“Tom, do you want in on this?”

“Yeah.”

With Tom’s agreement, we bought Sarah what we judged to be the best cheese and meat tray we could find on the “road trip fund.”  After a brief discussion, Tom and I typed the following note to be included with the basket:

Sarah and Family,

Tom and I decided that we were going to save Washington state for you; we aren't going north of Portland until you get back. We send our condolences and hope everyone is in good spirits. Love you!

Our best,

 Joey & Tom
We readied our cameras and showered.  We headed across the street for a seven or eight dollar Indian lunch buffet, where every dish at the small buffet table was delicious, some in ways we had not experienced before.  We head to a supermarket and bought a bottle of whiskey, the contents of which were emptied into a water bottle.  This would be our six dollar beer killer.  We boarded a bus and rode it to the stop that we judged to be the closest to one of the festival entrances; the festival was in the middle of a park so none were that close.
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The weather was terrific, exactly the kind you hope for when live music is on hand. I called Sarah to say hello while Tom and I were deciding on our first performance of the day.  She had gotten home to Massachusetts safely.  I let her know that we should dedicate Tuesday evening as the new exclusive Tom Jones listening time and she laughed.

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Tom and I decided to see an Asian rock/jam band singer with a pacific flair.  We sat and listened on a somewhat distant hill for awhile.  We liked the music and the question of her ethnicity came up.  We got closer and closer, but the crowd thickened as we neared the stage.  Tom used his camera to zoom in and shot some photos, but we never did figure out her ancestry with any confidence.  When we consulted the schedule and realized the music was about done, we decided to beat the crowd and find our next performance.

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While we were walking between stages, we happened across some guys in striped clown drag doing a comedy performance.  We continued walking.

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After studying our program a bit more, we decided that this would be a good time to go to Winehaven, a tent featuring a few dozen wineries from the areas surrounding San Francisco.  This included wineries from Napa and Sonoma valleys, and Tom and I were anxious for a preview of these stops.   We had to buy tickets to exchange for wine, and the people selling the tickets informed us that for a little more money we could speak with the winemakers and chat while sampling their wines.  The opportunity was pretty cool but it added another cost to the already overpriced drinks, and we had to schedule a time, a notion that didn’t agree with us during a music festival.  We said no thanks and we bought tickets, which we immediately started exchanging for samples of wine.

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We tried some very good wines.  I could already tell that the wines on the west coast were dryer than upstate New York.  I liked this, and Tom finds it a recipe for heartburn.  He stuck with the sweeter of the available wines, even though they were few and still somewhat dry, and I mostly asked for the driest reds available.  The Black Eyed Peas started their performance on the main stage, and we immediately realized that they were taping and rebroadcasting the performance in Winehaven.  No need to go anywhere for Fergie and Co. - we kept tabs on the performance and continued to work through the winemakers’ stands.

We finished and found some food.  All of the food was like typical festival or fair food, only a little nicer and much more expensive.  The burritos and pizza were good, the coffee was fresh ground and each cup was made from its own ground beans that were disposed of after use.  I would have preferred one stand with two dollar hot dogs to save money but we worked with what was available.
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To round out our musical experiences for the night, with the Mars Volta, a band that I hadn’t listened to often.  I immediately knew why.  Their music alternated between whiney and what seemed like threatening, two of my least favorite characteristics in music.  Tom liked it.

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We left most of the way through the music and walked outside.  The bus rides we had taken thus far worked out fine, but took way too much time.  We had no idea how to get to the bar that we were going to, Amnesia, so we took a cab.  We hailed one and walked up just as another guy and girl our age were walking up as well.

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After a short discussion we decided that since we were going in the same direction, we would share the fare.  The unmarked “cab” was a very nice black luxury vehicle but had no meter.  We negotiated the fare before we entered.  We exited at Amnesia.  We entered the club and immediately realized that everyone was silent.

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A movie was playing opposite of the entrance of the club.  The seats were taken.  Tom and I ordered beers and found a spot on the ground to sit.  The movies were artsy independent short productions.  The first two were the type that you hardly understand the first time you see them, either very well thought out with deep meaning or just very confusing with no meaning at all, depending who is watching.  At one point a person responsible for setting up the movies asked the crowd if anyone know what scene a cameo appearance took place in, and which person it was.  I wasn’t really paying attention, but several people spoke up and said it was in a convenience mart scene, and it was the person behind the counter.  They had the scene right but apparently had the wrong person.  There were only two people in the scene, so I chuckled to myself and said “the guy in front of the counter.”  I was congratulated and given a DVD compilation of short films from some film festival or other.  I had to laugh inwardly, I had no idea what was going on in the movie, but my -ahem- superior observational skills and use of flawless logic had won the day.

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 They eventually put on a much less artsy documentary about materialism with high school students in Beverly Hills or some other affluent city in California.  It was long, boring, and didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know to some degree, and a pretty weird centerpiece for a bar on a Friday night.  We left.

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The pizza we ordered when we got back to the hotel room had all the toppings you can think of and was delicious.  Needless to say, we slept well.

-Joey

12/7/2012 05:08:14 am

This looks like a crazy adventure. A lot of good food, <a href="http://www.pastacheese.com/">cheese</a>, and fun times haha.

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