is joel's friend mike.

a success? yes. but doesnt reality bite? i have to be up at 5 to be at work at 5:30, the heat is gonna have to go on, and winter somehow fully struck my city while i was away.

tho another good thing: i had a confrontation with my downstairs bassholes with the landlord's son present, and we both aired our frustrations but understand where the other is coming from, so are going to compromise. they gave me their phone number so i can call them instead of banging at them to shut up, and they acknowledge that i am walking 'lighter'. i know they love them some music, and i can ignore it at a normal level, but when the bass shakes my pictures hanging on the wall...its not kosher. but it ended peacefully...i got to tell them that we're neighbors and i want us to get along and take care of each other, not hate each other and constantly fight. and they felt the same way, so hopefully life can be less ruined by their existence now.

fingers crossed.

long enough entry for ya? later.

oh: an extra shout out to the boys in the front seat: they allowed riot act to play both on the way down, and on the way home. and they dug it and had some interesting commentary about it. regardless, it was cool of them. nice guys.

=)

--sure dont know what im goin for, but im gonna go for it for sure--