Bon Jovi

We just got our tickets for the Bon Jovi concert in Phoenix.
It wasn't that long ago that I couldn't spell his name. But last year, I discovered YouTube. I would put on my high-priced earphones (the tools of an earlier career) and rock back and forth in front of my computer listening to music I'd never heard before. Bon Jovi was one of them. I loved him. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kris Kristopherson, Sting, Rod Stewart. It's somewhat embarrassing to admit to never having watched or listened to them.
Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge. And there's a girl called Joss Stone who really intrigues me. In one of her clips she wonders around a huge auditorium in a sort of nightie and bare feet singing "Son of a Preacher Man" at the top of her voice. It's mesmerizing.
Nora Jones is such a lady. Tentative, and somewhat vulnerable, her music is full of the sweet small gems of genius. Diana Krall went to Paris to become famous. Much easier than trying to do it in Canada. I've seen this girl in concert in Calgary. Her "Little Girl Blue" is masterful. (Janis Joplin's? Whew!) Diana Krall, her husband Elvis Costello, and Willie Nelson sing together ("Crazy") in a concert and it's fun. She keeps giving her husband sexy little smiles.
I prefer songs in a minor key with a story line that breaks your heart. "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore". I was amazed to "search" this song on YouTube and discover that no one does it but Barbara Streisand! Mind you, if she got to it first, and it became a part of her repertoire - who in their right mind would attempt to upstage her. She and Neil Diamond do it as a duet if they find themselves on stage together. I've grown into and out of Barbara as the years have gone by, but let's face it - she's an extraordinary artist. And when Celine Dion arrived, "Barbra" seemed such a relief.
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Even Eric Clapton does this. And for opposites, check out a sensational and very dramatic concert pianist named Keith Jarret. His rendition will leave you gasping.
There's a songster in Norway - Sissel - she's been called one of the finest sopranos of the world. (What Child is This) Her voice is astonishing. The vocal chords of an angel or a saint.
Leonard Cohen. When I discovered YouTube and was still unaware of all that was out there, I listened to "Hallelujah" over and over again. His recent London concert revealed a true hero. He's very deep. His lyrics are very deep.
I listened to a concert pianist from China - "Lang Lang".
The "Punch Brothers" - the lead mandolin/banjo player makes Steve Martin and Earl Scruggs sound a bit weak. Ever heard mandolins and banjos do Mozart? These guys are magicians.
Simon and Garfunkle's concert in Central Park is another favorite. I've golfed many a game humming "Scarborough Fair". Paul Simon is on my list for further study.
12 years ago Bon Jovi and Pavarotti performed together in London - a fund raiser for Liberia. Jon is dressed all in leather. He looks great - much better than Pavarotti.
I like most kinds of music. Except opera. It seems to me that the artists I've mentioned can do more quiet, subtle and spine-tingling things to a set of notes than a whole stage full of opera singers ever could.

Not in Kansas anymore

One year we did Mexico in winter - a couple of weeks. I did a photo album and called it "Going to the Sun". I rather liked the title. When you're from the Prairies of North America, spending part of winter in a warm climate really feels like you're entering a new land.
Yesterday, I was looking at photos from friends who are visiting Punta Cana in the Dominion Republic. Now, that would be warm, very warm. We're talking tropical flowers in the hair, bare feet in the sand, big big drinks with lots of fruit.
We're relocating to Phoenix, Arizona in a couple of weeks. Talking on the phone with friends from Alberta who will be joining us for a few days. "We'll travel light" they said "shorts and shirts". I'll have to chat with them.
There's "going to the sun/01" and "going to the sun/02". They can be quite different. The Dominion Republic sun is not the Phoenix Arizona sun. North America is still North. In Palm Springs we have lots of sun, but this doesn't mean it's hot. We start golf at noon. It can be warm then. 75 degrees Fahrenheit is 23 degrees Celsius. It can stay that way for 2 hours, at most. Then you start adding the little sweater, and then the bigger sweater. On the 18th hole, I'm looking pretty bundled up!
You'll still see shorts and shirts - not looking very warm mind you, but coping.
The black people here seem the least inclined to cope with winter. They do their work in hoodies a lot and the girls who drive the beer wagons on the golf course say they find winter here very cold.
Winter in this town is great but it's still North America. It's not Saskatchewan, but it's still North.
Changing topic to close: We drive a convertible now. Still pretty keen so on our "road trips" we usually have the top down, and get lots of waves and smiles. We also have GPS. The road trips go like this. We have a list of places we've heard about, read about, or listed on the 'point of interest' in the GPS itself. Yesterday, we put the "Arnold Palmer" restaurant into the GPS. It took some looking. (the neat thing about the GPS is that she's doing the looking. We just turn the corners when she tells us to!) Tucked into a small nook out of the way. Small sign on canopy. Small but important looking door. Another sign half hidden behind a sort of newstand. Two vehicles parked in front. You would have to be feeling particularly adventuresome to walk in there! Looked as if it were designed for some sort of personal friends - "Yeah, I know we have a sign out front but that doesn't mean we want you to come in!"

Golf courses can be strange places. You arrive at the pro-shop, pay your money, and anything can happen after that. Yesterday, our golf partner immediately starts talking about "The Secret" - a book. It's about extremely successful people who simply kept wishing for success every day every hour, and that this desire formed its own energy, and finally they got what they were wishing for. "What you think is who you become".
The guy calls himself "Scottie". Enormous. Big shoes. Flat feet.
He drove truck for 20 years. Then his life starts falling apart. Loses job, loses wife, goes into free fall. Somehow, he gets on the Oprah show. She is chatting with a woman who espouses the philosophy described above. Scottie gets interviewed from the audience and tells his story. He gets hired by this woman's company. He hauls equipment and lighting to all the live shows put on by this woman and her husband. I am adding a YouTube link so that you can get a feeling for what this lady is all about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTb6mKAwftA&feature=related
Scottie says that his life has changed completely because of this woman and her philosophy.

Today we start talking with the "starter" - the guy who gets you on the first tee. He says he can put us on in 17 minutes. Meanwhile a smallish woman walks over to ask if we are the "Rices". "No? Oh I was wishing you were the Rices and we thought you would be perfect to golf with."
All kinds of things can happen in a golf lineup. Someone doesn't show up. Someone is late. People start talking to each other. Our case was a perfect example. The starter shouts "Rice?" "Rice?" "Is there a "Rice" here"? No answer. He walks over to the smallish woman. We are standing together at this point. "You and your husband were supposed to golf with Rice?" "Yes, but if there is no "Rice", we would be happier golfing with these folks" indicating us. "That's just fine", the starter says. "You're right after this foursome".
Such is a game decided.
It can be fun, or not fun. Partly fun, and sometimes little bits of everything.
In this case, the smallish woman played golf quite a bit better than the husband, so he starts telling jokes. The more poorly his game went the more jokes.
In a perfect golf world, we shake hands while sharing first names. Conversation is sparse, impersonal, but at-a-distance friendly. We are all there to play golf and try to get a good score. Not to win friends and influence people. Hand shakes again at the 18th. The end.

Tuesday is ground maintenance day for the "Desert Princess" - the gated community in which we're living in Palm Springs.
First thing in the morning, the equipment arrives in golf carts, the motors rev up and men appear from everywhere. A lot of them are wearing the equipment in harnesses on their backs. They speak Mexican, and yell at each other, clap their hands, and generally scurry about. No dilly-dallying. Even the "pool guy" is here this morning moving some sort of tall pipe back and forth, back and forth. The biggest grass cutting machine has a good looking driver - and he can make that tractor do a tango! Goes so fast and weaves itself in and out of corners and rock decorations, never misses a beat. Then the men on foot follow him with little grass cutting mowers on their backs. You don't want to be coming out of the shower and brushing your hair in the bedroom at that time. Then the third level guys do the raking and clipping. When they clear out, we're left with the manicured scene you see in the picture above. I just snapped it.
It's astonishing that the desert is so compliant. We're told that as long as the plants have water - you can stand back and watch it grow. The constancy of the moisture is more important than the amount of moisture. I can't comment on added fertilizers, but we are left with the feeling that a desert can become a lush green space surprisingly easily, and inexpensively. Go figure.
All of the workers are Mexican, happy, good-natured and intent on getting the job done well.
Their neighborhoods are not fancy. Their houses humble. The gated golf course communities support them I would think.
On a road trip the other day, we drove through the real desert. Quite beautiful in multicolored pale golds, slightly reddish, and very nubby. The closer the highway takes you to human beings and their communities, the dirtier the desert gets. Debris everywhere. The desert is too delicate for debris. Sad statement about us.
Hey look! Hummingbirds in the shrubs outside my patio door! Beautiful!

"AVATAR"

What's all the buzz about the movie "Avatar"?
Because I seldom go to movies, but still want to know about them, I go to the New York Times. The New York Times knows EVERYTHING.
I used to get simple movie reviews. Now I get clips of the movies. So many clips that my grandchildren will think I've seen the movie when we share our favorite parts.
James Cameron ("Titanic") made the movie. He had the script for "Avatar" in a drawer for some years, but there wasn't enough technology to put it together the way he wanted. Finally he decided it was time.
It's about a distant moon called Pandora in the year is 2154.
The hero is Jake. He has signed on with a corporation that’s intent on extracting a valuable substance from the moon called "unobtainium". (You can go ahead and laugh. James Cameron decided to be a bit funny.)
The natives of Pandora make this difficult and they are awesome fighters.
So a plan is born. Make some look-alike Pandorians, infiltrate the natives and change their minds about letting the mineral be taken.
The story line follows Jake who becomes one of the look-alikes and is sent to carry out the plan. Of course he falls in love with a female Pandorian, and in the end switches sides. (same old same old)
It's lush. The exotic creatures include an astonishment of undulating, flying, twitching and galloping organisms. They don’t just crawl through the underbrush; they thunder and shriek, yip and hiss, pointy teeth gleaming. A fan said "The film is so visually stunning that at times it leaves you breathless. The animation, special effects and real scenery are absolutely seamless. It is a breakthrough film technologically speaking."
As Mr. Cameron says "You'll know you're not in Kansas anymore!"

the Tiger saga

"I feel sorry for Tiger".
Merv always laughs when I say this. I think he's laughing because Tiger's got so much money. That whole thing about - if he has a lot of money, why would you feel sorry for him.
But I still feel sorry for him. When I think about Tiger's Dad, I can't help but feel that Tiger is devastated right now. His Dad would be so disappointed in his son. And what he's done to his reputation.
I feel sorry for his kids. I wonder whether they will ever know their Dad very well, or be very close with him.
And I suppose like everyone else, I'm surprised that he handled his "other life" so badly. He would never lose that kind of discipline on the golf course. He would never lose that kind of concentration on the golf course. Everything about his "other life" seems to fly in the face of the kind of guy he is.
Think about it. His tournament face is a sombre one. Rarely smiles. Never laughs. I don't think he has a "silly" bone in his body. He's basically just your ordinary guy, not emotional, not artistic or creative, not the kind of guy who cracks up at a joke, or acts out. Just a straight ahead, ordinary type of guy.
His Dad would mourn for him right now. Surely we're not heading into an "O.J. Simpson" scenario here! Please Tiger, not that! Don't sink to that.
I want the old Tiger Woods back.
Could we start over again?

Desert life

Palm Springs is an interesting city. It's in the desert surrounded by dramatic wind propellors. And it has a vaguely Las Vegas characteristic - you know how you can be driving down a crowded street in Las Vegas with bright lights and energy vibrating from the casinos - when suddenly you're right next to 3 acres of desolate property filled with burned out grasses and dirty gravel. Palm Springs has those moments.
Every year we've come here, it seems to have grown another 30 miles.
We stay in one of those "gated" communities - where you drive up to the traffic control centre - have your credentials checked and then enormous gates open and let you in. You drive down endless streets that all look the same - with the green green grass of the golf course on both sides. When those gates clang shut, you're not sure whether to be happy or sad. This policed entrance seems to have been there for 30 years, so people must still feel that they need protection from the big bad world out there. When we were moving luggage, we parked a little off the designated area, and came close to getting a ticket from some official policeman or something!
It's very pretty! Every blade of grass seems to have been studied and probed and proper treatment administered. A cast of hundreds do this important work. The vistas are solidly and overwhelmingly green and lush. Trees are trimmed, hedges carefully managed, flowers lovingly tended. This could easily be B-roll for one of those web sites where you sign in to fashion your own neighborhood, family, and friends.
These gated communities are popular here. The natives assure us that there is virtually no crime in Palm Springs. But still, they are popular. The residents beyond the gates seem happy to pay for the policing, the formal lawns and gardens, and everything else that adds up to a fairly healthy monthly charge.
Palm Springs has the Bing Crosby bar and the Frank Sinatra bar, the Buddy Rogers Street, Dinah Shore Drive, and Date Palm Highway. Every shopping mall plays "White Christmas" and everyone shows you Bob Hope's house on the mountain. Americans are good at promoting their heroes, and Palm Springs especially promotes entertainment biggies because they picked out Las Vegas and Palm Springs and literally propelled them into existence. These were masterful moves.
But all this talk about Palm Springs is not the real story. The real story is the weather. While our homes back in Canada are inundated with cold cold cold and snow snow snow, we're on the golf course basking in warm sunshine and lush meadows!
The golf? Courses everywhere. Wanting your business. Offering this, that, and the other. Sometimes it seems as if there are more Canadians here than Americans. You're more likely to get partnered with a couple from Edmonton, than a couple from Los Angeles.
We're researching. Arizona is our next stop. We'll get back to you.