There He Blows

RIP Hunter S. Thompson

A Brain, A book, and A Ballpoint Les, Truth, and Jaques-imos

"So you are out looking for a ticket again, you know these things sell out. You should really buy your tickets in advance."

I suddenly felt bad for the hundreds of times (ok maybe a slight exaggeration but not much of one) that I asked this man for tickets to some show or another. "I did, well at least for the Duo, I even bought two in case I ran into someone on the lot that needed one." This seemed to shock him a little bit, for anyone who knows me, has seen me with my finger in the air at 99% of the shows I’ve been to and in some cases 100% of the shows they have seen me at.

"How do you know something to be true?"

"You just do."

"But how do you know something to be true."

"When you’ve read it somewhere."

"But how can you be certain?"

"You can research it?

"But what will research tell you, something that someone else believes to be true."

He down right stumped me but got my thought process in motion, "You just do"

"Nothing can tell you what is true, but you feel inside."

While this conversation was taking place Stew would then point to someone who might have a ticket just to see them sell it to someone else. After about a half hour or so we went up to the will call. "These kids right here have an extra ticket because their friends couldn’t come."

"What do you want for the ticket?" I asked.

"A hit of ecstasy," They replied.

"I don’t have that but I’ll give you face for it."

"No all we want is X"

"Well there is plenty of that around, how about I give you the cash and you go buy the X yourself."

"No we can get a better deal with the ticket."

Do to my previous experience dating back from the moment in question to my first dead show n ’93 I knew the inter-workings of ticket deals fairly well and knew they were not going to budge.

"Here," Said Stew while digging through his pockets and fishing out a cigarette cellophane with some foreign objects in them. Then promptly shoved it back in his pocket and said while pulling something completely different out, "You know what, here," Handing me a ticket to the Les Claypool show. "I heard what I wanted to hear from you."

"You mean to say you had this ticket the whole time?"

"Yes. You knew I was going to get you in right?"

"Well,yeh."

"How do you know something to be true?"

I then thought back to all the times I had asked for tickets from this man, and he always turned up with one. This how I knew I was going to get in before I even knew it. "Well what do you want for it?"

"Something less than face value."

I couldn’t believe the audacity of this man, but that is what makes him so interesting and wonderful to run into all across the country. We went into the show and I bought him and myself some Makers Marks on the rocks and we drank to our friendship.

While we were making our way towards the front of the room, I almost felt like I was being tested in my concert tactics. We made it up to about the forth row and settled in to few complaints. He mentioned that I should go and eat at place called Jaques-imos. A short while into the set Les suggested that everybody should go eat at, where else but Jaques-imos.

Side note: posts are abundent, (today only: details inside)

For the amount of time I spend on the computer you would think some thing useful would come out. Maybe it’s just storing up and waiting to explode. Though you would think that I could simply sit down and write the simple story of a trip to New Orleans and be done writing about it in a few days, but no something begins to brew and a bunch of useless shit which could eventually lead to something gets in the way and then the track comes from somewhere beneath all that snow and you off and running again full speed like nothing ever happened. Let’s see if we can get this tale told so I can find the switch track that leads to the other story I’m writing.

A Brain, A book, and A Ballpoint Day Four - part one - scene one: action

Eight in the morning rolls around pretty fast when you’re sleeping in tent. My camp laid out in a nice spot between a few trees, so the sun wasn’t an issue - though the ants were. I got up pulled out everything out of my tent in a hurry to find that my PB and J had betrayed me by spilling in my bag the day before. Having found the accident the night before when I pulled it out for a sandwich just before going to sleep. My eagerness for slumber had betrayed me when I neglected to clean up the mess.

Now you may be questioning, Peanut Butter spilling? Well my particular taste involve the butter in its natural form - not the creamy substance full of preservatives and additives that I dare not try to say for phonetically speaking I couldn’t even sound it out - It is not the plastic jar of goo named after beloved story book heroes - What it is, is peanuts ground up with salt and put in a jar. Pretty simple recipe if you ask me, though if I had heeded the labels warning of "Oil separation occurs in natural nutbutters. Stir before use. Reclose Lid Tightly"

The Bread bag had also been left untied so the ants were having a hay day there too. After pulling everything out, I cleaned off my jars and threw out the bread. Luckily I had bought some quarter noodles and another loaf of bread yesterday so the four slices I threw away hadn’t hurt me any.

I cooked up the noodles on my backpacking stove while cleaning out my belongings and evicting the ants by shaking out the tent (still set up). Then I proceeded to catch up on my writing.

People started to show up for work shortly after, mind you I had slept in the park with only the company of the ants and a police officer who was keeping a watch on things. Odd normally they kick you out of parks for setting up camp; this one was my private bodyguard for the night.

So when Dave came around I found myself setting up banners for beer around the perimeter of the Island "So that no drunk Hippies fall in the drink."

Lesson learned from camping with PB and J, keep it wrapped up tight, if you have to leave it outside your tent, anything to keep ants out of your tent. The other lesson learned, always grab your shampoo and conditioner from the house you stayed at the night before, Damn it! I always leave something behind.

On had for this festival was a girl that I only saw once. She was not only promised a role in one of Dave’s Films but she had also landed a coordinating job for the festival. For the whole of a few hours that I actually saw her on the grounds she would complain about how this is never going to work and that the festival was going to be a complete loss. Well the more I got to know these people and the more I saw their thought process in motion, the more I believed in that fact. I became very glad that I wasn’t one of the forty people who paid a hundred sum dollars to camp and see the bands. We hung around doing little odd jobs, but mostly just hanging around. Another volunteer, Brent and his friend Jeff were trying to catch up on sleep from the night before. Once they came around I caught a ride with them down to the quarter for another night of music. We stopped at a little deli, which I never caught the name of but was located right in the heart of some walking tour. While we sat in the car and ate our meals (mmmmmmmmmm crab cakes) we could see the eyes of about fifteen people glancing at us while we ate trying not to divert their attention to the balcony above us and the guide whose back was turned to us.

I went back in to grab a bottle of whiskey for my rum had ran out. While standing in line a familiar face stood in line behind me, Chimi, who is the saxophone player from Robert Walter’s Twentieth Congress. I made some small talk, asking if he had any gigs tonight. He didn’t but "Might be sitting in somewhere."

We then headed over to the Howlin’ Wolf to see Mike Clark’s prescription Trio with Skerik and Robert Walter filling out the band. The show jammed, just can’t get enough of these guys. As soon as it was over I searched out my ride and we drove over to Twiropa to see Les Claypool. I didn’t have a ticket and stuck up my figure and started looking. I ran into my good friend Stew from Madison. We walked around while he helped me look for a ticket. Now this was the first time we had seen each other since my band broke up, so he became pretty inquisitive.

"Are you sure you weren’t there when they destroyed all of Kyle’s shit?"

"No, I wasn’t I was with Kyle at the time, you can call him right now and ask him," as I handed him my cell phone with the number displayed on the screen. Risky business that one is, once you’re involved you don’t want to do anything else even though the hardships are abundant.

"How do you know something to be true?"

"You just do."

"But how do you know something to be true."

"When you’ve read it somewhere."

"But how can you be certain?"

The Half-blood Prince - Another Harry Potter Book By JK Rowling (spoilers...Many...Many Spoilers)

Wow Dumbledore is no more, Harry is out on his own with Hermione and Ron - Apparating around with him to help look for horcruxes and Snape, who is hiding out with he-who-must-mot-be-named and the Malfoy’s minus Lucius who is in Azkaban. Bill might be a werewolf but that is ok with Phlegm because love is strong in the world of magic especially when Tonks and Lupin are involved, or the lucky Ginny Wesley: the stand in seeker for the Gryffindor Kwidditch team. Now Slughorn had the hidden secrete in which made Voldemort strong, but his misconception of reality and drive for immortality is misconstrued by the shear imbalance of the ego and the id within the evil archetypical villain. Though Potter doesn’t actually come in contact with his nemesis, he learns just how evil this foe is through the pensive, Trelawney’s prophecy, and the events played out shortly thereafter it’s coming into existence. But all doesn’t settle well with Hagrid, the merpeople, and Firenzé when a funeral is involved, though nothing does make a more hypnotic sound than Phoenix in mourning.