DRINK WHISKEY AND THEN GO GO!

Another week zips by, dropping me into Friday night. Earlier in the day while fueling up the car at the Conoco station, I saw a teen wearing a black Van Halen t-shirt from the 07/08 tour. Looked like his wrist was broken because he was wearing a cast, to which he stuck a McCain bumper sticker. Across the parking lot I motioned to him, first pointing to the shirt and saying "good", then to the bumper sticker and said "bad". He and his dad looked at me strange.

Physical therapy is proceeding well. The therapist really cranked my arm back this last visit, the discomfort of the movement merging into pain. But after I leave the office I'm buzzin', the arm feeling good. Must be those pain-relieving endorphins which act in a similar fashion to morphine! More physical therapy please!

I continue to download more music practically every night. I have a large stack of CDs I've burned that need to be labeled. After this surge in downloading, I once again see the drought showing up in the future, depending on random hits from different sources for new bootleg recordings. I'm not looking forward to those lean times.

All seems so endless
But it passes too quickly
Standing on the edge

Tonight's show was the secret anniversary gig at the Whisky A GoGo, a club they played in the very early days on their rise to stardom. This show was held a little more than three weeks before they began their Right Here, Right Now world tour. Here's what the Van Halen encyclopedia says about this show:

"Van Halen Celebrated their fifteenth anniversary on 3/03/93 by performing at one of the clubs they performed in before they were signed, the Whisky A GoGo in Hollywood, CA. 250 tickets were available for sale for $20. It sold out in fifteen minutes. Thousands of fans were left in the streets. Police riot squads were called. A live video for "Dreams" was made at that event."

This was an excellent bootleg recording of that occasion. The crowd was wild, chanting for Eddie after every other song. Sammy was unusually talkative, rapping with the audience throughout the show. The clarity of the recording was such that you could listen in on conversations of people in the immediate vicinity of the taper. I spent two hours rockin' away to this show, returning home after midnight.

By coincidence, I was short on tequila this evening, having drained the big bottle and filing up only half the flask. So I pulled out a gift bottle of Glenlivet, a scotch whisky that I poured into a second flask half way. The concert started by first swigging and then sipping the whisky before switching over to the other juice. So it was appropriate to start my night at the Whisky A GoGo with the alcoholic beverage of the same name! Thanks Mike for the bottle! I received it as a gift from a friend in exchange for my inviting him to the Van Halen show here in Denver last February 1.

Stands in their shadow
His four strings keep the bands grove
Michael's voice shines through

He's so into it
Every fiber in his body
One with his guitar

Unscrews the white cap
Flask held high above his lips
Flys besides the band

A tip of the wrist
Thrown into another world
His short-lived time warp