Checking In

I did manage to go to the Bob Dylan / Willie Nelson / Greencards show last weekend at Ray Winder Field in LR and it was a GREAT show. I hadn't been to Ray Winder Field in 15 years or so; it is bigger than I remembered. It is a great place for a concert (unless you are a female and need to pee...) and I hope they schedule more shows there. Biggest gripe: having to pay $10.00 to park on property owned by the City of LR. I had never heard the Greencards, but they were very good - their music was in the Nickel Creek / Allison Krauss vein. Willie was Willie - if you've seen him before, you know what to expect -- lots and lots of hits, with Willie singing either before or after the beat, and lots of guitar notes from Willie that would be technically "wrong" if played by anyone else. That sounds negative, but I loved it. Bob Dylan was why I was there, and not because I'm a huge fan. He's an American legend, a poet laureate, and I've always regretted never having seen him. I had been checking out the setlists of the shows immediately prior to LR - the setlists were never the same from night to night and I knew very few of the songs!!! Sure enough, of the fourteen songs he played, I think I knew five of them. Amazingly, there were a lot of young people in the crowd that seemed to know all of the songs....i didn't realize he had a young following. He had an incredible band; all of them watched Bob intently; there seemed to be a lot of improvisation going on - but it was always very TIGHT. When you listen to Dylan records (at least the older ones), there is an emphasis on acoustic guitar and harmonica. In concert, it was far more blues-based and/or jam band oriented. One song had a Bob Wills western swing vibe. I would go see him again.

Magic Springs amusement park has a concert every weekend, and some of them look pretty good. We take the kids there at least once every summer. So who is going to be there in concert when we go? Freaking AIR SUPPLY! I don't think so.

I paid $50.00 at Target Sunday for a computer program that supposedly perfectly duplicates DVDs - menus, special features, and everything. It doesn't work. I ruined several blank DVDs trying to get it to work. I'm pissed.

My birthday is Saturday. I like to listen to KAGH on my birthday (sorry, r.c.) because I find it amusing during the birthday listings when they say, "and in Portland, Paul Selby is having a birthday." I haven't lived in Portland since 1974 (and Russ knows this). They still announce the birthdays of a lot of people who have been dead for years.

Speaking of birthdays, I will be 42 on Saturday. Elvis died when he was 42. Elvis's mother was named Gladys. My mother's name is Gladys. Elvis died while sitting on a toilet. For an entire year, I will be scared everytime I take a [scatalogical reference deleted].