I’m settling in for the night after watching the ‘Journey’ concert (along with Cheap Trick first and then Heart next). The tickets were free but I ‘offered’ to pay for the ‘Premiere Parking’ for $20.00 at the Redwood Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA. We did a round about from the ‘right side’ of the parking lot and into the ‘main entrance’ of the place, asked two attendants for directions, came around to the ‘left’ side while waiting in the long line of other cars and found our parking spot under a tree – a corner.
Then we waited in the wrong line for a few minutes. As we made our way to the correct line (from the ‘left’ side of the parking and back to the original, right’ side of the parking lot where we originally got lost), we passed lots of other people in different lines for different tickets. I’m sure people saw the DB shirt of black with the pink, sun rings that I wore in order to make ‘our’ presence known to the more energy sensitive ‘people’ attending this concert. I had my wide brim, white hat covering my face the whole time.
We found ourselves waiting in the correct line for another half an hour or so. I kept turning every which way to show off my shirt. I got tired standing after exercising my legs and sat down to put my lipstick on. There was no real reason to impress anyone since I wasn’t there to meet people or talk to them either.
We stood in the left line, got out of the way of a empty wheelchair, opened our purse and got our ‘Ticketmaster’ scanned and stamped. Then they made a quick pit stop at the restroom and then we walked up the very steep, right ramp leading to the ‘lawn seating’. We got our place smack dap in the middle of the lawn but we still couldn’t see the stage. At least there were two large screens for the lawn area and the main screen above the stage with two smaller ones on either side.
While waiting from 06:00PM to 07:00PM, I took the opportunity to lie down and depressurize my back. The ground was not soft. I could feel the pain of my snowboarding injuries from inside of my left hip socket. It was pinching my soft tissues and I couldn’t get comfortable. I found bending my knees in a ‘triangular’ shape also helped relieve the hard sensation of my lower spine area.
Sitting down hurts my tailbone and found lying down on their ‘Chinese’ mat helped avoid wet stains on my clothes (except two spots on my knee from kneeling down on the greenest grass) with my over-the-shoulder, black bag served as my pillow. I truly enjoyed being outdoors but well shaded as the sun started to set behind us.
This was the very first time in my life that I actually lied down and appreciated the clear blue sky without worrying about the critters crawling helplessly under my weight. My lifesytle has been mostly indoors and I felt one nature. I connected to the sky while daytime and later on to the stars at nighttime. I connected to the earth and its grass beneath my feet.
I inhaled very deeply as the free ‘smoke’ of stinkiness wifted throughout the air from the left hand side where ‘thick girls’ – two whites and an Asian — were dancing and shaking their head wildly. Earlier there were much ‘thicker smokers — two Latino females. Ah, I remember the real buzz from years ago. I remember the withdrawal symptoms. There was nothing like second hand smoking among spectators who danced the night away.
Most were ‘Pinoys‘, who wanted to see Arnel Pineda (a Filipino) perform as the lead singer to the rock group of the night. I could hear them singing along with me from behind. I got my four hours of aerobic dancing, too — first to ‘Cheap Trick’ for one hour followed by ‘Heart’ for another hour and then ‘Journey’ for two hours.
There were codes everywhere. A microphone testing was done exactly 09:11PM. The band started singed at exactly 09:22PM. Arnel sang a song that almost sounded like, ‘Yahweh’ as the cover of the ‘Journey’ album was shown on the five screens. The cover had two outstreched, white wings with the words ‘Revelation’ printed in between the wings. I sang outloud, ‘Yahweh’, and outstreched my arms like the wings each time he sang the last words of the refrain. I was boosting and blasting the whole time. The song finished at 09:33PM.
More songs were sung as I jumped and danced more. I kept to myself as usual — being the ‘third party’ or odd numbered person to any group for being the only one without a partner — that is my path. Whenever my feet started to hurt, I stretched my feet and legs and also relieve myself by lying down and stretching out my spine with small exercises. This was during the slower and unpopular songs. Then I’d get up to the more exciting and recognizable ones. I had simple fun by myself.
When ‘the wheel in the sky’ song was being sung, there were more codes here. The sun symbol of orange triangular rays spreading outward with its tip pointing ‘right’ was spinning counter-clockwise. At that time, I decided to point both my index fingers upward while keeping my forearm perpendicular to my upper arm and at shoulder length. Then the spinning wheel switched to a blue colored but very subtle, five-pointed star in the middle with some smaller five-pointed star at its tips. More five-pointed star symbols presented themselves among the guitar rift of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’.
Then I thought to myself something about ‘gifting’ everyone attending that night. The the brightest blue colored lights showed straight into our eyes. This lasted quiet a bit longer than the other flashing colors of pink, orange, red, blue, green and white. I saw the white of Arnel’s eye, which focused straight into the camera very briefly. It reminded me of the piercing look from the gaze of Barack Obama. Arnel’s facial feature and/or skull structure seemed to remind me of ‘Barry’s’. It’s odd. I know: I’m weird.
Overall, people were very, well behaved, except for the few pothead to my left side at a ten o’clock and eleven o’clock direction. Some people stood still in their places. Very few seemed to danced that night. I see that less ‘horned-signs’ were done at this concert and more index fingers were pointing upward. They got my message. They knew ‘we’ were there having fun and humor.
I kept boosting Arnel because I heard he missed his family back at the Philippines. He performed stronger this time. He sang from the heart: he placed with left hand on his heart several times.
Addendum on 09/28/2008 at 11:00PM (PT): As we exited, I walked even slower due to my aching feet (of mostly at the balls from as I had walked too long with high heels on) and kept making ‘peeping’ noises to let the faster walkers ahead of me know that this ‘old lady’ was right behind them and fast becoming an ‘old man’. We arrived at the car. The car was started. I noticed that the digital clock at the dashboard of the car read as follows: 11:11.
Copyright © 2008 by Fluffy von der Flynn. All rights reserved.