OK, I've started this party out right with two Martinis.

Whatever happened to the three Martini lunch? Did it go out with chain smoking and those funky hats like Tom Hanks wears in Catch Me if you Can? What were those called? Popeye Doyle comes to mind, but isn't that another character from a movie who wears one? I'm too buzzy to go to IMDB to look.

We're having a house warming party tonight. I've been a total slacker and forgot to call folks. Please accept my apologies, those of you whom I have your phone number. I think I'll hook up the cam and you can watch the so-called "dining room." I think we're going to be outside, however.

Oh yeah, Comcast technician shizzler came over. "Holy shit," he said when he got a look at the connection. "I'm surprised it works even now." You're keeping up your standards, Comcast; one out of 7 people who work for you seem to know what they are doing.

On a very sad note, Cordelia's father, who is also Charkes' grandfather, is seriously ill. Drop by and show them the love.

So this past weekend my friends, ( now house-mates) Jeff and Nathan, and I went up to Bend, Oregon to see the Pixies. Now I'm an old schooler Pixies guy, mostly because I am old school enough to have heard them when they were sparkling and new and the darlings of college radio. Now I'm not going histrionic like some music fans tend to about groups they like, but I will say I was generally excited with the possibility that they were going to get back together, and particularly excited to see them live--where ever that may be.

Way back in March or whenever we bought these tickets, the only places they were playing near to SLC was Bend, Oregon and somewhere over in Colorado. The Colorado venue was seated which sucks for an outdoor concert where half the fun is wandering around, seeing how close one can get to the stage without personal bodily injury, meeting new people, and dancing with attractive women, so we decided that Bend was our best bet.

Friend Jeff had been to Bend while he was living for a summer up in Portland, and opined that if he wanted to live anywhere else aside from good old SLC it would probably be Bend. You see Jeff is a snowboarder and believes that Salt Lake City (despite its stodgy reputation) is one of the best located ski towns in the world. You see we are not far from what marketers call "the Greatest Snow on Earth" (which it is, if you know anything about the levels of snow greatness) at resorts such as Snowbird, and generally there are lots of good bands etc. that roll through town (mostly because they have no choice since SLC sits at a major highway artery from the West or to the East. It would be as if, say, everything that went to New York had to go through Bangor, Maine. I think they just reach a point and say "Oh well, we might as well while we're staying the night in this burg." Ultimately, Jeff is not alone in his appreciation of SLC. Hippie Brad, who seems to be on a road trip of giant bong-sized proportions, Salt Lake is a "bad ass little spot of land " Friend Jeff would agree, if only in different words: "I'd like to live in Bend, and go to the Master's program there." Jeff, aside from being a snowboarder, is also an artist. Since, Bend offers a different school (which is a good thing to do for graduate degrees and artists) and snowboarding and (apparently due to the presence of the Pixies concert) some night life, Jeff reasoned it would be a good place.

With the need to wander and mosh and dance as well as Jeff's desire to check out the town, we plunked down the old plastic and bought ourselves 3 Pixies tickets at the Les Schwab Amphitheater in Bend, Oregon 5 months in advance. If that doesn't indicate dedication or at least mild interest in a band, then I don't know what does.

So we waited--waited a cool summer and a weekend, slipping in various parties and cabin trips and broken hearts and genetic tests and departing friends and even moving houses in the mean time. If anyone tells you that it is a good idea to move 2 days before you go on a road trip, believe them. Man it was nice to get away from all that unpacking and the loads of laundry I need to do.

So we waited--and the days wore on and we talked more of the concert, even though suddenly, without notice, the Pixies announced that they would perform in SLC after all, up at the University. "Oh well," we said. "It would be cool to stay here, but a road trip is always good." So the minor aggravation of having them show up in town after all was abated and we left on a rare rainy SLC morning on I-15 headed North to Oregon.

There is not much to write about a trip through one of the most desolate areas of the United States. Once you leave the relatively lush Wasatch Front you find yourself in an ochre-colored world. Ochre is not necessarily a bad color, but 600 or 700 or what seems like 3000 miles of it is a titch too much.

There were some highlights, however:

1) Cereal in the middle of nowhere.

We stopped for a break somewhere up by Snowville, Utah where my Volkswagen Bug once nearly slid off the road because of ice, to find a toxic spill of blue and pink cereal. We were surprised that it wouldn't decay because of the rain.

That is Nathan standing in the midst of it. I tracked it into the car and got yelled at.

2) The Garden of Eden

Even though it should have been more cleverly named the "Garden of Eat'n!", the Garden of Eden is in, one might be stunned to find out, Eden, Idaho (and like many places in the Great Basin such as "Mountain Home" it suffers from a classic case of mislabeling in order to fool someone looking at it on a map into thinking it really is a nice place). The Garden is the eating pavilion for the truck stop it is in. It has a waterfall, fake plants, and a tree with serpent. The serpent's eyes glow for added effect.

That is Nathan with a stuffed monkey (ala "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven") who joined us for a tasty truck stop lunch.

3) The Great Nothing

The entrance of Oregon in and of itself is quite depressing. I can only imagine what the poor Oregon pioneers made of it when they finally entered it. I can imagine a great deal of gnashing teeth and bitching about the lies they must have been told. Eastern Oregon, you see, is probably the most desolate area of extreme nothingness that you will experience outside of Wyoming. In no way does it even hint at the lush pine forests and green farms of the western part. I've heard that Oregonians say "it is a nice place to visit, but please don't move here." Their eastern side puts up the big "YOU'RE NOT WELCOME" mat a big way.

That's a slightly more interesting bit of the nothingness.

There really is nothing more to tell about the actually trip to Bend, aside from our desire to just get there and into some trees or some mountains or anything to alleviate one from the dreaded ochre. And got there we did, and found a motel room by the Deschutes river run by some nice East-Indian folks. I bought my buddies dinner at the brew pub and we discovered the bars, along with the cops on bikes and in cars who stalk the bars. The cops were nice, I talked to them and mentioned that we were from out of town and one said with a big smile, reeling back a bit on his mountain bike after having rousted a drunk kid who claimed he had a ride from that one sober guy, "Welcome to Bend!"

END OF PART I

On the next Signifying nothing: Friend Jeff loses a shoe and gets a concert girlfriend.

So to celebrate the possible demise of this URL, I offer you a blue bus; that's right a blue bus, all right:

So what does it signify? Nothing.

"We'll meet again. Don't know where. Don't know when. We'll meet again, some sunny day."

Actually my picutre blog still works and if I get around to calling it, so does the audio one.

Good night, everybody.

More about the great Northwest/Great Basin trip of Labor Day 2004 and the Pixies concert later. I'm too hungry to write now.