We're all gonna be here forever

Carson called yesterday; he caught me in the Used Shoes aisle of the Retarded Citizens thrift store. He sounded a little down, as he sometimes does�it used to drive me crazy when we were married, always thinking that the worry in his voice meant that we were about to lose the house, or that the cat had choked on a piece of muffin, or something. Anyway, he perked up after I expressed concern, and said nothing was wrong, but that he had two tickets to see Lyle Lovett at the Hollywood Bowl, and since he had to work and couldn�t go, did I want them. I checked with The Keelhauler, who was happily holding up a crab trap priced at $7.98, and said we did.

We jumped in the car (after buying the crab trap) and drove down to Los Feliz to pick up the tickets, which Carson said he�d leave in his screen door. Carson�s building is surrounded by a new iron gate which oddly features neither a doorbell nor an intercom. And anyway, Carson wasn�t home to let me in, but a neighbor, an old, suspicious bald guy with glasses, opened the gate for me, and I ran up and grabbed the tickets, leaving behind the pink post-it note reading �Have fun, kiddies!�

The Mayfair Market is between Los Feliz and the Bowl, and we stopped there to get supplies (crackers, cheese and wine�we did not have time for elaborate menu planning). �Is this place set up for hippies?� The Keelhauler whispered to me by the deli. I do not think that the Mayfair Market is for hippies, but I don�t really know. When I think of hippie markets, I usually think �co-op,� but this place had an elaborate deli, where one could buy sushi and chocolate-covered bananas, not foods I normally associate with frugal communal living. I�m not sure where the �hippie� comment came from, but then again, The Keelhauler once described Trader Joe�s to me as an �upscale yuppie� store, so I don�t know how he draws his conclusions. His grocery experience is skewed from growing up in Wisconsin, shopping at the Super-Valu and drinking store brand soda sold under the name Elf (a detail I find inexplicably depressing).

I have no tolerance for negotiating the maze around the Bowl, and gave in and parked at the first lot we came to, in the paved front yard of a seedy bungalow housing an insurance agency, with a hand-painted sign reading BOWL PARKING in shaky letters. We took the keys with us, and walked up Highland to the Bowl. Carson had mentioned that the tickets were for the cheap seats, but advised us to look for better seats once the concert started. I looked around for our section�X�and finally located it with the help of The Keelhauler�s 20/15 vision. As we climbed up past the good seats, and up again past the not-so-good seats, I commented that finally we had found an activity that combined my love of live music with The Keelhauler�s fondness for hiking. Our seats were in the very last row, against a concrete retaining wall that failed to conceal three guys hovering around a big joint. (�Very bad!� whispered The Keelhauler, shaking his finger at the �hippies.�)

The back row is the perfect place to sit at the Hollywood Bowl. We had a great view of the entire stage, the giant TV screens, and the hills. Over to the right, Griffith Observatory sat atop a hill, and then closer to us, a tall white cross. Above it all, the Hollywood sign loomed beneath a TV tower in its rightful place above both science and God.

Shelby Lynne, who opened for Lyle, came onstage in a black shirt reading �ELVIS,� and kicked off with Waylon Jennings� �Are You Ready for the Country?� which was the highlight of her slightly awkward set. The Keelhauler thought she was nervous, and probably she was, but she attempted to gather some support from the crowd by inserting the name of the venue into the lyrics of various songs, which always seems a bit cheesy. She began one song by saying that exactly one year ago to the day, she�d been listening to KCRW (not coincidentally, the sponsor of the show) and learned something that had inspired her to write a song. She started singing about �the day Johnny met June,� and I realized that it was the anniversary of Johnny Cash�s death. �She also could be talking about John Ritter,� I commented to The Keelhauler, �they died on the same day.� �I�ve always wanted to meet you!� The Keelhauler said, as John Ritter, �I was just talking to your ex-husband; we were on the same flight!� Ha ha ha, dead celebrities.

And so then, Lyle. Lyle Lovett and his Quasi-Cowboy Band. He was in great voice, and the acoustics were perfect, even there in the back row. The band is excellent, even though they�re so slick that the production feels a bit Disney-fied. Still, it was a good show, there under the faint starlight of Los Angeles, where the stars are always brighter on the ground. The Keelhauler put his head on my shoulder and seemed genuinely happy. For his final number, Lyle played �Family Reserve,� a long, wry litany of friends and family who�ve died, and one of my favorite of his songs. The chorus says, �We�re all gonna be here forever, so mama don�t you make such a stir. Just put down that camera and come on and join up the last of the family reserve.� In other words, just be here, now. Be present, and stop worrying about documenting it all. As he sang, I felt a strange upwelling of energy, like a wave rushing up from my body, and an awareness of the people who�ve gone before me: grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and before, rising like a human chain with me as the anchor, here on Earth. For a brief moment, I felt a strong connection, and I felt whole and present, and part of the family reserve.



Star of the day. . .Grant Wood
posted @ 11:38 a.m. on September 13, 2004 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......