the planets are lining up and we're all excited

well, okay, i'm excited. i've been checking 'em out every night that it is clear, trying to figure out which one is saturn, which one is jupiter. (venus is easy -- it's the brightest). but, after the last few days i wonder if they are stacking up against us. my co-op mate ryan smashed his hand into the rocks while surfing on sunday, fracturing his hand. i've tweeked my neck and cannot beat a funk that has seemed to envelop me. *everyone* at work is grumpy.

last night six of us ventured out to the performing arts center to see lucinda williams. i'd been so excited. and despite my funk i really put effort into pulling myself out of the doldrums for the show. lucinda has been a downright inspiration to me... to write and sing. and not worry about the complexity of the song or how my voice sounds. (don't read that wrong: lucinda sings with amazing emotion and her song lyrics are stellar.... it's just that she can take an everyday thing and turn it into the everyman's anthem and that is amazing).

anyhow, the concert almost sucked. she hated us. the crowd. it wasn't really our fault. she'd spent the last three nights playing the filmore in the city. how can my little whiteybread squeekyclean town compete with that? we all heard her from the stage, her back turned to us, away from the mic, drinking something from a red plastic fratparty cup say to one of the guitarists "no alcohol, no cigarettes...." then, after an hour of playing she finally talked to the audience saying "i don't know what it is, but this is the lowest energy; i feel like i'm up here just going [mimes guitar strumm movement]. i hope you come and see us sometime in a bar."

we rallied. the whole place. jumped to its feet. wanting to please her. but, truly it was too late. she didn't put the effort in to get us going in the beginning, we didn't have the momentum to pick it up on our own. too bad.

meanwhile, it was still great to see her live. her two guitarists were a.ma.zing. they are guitar gods. and i don't even know what their names are. one played lowslung and bittersweet. his solos broke my heart. the other played regular electric guitar and the pedal steel and seemed to want to address the crowd. he was more of the heart of the show than lucinda. my favorite is when they played to each other. i think i got a little weak-kneed on that one.

i'm behind on my poem for each april day. can i blame those line-dancing planets? rzzl frzzl.

m.