GANGING UP ON NIRVANA

20,075 days on planet Earth.  Hoping to live an equal amount of time into the future, but perhaps not if I can't do the things I love.

The day was spent disassembling and cleaning the shower area: pulling off the doors and frame, scrubbing down the walls, cleaning off all the lime build-up on everything, and spending a great deal of time cleaning silicone caulking off all metal and tile, a mind numbing process.  The hydrochloric acid vapors off the cleaning solution did a number on my nose if I picked up a whiff.  Happy Birthday!  My mistake was being born on the same day as my daughters boyfriend and another friend of hers, postponing any celebration until the following night.

First up was Gang of Four doing a live show in Hamburg, Germany on  May 4, 1981.  A fabulous audience recording of a hot show.  It was turned up loud because it was my birthday and I did not care.  After the second song one of the band members says something about their "birthday," very hard to decipher.  But I took it as making some reference to my birthday, and excuse to take a swig from the flask.

The American dream
A promise of paradise
If you can afford it

One more day passes
Late afternoon sun grows dim
Darkness approaches

The moon so high above
A house with all its secrets
Silent screams inside

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Truck careens forward
The scrub oak branches scratching
Knows where he's going

Bringing the evening to a close was Nirvana, an excellent recording of a live show on January 8, 1994 at the Seattle Center Arena, Seattle, WA.  A really long show played to a home audience, the last show in their US tour before they jumped the pond and resumed the performing in Paris, France.  I believe this was their last show in the US, before an exhausted Kurt returned to the States in March, went into drug intervention, escaped from the LA facility and was found dead in his home on April 8, 1994.

In Nirvana, The Chosen Rejects it is written:

The tour continued throughout the Northwest, stopping in Seattle Center Arena on January 7.  That night Nirvana played "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in Seattle for the first time in two years.  This was the first of two consecutive sold-out shows at the Center, and the band celebrated its homecoming with the announcement that Pat Smear and Lori Goldston (whose services were on loan from Seattle's Black Cat Orchestra) were now official members of the band.

During this show Kurt plays with the audience: "Oh.  Big party back stage.  I drank three Pepsi's in a row.  Smoked a pack of bear-ass Camels.  Somebody was passing around diet pills."

Kurt shouts out "Happy birthday King"

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