Sea of Dreams

[Drunk Monk]

@ Concourse 12/30/6-1/1/7

unnggh, my head.... I remember just before midnight, watching the champagne glasses being prepared, feeling a little bored. A few hours later, after the mad rush of patients hit, I remember thinking 'Dang. I didn't get any champagne.'

more to come as the memories resurface...

[Drunk Monk]

Well, there was only one really at around 9ish, if memory serves. DM and PBLB went for a little walkabout and got way deep in the crush where this percussion band was working the crowd. They were rocking. The thick of the crowd churned hard with every crescendo, writhing and cheering and hollering. The finished on an incredible note and the show's headliner, String Cheese Incident took the stage. They picked the energy right up where that drum band left off, opening with a mad "Can't Stop Now". DM & BLPB retreated, following the percussion band's wake as they tried to extract themselves from the crush without the benefit of their rhythm. We had been on our break for quite a spell and had to return to RM.

That was really all the music DM heard. We checked out this weird burlesque act with two caberet-ish clad women and a few back up players, but when we got closer, we were sorely disappointed by the view and the song. It was much better from far away.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Was Kevin Costner there? Did you play any baseball? Did you get the lawyers together to talk about copyright infringement?

[Drunk Monk]

I just looked at the laminates. I got three from this show for some reason: an NYE medal (an RM tradition), an artist pass and a backstage pass. Anyway the laminate says "Sea of Dreams" so never mind Kevin. My bad.

I suppose it might behoove me to know what show I'm at.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

But then again, why start now?

[Drunk Monk]

Posted some facebook pix here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.facebook.com/gene.ching/media_set?set=a.10201217295336300.1073741829.1288554720&type=1">https://www.facebook.com/gene.ching/med ... 720&type=1</a><!-- m -->

DOOM Report to come...

[Drunk Monk]

Dm carpooled with another RMer, Pearly from Scott's Valley, who bought Dm dinner before the show at Ananda Fuara, the lovely little veg place on Market run by Sri Chimnoy's followers, but in retrospect, Dm would have been much more efficient on his own.

SoD was oddly set up. It used three chambers, the main one and the two off to the sides, and closed off the 3rd and 4th floor access. There was a pipe&drape barrier around the balcony seats. RM was bounced up to the 4th floor, in a cold room filled with boxes of flip flops that smelled like new puzzle mats, sharply synthetic fumes, which harshed anyone's buzz if they had a nose. And everyone had noses at SoD. The location sucked but there was good access to the venue at the top and the ample empty hallways on the 4th floor were available for all sorts of nefarious behavior. The crew was light, only two dozen for a call time of 6PM and end time of 3AM. Director Gordo was literally begging people at the last minute on facebook and he didn't even provide NYE laminates - seriously?

Dm managed to get the first call, a syncopal pretty Asian girl and her very concerned and caring BF. As it was the first call, everyone showed up. The rest of the crew were too dazzled by the scene so dm had to take charge, talk to the girl, the bf, called for the wheelchair, got her into the wheelchair and wheelchaired her to RM. It was odd as it was easy, the sort of RM task that dm can do in his sleep, and yet the mostly nooB vols were stunned like a frog in a flashlight beam. As Dm got her back to RM, a former RMer and deadhead friend Jonathan popped out of the crowd, patting Dm vigorously on the shoulder with a hearty 'good job!' Very amusing. The bf was wearing a shirt that was the Japanese anime Totoro in a Joy Division graphic, quite obscure but Dm managed to decode it right away and said 'Whazzup w/yo shirt? Totoro Joy Division?' Dm thought the bf was going to cry with joy that someone figured it out. Later, another patient was barfing loudly, that nasty retching noise, which made the Asian girl upset as she had barfed quietly into one of the RM portable barf bags (nice new tools) as dm was giving her a wheelchair ride. Dm said "I want you to know that when you barfed, you were very ladylike. I didn't even notice until we got here." She was so thankful. Dm had that couple wrapped around his little finger and could have probably cajoled them into all sorts of nefarious behaviors to thank him for just being Dm.

There were too many Asian patients.

There was also this mollied etoh Asian dude that was just an ass. He was high maintenance as he was so damn floppy and needy. He went through several RM vols, who just got annoyed with his bothersomeness and passed him off as quick as a $20 prostitute in the Mission. But he was the best story of the night. There were 2 psych, dm & pearly, so things got crazy quick. The asian dude needed to constantly be bumper-carred back into the tent, which got so bothersome. Dm had passed him along to non-psych nooBs who could use the practice, and focused on other patients. Dm started working with a mollied hottie, wearing basically a silk handkerchief tied loosely across her top, and dialed in to the fact that she was a yoga chick by her attitude. She confirmed that fact (she was even from the cruz!) so dm asked her if she'd allow him to lead her through some pranayama - yogic breath control. If dm can control the breath of an IPR, he can always get them down. Dm has studied some pranayama, and practices qigong, so he was all ready to use one of his special skills to heal. Dm got her to relax in sivasana (corpse pose) and started getting her breath in synch when annoying asian dude bursts in to the tent, lies down, and flopping about says 'i wanna do it too.' Needless to say, the whole train of thought left barrelling eastbound for chicago. It took all of dm's restraint not to kick annoying asian dude in the head.

But that's not the worst. It got more chaotic, so dm had taken control of the psych tent to juggle annoying asian dude and yoga chick, and because it was nye, rm was really short-staffed so dm was alone in there with the patients a lot. It's against protocol for males to be alone with females for rm, but there were people just outside the tent, in yelling distance. Dm was sitting between the soundclash of annoying asian dude babbling about internet security and yoga chick apologizing for glowing too much (she was glowing like a firefly), when in pops the stereotypic molly nye girl, skinny leggy blonde in pumps and a super mini-skirt made of quarter-sized gold sequins. She sits in dm's lap and starts to grind. as dm pondered the possibilities, gold gal and yoga chick spy each other's mollyglow, and so gold gal politely tells dm 'excuse me, i must talk to her.' The two clasp hands, embrace, lie down, and start snogging. dm pondered the possibilities a little more. Buuuuut, before any more progress could be made, in popped annoying asian dude, babbling about the nsa. And another train of thought leaves the station. the mood was killed instantly, the women separated to continue on their own separate Xcursions, and the night worn on. Worthy of note, rm got all three of those patients stabilized and sent them home with friends.

dm managed to sneak away on his own at the stroke of midnite. No one to kiss, but that's ok. The band was Thievery Corporation, one that Dm used to enjoy - but they failed to impress this year. In fact, most of the music was lackluster. There was one dubstep dj that was ok, but not interesting enough that dm bothered to learn his name. The entertainment was mediocre too, but there was plenty of it. There were these amatuer pole dancers that generated genuine tension, not because they were any good, quite the opposite. They didn't seem very secure in their moves, much less graceful, and dm was wincing at their act, worried that the would drop themselves on their head at any moment. But back to midnite, the balloon drop was a fail. One of the three balloon tubes failed to open and drifted into the upper balcony where it was torn to bits by the crowd. Dm quickly texted S & T with a 'Happy Mew Year' (sic - it was chaotic) and then RM was inundated with 4 calls at midnite. Dm chose the one that sounded like a IPR in hopes of catching that lucky 1st IPR of the year (a deadhead RM tradition) but it turned out to be just another ETOH.

Somewhere after midnite as dm was coping with his mollied out crew, the emergency evac warning went off. It was a loud siren, a flashing strobe, and a warning saying that everyone should evacuate the building immediately. It was totally ignored.

At the very end of the evening, dm was clearing out the casualties and there was one sleeping pirate that dm roused. He got up happy and refreshed and ready to go. Dm had to remind him to gather his hat and his sword. That was a bit silly, but given dm's attachment to swords, it was interpreted as auspicious.

[Drunk Monk]

I wasn't going to do this show, but changed my mind at the very last minute. Glad I did. It was fun.

The winds were so intense that they blew over a streetlamp in Civic Center. I forgot my belt. That's a key piece of equipment when working RM. I was at Tiger Claw thinking that we have freakin two aisles in our warehouse devoted to belts but none would have worked as a substitute. Alas. Then, just prior to the show, I met with the aspiring Kung Fu writer, someone I met before but didn't quite remember who was familiar with many of my Hung Gar brothers. He bought me beer before the show. Black Butte Porter served in a tall BBP glass. That served as dinner.

I did my first iPhone save. We had an IPR who lost all his stuff but his clothes and ticket, and was found disoriented outside the venue. Through extensive talkdown, we extracted the number of his brother, who was home drunk in Walnut Creek, but was functional enough to hook me up with the IPR's friends at the show, all of which I did with my handy iPhone6. Actually, smartphone saves have been going on for some time at RM as you might imagine, but I've never done one because my ol' burner cell was a pay-2-play, and that just didn't seem worth it to me. There was another IPR who lost all her stuff. RM alone found like half a dozen lost cell phones. There was a bucketful at lost and found.

Pumpkin was the mortar-band, the one that sealed the cracks between the bricks. I couldn't really distinguish between them and the others. Glitch Mob is a band that T likes - she was looking forward to seeing them tonight but they only played last night. They were okay, 3 guys working drum pads, two with drumsticks in an almost Taiko-like fashion. They had these large spotlights behind them and if they had also been drum pads and worked like Taiko drums, I would've really enjoyed them. Pretty Lights headlined - a jam band (8 piece?) with a fine horn section. They have a jazzy, funky, party sound, just instrumental. They deliver just what their name promises - pretty lights.

I go back tonight with T. It'll be her first RM NYE show.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

You know Pumpkin is Uncle Al's son, right? Al being best man Al Alvarado.

[Drunk Monk]

Al posted on my pix. I replied with as flattering a comment as I could muster, given that it's a social network and I have more friends there then all of DOOM combined. Don't tell him about my 'indistinguishable' comment above. I'll have to keep an ear open for him next time.

NYE report imminent.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

The world, it is small

[Drunk Monk]

I had Tara as my working +1 so it was the soberest NYE I have ever had, at least since I turned 21. Srsly, just a wee tipple of champagne after midnite. Nevertheless, it was quite fun as having T there, I got to see a lot through her eyes, and I also had more freedom to just enjoy the show as I was touring her about.

After another stunningly gorgeous drive up the coast, we had a lovely dinner at Ananda Fuara, and then over to the show. It was T's first NYE show, as well as her first major EDM, although in all fairness, SoD is also jambands. In fact, the main stage is all jambands, mostly instrumental, and it's only the two side halls that are EDM driven. Polk hall had a DJ plus a triple silent disco. A silent disco is where the audience wears headphones - the idea arose from late night campouts. Here, it was a mess - the headphones were color coded with bright lights matching one of the trio of DJs, but it put the audience on four different rhythms, the three silents and the one open air, making it impossible to navigate through the crowd as there was no consistent downbeat. The bulk of the calls came from here. Larkin Hall had one DJ at a time with some burlesque acts. We didn't really check those out because it's weird to watch burlesque with your daughter, plus most of the dancers were on the chubby side. In the main stage, Mikey Thunder was the mortar act - they had a good horn attack and rolling bass. Beats Antique was my fav act - lots of dancers and drummers, hotties with halter tops and feather fans, bookend bikini dancers with cape wings - but mostly good rocking dance music. Pretty Lights were the midnite band - I joked after with T that there wasn't enough lights. What a light show! Light shows today are over the top. One patron showed me this wristband he got at an EDM at the craneway earlier this year. Everyone got one with their ticket and they changed color, coordinated with the music at the show, controlled by the lighting guys somehow. Very cool.

We had two IPRS, one Asian dude (half Japanese, half Chinese) so I got to work my broken Mandarin a little - not sure if it helped. Back in the daze of the Dead, I talked down some Japanese tourist IPRS using my Dojo Japanese - our common ground was Godzilla. That still stands as RM legend. T got to see a classic acid trip, which was great as she was always told in the past to stay away from the psych tent. I almost had this patient down when a noisy drunk got him all riled up again. Then, enter a JNK master who had a ticket to dance with Mollly. She was deep in the zone and totally took over the talkdown, bringing him down with her magik choco-pretzels. I know, that makes little sense, but it was a demo of the JNK force at it's finest. There was another IPR who came in late in restraint and had two P.O. cards in his wallet. I think he got rolled but we didn't stick around as it was already late. In the end, T had a very good experience and continues her interest in volunteering for RM. She may become my ultimate JNK padawan. I often say that the main reason I've stuck with RM for so long has been to keep up with the music, but I've failed at that. Like I said above, T knew Glitch Mob and I had no clue. We'll see how this all goes. It's definitely good experience for her and she already has major bragging rights amongst her friends as she's seen more music than any of them.