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.
February 02, 2003 - 10:26 a.m.
Dateline Arlington: Last, we left our intrepid hero he was leaving New York to visit Lawrence I had better switch to the first person now.
I have driven down to the Baltimore-DC area so many times the last few years. This was the easiest trip on a Friday afternoon that I ever had. I didn’t hit traffic in NYC, the Merge, the Baltimore area, and just a little bit as I approached DC. The plan was for me to get to Jammin’ Java in Vienna, VA, between six and seven, I got there at five. That meant I had time to find a place to eat a relaxed dinner. I drove around the area and was about to give up when I found a place with the called, “Foster’s Grill.” It was a fun place with good food and once again showed that you can put your faith in Murray. I got to Jammin’ Java at a quarter to six and was the first person there for the show. I didn’t mind waiting too much because the Kennedys were sound checking. I listened to them and sipped cappuccino while I waited. After the sound check, they let us in but there was a problem. They couldn’t find my reservation on the list. They let me in anyway and I got a seat at table right by the stage. When Pete saw me, he said that I was in the wrong seat. I asked him "why?" He said I’m supposed to be in New York. He don’t know me very well, do he? It was a pleasant wait till Lawrence arrived. I talked to Pete, Maura, and this nice couple that I met who were seeing the Kennedys for the first time. They had discovered them at a listening station at Borders and drove down from Pennsylvania for the show. I love that kind of enthusiasm.
Lawrence got there a bit before seven and we did some catching up. The show started a bit late. We were surprised when it did because the Kennedys came out not the opening act. It seems that she had the flu. As a consequence, they did two sets. We certainly weren't going to complain. It was one of the best shows ever, though they didn’t play Fell in Love. They did old favorites and songs off their forthcoming CD. Pete’s guitar riff medleys were great. He did the surf medley plus. Lawrence wanted him to do Wipeout with the drum solo being played by hitting the guitar.
As I have said before, the Kennedys just make me happy. They are upbeat without being saccharine, that’s not an easy thing to do. I challenge anyone to see Maura bouncing around on stage to the Beatle’s She Loves You without smiling.
Between sets Lawrence said how Jason Trachtenburg reminds him of Pete. I was thinking the same thing and that I had to ask Pete and Maura if they had seen the Trachtenburgs. After the show, we went and asked them and they got all enthusiastic. They had seen them on Conan but hadn’t caught them live yet. They did get to talk to them after a show. Pete said that the Trachtenburgs were doing a double bill with Polygraph Lounge at the Bottom Line and that I shouldn’t miss it. The last band that the Kennedys turned me on to was The Sons of the Never Wrong and they rocked so I’m going to try and see the show. The only problem is that it’s February 13th, and I’m pretty sure I had plans for that day. I’ll check when I get home.
We woke up yesterday to hearing about the Columbia disaster. Once again, I was subjected to repeatedly seeing footage of a space shuttle disintegrating. It brought back such flashbacks to the Challenger. It was not as shocking though. After the Challenger incident they figured out that, there was a one in eighty-one chance of a disaster on any shuttle mission. Every mission was a big risk. This was the eightieth mission since the Challenger.
After that sobering wake up we had breakfast at IHOP, we played bridge at a club. There were some not so nice people there. People always put down New Yorkers as tense and rude but these were as bad as I’ve ever seen. There were some others who were really nice though. We didn’t do that well, a bit below average but we had lots of fun.
Last night we saw Beth Amsel and Mary Sue Twohy at a coffeehouse. I’m not a big fan of Beth’s but I like her. Mary Sue subject matter hit home a bit, her father is dying in the hospital now, but I really wasn’t impressed. She did pull off the trick of looking 15 years younger than she did on her album covers. We expected Beth to be the headliner but she went on first. After Mary Sue’s set, Beth found out that she was supposed to have a second set. She was the headliner but the way they work it there was that the “opener” is sandwiched between sets by the headliner. Not a bad system actually. The problem was that Beth had done everything she had prepared. The two of them ended up doing a song swap for the last set.
When we got home, we played bridge on the computer and Lawrence taught me cribbage. Its’ a weird came, the hardest part is the scoring. I liked it though and we played several games. We tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour but that proved impossible. We kept getting caught up in conversation.
I have work to do for school today so I’m going to leave here after breakfast. I’m going to have to resist stopping in Hoboken to see the Trachtenburgs.
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 February 02, 2003
