Thursday, December 26, 2013

My First Blog Post in 2 Years!!!!

Time flies I guess...had no idea it had been THAT long. So, since the end of the year is nigh I will do a brief retrospective of 2013: Bought a lot of material things. My travel trailer, my Big Fruck, did some work on the house. Did some traveling, went to Florida with Leah, went to San Diego with Felton...both fun, San Diego a little more though.

Moved up a bit in my job...learned and became a better manager. Have a GREAT staff at my job now.

Got over some things that made me sad and finally managed to put them behind me. Have some really good things out in front of me I am looking forward to. Best music this year? Gonna have to say that Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Lorde is the most interesting thing I've heard in a long time. U2 has a new album out in 2014 so we'll see how that goes. Last one, not so good, hopefully this one will be better. Is Denise going on tour again with U2? Not sure. She might...Depends on the album and the type of tour they decide to do. If it's a stadium, probably not...I prefer the arena tours by FAR.

Best movie? Well, thus the picture. I have always had a soft spot for Leo (I killed him Gilbert...I killed him). LOL! The Wolf of Wall Street is QUITE good. Leo pulled out ALL the acting stops in this one...may be too late to create enough buzz with the academy to win him the gold man, but if ever he had a performance that SHOULD, well, this is it. Good luck Leo!

So 2014 I welcome you! I look forward to camping, traveling, spending time with my old and new friends and just working on inner happiness. Happy New Year to all of you. I'll try not to take 2 years to post the next time.

Denise:-)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Autograph Signing with Tim Robbins!!!

Found out quite suddenly yesterday that Tim Robbins, of Bull Durham and Shawkshank Redemption fame has a band. Also found out he was going to be playing in PDX, as well as doing some record store signings. Huh...My celebrity wall hadn't seen a new pic since Bono so I figured it was time. I showed up at 5:30 so I could rally a good spot for the 6pm show....6:30, still no Tim. Best line of the night? A guy behind me said, "10 more minutes and I start flinging Michael Bolton cd's!"
Luckily, just about that time Tim did walk in. BUT, we were told since he was so late and had no guitar, no show...just cd signings. That's fine...since they had his music playing for the hour and a half we were getting annoyed waiting for him we were all starting to wonder if that's the music they play in purgatory anyway. I'd had enough of his singing for one day.
So I leave my spot I had reserved for the last hour and a half and go to a different spot in the store to stand in line for an autograph (I actually had purchased a cd...seemed polite if I wanted a picture). People in front of me had Shawshank dvds and posters they wanted signed. Tim immediately nixed that with "No movie stuff! I'm here to sign cd's". Wow...that's a huge mistake if you are trying to get folks to love a new side of you...tell them you refuse to sign their beloved movie stuff and come off as an asshole. Hard to get folks to believe they are going to love your cd after you've done that. Oh well...at this point I was just hoping nobody pissed him off so badly that he got mad and left...
Got up there quite quickly for my turn. Told him, "OK, I bought the cd, I only have one thing for you to sign, can I have a picture?" He looked sort of confused and then said, "Yeah, sure!". So I leaned in and the store guy took the picture for me...it's not bad, considering it's just a counter leaner.
While he was signing my cd I said, "I won't make any snarky comments about Bull Durham...." He sort of had this grin on his face and kept signing my c.d. Then he looked up with this DAZZLING smile and said, "Thanks so much for buying my cd!" Pretty funny. And my GOD what a smile. Everytime I get around these guys I don't think much of it until they turn the looks on...then you realize how they got so famous in the first place. That's why they are celebrities I guess.
As I was walking out I just started laughing. I was thinking, "Tim Robbins is sort of a dousche...." But the longer I thought about it, the more I think his douschiness made it a little more fun. LOL!

Monday, June 06, 2011

U2 360 in Seattle...Finally....

I had the tickets for almost 2 years, but finally the Claw came to Seattle. My co-pilot changed several times over that 2 year stretch, but it turned out that my brother Wade ended up going with me. Considering it was Wade's first U2 show, I'm thinking Bono gave it his all!
I saw 360 Tour twice already, once in Vegas and once in B.C. When I saw it before they still had hope for NLOTH to take off so a large part of the set list was from that album. This time they dropped most of that and did a very nice selection of their past catalogue. I was pretty excited that I got to see them play Stay live and accoustic. That was a first time for me. Also a first time for All I Want Is You in concert for me. Loved both!
I'm not sure if "It" was in the stadium or not...I think it's harder to feel that in that large of a stadium...you couldn't really hear the crowd singing from where I was sitting, so it was harder to get the whole comeraderie thing as I have at some smaller venues in the past. However, I won't say "It" wasn't there either...it was a good show and I felt pretty good afterwards. A U2 show continues to be my number 1 happy place!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Billy Joel On My Mind....

It occurred to me I hadn't blogged in FOREVER...last night I had a dream that was interesting enough to inspire me. Won't go into details, but I had a really interesting dream about being at a Billy concert, going home with him afterwards...for some reason my ex love interest was at the concert too but I didn't care because I knew I was hooking up with Bill, etc. One of those REALLY GREAT dreams that make you wake up feeling fantastic. So I decided to listen to all Billy Joel today as a tribute to my dream, and the first album on my WMP is The Bridge. Some of my favorite lyrics EVER belong to Code of Silence...it defines how I feel inside about MANY things. Here they are:


Everybody's got a million questions
Everybody wants to know the score
What you went through
It's something you
Should be over now

Everybody wants to hear the secrets
That you never told a soul before
And it's not that strange
Because it wouldn't change
What happened anyhow

But you swore to yourself a long time ago
There were some things that people never needed to know
This is one that you keep
That you bury so deep
No one can tear it out

And you can't talk about it
Because you're following a code of silence
You're never gonna lose the anger
You just deal with it a different way
And you can't talk about it
And isn't that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you've really got a lot to say

You don't want to lose a friendship
There' s nothing that you have to hide
And a little dirt couldn't hurt no one anyway
And you still have a rage inside you
That you carry with certain pride
In the only part of a broken heart
That you could never save

But you've been through it once, you know how it ends
You don't see the point of going through it again,
And this ain't the place, and this ain't the time,
And neither's any other day
So you can't talk about it
Because your following a code of silence
You're never gonna lose the anger
You just deal within it a different way
So you can't talk about it
And isn't that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you've really got a lot to say

I know you well enough to tell you've got your reasons
That's not the kind of code you're inclined to break
Some things unknown are best left alone forever
And if a vow is what it takes
Haven't you paid for your mistakes

After the moment passes
And the impulse disappears
You can still hold back
Because you don't crack very easily

It's a time honored resolution
Because the danger is always near
It's with you now
But that ain't how it was supposed to be
And it's hard to believe after all these years
That it still gives you pain and it still brings tears
And you feel like a fool, because in spite of your rules
You've got a memory

But you can't talk about it
Because you're following a code of silence
You're never gonna lose the anger
You just deal with it a different way
But you can't talk about it
And isn't that a kind of madness
To be living by a code of silence
When you've really got a lot to say
 
What's really sad is that Billy claims he can no longer write...he says he hasn't released any new stuff because he can't write anymore...Let's all cross our fingers and hope that the Muse will descend at some point and help him shake his greater than a decade writer's slump!
 
Thanks for being you Billy!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Finally Saw a Gorge Concert....One More Check off the Bucket List!!!

I finally did it and sucked it up and went to a Gorge in George concert. I must say that the drive was spectacular...all the windmills next to the road going up the pass at Maryhill were pretty cool...very distracting though...pretty windy road to be gawking at windmills on. I made it through unscathed though.

Would I see more music at the Gorge? Probably not....It's a Looooooonnnnggg drive, and the sound is bad. The view is amazing, but 20,000 people on a VERY steep hill lawn is a little much. I will have to say I far preferred Red Rocks in Colorado...much smaller than this venue, but a better venue for taking in good music. Important thing is that I did it...As I said, one more thing off the list.

What did I think of John Mayer and Keith Urban together? Well, together they sounded every bit as good as I thought they would....And I'd just seen Keith a few months back at the Rose Garden and was impressed out of my shoes. This show was an abbreviated version of that, only with worse sound and too many people....but it made me remember the Garden show so I was happy. As for John Mayer, alas, I just don't like HIM...I tried to look past it for the music, but then realized the music is a little too sleepy for me. I don't hate him, but he's nobody I'd go see again. I like him better when he's jamming with others than I do on his own playing his own stuff.

So, overall it was not a bad day, and I'm glad for the experience, but unless U2 books the Gorge pretty soon, I probably won't be back anytime soon...I have too many good venues within 20 miles of where I live to feel the need to drive 300 miles for a concert. I guess that's why I live here in the first place!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

How Not to Go Over Oak Springs

We are all going rafting on Sunday. Hopefully this is NOT how Oak Springs works out for us...

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Jimmy Fallon on a Roll....Idol Skit

This is really funny...gotta give Jake credit for doing this: