May Day

I had quite a nice weekend. Lee Joramo

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Friday night, I saw three student one act play projects at Mesa State's Experimental Theatre. The first play was a send up of Othello. Othello focuses on the men, with the actions of the three major female characters occuring largely off stage. In this play, only the three female characters are seen. It turns out that most of Yagos stories about Desdemona's whoring are true, and yet the men still obviously didn't get the stories quite right....

The last play was as strange Tennessee Williams work. Set in the future after a great war, the world is run by a dictatorship, there is no water and women are few. It was sort of "The Road Warrior" meets "Angles in America".

Saturday morning was consumed with restoring order to a very sad web server.

Saturday evening, I celebrated May Day at Heidi and Corry's place up Little Park Road above "Bangs Canyon". Jana and Eric, Toby and many of the Nickel Crew were there. We built and danced around a wonderful May Pole. Then we took a short hike to watch the sunset over Bangs Canyon. Finally it was time for the bonfire.

Sunday, I attended services at UUUS. Took a drive around the confluence of the Gunnison and Colorado triangle, and went to a friends college graduation party a week early.

..::;;

Men in Portugual

The "UUUS" Men's Cooking group had yet another blow out festival of food and drink last night at Dick Pierce's home. The food was Portuguese, and that means Port wine and salty food. I didn't know that Portugual was the land of salty food, but considering that nearly every dish tasted salty. Salty fish, Salty pork, salty sausage stew, salty bread, the Portuguese must love salt.

Name Remembered

As I was leaving my favorite coffee house Higher Grounds, I stopped to talk to Mark.

Mark is one of the regular patrons and is often sitting in front of a chess board beating nearly all comes on. From what I have gathered, Mark use to be an successful architech. But that was before the accident he had on a bicycle. Now his memory is very erratic and he has the habit of laughing "Ha Ha" at odd times. Mark has a difficult time remembering names and faces. He likes to flirt with all of the women in the coffee house, and I have noticed that he tends to remember their names after an number of chats.

However, Marks has not rememembered my name in the two years that I have gone to this coffee house. Of course, I am not a cute girl.

But today, Mark asked me "Your name is Lee, Right?"

Yeah!

Bad Frog

Christella is back from France.

So she came over to my house for a drink and dinner. Sounds like she had a great time. I hope that she blogs about some of her stories, like the adventure with the American Neo-Marxist who lives in a hip villa in the south of France and who keeps a slave in the basement, and who likes to cop a feel.

Appearently the frog that I gave Christella to take to France was a bad frog who stayed in the hotel room and watched CNN. I don't think that I will give anyone a blue frog again. Bad Frog!

Amazingly, Christella really enjoyed the French food. Yes, she does love good food, but being mostly a vegitarian, she is

Green Is Red

As we exited from the Avalon after watching Fog of War last Saturday, a young man wearing a sort of hippy beaning cap came up to me. He held out hand which grasped a card, and asked "Are you Good?" I said, "No I am evil".

I knew right away he was selling something, of course he was selling Jesus. He was expecting me to say that I was "Good", then he would show me that the card which contained a green printed dot, would turn to a red dot to show that I was sinful.

Or something like, that I never let him explain himself. I have never grasped the concept of original sin. If there is a God, and if God is Good, then I can not understand why we would be created as sinful by nature. No I believe that a

Good God would create us as being Good by default and it would take action to do evil. (Darkness is the absence of Light, but Light is not the absence of Dark.)

So I played with this young Christian. No I did not engage him in a direct logical discussion, but a surrealistic dadaist logic. The lad became more and more bewildered.

Finally, I said "Sorry, I am taking my Jewish ass and leave with my Pagan friends." And I left. He was confused.

Back in the USA

My best friend Christella Lans is back in the USA after her trip in France. I am excited to see her when she gets home and can tell me all of the stories.

Party at Pauls

I met Doug Freed, Karl and Christy, David Miller and Lynn Campbell at the new Ale House (aka the former Gladstones) for a Friday beer. The Ale House is the new hip place in Grand Junciton. It is packed the entire parking lot is filled. Not sure if the video store and liquor store that share the strip mall will be happy or mad about this situation.

After several rounds of beer, we (minus Doug) headed over to Paul's house where we preceeded to drink more beer. (Including a most yummy belgium beer with Pink Elephants on the bottle called Delirium.)

things heard

"I saw her tits, but you can almost get a lot of sex."

"I can't decide weither to denie that, or say 'Hell, yes I said that'"

"Your less not hip than I am"

When Henry Rollins Speaks, Drunks Should Run

The moral of this story: Don't go to a Henry Rollins Spoken Word performance if you are a ripped drunk.

I was told by so many friends that I needed to go to see Henry Rollins when he came to Grand Junction's Avalon Theater. Randy, Jana, Eric, Toby, Heidi, Patty, the Higher Grounds Crew, all told me that I had to see this guy. I don't think that I had ever heard of Henry Rollins; although, I think that I had heard of the early 1980's punk band Black Flag that he use to sing for. I wondered what "spoken word" by a former Punk singer would be, but so much praise could not be denided.

Prior to the show I had dinner at Suehiro. I entered by myself, but soon my workout buddy (and consulting client mainstay) Doug Freed walked in with his wife Shannon. So I ended up eating with them. They had never been to Suehiro's, and were not overly familar with sushi, so I helped them order. (Although, I ate mostly my order of curry udon.) The Doug and Shannon were going to see the play Intelligent Signs of Life at the Green Shoe Theatre.

After dinner, I headed over to the Avalon to see Henry Rollins. Dispite the fact that the show was at the Avalon, the Mesa Theater Club was the organizer. Have I told you how I dispise the Mesa Theater? What a great venue. What a lousy customer experience.

As the Avalon filled, I was surprised at how many people I knew. Friends, local volunteers, arts and culture patrons, bar flys, former girl friends, etc. In one odd moment a former girlfriend (who had stopped returning communications) and her campanions all vigerously waved at me.

Rollins comes on stage. A Man in his early 40's. He clutches the mic, the veins on his muscled arms pop out. For the next two hours he will hold the mic in this death grip. The rant begins.

He is angry

He is profane

He is smart

He is insightful

He is funny as hell

A drunk begins to talk back to him.

Rollins belongs to a long standing movement in punk called Straight Edge that is totally opposed to drug and alcohol use. In fact during the monolog, Rollins mentions that he has only been drunk once, and only tried Pot once. Both expereinces he thought were stupid.

The drunk is delirious and incoherrent. Rollins simply asks the drunk to leave. And "Give him back his $20 bucks for the ticket so he can go across the street and continue with his drinking."

Rollins spends much of the evening ripping apart the Bush administrations policies on Terror, Iraq, taxes, tits on TV, Mars. He recounts his experiences going on a USO tour to visit our troops.

But for me the most interesting story was the closing story. Less than 48 hours after being in Iraq, Rollins finds himself in a Nashville sound studio with a studio drummer and William Shatner to work on a track Shatner's new album. Remember, Shatners prior album is considerd by many to be the worse recording in history. The title of the track is "I can't get behind that" in which the Captain and the Punk trade verbal blows of things that they can't get behind. When Shatner decideds they need to add a guitar, the producer calls his buddy down the street the ledgenary Adrian Belew of King Crimson to come in. ("Hey Adrian, I got William Shatner of Star Trek, and Henry Rollins of Black Flag in the Studio. Do you want part of this shit?." "I will be their in 10 minutes.")

Why is the story of Shatner interesting? Because Rollins describes Shatner as a man who is enjoying his life, and when they go to dinner Shanter gracefully talks to all of the other dinners who are stunned to see Captian Kirk. While Rollins describes himself as slamming down every bit of food, Shatner enjoys every taste with passion. Too often I have heard the witty cyncial observer of life end on a sour note.

Wow!

ggggg

The PowerMac G5's arrived at the Nickel. More work for me. (but fun)

March Birthdays 2004

March is Birth Day month in the Joramo household, with my father, sister and myself having birithdays. As has become our tradition, we celebrated it at Dolce Vita. I gave my father a copy of my buddy Doug Freed's new book Colorado by the Numbers, and a copy of the DaVinci Code.

Monday at Folks and Pauls

A busy day, catching up after being out of town and working on new projects. I had dinner with at my folks, and afterward I stopped by Paul Lan's and drank a couple of beers.

Dogs, Food and Work

Girl with Dog.

On the flight from Denver to Dallas, there was a girl who was traveling with her nervous little dog. The dog came on the plane in a brightly colored fabric and vinal carrier that fit under the sit. Shortly after she was seated, she reached down and unzipped the front of the carrier and pulled the little dog on to her lap and carefully covered it with a blanket. It little dog, enjoyed its flight even with a little turbulence.

Food.

The first night in Dallas, my college buddy and colleague Jason picked me up at the airport and took me to his home were we began to do some work. I for dinner he fixed cheap frozen pizzas which were proudly cooked in a strange kitchen contraption in which a 10 inch pizza is placed on a rotating disk. over this disk was held a wedge protrusion containing a computer controlled infrared heating element. In 15 minutes the pizza was hot and crispy. The best that a cheap frozen pizza can be.

My buddy Jason is great, but he is really limited in selection of food. In college, Jason was well know for only ordering spaghetti with marinara or cheese pizza and removing the cheese. I almost get the impression that I was the first to cook in his kitchen since my last stay nearly three years ago. A friend of theirs was dumfounded that someone fried up a potato for a late dinner. (The choices were severely limited to a couple frozen dinners mostly pizza. The only thing that I could find to really cook was a couple off rather old rubbery potatoes found in the bottom of the fridge. But potatoes keep well, and while their friend was a little off put by old potatoes, I enjoyed a hearty repass of fried taters. In fact, I find old taters make better fryers.

Work

Saturday was a busying day. This was the firms first meeting with most all of the staff together. Things feel very optimistic. But I can't blog much about it

Ring, Ring

In the middle of a business lunch I received my first call from Paul Lans. I told him that I would stop by and have a beer when I got back to Grand Junction..

Dallas Again

I am off to Dallas, Texas to meet about a new market research project. Much other news that I need to get caught up on, hopefully I will find the time during the flight to do some writing.

Christella's Paris Trip

Yesterday, I dropped off my dear friend Christella Lans at the Grand Junction air port to begin her first trip to France. This is very exciting. I am so happy for her. She acting as an advisor for a college group led by her good friend Dr. Eric. (The man from whom I purchased my home.)

Hopefully, Christella will keep us informed via her blog. She made it to Slippery Rock, PA for the first stage of her journey.

Star Wars Legacy

I was at my favorite coffee house Higher Grounds when Katie walked in. I haven't seen Katie in over a year.

I first met at the reissue of Star Wars in 1997. Lets see, I believe I wrote an email about the first meeting:

So that sets the context for Katie. Back during the Star Wars releases, I stood in line with her and her friends each time to see the premere night. She was a very interesting person who was very interested in being a stage actor. I have continued to run into Katie every 12 to 16 months. At the college (where she studied drama), at plays, coffee houses, and in later years at bars. We always laugh about our Star Wars connection, and bemoan the direction that the new Star Wars movies are heading.

Katie has been out of college for a couple of years, but is still working on acting, this summer she said that she will be interning in London. Very cool.

Every time that I meet Katie, I wonder if this will be the last time. It is interesting to cross paths with someone in such a disjointed random manner.

Installation Art

Last night the UUUS finally got around to holding an installation service for Marlene Walker our first full time minister who has been serving us since last July. I attended it with fellow band members Christella Lans and Toby Farley.

I thought that the service was ran long, especially since it was suppose start at 6pm with dinner at 7pm. Instead it was close to 8pm before the service ended. Sitting for a long time on our rock hard pews with an empty stomach is not fun. In most other respects it was a good service.

After the potluck, Christella, Toby and I briefly attended the gallery opening at Planet Earth followed by a drink at Dolce Vita. Christella leaves for Paris next Tuesday, and she is mentally gone already. I gave her a little plastic frog to take to France. I told her to show the frog the sites and sounds. Maybe she will return the frog to me. Maybe she will pass it on to someone else. I gave a similar frog to my niece Kylie when she left for Austrailia. I gave Kylie instructions to give the frog to another little girl, but instead, the frog spent the entire trip on their dash board. Some 5000 miles. Then Kylie returned the frog safely to me.

Random Blog Reader

I am sitting at Higher Grounds working my iBook. A college kid comes up who I have seen before, maybe I have briefly talked to him once or twice in the past year. He says,

"Hey, I saw your web site last night. I don't know how I got to it, but I stumbled on to it and said 'That's the computer guy I see at Higher Grounds. Cool site".