SAVE A HORSE RIDE A VIRGIN: MORE post-its from the fest (THE WHO)

(click for larger image, photo taken by Mikael Vojinovic for www.virginfest.com)

A portly, rubicund older man in a pleasant state of innebriation sits with his friends in front of my and Amy's spot which has remained unclaimed after our bathroom break during The Killers. As I started to lay my trusty Ikea mat he turns away from his dissertation about the kids today having no idea about the next act, to remark on how I came prepared.

He says, "Do you know which of the band is going on next?"

"The Who?" I say as he searches my expression for a second. I laugh as I catch up on to the joke.

"You're the first one all day who got it. Tried it on of those kids over there. They just looked at me like I was crazy."

The Who comes on playing I Can't Explain and from everyone's reaction I realize the definition of APE SHIT. There is just something overwhelming about seeing Pete Townshend doing the windmill several feet away in real life being magnified ten times twice on the two jumbotrons against a backdrop montage of the band young and hungry in the era that spawned them and a revolution.

The iconic strains of Baba O'Riley emanate the fading summer air of September amidst the cheers of the kids of the Baby Boom and their kids of the alphabet generation, the X, Y, & Zs and some of their kids of a generation that has yet to find itself a name or alphanumeric.

My friend Amy turns to me and says, "Thank you so much for asking me to come. Seriously, thank you."

As the music pauses for the chorus, three generations or so sing the immortal words en masse:

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, oh
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

My life within a span of a few lines, seems to suddenly make sense.



As the night gets deeper, faces in the crowd turn into silhuoettes against a bright rock stage. A hammered young man of my generation howls happy expletives to his friend and spilling some of his bear while at it, "Dude, I've fuckin' seen the fuckin' Who live man. I can fuckin' die happy!!"

I smile and look forward to seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Life is beautiful.

everything but this girl

After spending some quality time with my eldest sib Rachel and her cat, Jacob in Toronto, I've gotten to rediscover this gem of a duo that comprised of Ben Watts and vocalist Tracy Thorne whom I've taken a liking to way back as a small town high school girl in the sugar bowl of course through my urbanite La Salle university-going sisters. As soon as I have my new baby, my beloved i-Pod, I've lost no time downloading their late-90s album Walking Wounded, one of the decade's essential albums and classiest example of pop music natural selection unbeknownst to the rest of the world that have bought into Britney being that innocent.

Two tracks stand out and are stuck in my head like recurring dreams as I teether between defiance and melancholia. I guess it's the memory of the local boy who casually lets out he cares for me like a sister. It's the memory of a surgeon boy in Indiana who broke my heart in quiet. It's my fixation for incendiary guitars and Jesus-men. It's the conscious choice of being enamoured from afar. I have painstakingly worked on going it alone. I revel in my independence as I face the monkey's paws of my freedom.

I've lately gone to thinking that there could be some divine reason for it all and for all the little signs along the the way that has lead to the now and is pointing me ultimately to my future. It fills me with nervous energy as much as of excitement and with a sense clarity and peace I have not felt before. It is scary. It feels right.

It could be just another existentialist crisis with a soundtrack, BUT how come I almost wish it's not? Still I'm a believer of the universe unfolding as it is. I still have years to mull about it and more mysterious ways from the cosmos to take into consideration but I can feel it working through me forming me slowly and surely as we speak.

Love is a strange thing.




Artist: Everything But The Girl
Song: The heart remains a child
Album: Walking Wounded


I dreamed about you again last night
You never have the same face twice
but I always know its you and
and you're always looking better than you really do
and you really do.

I walk around the whole next day
feeling like a still have something to say
but I don't know what it is
and I don't know how to reach you even if I did, even if I did.

Do I wanna hear that you forgive me?
Do I wanna hear you're no good without me?
and am I big enough to hear that you never even think about me.
why should you ever think about me?

And I thought that I'd outgrow this kind of thing.
Tell me, aren't we supposed to mature or something.
But I haven't found that yet.
Is this as grown up as we'll ever get?
Maybe this is as good as it gets.

And years may go by.
But I think the heart remains a child.
The mind may grow wise, but the heart just sulks, and it whines,
and remains a child, I think the heart remains a child.
Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me?

Artist: Everything But The Girl
Song: Single
Album: Walking Wounded



I called you from the hotel phone
I haven't dialled this code before
I'm sleeping later and waking later
I'm eating less and thinking more
And how am I without you?
Am I more myself or less myself?
I feel younger, louder
Like I don't always connect
Like I don't ever connect

And do you like being single?
Do you want me back?
Do you want me back?
And do I like being single?
Am I coming back?
Am I coming back?

I'll put my suitcase here for now
I'll turn the TV to the bed
But if no one calls and I don't speak all day
Do I disappear?
And look at me without you
I'm quite proud of myself
I feel reckless, clumsy
Like I'm making a mistake
A really big mistake

And do you like being single?
Do you want me back?
Do you want me back?
And do I like being single?
Am I coming back?
Am I coming back?
Do you want me back? (x6)

And now I know
Each time I go
I don't really know
What I'm thinking
And now I know
Each time I go
I don't really know
What I'm thinking of

Do you want me back?