Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand….

Like a lot of folks yesterday I got up in the morning, turned on VH1, and watched the “Concert for Diana”. In case you’ve been living in a hole it was a 6 hour concert organized by her sons, Prince’s William and Harry, to commemorate what would have been her 46th birthday. This being the left coast I wasn’t sure how ‘live’ it would be – you see, you never know around here – many things are tape delayed, including the evening news, award shows, and the morning shows. I wasn’t initially sure what time it aired since to be honest, I don’t much watch VH1 since it became a mostly game show/reality oriented station, not an actual music station. Scrolling through my online guide I discovered that it was indeed live and airing - and was about 1 ½ into the program. Ooops. But I did stay tuned in until the end.

The featured act was Duran Duran, The Princess’ favourite band, which I missed because I wasn’t awake at 8am PDT. But I did manage to catch them every time VH1 did a recap – which seemed to happen a lot. I’ve got to say, those guys can still kick butt on stage. While I wasn’t a huge fan of theirs in their heyday, I do enjoy listening to them now and it looked to me that they put on a good show. It seemed fitting that they were the 2nd act to kick off the day after Elton John – one of Diana’s closest friends.

Overall the acts I saw were pretty cool…everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and got into the spirit of the day – celebrating the life of Princess Diana. Though admittedly I was glad that some artists only did one song – my guess is that they were the artists that maybe only had one song that the world would actually know. I thought it was very smart of the Princes to give more time to the classic artists and not waste time on the unknown songs of what may turn out to be a one hit wonder act. It also added to the very cool mix of music that was on stage throughout the day and I think they did a great job of choosing the performers – old and new.

One of the coolest things was the series of video vignettes that were interspersed throughout the day in between on - stage performances. The testimonials, called “DIANA and me”, from real people that the Princess had met were touching and often enlightening. While we all know her as ‘the people’s Princess’ for some reason seeing/hearing these tales of her interactions with commoners, and the sickly, made her seem even more human and real than I would have ever imagined. I almost felt as if I had met her – and I think that was the point. To show her to the world more as a mother and caretaker and not as just a Princess of the tabloids. It was a nice touch and all of the segments were very well produced, well written and sent a very positive message. It made the day seem not to be just a day of music – but a day of opening our hearts and reliving the goodness that she brought to this world. It reminded us that it’s not just about having money and doing good things with it – but that being human, kind, and real can also make a huge difference in the footprint we leave on this earth – it can be fleeting and flighty – or it can be tangible, sweet and last forever.

Last Monday Abby and I went to Las Vegas for a couple of days. We had gotten a good ‘deal’ on a room at The Luxor – as long as we took some silly tour of one of their vacation time share units down at the ghost town side of the strip. What a load of crap that was! We were lied to from the very first second we met the first sales person in the hotel months ago – ‘no – you don’t have to take the trip if you don’t want to’ – only to find out that we DID have to take the tour or we’d pay a significant penalty. Then we had to check in at one hotel to then go stand in the long ass line at our hotel to actually get into our room – which all total took over an hour and a half to complete.

Oh yeah, and when they tell you that the tour only takes 2 hours – or longer if you are interested in buying into the waste of money time share scheme – they mean it takes 3 ½ hours whether you are interested in buying or not. No matter how many times we told them we are NOT interested and no matter how many angles we came up with to tell them that (‘we’re outdoor enthusiasts and don’t find this to be our thing’ or ‘we like to road trip – hike, camp, sleep on the ground and not be surrounded by annoying ill behaved spawn of other annoying ill behaved fat americans’ or ‘we already have vacation property’) they had an answer to everything. It was very tiring fighting them and I mean them – because all total we were face to face with no less than four, yes, four sales people up until the moment we walked out the door. I’m surprised the security guard didn’t try to sell us anything. Or did she? I may have blocked it out.

Oh yeah – the last and final lie was that although we’d been promised a free Vegas show the one we wanted that didn’t have anything to do with ‘t and a’ was of course sold out that night. REALLY?!?!!? You don’t say…..We opted for the gambling voucher and I proceeded to win $25 off of their cash. It was a small victory – but a victory nonetheless. I’m guessing non of these slimy vultures has a clue about how to be human and I’m guessing like their main demographic won’t make much of a positive impact on this world.

Needless to say after 2 ½ days of being pushed around, mowed down, and generally overcome with homicidal feelings I was ready to get in the car and head home. Don’t get me wrong – for the most part we had a good time – as long as we stayed away from elbows, large bellies, and the children who ran amok in casino.

Thanks for tuning in…Until next Monday…CHEERS!!

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

I love Pink. I’m going to say it right now and I mean it. I’ve been a fan of hers since 2001 when I heard the song “Get The Party Started” (how could you have NOT heard it?). The song is from her second CD, Missundaztood, co-produced and co-written by Linda Perry (4 Non Blondes) who is in her own right a truly amazing singer and songwriter. When you get past the hit and listen to the rest of the CD what you find is not only catchy, it really makes you think hard about addiction, divorce, and what it means to be a social outcast. That’s a heady lot of tunes for the then 22 - year old to be singing about, but it worked. It was real, it was mature music beyond her years and it was impressive!

Needless to say I wasn’t surprised when I heard last year’s release “Dear Mr. President” (featuring the Indigo Girls). Right off the bat you are smacked by the intelligence and insight of the song.

“Dear Mr. President, Come take a walk with me. Let's pretend we're just two people and you're not better than me. I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly…How do you sleep while the rest of us cry? How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye? How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye And tell me why?...”

(For the rest of the lyrics go to this link: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pink/dearmrpresident.html)

I think what’s cool about the song is that it poses some serious questions about the world to an important man while maintaining a pop sensibility. You can hum along, you can sing along and if you want to – you can think about what she’s saying. Not that anyone hasn’t said this before or even written it before, but she asks direct questions and calls him on the carpet while doing so. Certainly she is not the first to write an accessible protest song, but the timing of it is what makes it even more powerful. No doubt, as others have said countless times before me, this song will be the anthem of this time in our history.

I was in Vegas yesterday (hence my not posting this on my usual Monday schedule) when I heard the news of the Virginia Tech massacre. While I try to keep this a blog about life in Los Angeles, I can’t help but on occasion comment about the world at large and how it affects me and the people I love. It was a fun trip and the cool thing about Vegas is that you go there and you forget the world. It’s easy to do and certainly we did it! We stayed at The Luxor, we ate at the buffet (twice) and I went to see my first Imax show. Amazing fun!

The horror of what we awoke to yesterday morning was unimaginable. Not only are too many people dead (one is too many in my book) what it says about the state of our country at this moment is hard to miss. We are a country filled with troubled and violent people (where isn’t?) and we don’t seem to care about our own. As congress debates funding today for the war that no one but Mr. President (and his cohorts) wants how about funding instead for people on our own soil? What about this kid who thought that by killing 33 people his problems would be solved. No matter that he was not an American born citizen, but he was a child of this country.

Why are we ignoring our fellow citizens? Why still are thousands from New Orleans not home in their rebuilt houses and apartments? Why do I have a homeless guy(s) sleeping out back behind my building? Why are we trying to save other countries from dictators when we have our own to worry about? One can only imagine the desperation that all these people feel and felt. The system we have is failing. We failed the students of Columbine, we failed Cho Seung-Hui, we ARE failing the victims of emotional and nature imposed disasters. So Mr. President, how DO you sleep?

Thanks for tuning in…until next Monday…CHEERS!!!