Today I'm taking BART to San Francisco to the ukulele rebellion! Got
one ukulele, backpack with the Daily Ukulele Leap Year Edition and miscellaneous songsheets, along with a table-top music stand. I'm all ready to go! It's a beautiful day!
Yesterday it was 70 at the beach in Santa Cruz where I played ukes with 100
plus people! Lots of people wearing 49ers red today headed for the city! Go San
Francisco 49ers!
Riding muni in San Francisco never ceases to be a trippy
experience with the most eclectic people imaginable! Two young boys wearing those
gangsta pants falling off them fought over a piece of Ghirardelli chocolate
squares! Then they left a huge bag of those squares sitting on the seat and got
off the bus! This older lady moves to seat next to large bag of precious
chocolate and swoops on it and bah disappears. Older white haired guy with
southern accent goes on and on about how those gangsta boys with the chocolate
are doomed and probably live in the streets and how they have bad parents, oh
brother gimme a break I think. They're teenage boys. I smiled as I'm sure many
people thought me and my friends and bro and sis were hoodlums running amuck
all over San Francisco! As my childhood friend Barry Hirrell said, "We were the terrors of MUNI!" :)
Young people board..a group looking for a bar in the Haight Ashbury to watch the game. Very nice Indian family with cute kids sit
next to me okay time to get off. I'm at Divasadero and Haight! Uke rebellion
here I come!
Some of my friends from the Sacramento Uke Group had drivend down -- Dave and Sue! It was really good to see them.
 |
| Me and Sue! |
 |
| Dave plays my Nalu (which ironically I won at a raffle at the Strum Shop in Roseville last June! |
 |
| I'm playing Dave's AWESOME red Bill TAPIA Ukulele! Lovin' it! |
Around 25 people showed up at the Oakside Cafe that beautiful sunny San Francisco afternoon...Mark S. gave us constant updates on the 49ers game -- they were losing majorly in the first half but brought it back in the end and WON! We were convinced it was because we played Somewhere Over the Rainbow on our Ukes for them!
After the jam, I walked over to Dean's house with Steve and Dean -- where we usually jammed some more on ukuleles...and Dean was watching the recap of the epic football game. I knew that Jefferson Starship (members of them anyway) were going to be doing
ALL of Surrealistic Pillow (classic 60s Jefferson airplane album, one of my
all-time FAVES…defining 60’s rock n roll)… at this funky little club called the
Razz near Geary and Van Ness. My friends Steve and Dean didn’t want to go (it
cost like $40 which is kind of spendy, especially for me right now since I was
pretty much down to my last 50 bucks!). So I figured I wouldn’t go. While I was
at Dean’s house on Baker and Grove, his good friend Dave showed up and we continued to watch the recap of that amazing 49ers game where they were losing and then
they got it back! Dave played guitar and had showed up at one of the Uke Rebellions.
At about
6:30pm, a half hour before that Starship show was supposed to happen, I told Dave
about the show and he yelled, “Oh my God, I have to go!!!! Surrealistic
Pillow!” So Dean suggested me and Dave go (I don’t know him too well but Dean
does). But we didn’t have a car to get to Geary and Van Ness as I took BART and
he rode his bike over… so we had to catch a bus to make the show. Dave started
RUNNING up Baker Street yelling, “We gotta hurry to catch the 38 Geary Bus!” I
did my best to follow him really I did. I ran too, UP HILL>..he was sooo
crazy because if we had just gone down to Divasadero a couple of blocks further
east, we would not have hit all those HILLS!!!
This Dave dude kept running and yelling lyrics to songs
from Surrealistic Pillow! I thought for sure I was going to die of a heart
attack following him realizing just how out of shape I am – and he even said he
was going slow for my sake and had a bad knee…GIMME AN EFFING BREAK!!! So
anyway, he kept running and I kept going, but I slowed down…I just couldn’t
keep up the speed. No way! I thought for sure someone would find me lying on
the cement passed out…but somehow I kept going. He made a right and I went
straight and I LOST him! He did not wait for me! He said later he yelled for
me, but like he just wanted to get to the show! So I managed to figure out
where I was and walked (half ran) AN ADDITIONAL four blocks after about 3
quarters of a mile uphill…but at least this was flat. I JUST missed the 38
Geary bus…it was awful. Then me and this lady started walking down Geary hoping
to make headway to Van Ness where she was going and we missed ANOTHER bus cuz
we couldn’t run fast enough to get to the next stop! I was pretty distraught
and defeated and should have given up, but I did not. I flagged down an out of
service bus and I begged the driver to get us to Van Ness and he DID IT just
for us! Yaaayy for the nice bus driver! This is TOTAL OLD SCHOOL San Francisco
stuff!
So I got to the venue but it was a movie theater 1000 Van
Ness…and finally found out that the club (the Razz which just reopened) was
upstairs…you have to go up all these marble steps but you don’t see them when
you walk in…I RAN up those steps – on PURE ADRENALIN and walked into the night
club. THE opening band was playing but not Starship yet! I was hyper
ventilating as I tried to explain to this usher dude or whomever he was that I
had run a long ways just to get to this show and please let me in…and he did! I
did have to get a ticket though. I pretty much gave him the last of my money
leaving only enough to get home on (this is so old school and nutty, I can’t believe
it). And he gave me one of the best seats in the house right by the stage,
crammed in with all these people dressed up in night club attire…but this was a
60’s show…what the heck? I was fully in tie-dye as I normally am on the
weekends…I must’ve looked like a crazy hippie chick or something…
The show WAS AMAZING!!! It was worth every single penny
and today is pay day too. I caught up with the guy who left me – he saw me and
even managed to find him a seat close to mine. I even watched his stuff while
he went outside to smoke a bowl on the break politely refusing to smoke one
myself (those days for me are over now…been that way for quite a few years!!
Hehe!)… the sound quality was perfect and I felt like I was a part of San
Francisco history!
Turns out that crazy dude I was following is an attorney!
I kid you NOT! At first I thought he was BSing me, but after he talked about it
for a few moments, I realized it was the truth…I can tell. I work for lawyers
and have been for many many years. He even knew my role in the office and had
it all down. He’s a litigator from New York… Wow!
We stopped to eat at Tommy's Joint right across the street which brought back a major flood of memories because my Dad used to take us there all the time -- it's an old-school hof brau place. I could only afford a turkey sandwich on rye with no mayo -- no side-stuff, and water. I didn't want the dude I was with to know how crazy I was to go to this concert or how broke I am.
We had to trek pretty fast down Van Ness all the way to Market to catch a bus back to Dean's house because I left my backpack and my ukulele there, and I was worried because BART stops running at midnight. I was very relieved to see that Steve had waited, he hadn't left without me as I figured he most likely would. That meant I didn't have to take BART alone and Dean managed to borrow his wife's car (it was gone earlier) and get us to the Civic Center Station just in time to catch the last BART train out of town!
I was thinking, as I relayed the story to Steve who couldn't stop laughing -- I
DON’T RUN! I actually tell people I don’t run…and I don’t! but I sure did on
Sunday night…it was TOO MUCH of course, way more than what I should’ve
done…pushing beyond all physical limits – beyond what I felt I was even CAPABLE
of doing or handling. Would I do this every day? HECK NO!!! but the lesson here
is that we are capable of more than we think we are!
Today was major back to reality! :) still recovering from
wild 60's rock n' roll adventure in San Francisco Sunday evening, and musical
adventures which began on a beautiful Saturday morning at the beach in Santa
Cruz playing ukulele with at least 100 other people...got to see Mike Sult and
the Scotty Griffin Trio Saturday evening, what a treat that was! Sunday, well
what can I say about Sunday? From Uke Rebellion to the groovy Jefferson
Starfish playing Surrealistic Pillow! Monday I got to play ukes with my rockin'
uke chick friends and the Silicon Valley Uke Gang..Made it to the last half
hour of Aqua Aerobics this morning...would've left earlier but Baby J woke up
and wanted me to hold him...and well, what's a Grandma to do? No matter where I
go or what I do or how many adventures I have, I never forget...
No comments:
Post a Comment