With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
June 20, 2004 - 11:20 a.m.
Yesterday I went to the Clearwater Festival with Lisa. Going with Lisa makes the trip something of an expedition as it takes me half an hour with no traffic to reach her house and that leaves me further from Clearwater than I started. That led to my not getting much sleep the night before. Good thing the adrenaline was flowing.
The ride up there went pretty well and I liked my decision to not pay for parking in the lot but to use the free parking at the train station and taking the shuttle bus from there. It might mean getting there a bit later but you get home faster and it is cheaper. I took advantage of the bus ride to promoting SMAF to the other passengers. I was wearing my SMAF shirt and somehow or other it came up in conversation.
Clearwater has been redesigned somewhat, the star power has declined. There is now only one main stage. The other one has been replaced by a workshop stage and the Circle of Song. The Circle was the best part. The performer and as many people as can fit are simply under a canopy. There is a sign up encouraging the audience to participate and they do. The result is to leave it with more of a more intimate feeling.
We didn't get there really early but I was able to get tarp space in the front row at the Rainbow Stage. Lisa had a bit more of a problem. I told her to put the tarp down and the Hudson River Stage which isn't there any more. I was able to find her wandering around and bring her back to the Rainbow Stage. You don't tarp at the Circle of Song and we never went to the Hudson Workshop Stage so we didn't even need the second tarp.
These are the acts I saw:
| Rainbow Stage | Circle of Song | Pat Humphries and Sando O |
|---|---|
| SONiA | |
| Catie Curtis | |
| Kristina Olsen | |
| Woody Guthrie Songs | |
| Sol y Canto | |
| Catie Curtis | |
| Dar Williams | |
| Guy Davis | |
| The Lee Boys |
SONiA was great at the Circle. I wasn't shy and sang along though not loudly enough to disturb anyone too much. We were right up front and I she didn't give me any dirty looks; so I guess I did OK. There was some extra-curricular drama during her set. She introduced a fan/friend of hers she had known for years and the woman he was with and told them to stand up with her. She said how there are some days, some moments that can never be repeated. Then how he requested this one song of hers. She then told the woman that her friend wanted to marry her as her produced the ring. The bride to be did not see this coming though I did. It was really a moving experience.
I'd have liked to talk to SONiA after her set but we didn't have time, Catie Curtis's set had already started. I did say hi, and introduce her to Lisa
When we got to our Tarp we Saw Paul a tarp away from us. I tried to get his attention by throwing a wadded up paper at him but hit the woman next to him. I finally was able to get her to understand that he was the one that I wanted to turn around.
Cadence Carroll and Terry Irons sat right next to us for Gandalf Murphy. It is always great to see them and Cadence showed off that she remembered Lisa's name. She always forgot it. Lisa went off on her own after Gandalf's set, I stayed to see most of Kristina's. I left before it was over to join the Woody Guthrie Songs. Those are songs that I actually know the words to and actually sang out fairly loudly. That wasn't a problem as so did everyone else. I was supposed to meet Lisa after that but she didn't show up. I tried her on the walkie talkie and couldn't reach her. I gave up and went to see Sol y Canto on my own. I knew she wanted to see Catie Curtis at the Circle and when she wasn't there I tried her on the walkie-talkie again. When there wasn't an answer I called her on her cell-phone. She forgot about Catie and rushed over to join me.
It was great to see Dar again. This was her first time performing in six months, she took time off to have a baby. Her nephew was right next to us seeing how much trouble he could get into. You could see that kept distracting her during the show. She'd look down to see what he was up to.
Lisa wanted to go to the story telling after that, something I had no interest in so I stayed and listened to blues man Guy Davis. He was great though I might have missed a bit of him as I laid down and closed my eyes during his set. I'm not sure if I actually fell asleep. It was very restful in any event and I did get to appreciate his music. I love good blues.
They had some kayaks available and I would have tried one out before when Sol y Canto was playing but I didn't want to be someplace Lisa couldn't find me. That was a bad decision. As I went to use them after Guy Davis the water had gotten too rough and they weren't letting people out on them any more. So instead of burning some calories kayaking I went to the chocolate stand to pig out. I bought a frozen drink and a couple of bars to take home with me. I went back to the main stage to see The Lee Boys. They were actually pretty good. Very high energy sacred steel. I actually got up and danced to the music. That would have been more fun if I had someone to dance with. I didn't get to use my patented dance moves. Lisa came back just as their show ended. We packed up and drove home. That rest did me good as I managed to stay awake for the ride home, which is more than Lisa could manage.
I realized what a schmoozer I've become. I didn't used to be this way. I work a room. I make sure to go over and talk to everyone I know and some people I don't know. Of course I talked to Craig, a friend from WFUV and his friend Reggie. I always see them there. I also talked to total strangers though. I told the woman who sold me the Ribbon Fries about the dream I had about them once. Well I guess that is noteworthy, How many people have dreams about the food at a stand at a festival. She liked it enough to tell her co-worker about it as I was leaving. The fried triggered more conversation with the people that joined us at the table. They commented on how good the fries look and I told them where to get them. I then commented on the smoked turkey leg he was eating, that it looked like something Henry VIII should be eating. He thought it looked like something for a caveman. We both agreed it should be picked up in his hands and devoured without any pretense of table manners.
Ah well I could go on but I have to get ready to go to the Met game. Once again I had a busy day when I also had thoughts I wanted to write about. I'll see if I can squeeze them in my next entry.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile June 20, 2004
