My caregiver and I were talking about music once when she said, “It seems like you’ve been to every concert from A to Z.” I replied, “At least once—maybe twice.” So I decided to go through the exercise and it turns out I was wrong. I can’t remember attending a show starting in I or N. But I have hit most of the other letters twice and a few letters as many as five or six times. These are only a few dozen of the hundreds of shows that I’ve seen live:
How many of these bands and artists have you seen in concert? What was your most memorable concert experience and why? Leave a comment in the box below these concert tickets to share your own most notable concert experiences with us. Now here are the tickets from some of the concerts I’ve attended in chronological rather than alphabetical order.
Rolling Stones with Van Halen at the Tangerine BowlThe US Festival at Glen Helen ParkTom Petty and the Heartbreakers at Irvine Meadows AmphitheaterBoston at the Pacific AmphitheatrePaul Simon at the Pacific AmphitheatreLyle Lovett at the Grove of AnaheimRoger Waters at the Honda CenterKid Rock with Foreigner at Irvine Meadows AmphitheaterQueen + Adam Lambert at The ForumShinedown with Papa Roach at Fivepoint AmphitheatreHootie & the Blowfish at the Honda CenterTrain with REO Speedwagon at the KIA Forum
MAGAmuricans say that Donald Trump won the election by a landslide. Math says that a majority of American voters did not want Trump to be President in the last election.
Math says that three-million more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton to be President than the number who voted for Trump when given a choice between the two.
Math says that four-million more Americans voted for Joe Biden at the end of Trump’s term in the Oval Office than the number who voted for Trump at the end of Biden’s term in office.
On our first visit to Broken Yolk Cafe, we started out with the BYC Bloody Mary. Served with a slice of bacon, it’s a very tasty Bloody Mary but there was a unique flavor in it that I did not recognize. I think that the “vodka spirit” is not actually vodka but rather a wine-based spirit that simulates the vodka flavor profile and I think wine was the flavor I was picking up. Their Bloody Mary mix and Tajin rim is banging! It’s worth ordering as long as you don’t feel like it must be real vodka.
I enjoy a good corned beef hash, so I wanted to try the Hash Skillet. Unfortunately, the waitress said that they don’t prepare the hash fresh on the premises. I’m not a fan of canned hash, so I decided to order the Ranchero Skillet instead. It was very flavorful, although I would have liked the chorizo more prominent. I ordered the eggs over-medium but they were slightly overcooked (i.e. most of the yolk was not runny). Nonetheless, it was a satisfying dish overall.
My companion ordered the Chilaquiles Bowl with the green sauce. The eggs on her bowl were cooked perfectly over-medium. She said that salsa was very good and, as a Mexican, she knows how an authentic salsa verde should taste. They also managed to find that balance where the chips are well smothered with the salsa but still have some crispiness. This plate is definitely worth ordering.
For my fellow wheelchair users, this restaurant is very accessible. There’s plenty of room to maneuver between the tables through the room. Getting my lap fully under a table in my electric wheelchair is challenging in most tables I encounter at restaurants but there were a few of them at this cafe that would accommodate my wheelchair. One of the tables is designed and designated for the use of a person in a wheelchair. This is the one that we used and it was very open for maneuvering my chair around and under it.
Broken Yolk Cafe is a great place to go for brunch since they also have a full lunch menu. The portions were generous on both plates, so we left full and satisfied. I’ll definitely return because there are a few other dishes that caught my eye.
Over 76.5-million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election two weeks ago. It has left the rest of us contemplating how so many Americans could vote for a man who has done countless things, any one of which, even MAGAmericans would say should disqualify any other candidate from the office of the President. I have heard many explanations but no one else has expressed the reason that I think Trump was elected.
I have listened closely to MAGAmericans express the reasons why they support Trump and why they opposed Kamala Harris (and before her, Joe Biden). I have also noted their responses to me and others who have expressed why Trump is disqualified for the White House. I have seen a dynamic that has been consistent in all of these observations. When it comes to MAGAmericans’ perceptions of both candidates, they have been untethered from objective reality.
MAGAmericans have created a persona of Trump in their minds that does not reflect the person that he actually is. It’s a caricature of him that has only positive characteristics MAGAmericans want to see.
MAGAmericans have also created a persona of Harris that does not reflect the person that she actually is. It’s a caricature of her that has only characteristics they consider negative. For example, they say that she’s Communist when they obviously don’t even know what communism means.
And the only criticism that they can level against her is that she “cackles.” Granted, there are short video clips of Harris laughing in a strange manner but, if MAGAmericans were to watch extended videos of her, they’d see that most of her laughing is very normal. She laughs no more frequently than the typical person with a positive demeanor does, not to mention that it’s irrelevant to her qualifications to be President anyway.
I have also seen that MAGAmericans’ alternative reality is not limited to the candidates’ personae. It extends to the issues surrounding the campaigns. For example, they think that President Biden has made the United States more reliant on foreign sources of petroleum. The truth is that the United states is a net exporter of oil (i.e. it produces more than it consumes), a level of production that is greater than at any time Trump was President and America is now the largest crude oil producer in the world.
They think that crime is increasing when, in fact, violent crime is declining in America. I even know a Trump supporter who regularly blamed President Biden for the conditions in the United States in 2020. When I reminded him that Trump was President then, he simply denied it, insisting that Biden was President in 2020. He had literally convinced himself that President Biden had mismanaged the year of the pandemic because it fit his MAGA narrative.
These are just a handful of the countless examples of MAGAmericans’ alternative reality that I could cite. When they don’t have a grasp on reality and they think these caricatures are representative of the real candidates, it makes sense for Trump’s supporters to make the choice that they did two weeks ago. They don’t have to be racist or fascist or stupid to have a reason to decide to cast their ballot for Donald Trump.
I’d seen REO Speedwagon in concert a couple of times in the past but they were all in the last century. I had never seen Train in concert but I do like their music and I did see them live on TV once, which convinced me that I needed to see them in concert. When they both made a Summer Road Trip together to the KIA Forum, I decided this is the time to do it, so I got tickets for me and my concert comadre.
Train and REO Speedwagon concert ticket
We entered the Forum near the end of Yacht Rock Revue’s opening act. They are a cover band that does ‘80s hits. It made a good warm up for the show. More importantly, we got a preview of just how great the sound reinforcement system at the Forum is now. It sounded much better than the sound system at the Honda Center, where we’d seen a show a couple of months prior, and even better than when I was last at the Forum in 2019. This was going to be a good time!
REO Speedwagon
REO Speedwagon took the stage first. Kevin Cronin, who has been the lead singer for over fifty years, still fronts the band at age 72. Although they took a couple of the songs down a step or two so that Kevin could still hit the high notes, he sounded great for the first half of the show. It sounded like his voice began to tire in the second half of the show but still strong enough to deliver a respectable and entertaining show. Besides, he had just performed a full concert the night before in San Francisco, so who am I to fault him while he’s still rocking out at his age.
Kevin Cronin and bandmates
The rest of the band was solid as a rock. They were well rehearsed and it showed. The instrumentals and the vocals were all very tight. Their set included all the beautiful vocal harmonies you expect to hear from REO Speedwagon. They played all their biggest hits, which are too numerous to list but you know which ones they are, so no longtime fans were left wanting.
Train
Train came down the tracks last. Train is a generation younger than REO Speedwagon but their vocalist Pat Monahan is 55 years old. Regardless, he can still hit all the high notes flawlessly (and there are many in Train’s repertoire). Pat kept the energy high throughout the show and his voice never flagged. In fact, he managed to catch fans’ smartphones, take selfies, and sing “If It’s Love” all at the same time without ever missing a note.
The surprise of the night was when Pat brought his twelve-year-old son Rock out on stage. Rock sang the lead to a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Over the Hills and Far Away”. There must be a genetic component to vocal talent because Rock hit every one of Robert Plant’s notes perfectly. Kevin Cronin also joined Train on the stage for a mash-up of “Meet Virginia” and “The Joker” (by Steve Miller). And Cheat Codes, a group I was not familiar with, joined Train on stage for one of their songs. Rock and Yacht Rock Revue rejoined the stage with Train to cover “Hotel California” near the end of the concert.
Train opened their set with “Calling All Angels” and closed the show with “Drops of Jupiter”. In between, they performed all of their other hits that I wanted to hear. The entire band was tight instrumentally and well rehearsed. Their vocal harmonies sounded great. All in all, it was a very enjoyable concert experience and a good time was had by all.
I subscribed to Peacock just so I could watch the Tour de France (it was no longer available on CBS Sports Network, where I’d watched it in previous years). I was going to cancel my subscription after I watched the tour but Peacock also presented the 2024 Olympic Games right on the heels of the tour. Peacock neatly packaged their on-demand programming by sport so viewers could watch only the competition that interested them.
After the tour ended, I took advantage of the time remaining on the first month of my subscription to Peacock for streaming Olympic competition since they claimed to offer all of their Olympic programming on the app. I’ve also been a YouTube TV subscriber for the past few years. Their basic package includes a number of NBC channels that also broadcasted Olympic competition. YouTube TV allows subscribers to choose content for their “Library,” which works much like a DVR. I was even able to choose to add only the Olympic sports I wanted to watch rather than having to add all of their Olympic content to my Library.
When the Olympic Games began, I still had a couple of weeks left on the first month of my Peacock subscription. To put it to the test, I tried to watch the events that I was most interested in on Peacock rather than YouTube TV. It was pretty easy to find the competition I wanted to watch on Peacock. However, I was unable to fast-forward through the commercials using the Peacock app, which I found frustrating. I guess I’ve become spoiled by YouTube TV’s Library because I have become accustomed to being able to skip watching commercials.
As the games continued for a few days, I discovered that I could find the Olympic events I wanted to watch just about as easily in my YouTube TV Library. I could also use YouTube TV to watch events live and NBC’s nightly prime time coverage. But the best thing about watching Olympic events on YouTube TV is that I could fast-forward through the commercials.
By the end of the first week of the Olympic Games, I had gravitated to YouTube TV for watching all of the Olympic competition. For me, it was simply a better experience than using the Peacock app. So I decided that I didn’t need the Peacock app after that first month and canceled my subscription. In the competition between Peacock and the NBC network channels, the gold medal goes to YouTube TV.
Yesterday I learned that I can’t overdose on marijuana when I ate ten doses of marijuana in one bite. No, I did not do it intentionally but the story of how it happened is amusing. As it turned out, no harm came from the adventure but it still makes a good cautionary tale about edible marijuana.
When I visited my dispensary last week, they were offering a big sales promotion. I bought an eighth of an ounce of marijuana flowers, which is my preferred form of cannabis consumption. The budtender offered me a marijuana jelly candy for less than a dollar more. Although I enjoy edible marijuana, I rarely buy it because it’s more expensive than in flower form. But at the promotion price, I had her add the jelly candy to my order.
Mellow Vibes Jelly
Bear in mind that the writing seems much smaller and more difficult to read on the package than it does in these photographs to me. Even with my reading glasses on, I had a hard time reading the fine print. Since jellies (or gummies) are usually packaged with ten candies, each candy having ten milligrams of THC, I was surprised to find just one jelly inside this package ─ albeit more than double the size of the gummies I’ve had in the past. So I tried to read the package to find out what I was getting into but the back of the package was even harder for me to read.
From what little I was able to read on the front of the package, it looked like it said that it was a “Jelly Single” with ten milligrams of THC. On the back of the package, I was able to make out the word “SAMPLE”. Inside the package, there was only one jelly and it didn’t look like the producer intended it to be broken apart into ten separate doses. So putting all that information together with the under one dollar price, I assumed it was a single dose jelly packaged as a promotional sample.
Since it’s a lazy, rainy weekend, I figured what better way to kick it off than to wake & bake with a mild edible marijuana buzz. I usually eat two or three ten-milligram gummies (an average of 25 mg THC) on the occasions that I eat cannabis rather than vaporizing it. Therefore, I expected to barely feel the jelly I ate yesterday morning since I thought it only had ten milligrams of THC.
Almost an hour later, I was giving up on the idea of feeling the jelly I ate at all. But then I started getting very lightheaded about twenty minutes after that. Since I don’t normally get very lightheaded when I vaporize or eat marijuana, it didn’t occur to me that the jelly could be causing it. Half an hour after that, I started getting very sleepy. Subsequently, I spent the entire day either napping or watching TV and in a complete lethargy until after sunset.
Late in the afternoon, I remembered the jelly I had eaten and put two & two together. I realized that it was probably a much higher dosage of THC than I initially thought it was and was probably also the cause of the unusual feelings I was experiencing. When I finally summoned the energy, I got photographs of my jelly’s package and zoomed in tight enough to clearly read the fine print. That’s when I discovered that the one jelly I had eaten actually had 100 milligrams of THC in it ─ ten times the amount I thought that I had consumed.
The moral of this story is to be cautious when consuming edible marijuana because it’s easy to unknowingly overdose. Overdosing on marijuana will not cause any long-term damage but it will make you useless for the day. And it could freak you out if you didn’t realize that you had consumed a large amount of THC or if you have very little experience with marijuana.
For those who are not familiar with their tolerance of edible marijuana, start with only a ten milligram dose. Regular marijuana users can start with twenty milligrams. But remember that it takes your body far longer to absorb THC you’ve eaten than it does THC that you’ve smoked or vaporized. Allow yourself at least an hour after you eat the first ten-milligram jelly (or two) before considering whether or not you want to eat another. And if you do, allow at least another hour after that before you eat yet another. If you ever do eat thirty milligrams, expect to have a solid buzz for a few hours during which you will not likely get much accomplished.
The lesson I learned yesterday is to also be certain that you know how much THC is in the marijuana you eat. Make sure that you can and do read the entire label clearly. Do not do like I did yesterday and make assumptions about how much THC you’re eating based on a few scattered clues. Lastly, do not drive while you’re intoxicated from marijuana. If you follow these simple rules, enjoying a moderate buzz from edible marijuana can be a pleasant experience.
But the SCOTUS makes a major logic flaw in that statement. The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution says in Section 3 that, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability”. The “disability” to which the amendment is referring is disqualification from holding the office of the President of the United States (or any other federal office, for that matter).
That is to say that Congress is only responsible for removing a disqualification from holding office, not for “enforcing” one, as the SCOTUS claims. If only Congress enforced a disqualification, the clause regarding a vote of two-thirds of Congress to remove the “disability” would be moot. Congress could only remove a disqualification from the ballot put in place by some other agent.
So you don’t fool me, SCOTUS. I see what you’re doing there.
I wrote a book report on a story about when a businessman bangs his daughter-in-law. Then I read another short story from the same collection that might be even crazier, so I decided to report on it too. Let’s see if you can recognize what book it’s from:
There once was a great warrior named Jephthah. His mother was a hooker, so his half-brothers didn’t want him to inherit any of their father’s wealth. They sent him into exile from Gilead so that he wouldn’t be able to make a claim on their father’s estate. While in exile, he built a gang and became their leader.
In the meantime, Jephthah’s father died. A rival gang called the Ammonites smelled weakness, so they attacked his father’s turf. Hearing of the might of Jephthah, the local elders begged him to return to Gilead and act as a commander in their fight against the Ammonites. Being understandably skeptical, Jephthah asked what would be in it for him. The elders swore to make him the chief over everybody in their turf if he returned to defend Gilead.
Jephthah returned to Gilead and parleyed with the Ammonite leader. The leader laid out his grievance with Gilead and told Jephthah that he would end his hostilities if they returned his turf to them. Jephthah claimed that Gilead was blameless and said the Ammonites had actually been in the wrong. So the turf war was on.
It turns out that there was a godfather character who was more powerful than both of the gangs. Jephthah went to the godfather and made a treaty with him. The terms were that, if the godfather backed him such that Jephthah could defeat the Ammonites, Jephthah would give the godfather a prize. He would kill and cook whatever came out first to greet Jephthah when he returned in victory.
With the godfather’s backing, Jephthah was able to soundly trounce the Ammonites. When he returned from battle in glory, the first to come out of Jephthah’s crib was his own daughter, dancing to music that was played in celebration. Because she was his only child, Jephthah was distraught considering the deal he had struck with the godfather.
Jephthah’s daughter was surprisingly understanding. She figured that a deal is a deal, so she gave Jephthah permission to do to her what he promised the godfather. She asked for just one accommodation since she would be dying a virgin. She wanted two months to wander through the hills visiting her friends and weep with them.
Jephthah agreed, so his daughter spent a couple of months visiting them, saying her goodbyes and having a good cry with all her friends. Then she returned to Jephthah, still a virgin. Upon her return, Jephthah proceeded to kill his daughter and cook her up, offering her to the godfather as promised.
Samuel. Judges 11. Holy Bible. 700 BCE
I promised you crazy—I think I delivered. Do you know what short story this is? It’s called Judges 11.
I was recently watching a host interview a drag performer when I heard him mention “LGBTQIA+” people. I was so struck by the absurdity of the initialism that I lost track of his point. This particular initialism seems to be cohort-making to the point of becoming alphabet soup.
Before I say why, I acknowledge that I’m ignorant about many of the cohort’s issues. I welcome your constructive feedback if you can help educate me on the issues. I’ve already admitted to being slept, so it won’t hurt my feelings. But it seems to me that the initialism has watered the cohort down so much that it’s almost meaningless.
I’m old enough to remember when people simply referred to the cohort as “LGB”. This made sense to me because the words the initials refer to have a commonality. They refer to what gender a lesbian, gay, or bisexual person desires having erotic sexual activity with. It’s this second-person perspective that differentiates the cohort from heterosexual people and a person cannot be defined as lesbian, gay, or bisexual without considering the second-person perspective.
But when they appended T onto the original initialism, it seemed to me that they were trying to shoehorn transgender people into a cohort that didn’t fit them. Transgenderism has to do with what gender a person identifies themself as being. The gender with which they desire having erotic sexual activity is irrelevant to the gender the trans person identifies as. This first-person perspective differentiates transgender people from the LGB cohort.
It wasn’t long before the cohort tagged Q at the end of the initialism. Granted, I’m not completely clear on what queer means but at least it returns to the second-person perspective, so it is a better fit with the LGB cohort. But what I am ignorant about is what makes a person queer that cannot be characterized as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, so it seems to be an unnecessary initial to add to the initialism.
Then the initials IA were added. It was so obtuse that I had to look up what they stood for. It makes sense to group intersex people with transgender people because it has the same first-person perspective on gender identity. As with transgender people, the second-person perspective defining lesbian, gay, bisexual (and queer) people is irrelevant to a person being intersex. And being asexual has to do with neither the gender the person identifies as nor with the gender they desire having erotic sexual activity with because they do not desire having sex with anyone.
Finally, the cohort appended a + to the initialism. The + suggests that the cohort is concerned they’re running out of letters. My suggestion is to just stop shoehorning people who don’t really fit into this alphabet soup.
The Progressive Zone 