Hey, this is great. I'm in.

It seems right before I was locked out, the last thing I wanted to post about was my unused tickets for the Oct. 14 concert at the Venetian some years back. I can't believe I didn't go. It must have been work, as I'm not remembering, so I must have been really stressed.

Anyway, with world events, I'm wondering which would be better: to risk being quarantined, adrift at sea on the same boat as my big hero, being quarantined, adrift at sea on the boat from which my big hero helicoptered-off and unable to attend any land concerts, or skipping the cruise to make sure I get to the land concerts only to find my big hero is quarantined?

Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway (I should learn a new conjuctive adverb. It would really help with my writing.), if the webmaster looks kindly enough upon me to allow me in this site, I should use my privilege to make the world a better place, right? I shall retreat and try to find something lovely, good, praiseworthy, or of good report.

I hope Mr. Justin is well.

So, one thing or another led to looking up photographs of Kölner Dom, so amazingly beautiful by night even under construction. I recalled the bridge with all the locks, and the quietude, the balmy air, and the tranquil nightlife on the steps beside the Rhine. Also, I flashed back to the rich aqua walls and a fight over a plectrum.

I thought of München by night. It was such an artistic city. I'm recalling being lost and freaked out to look up and see a street sign that said, "Heilig Geist," one of the few things I managed to remember from my German lessons. The flowers were so fragrant.

But it was Frankfurt that really got to me. I'd been reading articles recommended by the church on surfing disaster, and one said, "Don't shrink." Then, I was looking at these videos about backstage at the Alte Oper. I would kick myself if I weren't so lazy.

Did I ever tell about Frankfurt? I stayed at an Airbnb. I couldn't get my phone to work with the German SIM card, but didn't realize it until I got off the train and tried to make contact with the person who was supposed to meet me. I had to get scrubbed up for the show. I was panicked. I prayed desperately and recalled a time I had to find a dude for a tri-partisan Constitutional debate I was organizing for the local university. We needed to get a sponsor from a student group, and we found a willing participant in the campus Communist Party. It was odd bedfellows, but oh, well. So, I had to get in touch with the dude, whose name was Costa. I got his phone number, and his roommate answered and said he was at the Communist rally downtown. So, off I went. It was a huge crowd. I prayed to be led to somebody who looked so undeniably like a Costa. Within a second, there he was, dark, longish, styled curly hair and an Outback jacket. "Are you Costa?" Of course it was, and the rest was history.

In a similar predicament, I made a similar request, and there was my guy. He led me to the Airbnb, which was fabulous. In an hour or two, I was back on the streets. I wasn't sure where to get off, and I was too timid to ask. A young couple had been on the train across from me. I counted the piercings on the closest side of the dude's face, but have long since forgotten. The girl had her hair half pink and torn fishnet stockings or some such getup. They spoke very good English and were most hospitable. They explained some of the trains were down, and they would get off with me and walk me to my destination. They invited me to sit with them, and I said, "How do you do, fellow kids?" like in the meme. They seemed to get it. The rest of the night was transcendent.

So, here I sit in indefinite semi-quarantine thinking, "Wow. If I hadn't been such a jerk, if I hadn't posted such outrageous garbage online as I'm doing now - maybe I could pick up the phone and ask, 'Hey, Justin! What's happening in Monaco?'" Instead, I'm happy enough to have a three-month supply of minced garlic and looking forward to peanut butter and jelly pancakes. Yum.

I've been running a fever and having commensurate dreams. Sunday (in the daytime because I couldn't stay awake), I dreamed I had gotten into my car and these two guys who were following came up, one through the driver-side window, and the other through the hatch, and they started making threats about the $13,999 I owed. The mayor, who I never thought thought much of me, rushed to my rescue, and through the passenger-side window, yelled at me to, "Get out, now!" I was worried I might hurt her, but I obeyed and just stepped on the gas. I had to catch up with her to find out what was going on, so I suggested we walk along the beach. We got to the beach, and, I like to climb, so I hit the sand before she did. She went through the checkpoint and had to take her shoes off and all. When we got together, the water was all barricaded off. I should have known. So, I asked if she wanted to make mud pies, and she agreed. We were digging in the wet sand, and I came across something hard and round about the size of a pizza cardboard, and I was thinking I was going to make her the most beautiful mud pie. It is still very vivid.

Last night, was quite different. Justin had arrived. I don't recall where we were. He was the presenter in a concert/lecture/not-sure-what. We were in a classroom at student desks. Well, I was actually sitting on the floor between the rows for part of it. I remember looking into his beautiful eyes and remembering how much soul he always has had. I was complete. After he sang, I took a seat in the front row right in front of him. His bodyguard, who wasn't Udo, then bought him a stack of stuff. I remember seeing a book and a lot of the color lavender. He then started going through it. First, were some pearls from his mother. It was a cheap-looking chain, to be honest, with maybe only 9 pearls and about as much metal as pearl. It looked broken. He put it on my desk, and I held on to it, as it was very valuable. He brought out some other things, and I realized he was going to auction off what few valuable possessions he had to pay for this tour. I had to help because I wanted to see him again, but I only had about $100 left in my bank account. Another item was a "rose pillow" in a hat box. I don't think I know what a rose pillow is, but that is what it was called. There was an intermission, and I was clinging to the pearls and something else he had placed on my desk, but which I don't recall. We returned to the room, and he was gone. We couldn't find him. We searched and asked around, and one lady, who likely was pretending to know more than she did, said his performance was atypical because he didn't do some bureaucratic thing everybody else was doing. Her messages to me was never to leave the room again during intermission. I was later trying to reconstruct another thing he had had. It was like a cake with lavender icing lilies, but Walmart only had cakes of the red and yellow variety. I had to get Justin's things back to him. I was later thinking maybe I was supposed to pass them around the room instead of clutching them.

I woke up feeling good like I do after Justin appears in a dream. There's something very settling to it. But then, I got all nervous because some people are talking like we'll be going around in masks forever and never congregating. Then, I had peace thinking about the "flatten-the-curve" comments, that it is only to make sure hospitals don't go overcapacity, and then thought we might go back to a world with concerts after all.

May whoever reads this send Justin my love.

I just thought I'd stop by. I'm listening to Sirius, Deep Tracks, Ch. 290 right now. As I went through the rigmarole to get there, "The Day We Meet Again" came on, and is now playing. I need a better poet than myself to express the emotion.

So, I did get into Sirius. I took the free trial through the end of the month. It's a great marketing program, though I am seldom a friend of marketing. I got to listen to Justin twice, and it was nice just hearing his voice. I liked the part about maybe he'll do it again sometime. I also keep Sirius running, and this is I think the fourth Moodies song I've heard since. Nobody else is playing them anymore, it seems, this computer isn't that good for listening to music, and the phone has a mind of its own. I did fidget with the sound on Sirius and the overall sound and found a good balance by raising the volume on Sirius, which I assumed might be better designed to listen to music, and lowering the master volume. Things are listenable, now, but that track still went dead in "Dawning Is the Day" for awhile. The same happened on the last computer.

So, it's nice to know Justin is well enough to do a program with so much sickness about the globe. I had some dreams about socially-distanced concerts. After the last one, after about a day of puzzling, and reading about venues only selling non-VIP tickets at the door, I realized we could do concerts and went ahead and bought some tix. I do hope this tour will happen.

Back to the new music, since "One Summer Day" started replaying in my brain of its own accord, I realized it is so much like "Hope and Pray," lyrically and musically. I thought more about the rhythm, too, how it's kind of a soft rumba. Not up on my Latin rhythms, or any rhythms at all, I had to squelch Sirius after Justin finished and watch Egils Smagris. I now conclude it is more like a soft tango, but it's some form of gentle Latino I'm hearing, for what it's worth.

Okay, I must return to moving numbers around and seeking business news. Oh, to be an artist in this beautiful world instead.

XO

Life without Justin is pretty blah. One goes through the motions. Among the very stupid things I did lately is I received a Google alert about Justin with Mike Dawes doing a concert in Ponte Vedra with some dude of whom I've never heard. I had a moment of fan anxiety and had to buy a ticket. Ticketmaster said my password was no good, so I had to reset it. Doing that, I had to wait for Ticketmaster to email me so I could proceed, but the email didn't come. I tried again. I got an alert that tickets were going fast. So, I tried to go directly to the venue, went instead to an aftermarket website, bought a non-refundable ticket for four times as much ... Hopefully, I'm the only person so stupid, otherwise that dude is going to be playing to an empty venue (speaking in hyperbole, of course).

What else? My hair is now shorter than Justin's. What else can one do these days except give oneself a quarantine haircut, right? The idea is it will grow out before anybody has to see me. I now return to my Dadaist world of meaninglessness.

Nobody else is rambling around in here, but I'm back, grasping for some form of connection to the life I once knew, to speak in the abstract.

I quite enjoyed the interview by Nancy Berk. She seemed a tad fawning, but she's a shrink, right? We all would love to be "the one" in a Justin song. I loved what Justin said about that time when somebody knew they were the one mentioned in one or more songs. The apparent anachronism restores faith in the case for metaphysical (but not really) knowledge, restoring meaning to life - for me, anyway. It was nice to hear. I love how Justin thinks.

I also found liberating what he said about programs in which anybody gets hurt not being for him. I used to be that way. Then, I felt I was getting stupid, because I avoided all TV and all written materials with injury except the Bible, and I would get depressed every time I read the Old Testament. So, I decided to expand my horizions. I'm interested in protecting myself against mental coercion, and I wish I were better at seeing through manipulation. So, I got some books on the Soviet Union, but I got that same, dull-knife headache every time I read about incidents. I'm also interested in "informal economies," trying to find out what percentage of all transactions are on the record. We hear so much about organized crime, and yet government leaders make policies as if it doesn't exist. The world will probably never know, but, even though so little is written on the subject, most of it is filled with, well, crime.

Then, I don't like fiction even though people say it is truer than nonfiction. I don't like Barnes & Noble books that are like, "I'm a Republican woman. And being a Republican woman is so much more than being a Republican woman. It's being a woman that's a Repubican. Believe in yourself!" Then, going more scholastic, I tend to pick up the books that are written by people trying too hard to find a niche of untouched scholarly content, publishing instead of perishing, and thus dissecting in ignorant detail what "is" really "is." To that, we add, "or is not," because the negative also exists with the positive, and thus it becomes a question of exactly what percentage of "is" is "is," and if, possible, there is a domain in which "is" is neither "is" or "is not." So, maybe now that we're quarantining my next batch of books will just be botanical field guides.

I pushed my Soviet books aside and went back to Valentinus. It has been difficult to read those books, as I flashback to Laguna Niguel and trains going through England, as they were my vacation reading. I'll come across a name or something, and I'm back on the train, the purple flowers whizzing by, then, in my mind, I'm hanging out by a dumpster somewhere, as Udo put it, waiting for a memory I can't forget and, well, here I am back in this lonely message board.

It was good to hear from Justin and to know he's well. I'm up for a social-distanced tour in masks, myself.

The thought of concerts actually returning in may almost restarted my heart. I hope we won't have to quarantine for weeks just to go out of state to hear one show, or have to get shots or whatever. I can deal with the masks and sitting six feet apart, though, as long as nobody gets sick.

I was sad that the "canned" pandemic performances came to an end. I'm just a people person, and I find the one-sided an-interaction of watching somebody obsessively on mass media when the celebrity has no clue about the existence of the obsessing one just weird. Still, I really loved the on on "The Swallow." It brought back good memories, from concerts in general and back from the 'Strange Times' era, a time so full of wonderment, it's too heavy to bear, it seems. Also, a part of me is still anchored in the last Southern California tour. 'Twas a strange time, indeed, but in good ways. Then, I could even find happiness in the Tundra Tour, lots.

I've been whiling away the pandemic hours reading up on 1st- and 2nd-century heterodox Christian beliefs. Why? It goes back to my love of the Book of John. It's so otherworldly delicious. It is emotionally transformative, and I can't say why. However, if we are to believe the Good Book, as most Christians profess they do, and John says the "things" Jesus did, if written, could not be contained in all the world. It blows my mind to think what it was like in the days of Jesus, all the miracles, healings, words of amazing truth that prophets were forbidden to write. Transfigurations, resurrections, who knows what all - and then, within 200 years, it all went away. People started making hybrids of pagan gods and Christianity, and I don't ever recall Jesus talking about the hierarchy of pomp and circumstance that became orthodox. I was hoping to find maybe some little group of hippies in antiquity carried on the true gospel, and even considered pursuing perhaps a master's thesis on the relationship of Jesus to early Christians, because I was having problems finding much.

It helps to find a good author, and when I did, I read him straight through and found another girl who, while genuinely having had spiritual experiences, tries to force them into academic jargon to the point I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Even so, it has been great reading about the "experiences" of people down through history related by people who probably know what they're talking about to one degree or another. The fun thing is, every couple of pages, I'll run into some lyrics from a Justin/Moodies song and have to stop to play it through my mind. I think they call that ADD, but it's all good.

Well, if anybody out there sees Justin, do tell him hello and wish him well from me, for what it's worth. I don't come here much, because people don't answer. It's just me knocking around like that hairpin picked up in the vacuum.

Until next time, if there is a next time, I leave anybody with the great tweet from David Crosby:

Somehow I want you all to feel good ...I know times have been very hard ...for everybody ....I don’t know anyone who is not afraid of this but .....try to smile and love people around you ...we all need it badly now ...it WILL get better

Is anybody out there? It's 2021 already. I've been enjoying parts of the tour, but I just don't seem to have any emotion left. I guess that's OK, but I feel rather creepy sometimes. I listen to the music and fall into a trance where there is none to hurt or make afraid. All is love and comfort. Then, I realize I can't take my eyes off Justin, but I don't care to stare at anything else. I'm psychotic, but I don't think I'm dangerous.

This round, I've really been impressed with Julie's vocal harmonies; particularly, the high ones. She makes the sound perfect, but I hadn't heard her so well before. The keyboard score seems stripped. Why?

Mike, of course, is better than I will ever be, which is an understatement. A couple nights, the acoustics were perfect, and his playing was astoundingly precise. Then, other nights, perhaps because I'm in the corner, he almost sounds like Nigel Kennedy on guitar, like the right and left hands aren't moving together, and yet they are. He interrupts one song to ask that we get the negative energy out and replace it with positive vibes. I don't know why. He's got all the pedals. One even controls the temperature of the sun, he says. So, surely he has a clipper circuit or a diode to deal with the negative portions of the wave cycles.

Karmen's makeup and hair are absolutely beautiful. I'd love for her to give me a makeover, but some causes are lost. Most know I am not a fan of metal flutes, preferring the haunting sounds of wooden flutes, etc. I've said before Karmen makes a metal flute sound good, which is no small feat.

Then, there's Justin. He's always able to transport me mentally to another state - except the first show this tour. I was still reacting to my second COVID vaccine, received just in time for the tour thanks to persuasion from ecclesiastical authorities. Both shots made my heart pound viciously, and at the first show, I couldn't feel anything like joy because I didn't think my heart would handle it. That night, in the motel room, I had a discussion with myself and decided next time I was going to immerse myself in the inspiration or die in the attempt. I didn't have a problem after that. Oh, Justin keeps looking and sounding great, but who cares about the material world amidst this level of music? I speak as a weirdo, but at least I try to be honest.

The EVO! loves to park herself in the most embarrassing spots after the shows. She's like a heat-seeking missile when it comes to Justin. I beg her, saying we must leave, but she knows I really don't want to go. Then, all the roadies roll their eyes because normally it's the human that's in charge.

Fans have been great this time around. I always enjoy listening to them before shows, but I'm a stiff when it comes to conversation, or anything else. I had a lot of great concert seats, too; but I had to surrender several too-good-to-be-true seats due to the boss' health and his need for me to chauffeur him to appointments or straighten out his meds, etc. Fortunately, he's been very gracious to allow me some time off to do what I enjoy most in life.

I'm just doing an unabashedly self-absorbed, field-and-stream-of-consciousness-or-what dump to see if this site is active. I will post with no attempt to proofread, just to make an even larger fool of myself.

Peace & love, y'all.

In light of the above post and in response to Justin's heart-warming message from yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vOudBOsyxE