Highs and Lows and

I'm getting drunk tonight. I caught my Dublin boys on Tuesday night and the show rocked the house. Sure made up for the, to quote Bruce, wreck on the highway that was the April show. Lefty drove up (read his review tomorrow) and my dear, dear friends, Shelley and Neil (who I have a nearly fifteen-year history of catching the band with) sat next to me. The band was in rare form, plowing through a nearly-identical setlist as the first show but an energy level that was truly a third-leg-of-the-tour treat for us fans. I especially loved I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and With Or Without You, two songs omitted from the first show. The Edge was on fire, smiling (!) to the crowd and showing us how in the mood he was. If I never see this band again (a band that introduced me to the intoxicating power of rock and roll through The Joshua Tree in April of 1987 and my first concert), I can say that I caught them four times and the last time was one for the record books.
Then there's Night Two, the night I missed:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
Gloria
Still Haven’t Found
Beautiful Day
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo

Pride in the Name of Love
Where the Streets have No Name
One

First Time
Stuck in a Moment
With or Without You

All Because of You
Fast Cars
Bad


and suddenly I realized that God hates me. No, not really, but Gloria, Stuck and BAD!!!????? What did I do wrong to not be able to hear Bad? The finale of the concert? I would have been in tears probably catching that indelible guitar of The Edge's. Does anyone have a copy of the show yet?

Let's talk politics, since I'm still smiling after watching Arnie get his derriere wiped by a vast majority of voters who showed that he stands for NOTHING we want (remember, ladies and gentlemen, that more often than naught, in off-year- and special elections, the majority of voters are conservative!). All eight power-grab initiatives failed, showing the Golden State that voters wish, if for nothing else, that Arnie stop this lone cowboy I'm a political novice but know what I'm doing hubris. Governator, stop and look East, watch Curious George and STOP TAKING NOTES, IT ISN'T HELPING. A nation-wide study will show us that (at least for this month), people are sick and tired of the crap delivered to us on silver platters by the GOP and conservatives who seek for this country to only favor them and no one else. Now, before I start playing my John Lennon records and lighting the incense, there were some major negative aspects of the election:

Voters in Kansas still believe what the majority of people did in the 16th century did, that God created the world in six days and let the devil use the fossil record to confuse people into believing evolution. Speaking of, check this out. Leave it to Pat Robertson, the guy who supported Jerry Falwell's claims that 9/11 was brought on the U.S. by "pornographers, feminists and homesexuals" among others who turned away from God. Now, considering I claim to be a follower of the same God this clod claims to believe, I'm truly embarrassed to be associated with him (we're both Americans, after all), and I hope that Heaven, if it exists, is truly as vast as the Bible claims, because I'd probably kick the guy right in his angelic nutsack if I ever crossed his path. Can a dead guy get booted from Heaven? Thankfully it's never been recorded in the Bible, and since the only way God communicates to people is through a series of stories that were written down hundreds of years after the peole who experienced them actually lived, I should be in good shape, unless Pat tells on me that I think he's an asswipe for thinking that a creation story is to be taken literally, though he probably still takes his aspirin when his head hurts and his other medication for his ailments instead of praying for the demons to be purged from his soul. Now, by Pat's line of thinking, because there is a such thing as universal truth (or, at least universal lines of logic and analogy), that God really hates the southeastern United States. Since Pat-logic (an oxymoron if I ever heard of one) works everywhere, here's what I'm thinking: God also hates southern Republicans and the Bush family. God kicked Jeb's ass with Hurricane Wilma and forced the governor to take responsiblity; God made Georgie look like the buffoon that he is (not that tough, though), make most GOP Congresspeople look stupid with their public quotes of indifference and ineptitude, and show just how much He hates the Saints. That said, God hates people of Indiana (another Red State), Pakistan, all of South Asia (remember the tidal wave?), the Bay Area (earthquakes), the inhabitants of Pompeii, wooly mamoths, dinosaurs, neandertals, the Dodo, spotted owls and members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band. Or, like rational people, we can see that sometimes natural and accidental events bring about results that we don't like. How can we understand or claim that anything is divinely inspired? If that's the case, then God hates Arnold Schwarzenegger and the GOP (at least until the spin angels take flight) and wants them to shut up.

Thanks for reading my sermon. I just want to call Lefty out on the carpet (to see if he's still reading this damned post) by asking him just what makes him think he has any clue about popular music: Meeting Across the River is not a good song? Born To Run has clunkers? Don't you own Go-Go's music?