December 23, 2003

finally...

We bought a digital camera for a mutual Christmas present. A present which we would have never been able to afford had my mom not been very generous this year. We decided that it’s a gift that can keep on giving. Both to us and to her as well. To the other two readers of this site... well, sorry, but expect to see lot’s of pictures of the dog on here, many of the tall trees, and maybe you’ll even catch a few teachers and teachings once in a while. For now, here’s the Christmas card this year:

posted @ 5:13 PM

December 13, 2003

not so silent night

We were on the freeway, slightly late because of traffic heading into the city, when we heard Lars from Rancid being interviewed. He said they weren’t going to be checking punk rock passes at the door — punk is for everyone. He got into the scene because he was a messed up kid and found others who were messed up just like him in the punk rock scene.

Because we were late we missed the first band. I wasn’t too bummed. Rancid was second on the bill. Those guys still rock it old school. I was almost bitten by the “mosh pit bug” when they started playing. They played a good mix of all of their twelve year history which was nice. At one point a fight broke out in the pit and they stopped the music. “I don’t give a f*ck if this is a Live 105 show or not — there won’t be any fighting while Rancid is on stage! If you feel like fighting, go into the bathroom, jerk off then come back out here and join us for a good time.” The crowd, of course cheered and they returned to the music.

Iggy Pop was never a guy I spent much time listening to, but he’s a legend and it was great to see the master contortionist live from about 50 feet away. I knew more songs than I thought and enjoyed the ones I didn’t know.

Act four took twice as long to setup as everyone else. They had to get all the keyboards, steel drums, turn tables and other stuff setup just right. My guess is that someone was also probably backstage sorting through the M&M’s too. Once Offspring finally did get on stage they played the usually favorites with one or two tossed in from Ignition for good measure. Overall: unimpressed.

The next band could have come out, done one song and I would have paid $35 for it. Just the fact that Jenkins, Navarro and Perry were all present was good enough for me. Perry made a grand entrance after some jamming by the other three. I love the way Perry asks these questions of the audience and they turns them around so that the expected answer is the wrong answer. Then segues into the next song. I have now officially seen all of my top three bands live.

Oh, and at the end — after the encore, which I didn’t think was going to happen — Dave Navarro did a little prostration, Buddhist style. It was beautiful... the whole night was beautiful.

posted @ 1:17 PM

December 9, 2003

getting knocked down

We repainted the office... it had been on the to-do list for quite some time — even before I came along. It really needed to be done because the walls were very dirty and grimy looking. The color, I guess, wasn’t so great either but it didn’t bother me that much. The walls were kind of a light yellow and the trim was maroon. It’s a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center, so those colors are to be expected. At least in my mind they are.

It was decided that the walls should be white and the trim should be this off-white peachy color (it’s got some fancy name which I can’t remember). They grey floor was also no good — had to go. Carpet was in order. That’s fine too.

I don’t, by any means, own the office. In three months I’ll be the only one working in it, but others will certainly use it. I thought it would be nice if I could have picked out some of the colors though, since I will be spending the majority of time there. It didn’t go down like that. The colors were decided upon by others. That’s not so bad, that’s life. The weird part of all of this is how attached I became.

Normally I let things go pretty easily. Even if they should really bother me — they don’t. Generally other people get upset for me. This time though, I took it personally. I got really frustrated, I spoke my opinion, then I pouted when it didn’t go my way. And I wound up getting sick because of it. My mind got very narrow, very focussed on the me, me, me of it all and I got a head cold.

I’m much better now — both about the colors of the office and my cold. Sometimes I think you really have to get knocked down to appreciate all the time you spend “up”.

posted @ 11:04 AM