That’s more like old times

Well, this week­end did resemble a more *me* kind of a weekend. 

Yes­ter­day, I spent most of the day clean­ing the house from top to bottom with great music blar­ing, which was ener­giz­ing and ter­rific. One slight hiccup, but that’s OK; solved that with a walk to the park and a chat with Mum back in Australia.

Then made potato salad and a yummy green salad with can­died pecans and dried cran­ber­ries ready for our house­warm­ing while Doug mar­in­ated things and got the Hiba­chi going on the bal­cony. A little while later, and we’re all stand­ing around with caipirin­has in the heat of the even­ing and chat­ting mer­rily. Not as many people as I would have liked, but it was late notice. Espe­cially glad 

jfb

made it with his part­ner Kate. I like them both very much and we talked late into the night about eye­ball shapes and the still-stalled Brand­jam project.

Then today I woke up, had scrummy anti-hangover brekky with Doug, and jumped on the train to Palo Alto to go to 

joedecker

‘s unbe­liev­ably amaz­ing photo exhib­i­tion, “Above the Arctic Circle” which reminded me of the horses run­ning untrammeled down the river in Lord of the Rings and the majesty of light as it plays with rock and the enorm­ity of ice­bergs, espe­cially ones which look like a god reached down and turned up a corner, and lastly the free­dom of birds wheel­ing in an unpol­luted sky. It was also great to meet Joe in person (thanks for the recommendation, 

antho­lo­gie

, he’s fab­ulous). Doug was a little late pick­ing me up for the next step in the day, so we actu­ally got some good solid talking/connecting time in.

Doug, Tina and Andrew got there around 1.30 and we headed off for Pro­jekt Revolu­tion at Shoreline Amphi­theatre. It was heav­ier music than I’ve been listen­ing to recently, but I was mainly there for Placebo, so any other bands were a bonus. The kids wanted to see Saosin and Mind­less Self Indul­gence as well as My Chem­ical Romance. I thought My Chem­ical Romance was pretty good, actu­ally. Strong stage pres­ence, weird feel of Cure meets Doors meets Franken­fur­ter. Linkin Park was sur­pris­ingly awe­some. I have liked pre­vi­ous stuff in a “Oh, this song, cool” way but never bought or down­loaded any­thing, but I knew the new stuff was more polit­ical and it’s fantastic.

Hands Held High

Turn my mic up louder, I got to say some­thing
Light­weights step­pin’ aside when we come in
Feel it in your chest, the syl­lables get pump­ing
People on the street then panic and start run­ning
Words on loose leaf sheet, com­plete coming
I jump in my mind, I summon the rhyme I’m dump­ing
Heal­ing the blind, I prom­ise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drum­ming
Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jump­ing
Fuck that, I wanna see some fists pump­ing
List some­thing, take back what’s yours
Say some­thing that you know they might attack you for
‘Cause I’m sick of being treated like I had before
Like it’s stupid stand­ing for what I’m stand­ing for
Like this war’s really just a dif­fer­ent brand of war
Like it does­n’t cater to rich and aban­don poor
Like they under­stand you, in the back of their jet
When you can’t put gas in your tank, these fuck­ers
Are laugh­ing their way to the bank, and cash­ing their check
Asking you to have the pas­sion and have some respect
For a leader so nervous in an obvi­ous way
Stut­ter­ing and mum­bling for nightly news to replay
And the rest of the world watch­ing at the end of the day
In the living room, laugh­ing like, “What did he say?”

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

In my living room watch­ing it, I am not laugh­ing
‘Cause when it gets tense, I know what might happen
The world is cold, the bold men take action
Have to react to get blown into frac­tions
At 10 years old, it’s some­thing to see
Another kid my age drugged under a Jeep
Taken and bound and found later under a tree
I wonder if he had thought ‘the next one could be me’
Do you see the sol­diers that are out today?
They brush the dust from bul­let­proof vests away
It’s ironic, at times like this you’d pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yes­ter­day
There’s bombs on the buses, bikes, roads
Inside your market, your shops, and your clothes
My dad, he’s got a lot of fear, I know
But enough pride inside not to let that show
My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine on the back
He hand-wrote a quote inside,
“When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die”
Mean­while, the leader just talks away
Stut­ter­ing and mum­bling for nightly news to replay
The rest of the world watch­ing at the end of the day
Both scared and angry, like “What did he say?”

Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

With hands held high into a sky so blue
As the ocean opens up to swal­low you 

— Linkin Park

 

Tired now. Sleep soon. Thanks to all the new friends for just being there this week­end. Thanks to my old and dear friend, 

dai­syn­erd

, for post­ing lovely replies to me. Now you owe us tales of your jour­ney through Norway!!!!