A break from routine

Old What’s Her Face and I are both taking a vacation day today. My Christmas present from her was two tickets to see Larkin Poe live at The Knitting Factory in Boise.

We dragged our feet getting out of the house last night, but in the end it meant we didn’t have to stand in arctic temperatures in a long line. We had a reserved table, so fighting for a seat wasn’t part of the deal.

It’s a small venue, and we were incredibly close to the stage.

That’s the dance floor between me and the performers. The table area was slightly raised, so seeing over everyone’s heads was no problem.

This wound up being an incredible performance. The younger sister has huge stage presence and a wonderful voice. Her older sibling is a virtuoso on that slide guitar. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend seeing them. in an age of auto-tuners and synthetic background, it’s nice to see someone who does it the old-school way, and does it well.

At our ages, the hard plastic chairs became a little tiresome by the end, and we’re both expressing our aches and pains today. Thus, the reason for the day off.

If only we could get Kenny Wayne Shepherd or Samantha Fish to come here one day. They regularly tour together. I found out KWS is going to be in Bend, Oregon in May. We’d need someone to watch the bulldogs to pull that off.

As for me, I’ve vowed not to do a damned thing today. No editing, or other authorly gyrations. We’re watching The Last Witch Hunter on TV and the rest of the day will probably play out the same way.

Whew, home again

This trip pretty much sucked. Like I said before, Vegas has never been my kind of town. We had travel problems both ways, everything was about double what we’re used to paying. The hotel water tasted like crap too, and I swear it was to force us into buying their bottled water.

However; the concert was awesome. Pink puts on one hell of a show. It was filled with intriguing sets, dancers, and more than you usually get in a concert. Her aerial antics are worth the price of admission. She did a duet with Eminem, but he appeared as a giant inflatable puppet.

This thing walked around, and his mouth moved during his parts.

She even flew over the entire stadium during So What.

What the heck, have one more.

Tomorrow, I need to chase down some Lisa Burton interviews I sent materials to weeks ago.

A Desert Rat looks back

Some of you don’t know this, but I grew up in one of the Western deserts. There are several, and they vary depending upon how many you want to count. I’ve been in them all. There is the Black Rock Desert, the Mohave Desert, the Sonora Desert, etc.

I grew up in the Great Basin, which is also a desert. It’s just at high elevation, and gets a severe winter along with a severe summer. No water means it’s still a desert.

Deserts always have an oasis of some kind or another. This helps keep things interesting.

The Mohave Desert is home to Joshua trees, and salt pans, ridges devoid of forest, and yet still holding wildlife. I remember chasing Desert Bighorns in Southern Nevada adjacent to the nuclear test site. There was the morning when I heard the huge tarantula before I saw him, and the afternoon when I found a ridge covered with ancient ammonites. After millions of years, they were still mostly mother of pearl.

Today, Old What’s Her Face and I flew to Las Vegas. We have tickets to the Pink concert tomorrow night. Our first stop was Los Angeles. We were flying on my daughter’s flight benefit, and that means standby. We never made several planes out of LA, but we’re here finally.

The desert is a wonderful, but serious place. Flying into Vegas, looked about like I would imagine flying over Mordor would look. You have to experience the desert close-up to enjoy it.

To tell you the truth, I’d rather be there with the coyotes and the tarantulas. Vegas has never been my kind of town. It always feels like someone is trying to get in to your wallet here. It’s also changed dramatically, and not for the better.

There was a time when rooms were cheap and so were meals. This was by design, because they wanted you to stay inside the casino. As a Nevada native, casinos hold no appeal, so it was a bargain.

Not so today. It appears that MGM owns most of the Strip here. This means the prices have gone up. Don’t like casino resort A? Try casino resort B, which is also under the same ownership, so they don’t care. There is no need to deliver any kind of service, because where else are you going to go.

This is the first hotel I’ve ever been in where there is no coffee maker. It’s likely they would rather have me go down stairs and spend ten bucks on Starbucks, which they also own.

I remember when a Vegas Buffet was about eight bucks. Today, you can ‘t have a burger and fries for less than forty.

It’s kind of sad. We would have done more here, but under the circumstances, we’re likely to attend our concert, and go home. I actually have a couple of granola bars in my suitcase, and you can live on that crap.

***

In other news, I had a cool dream the other night. It was a vision of a character from behind. It took place in a kind of sandstone desert environments. This person was wearing a poncho, but it wasn’t woven. It was made of repurposed canvas and rough cut. I don’t know if it was a man, woman, or child. The character lugged a bag of foraged produce. Wild vegetables of some kind.

The character came to the wing of a crashed spaceship. It might have been abandoned like an old airplane boneyard. There were steps crudely carved into the wing, and the character climbed them. The character looked back, and there were discarded spaceships everywhere. they had a lot of variation, so it could have been an ancient battlefield, or just a long term boneyard.

Inside the ship, the entire thing had been gutted and rebuilt. The streets were level, even though the ship was not. The streets were lined with houses, apartments, and marketplaces. There was a small town inside. Presumably, the other ships were like this too. Maybe each ship was like a subdivision or something.

The character handed over the bag to a nameless and faceless character, who looked inside, grunted, and handed over a fistful of coins. The main character grabbed and empty canvas sack for the next day, and walked deeper into the “city.”

That’s all I got. This is one of those times when I’d like a little more, but that’s all the Muse delivered.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend. We may be here on the cheap, but we’re going to a Pink concert tomorrow.

Time to move on to the next project

The Yak Guy Project has been launched. The tour is over, and it’s safe to come out now. I always try to reblog for my hosts as a way of paying them back. If you missed the tour, you can still catch up by scrolling back through my feed. If you have a mind to.

I am grateful to all of my hosts, and you can all borrow my blog space any time you like.

During the tour, we sold a few books, and even managed to garner a few reviews – all of which were favorable. I intend to share any review blogs I stumble across in the next few months too. Of course, if the reviewer just manages to find Amazon to post, that is more than enough for me.

I want to get back to my work in progress, but that’s going to take at least two weeks. I’m sure there will be a warming up phase too, because I’ve been away from it for a while.

I’ve also been thinking ahead. Pinterest is a wonderful source of inspiration for me. I came across some great black and white photos from colonial Africa, and added them to a board called, “The One I May Never Write.” Many of these were people around campfires, and their faces are so interesting. There is so much character there.

Part of what’s holding me back here is popular sentiment about hunting. I can’t, in good conscience, take people from that era and work around the modern concepts of how evil hunting in all forms is. A young man in that era would want to go on safari, and he would enjoy the process. I used to be a big time hunter myself, and still look forward to my annual grouse dinner. I can write that part pretty convincingly.

I’ve toyed with some tricks. The woman in the story would be a local, and might impart some sensibility into his thought process. The group might be able to eat an entire impala, but it’s absurd to take an elephant for supper. The other trick is dealing with a man eater of some kind. Probably need a man eater in one of my type stories anyway.

The outline has a lot going for it, but the question remains. Will modern sentimentality kill this book faster than a .450 Jeffries to the head. It has a lot going for it, like magic, awesome setting, a love interest, a bit of war involving multiple factions, and oh yeah… diamonds.

Then there is a bit of author magic I need to do. I want to weave together some elements of style to help bring the setting up to something with a little more romance. There are some cool pins I’ve saved for that too. If you want, you can check the Pinterest Board. The debate still goes on in my mind. Should I dedicate months to write something the haters with an agenda could very well attack?

I don’t get it, but if you kill a fictional monster you’re a hero, kill a fictional lion and you’re a bad guy.

I also have a few different ideas involving Lizzie and the Hat. I’m determined to bring them back somehow, because that book performed really well.

Before anything else, we’re going to Las Vegas this weekend. Back when we still had money, we bought tickets to the Pink concert. I may be harder to catch this weekend, but I will get to everything somehow. This is my wife’s dream concert, but I’m kind of jazzed about it too. I’ve seen bits and pieces of her performances, and she puts on quite a show.

The following weekend, I left a bunch of people afloat on the ocean in a small ship, with piracy on their minds.

Incredible

Alright, so my picture is lousy. It's mostly to prove I was there. We went to the Idaho State Fair tonight. We had a whole evening planned around this, but we got there late. We only had time to grab a lemon aid and get into a half mile line.

I have a thing for great vocalists, and Pat Benatar is absolutely amazing. She's older than I am, and can still hit those high notes. She hits them with power too, still. That huge voice in such a tiny woman is kind of impressive. We got there at the end of the line, and so we had to sit farther back than I would prefer. There was no problem hearing though, like most concerts.

In an age where anyone can use auto-tune and record a song, I find it refreshing to know there are still a few that don't need it.

We never got to go see the bunnies and roosters, because it was late when the show broke up. (They were asleep.) We only had time left for a quick gyro to eat as we walked to the car. The crowds were huge, which isn't one of my favorite things. It took a while to weave through, but it was well worth it. Getting to see someone that good, is always worth it.

One of the best date nights ever. Back to the task list tomorrow.

Welcome to My Nightmare

Last night fulfilled a bucket list item for me, kind of. I’m not a huge believer in bucket lists, but I’ll just say I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.

The final tour for Motley Crüe came to Boise, and my wife wanted to go. I moaned about the ticket price, and the fact that I’d already been to one of their concerts. She said, “But Honey, they’re on tour with Alice Cooper.”

That was all I needed to know. We bought our tickets about six months ago. Last night was the night.

Waiting for the show

Alice Cooper was phenomenal. I first stumbled across him in the early 1970s, and my eight track player was always loaded with one of his tapes. I’ve always heard that he put on the best, and most theatrical live shows. Until last night, I’d never seen one.

I Googled it, Cooper is 67 years old now. I wish I had gone out of my way to see him sooner. It would have been worth a trip to the coast, or Phoenix to take in his show.

He’s had a long career, and the show was a mixture of older and newer music. He chose well. I still lamented the songs I didn’t get to hear.

I never got to play with the Black Widow, or Go To Hell, there was no help from Nurse Rosetta, or a trip to the Quiet Room.

There are just too many songs for him to cover them all in the scope of a concert. I still knew every song, and had a great time.

His choices ran the gamut from oldies like Under My Wheels and Eighteen, to his newer hits like Poison and Feed My Frankenstein.

 

How could he not include Frankenstein. It just screams to be part of a live show. This included some cool electrodes, and a fifteen foot monster running around stage chasing the band members. My picture is crap, but that’s Frankie behind the band members. That ought to give you an idea of scale.

I may have been to over a hundred concerts in my life. I’ve seen everything from country to acid rock. There are some things that become staple items. I’ve seen fog, lasers, fireworks, and all the usual things before.

This show had swords, straight jackets, electrodes, a working guillotine, and a fifteen foot monster. (Did I mention the monster?)

I am one happy dude today, and I bought the tee shirt. I’m going to spend a portion of my day downloading those songs I didn’t get to hear last night.

Oh yeah, and Motley Crüe played last night too.