Every so often, I get a truly nice day. Started with work. Work, in and of itself, isn’t exciting, but hand-crafting horoscopes, fishing for metaphors, trying to make something that is both useful and amusing, that’s a challenge. Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, one of those guys [it’s too hard to do this off the top of my head with using my reference files and books> suggested, and I’m adlibbing this one, “There is no greater joy than the weight of the pen.” Quill, maybe. At 3 AM, I’m too fried to look it up. So I crafted up a set of scopes I was happy with, then I took off to meet my favorite Famous Poet for a cup of coffee in the brilliant afternoon sunshine. At her behest, we did a short stroll from Jo’s down to the Lamar Bridge, and back again.
Back at the trailer. Answer e-mail. Bubba calls, “Hey, I was thinking about working out, but you know, I feel like drinking instead….” He promised, some weeks ago, a ticket to see Fat Boy Slim. I tend to regard promises like this as “etched in sand” rather than engraved in stone because of the vagaries of Bubba World. It’s not a problem; I just don’t get my expectations up. Always have a Plan B. We started at Guero’s, and we tried to sit outside, but the north wind made that uncomfortably cool. I wandered off to use the toilet, and when I came back, Bubba motioned me towards a table with a couple sitting there. I just figured they were friends, or something. Nope, folks he’d never met before. A pair. A pair of Virgo’s, no less. Which then launched us into a Virgo routine. Folks wound up joining us for dinner when we finally got table, after almost an hour’s wait. I’m not sure they were that entertained, but me and Bubba? We were. Had a good time. They were off to see Blues Traveler, and we were off to the Austin Music Hall.
We discussed the problems with parking, how cold it was, the fact that he didn’t have jacket, and where to park. Instead of taking “first available,” and walking several block, he pulled into the VIP parking. Helps to have friends in high places. Or low places. Waved through the door. Security wasn’t looking for weapons; they were searching for glow sticks and other “Raver” paraphernalia. Nope, not on me. Just cell phone and beeper.
The warm up DJ was mixing, but it wasn’t all that great, not to me. I wasn’t super impressed. Had to sit through about 45 minutes of this “thump thump thump” music. As Norman Cook [Fat Boy Slim> took the stage, though, the crowd downstairs started to cheer. Place was packed. Did I mention that, yes, Bubba did come through with some VIP passes? Boy’s got the hook-up, that’s for sure.
What’s amazed me about Fat Boy Slim’s music is the inherent humor with the mix. There’s sense of whimsy, a sense of not taking himself too serious – something that surely appeals to me. Plus, he likes to have fun when he’s spinning. Took me back to time, long ago, a place shrouded in my personal mythology, back when I operated a place with twin turntables.
“Hey man, __Rolling Stone__ is supposed to be here to cover this concert.”
Fat Boy Slim. Norman Cook. As Bubba so aptly pointed out, “of all the folks here, you can bet he’s having the most fun.” After watching the gyrations, Bubba added another timely comment, “Some us belong on one side of the turntable or the other side – he can’t dance.”
Didn’t stop it from being a really excellent show. Opened with an old favorite, “Clown to the left of me, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with you….” The humor was not lost on some of us, from our vantage point, in the VIP rafters, there he was, stuck in the middle of the Music Hall’s floor. He slipped in some old Boston, and that got me wondering about his age. The rest of the set? If you like his music, especially “Half way from the gutter to the stars,” then you’d both understand and appreciate the live versions. Worth every penny is cost me.
Posted at 0300, 3/22/2002
