Westword Music Showcase

They're done.

Now it's going to be clang, clang, clang, clink, clang, clink, diddly-diddly-clink, clang, clang, scrape, clang for the rest of the night as they disassemble their festival tents and their temporary fencing, and pack up all their equipment.

We get one day of music, my neighbors and I get three days of noise and disruption.

This photo is from Westword Music Showcase 2018, but the photo was taken last year. The photo is shot from our party room balcony. Best of all places to watch but our management shut it down because uninvited visitors were so rude! A few years ago the whole place was packed with people I never saw before and who don't live here. There I was talking to this guy and he was cracking up laughing just by me telling him what happened the previous week when I got a bit ill several blocks from home. I thought walking would heal me but it made it worse. I ended up at Buckhorn Exchange, the place with all the dead animals all over the walls and ceilings, and the woman told me that they had just stopped serving lunch but I could have lunch upstairs. The stairs are tight, old wooden staircase, multi-level, and dauntingly steep. I demonstrated to the guy my unsteadiness, hanging onto the railing and looking upward, speaking confidently but showing physical weakness, "Oh good. I can do that. Sure. Yes. I can do that. I always wanted to go up there." Then swing around on the pole with knees buckling while holding a steady gaze upward as if determined to boldly face the challenge of the stairs. "Uh, er, maybe it's best if you stay down here. I'll have the cook stay for you." This is where the guy cracked up laughing, it really was ridiculous. I left an extra $20.00 tip for the cook because I could tell he was pissed off by having to serve a late customer. "WHAT?" I heard him bitching back there in the kitchen. And all I had was a bowl of bean soup.

They make very good bean soup. Here's the recipe. Know what's weird? When you approach the place you can smell grilled meat for blocks around. Weird meat. Buffalo, alligator, lamb, pheasant, stuff like that. Then their recipe calls for liquid smoke (!) You should try it. I bought a bottle of Liquid Smoke just for these beans.

Then I told the guy, "I've seen every music festival they've had from up here. It's the best view." And a woman I who I don't know, never saw, overheard that and she turned around and actually said directly to me, "Well maybe you should leave so others can see it." As if their seeing depended on me leaving. She is beautiful. Thin as a rail, well dressed, blond. Pale. Very young. And I looked at her and I said, "How rude!" (Skinny little bitch) Then she turned back around and danced. She pressed her back against my back to irritate me and to make me feel uncomfortable and unnecessarily crowded. But the thing is, she's so light, so weightless, she was like a feather tickling my back. Actually kind of pleasant. Intrusion fail.

I liked it.

I related this to management, friends of mine, and boom, no more visitors up there for music festival. I didn't intend that. The same with parking. We have the best parking around. But, NO PARKING FOR YOU! We're extremely jealous of our parking. We actually pay people to hang around waiting for infraction then have cars towed off. Both downstairs inside the garage and upper level, the roof of the garage. You'll see in my photos available parking just wasted. The best of all possible parking. Wasted.

This is the size of the crowd compacted close to the stage near the end of the show. The stage cannot be seen from my apartment. I'm dead center of the inside of a U-shaped building, the bottom of the U, middle of the stack of floors. This view is just around the corner. A side of the U blocks the view. My view is the opposite end of this crowd, not shown in this photo, the crowd thins out farther away from the stage, where food and drinks are. Our building is in the middle of the block, this is the end of the block. Underneath the railing that's showing, the alley is blocked off for equipment trucks. There is another similar stage two short blocks down the hill. At times from my apartment the sounds were like dueling concerts. There are three more venues (I think), possibly four, across the street in front of our building, inside local clubs. These clubs attract huge crowds. 

You can tell when the concert is winding down when they play brief covers of familiar melodies, such as they do at sports arenas. The band plays just a few bars and the crowd sings along, or hums, or makes the appropriate noise in tune. They played the familiar opening of Seven Nation Army and the entire crowd goes, "dah-dah-DAH-duh-dah Dah-Dah." repeatedly. But then the band never sang the whole song. And it's a cool song to. The whole point was to get the crowd to participate the familiar opening. 

And I must say, the crowd sounds great singing that too. They have very good voices and fine senses of tune.

I'm gonna FIGHT em all.

A seven nation army couldn't hold me back. 

They're gonna rip it off

Taking their time right behind my back.

Back rhymes with back. How clever.

There are a couple of more songs that they do this crowd-participation in familiar melody thing, minus the complete song. And it works. Everyone knows they're nearing the end of the festival.

Ah, young people. I love you so much. Your energy to burn is attractive. All good clean fun. Then it's back to work for you. Blowing off steam in like-minded crowds. 

This is practice. This self-aggregation. Self-collecting based on vibes. This is the lower, slower energy analog to a higher, faster energy reality. This is the shadow of angelic corps. And while here, every bit as fascinating. 

I can smell hotdogs.

That top balcony has smaller version of the Big Green Egg. And those cannot be used here. Neither can the grill on the balcony below it.  I'm giving mine away tomorrow. The guys were stunned that I offered it. They tried to convince me to sell it. That's how conservative they are, in practice. But honestly, having it in the place that I want it to be means more to me than the cash from a sale. It's like new. It's value is about $500.00. It's a very good gift.

This is the wasted parking. These people drifted in via the breezeway. Bottom left is the roll-up door for the garage. Push a button on our key fob and voop, the door opens fast as a Star Trek door except a lot bigger. So all that available parking underneath is wasted too. They could have made a small fortune renting the space for a day.

Notice how thin everyone is. This right here is proof that statistics on American obesity are bogus. I don't know how they collect their information, but however they do, their studies are deeply flawed. Young Americans are not fat.