Sarah and Ajee drove up from San Diego to attend my going away. They were the two girls I met on the cruise to Alaska. I actually didn't think I would ever see them again. It's always interesting when different pockets of people I know meet. It's illuminating, and I like it when they have connections between each other.

It was kind of interesting to see them outside of the context of the cruise experience. In a way, I think they wanted to see as well...if what was experienced was real.

Maybe the magic is that there's a way to bring it into this world. You just have to have the space to feel very positive and loving. Not worry about anything outside of openness to experience truth and beauty.

The girls arrived early, so we hung out at my place for a while. We sent a funny picture to Tom:

Bernie, Ajee, Me, Sarah, and Monkeybutt

The show was fuckin' bizarre. I didn't even look at the description of the concert. I'd just bought tickets because it was one of the last Sunday shows of the summer, and I wanted to get one more Bowl night in. The timing just turned out to work for my going away gathering.

But I thought since the Roots would be there, it would be a giant block party with dancing in the aisles. But it was a spoken poetry piece with the LA Philharmonic, where they read Langston Hughes' "Ask Your Mama" and interpreted it through jazz and vocals.

There were some good beats, the video accompaniment of the history of black struggle was interesting, but there was this one woman singing soprano in an operatic style who just didn't fit. The other vocalists were deep south soulful, and then the soprano would come in and you'd suddenly get hit with anxiety. "Where's this thing going?"

The other thing that kind of sucked was that the entire theater was silent. I've never been to the Bowl when it was this still, this serious. Sarita opened a bottle of champagne and the pop almost echoed. We all look over and suddenly the bottle erupts out of her lap, like an obscene cartoon animation. That will probably be my favorite image of the night. But the lady next to her, who had been pissed off anyway when we'd had to pass her to get to our seats, got sprayed with champagne. So during intermission, we moved up to the very top corner of the Bowl, which was completely empty.

That was cool. We had the whole section to ourselves, between the moon and trees, and all the stars, the lights and music from the stage below almost seeming to come from a different world.