Everybody's Livin' for the Weekend...

Okay okay... I know... it's TUESDAY and I haven't written anything since FRIDAY, but I have an excuse.

I've been busy...

This weekend I hit the ground running and it didn't stop until Sunday night.

Friday afternoon I got a call from my friend Jon Fox who runs the San Francisco Comedy Competition. He was short a judge for one of the final rounds and asked if I could hump it over the mountain and meet him at the Napa Valley Opera House for an evening of comedy from five comedians. Not one to let a free ticket go to waste (more on that later) and having enjoyed the comedy competition year in and year out for the last 14 years, I jumped on it, making the hour drive through the wine country's winding roads to downtown Napa.

It was a fun night with a lot of laughs from all of the competitors (my personal favorite was Floyd J. Philips, but Don Friesen actually won my slightly higher score based on all the various criteria we were supposed to be judging on). You think it's EASY judging a comedy competition don't ya? Well... let me tell you buddy it's difficult, brain numbing, cheek aching, wrinkle developing WORK. But I found it in me to face up to the task.

After the competition was over I popped back over to Sonoma where I spent that night at my friend Jim Callahan's. He was pouring bronze the next morning, and while I have filmed this process for a documentary about Jim that I have been working on for the past three years, I have always wanted to actually assist but have never had the opportunity.

After the pour (ultimately a relatively brief task with enormous amounts of preparation and followup that I didn't have to do), I was off to another musical weekend event, this time in Duncan's Mills, out near the Sonoma Coast. The Russian River Acoustic Festival to which I actually won tickets on KRSH radio was actually a bit of a disappointment after the incredible treat of the past weekend in Golden Gate Park. Even though I didn't have to pay for the ticket, I left after only about an hour. The opening act, bluegrass band, The Earl Brothers, was terrific. I seem to have caught some kind of bluegrass bug while in Southern Appalachia a few weeks ago, for so much of the music that has sustained me and eased my struggles over the last month has come from that tradition.

After the second act, The ThugZ, had mangled three of my favorite songs (including Bruce Cockburn's Waiting For A Miracle) I decided what I really needed was a dose of ocean waves and wind, so I headed out for Goat Rock Beach; one of my favorite places in Northern California and a place where I have experienced a lot of pleasure, a lot of thoughtfulness, and a lot of shared delight.

The wind was wild and the waves were in complete chaos. The surf was raging in from across the Pacific with a force that was a reminder of some of what mother nature can do in her beautiful fury when she has a mind to. It brought back memories of a month ago, but from a safe, respectful place that was awe inspiring in the way that the Pacific (which is always in such opposition to her name), especially in wintertime, always is.

Saturday night was more music when a friend of mine in Petaluma made me an offer I couldn't refuse on a ticket for Adrien Belew at Slim's in San Francisco, a club where - on the other side of chaos - I had last seen Dr. John a few weeks before I moved to New Orleans. It was an AMAZING concert, free-form, creative guitar work with a rhythm section so tight they almost squeeked. The crowd was wild as well, completely wrapped up in the concert and the musicians (as musicians tend to do) gave back to the audience with the same kind of enthusiasm, blending together and forming a unique gestalt that really fits the definition of concert - "Unity achieved by mutual communication of views, ideas, and opinions" - a description of the live musical experience I first picked up about a year ago in an interview someone did with Bruce Springsteen. It was an exhilerating end to a loaded day.

Sunday morning I was up early to catch the San Francisco ferry to church, where I met Jennifer and we heard Alan Jones preach a sermon that was of particularly synchronistic significance as he spoke about the "wild disruption" of living after catastrophe.

After church Jennifer and I went out to the beach for brunch at The Park Chalet, one of those dad & daughter moments that I have written about before that make my life happy even at the most horrible moments I can imagine. The Eggs Benedict was great, but the company of my daughter brings me a cheer that I experience nowhere else. It was a good time.

After brunch, Jen braved the aggravating traffic of Fleet Week in San Francisco, so I could indulge my rather questionable fascination with The Blue Angels.

I have loved The Blue Angels (and their Air Force counterparts, The Thunderbirds) since I was a kid. I even built a plastic model of the team with a clear plastic holder that put them in formation and it never fails that when they are around I want to see them. The problem is they are unequivically a big league advertisement for the military and while I am willing to acknowledge that we are forced in some way, some how... PROBABLY... to have a military in this modern world, I neither agree with the way it is being used currently or the way it has been used during most, if not all, of my life. At the same time, there is one thing about this military team that is at the heart of what captures my imagination. They are THE BEST at what they do, and I am completely taken by people at the top of their game... ANY game.

Jennifer dropped me off at the Golden Gate Bridge just before the show began and I walked out onto the span where I was treated to close up flyovers that dropped down over the bridge cables and toward the surface of the bay at astonishing speeds. It was one of those moments that is best described by Jack Nicholson's devilish character in The Witches of Eastwick, when he looks up at his friendly trio of women and says to his dog... "See what HUMANS can do?"

And speaking of what humans can do... Check out how a 9 year old San Francisco kid spent his Columbus Day holiday!

So... how did you spend YOUR weekend?