Neil Diamond.
Old Neil has lost some of his punch in his old age, or maybe I'm getting more cynical in my old age. A very, very good show nonetheless. We had excellent seats on the floor (N-12-14)and we could see every wrinkle on his face. He really enjoys entertaining and it shows. And he's done this a million times, and that shows, too.
It's very late, and I'm getting up very early to go fishing again with Tyler. We're going out to Betsy's again, it'll be our last fishing trip together this year unless I get down to Texas in the fall. And that might not happen, hard to tell at this point.
We got back from the Neil Diamond concert about 01:00, and went to bed almost immediately. I was almost asleep when the thunder woke me up, and I started thinking about the show. So then I was wide awake, decided to come in and do some writing. Got the review done and will finish this and FTP it and go back to bed. I'll get up at 05:30, and we'll be out there at 06:00, first light. That's when the fish get up, and they're expecting me. They need their laugh of the day, after all.
I'll write more later, so if you visit again, be sure to re-load!
This day did not go as planned, but it worked out OK anyway. I didn't get to sleep until after 04:00, and Karen said I hit the snooze button six times before she turned the alarm off. I woke up about 09:00, still really tired. So we ate breakfast and goofed off, went fishing about 16:00. Had a really bad day for Betsy's, no really big fish in the boat, although Tyler did hook a big one right before we left, at least a five, but he lost it. We caught maybe 30-35 bass altogether, plus the odd crappie. A fun evening fishing. We were famished when we got home, and Karen had fixed a wonderful turkey/dressing cassarole and a salad.Karen's headache is back, Neil Diamond cured it last night, I guess it's my turn now!
Tyler will be going back to Texas Thursday AM...I'm really going to miss him. We haven't had any time alone together for several years, and I've really enjoyed it. He's a very mature young man for seventeen. He has most of the usual teen-age problems, though. I'm sure he will do very well.
I decided to let the limousine service take him to KCI thursday morning. I will be coming off of a twelve hour and a sixteen hour shift, and probably wouldn't be in any shape to drive him up and make it back. They charge $25.00 for one way, which is really cheaper than I could drive him in the van. Especially if you count my time. They will come by the house, pick him up and drive him straight to the continental desk. Pretty good deal, next time I think I'll have them pick him up incoming, too! Nah, I really like meeting people at the airport.
So far I haven't worked on any of the songs that Neil Diamond inspired in me...
My Hero; my Nemesis.
I Love him.
I Hate him.
He sang all of the songs I wanted him to sing, plus a couple of others. "Coming to America" one of my favorites, was his opener when I saw him in '83. It was his closer this time, before the inevitable encore. "Lady in Blue Jeans" was better than I remembered it being, and he started it while I was in the john (I had four cups of coffee with dinner!) so I had to hurry back to my seat. Which I only sat in half of the time... we were up in the aisles a lot.
I don't go to many concerts, so I'm not very good at the coming and going. Parking and getting out, I'm talking about. We got directions on how to get there from a guy at Tippins, where we ate supper. So we tooled on up I-35 to where it said "Kemper Arena - Next Right" and it was under construction, we couldn't get right. We wandered around a while, then wound up on the access road that we were trying to get to. Some kind of a miracle. We got parked, and walked about a mile. I found it hard to believe that people would actually come to a sold-out show without tickets and buy tickets from the hawkers, but they were there for a reason, I guess, so it must happen regularly.
Getting out was more of a really slow nightmare. Everybody would let people in in front of us, but nobody would let us in. Then, getting on I-70 West was a really convoluted trip... across the river and back again, for some goddamned reason. It looks like they would have this traffic thing down to a science as many shows as they have. BRRRRT! Wrong! Reminded me of the last KC Chief's game I drove to... I vowed never again to drive (or buy a ticket, either). All of my ball games to Arrowhead since then have been on free tickets with someone else driving. The only way to go, as far as I'm concerned. At Kemper, I'll buy the ticket, but someone else has to drive. But it's not very often that I'll spend $50 to go see someone, either.
It was really interesting watching the crowd during the concert, especially the middle-aged females like Karen. Many of them had a look of desperation on their faces, like this was the closest that they would get to heaven, and it was only going to last a short while. Then they have to go back to their real men, the imperfect ones.
I mentioned that I hate him, as well as love him. The hate comes out of jealousy. I could've been him... if it weren't for the booze. Some of the songs I have written as as good as some of the ones he sings. I've never been that good-looking, of course, but makeup does wonders, I'm told. But no, it's much too late for me. I blew it. I'm not really unhappy about it, though. He has worked very hard to get where he is, and single-mindedly. I never felt like working that hard when I was younger (the Booze again) and I'm really happy with my life as it is now. However... Damn! I wish I was rich and Famous!
Neil is an inspiration, though. I've got about six more songs to write, rambling around in my head now! Whether or not they'll get written is another story...and if they do, if they'll be any good, that's another story all over again...