It feels like this event needs a commemorative post in the annals of the KINGS, one of the legendary and epic match-ups between the Boston Celtics and the LA Lakers. It's been all the sports talk all week on the sports channels they keep on on the TVs at my work. I can't say I'm not into it (and I'm glad Fred is out there feeling it too). It is one of those weird unknown things about me that I am actually into sports a lot (in high school I wished that I could be a pitcher, many hours spent practicing.)
This is, in fact, the first time in probably ten years I have been bummed out about not having modern cable or access to a real, working TV. I really wish I could be watching this series, a lot. I think for some people it's just not making sense. I mean, OK, outside of enjoying the history and awesomeness of watching these two teams, it's just so, so directly related to the mix project. I mean, its Boston vs LA for God's sake! It's all right there. It might as well be a video of us at Bmax drinking in the walk-in and listening to "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" or "No Peace Los Angeles".
I think there is even a historical precedent for the sports epic/KINGS crossover. Lest we forget the Superbowl half-time show of a couple years back, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I swear to God, it still gives me chills. I had just moved back here to Atlanta and was still out at my mom's house and still really hurting for Boston and the KINGS and we were there watching the Superbowl. The lights went down all over the world and a heart-shaped stage lit up like a flying saucer of rock under the thunder of earth-sized heartbeats and then we were off and running on "American Girl"(--035). I'm not saying the whole performance didn't feel a little subdued, though, to be fair, Tom Petty's music has always had that not-arena rock, laid back feel to it, making it a strange fit for such a huge touring act. "I Won't Back Down" (--016 and --242) follows but really, it's all leading up to the finale:
When Tom Petty did "Freefallin'" (Figure 8 PLUS) it was like the whole world was playing KINGS with us, all together. It was like we all joined hands, everyone on the entire Earth, me in Dallas, GA, the kings back up in Boston, Fred in LA, Luke in Texas, Hazel in Ohio, Cabrie in Africa, and every other past KING and every other person in the whole world wherever we all were. It was like the entire world was there, at The Gala Event, listening, finally, to the last songs spool off of the last KINGS mix and raising a can or a bottle. It was like the whole world was there with us, in the back of Bmax, on the very last night, laughing and hugging and singing and yelling our hearts out, all together. ALL TOGETHER. We were all there, in Boston, having a hard time and just trying to get by, just trying to overcome, just hoping that we could make it through another day, surrounded by friends that would help us back up if we fell down, we were all there in Boston, hating it and wishing we were somewhere else, wishing we were in LA, willing to trade all of what we had to be sitting anywhere, on any street corner in any part of Los Angeles, possibly drinking a beer from a brown bag, we were all, all over the world, for one minute, singing and chanting about Reseda and Ventura Blvd and vampires and Mullholland. It was like we were all there, in the living room of The Castle at 8 Fenino Terrace after a long night of drinking and laughing and screaming and pounding our hearts in our prom-best, feeling together, feeling apart, feeling like one unit united and feeling like one single, lonely lost person at the same time, completely untied. It made me feel a serious kind of love and connection to the entire human race that it often muddied and lost in my regular life.
Thank you Boston. Thank you Los Angeles. Thank you Celtics. Thank you Lakers. Thank you Superbowl. Thank you friends, here now and elsewhere, in my life and lost for good, speeding fast from what you were, you are more awake than is possible,
do this, for the remembrance of me...
it is 3:14 AM
this is the seance.
xo
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