Last Thursday, Dad's friend Chris arrived from Ann Arbor Michigan to stay with us for a week. It is now Thursday again, and he left about two hours ago. I have acquired several things as a direct result of his visit.

a) I now know how to juggle fairly well
b) I have a guitar (given to me by Chris)
c) I feel as if I have gained several IQ points just from being in his presence

He is one of my father's best friends. I have been looking forward to meeting him for a while now and was glad to get to meet him. Because of the possibility of nuclear fallout this summer, Chris might not have come, but the testing was postponed indefinitely. Hopefully, I can leave this accursed hellhole (Utah) before they decide to unearth several trillion molecules of nuclear waste into the atmosphere.

Anyway, I am so glad that Chris was able to get out here. He has a pink Volvo convertible, but he took the train out here, as the car might not have made it.

Just an aside: he has a very cool voice. It is off-key most of the time, but I really enjoy listening to it. He has exercised his vocal chords enough that he is a good singer. By definition, he wouldn't be a good singer, but he is past that to the point that I could sit and listen to him sing all day because I truly enjoy his voice. It's very odd.......

Right now, I'm missing Ann Arbor like crazy. Talking to Chris about names, places, streets and events that we both knew about was great. I haven't talked to anyone who has been to my hometown since I moved to Utah, and it was such a relief to reminisce about beautiful, green Ann Arbor with someone who knows the place like the back of his hands.

HippieKid

There are two major contributors to this particular blog entry. The first is an inordinate ammount of Billy Joel, and the second is Radio Paradise. RP is a lovely little radio station where I can bask in the glory of an amazingly eclectic repitoire of my favorite songs, artists, and types of music. On this website, there is a forum called "What was the first concert that you ever went to?" I wrote about my first concert, which was Barenaked Ladies in 2000 on Y2K day. It was amazing. I had the privelege of riding in a limo to and from that show, and for a nine-year old kid, that's some pretty high-end entertainment.

After posting, I went back and read some of the other posts from other users, and I suddenly realized how young I am. I am sixteen years old, and I am hanging out with a bunch of people who were my age in 1970. I read their forum posts, and familiar names jumped out at me. I recognized Tom Petty, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Eric Clapton, B. B. King, The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, etc, and I felt very sad. I realized that I was born four decades too late to actively be involved in things like the original Woodstock, war protests, and Timothy Leary (lol). I am too late to watch some of my favorite music being born into the world, because much of it has been dead and gone for more than 10 years. Some of the artists are still around, but they have either become so drug-addled (Ozzy, Elton John), or they have completely stopped performing. Robert Plant is still wandering around somewhere, but the Grateful Dead will never be the same without Jerry Garcia. That was where the downhill spiral began, anyway. I will never see Jimi Hendrix in concert because he's DEAD. That also applies to John Lennon. They both died before I was even the remotest chance of a possibility.

I wanted to weep, right there as I was reading that forum. i wanted to put my head in my hands and cry for my loss. I feel like some poor, lost time-traveler in this generation of skanky rap music, low to nonexistant integrity, and iPods. iPods are interesting enough, but I would give them up in a New York minute (less, actually) if I could somehow bring back the energy and peace that the sixties and seventies communicate to me.

The closest thing that I have found to a bunch of hippies that are somewhat close to my age are all in Michigan, going to Rainbow Picnics and traveling from far and wide to go to the Gathering every year. The feeling that permeated those picnics was absolutely amazing. Everyone was so respectful towards everyone else; it was person to person. Also, everything was everyone's. We ate off the same plates, the older hippies passed a joint around a circle of 20 some-odd people in it. I watched all of this in awe. I had found this culture where the men and women, black and white, old and young, treated eachother with love instead of hate, respect instead of bland, cold tolerance, and I was home.

I suppose, more even than Ann Arbor, that is where my home is. Those people, those that I have met, those that I will meet in the years to come, and those that I will never meet, hold my heart. Someday, I will go home.

First, though, I am going to buy a short bus and paint it.