Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis
One of the more wonderful things I was happy about in 2009 was that I got out a few times with one of my best friends from childhood. We’ve started graying and maybe even have started to repeat ourselves so getting out again with each other and while we didn’t get to great events like a Super Bowl or a Cal-Stanford Big Game with miraculous plays, getting out and enjoying things together with someone and sharing in the joy, the laughter, the sadness, and the disappointment is what makes those events and memories even more special.
Jerry Rice #80 and me
My wife often asks me about what it is that makes my friendship so special and I said it is that it is the unspoken. It is that we don’t even have to tell each other about what we were tniking because “we just knew”. The stunned look we gave each other as if to say, “Could this really be happening to us?”
Recently we went to a Monday Night Football game which I have to freely admit is not what it used to be from a television experience, but in a day and time when we see a lot of football played on Sundays, I had forgotten how special a night game in December could be. Granted the 49ers are no longer a dynasty and ESPN does not replicate ABC and Howard Cosell or John Madden, but it didn’t need to.
Just sharing the night with a friend made a special night even more special. I’d forgotten how great and magical Monday Night Football could be. Even without the 49ers making the playoffs for the 7th straight season, the stars were still out.
With ESPN's Suzy Kolber
The cool thing about Monday Night Football is that it is just as big a sporting event as it is a media event. The sports celebrities are as big as the players themselves. ESPN personalities like Suzy Kolber, Michelle Tafoya, Stuart Scott and Matt Millen were all in attendance on the sidelines.
Matt Millen did play for the 49ers so he helped to add to the celebrity status. There were plenty of 49er alumni in attendance from the glory years, some working as media as well as just taking in the whole scene:
Steve Young
Jerry Rice
Keena Turner
Deion Sanders
Steve Bono
MNF Pre-Game Hosts
As a football fan though, the game was very entertaining as the 49ers beat the defending NFC champs, Arizona Cardinals for the second time this season as they hounded them for 7 turnovers.
More importantly, the game ended with more memories for a good friendship that will leave us with more moments that we will be able to acknowledge with a simple nod and a smile because of its uniqueness in both of our memories. From my perspective, taking photos of my friend both with the owner of the team as well as the 49er cheerleaders cracked me up. Hopefully 20 years from now we’ll look back and them and crack up at how silly we were. They will go in the pile along with the Polaroids (Wait, is it still 2009? No? Time to throw away the polaroids.) we took with Miss Universe 1982, Shawn Weatherly (yes, I still have old polaroids.) In fact it was 1982 when the 49ers were bringing hoe their first Super Bowl (1981 actually). Maybe it is coincidence that I went to the game with my friend Dave. It has been a while since the 49ers had a winning season (they’ve not had a winning season since 2002), so this turnaround is a great time to share with friends.
With ex-49er QB Steve Bono
Here’s to friends, football and pleasant memories. I know this might sound sentimental and mushy, but I watched the movie Finding Forrester with my son. The movie focuses ona reclusive writer who no longer wants to share with others because but a young kid from the neighborhodod shows him the joys of sharing and discovery again. I’ve seen several writings on the Moral Premise of the movie:
Ignorance and avoidance of the unknown
leads to fear, isolation, and despair;
but Knowledge and embrace of the unknown
leads to faith, friendship, and hope.
In the movie, the reclusive author rediscovers the joy of visiting Yankee Stadium and a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden with his new-found friend. This game was just a way for my friend and I to revisit some of those great memories and it just so happens that many of the heroes of our past were there. Seeing Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Steve Bono, Matt Millen and Keena Turner on the sidelines while watching an increasingly competitive 49er team play a game on Monday night brought back many fond memories and good times.
It should be said that fiendships are not only there for the good times. And that is why as we head into 2010 that I can only hope that many of the friendships of 2009 that were rooted in some not so fond times will get to rekindle some good times in 2010.
“The payment for me has always been in the doing. I didn’t get into [photography] for a job.” – Michael Zagaris, Photographer
With the Z-man before a recent 49er game
Michael Zagaris is not a household name and many might not even ever consider him to be a celebrity. Affectionately known as “The Z-man”, Michael is not just a photographer, but he’s a historian. Anyone who has lived in San Francisco in the past 50 years has seen his work and appreciated his ability to “capture the moment” although they might not even know who he is. He’s one of them. Politically active, fiercely independent and living and brieathing a job that he’s passionate about, Michael embodies the heart and soul of what living in San Francisco is about for most people. Michael moved here after his first passion failed him. Michael wanted to be a politician and was working on Capital Hill until the fateful day when Bobby Kennedy was shot. “I was right there behind him” , he has told many. In fact he has photos (then a hobby) of the Kennedys playing football in their back yard. In fact, although lean and in good shape, Michael was at one time a college football player and aspiring football player (let’s just say he would not have been anything like Gerald Ford).
Michael Zagaris pre-game
To appreciate Michael’s breadth of work one needs not necessarily look at his work as art, but as a portfolio of photos that tell a story. Michael’s photos are a combination of his relationship to his subject matter and his ability to put you there with him. At a 49er football game last week, my son poked me in the side and said look, there’s Michael waving at you. People around me laughed thinking that I was waving at the 49er cheerleaders, which wouldn’t have been bad either, but it was nice waving at an artist who has captured the imagery of my youth. Today, Michael is the official team photographer for the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland A’s. You see, any sports fan, especially one from the San Francisco Bay Area would consider him to be the guy who has a dream job. On this day, the 49ers feted their original owner, Eddie DeBartolo, who saved the team and fans from misery and created a 5-Super Bowl dynasty during a halftime ceremony. Watching that ceremony is all you needed to know about Michael. Watching Eddie DeBartolo, come out, Michael started to take his photo but this multi-millionaire future Hall of Famer signaled for him to stop and hugged him first. This was followed by hugs with Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, Hall of Famers and celebrities in their own right. That’s Michael. A friend first, historian and photographer second. His photos touch your soul and each person tells their own story of their recollection of that era when they look at his photos.
Like the great San Francisco Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Herb Caen, Michael has captured the aura surrounding some of San Francisco’s greatest moments. Whether it was covering the great hippie culture and music scene of the 60s-70s in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury, the great 49er dynasty of the ’80s or the Oakland A’s and the beginning of the steroid era of baseball in the late 80s and early 90s, Michael took you right there and showed you his unique perspective.
Michael and A's Outfielder Mark Sweeney
You see, Michael can give you the classic baseball card photo of a guy holding his bat and smiling, but he has an all-acess pass that shows you that same guy after throwing a 100 pitches and grimacing as they pour ice over his sore shoulder. On his kitchen table I found piles of photos he had just taken for the Oaklan A’s professional baseball team. I have no idea how he organizes them, so I didn’t sort through them too hard and obvioulsy was not too concerned with the subject. “Ah, a Giants fan”, he said. He nodded as we both knew what we were thinking. The 1989 World Series between the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake which became more famous than the players who played in that series.
Taking more Football card photos
Sitting at his coffee table of his apartment just around the corner from Haight and Ashbury, Michael let me thumb through his archives. Just like a bookworm who might have books sitting in piles from the floor to ceiling, Michael has rows of mounted photos leaned up against the wall waiting for someone to come along and hang them up (Divorced from the mother of his grown son, Michael had just broken up with his girlfriend and asked me if I knew any hip women. I did recommend a friend but that is another story). Michael hands me one photo after I tell him I was a big Madonna fan and shows me the classic photo of Madonna from her 1990 Blond Ambition tour with her Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra that set a fashion trend for a couple years.
Michael, a historian was writing about English Rock’n'Roll when Eric Clapton noticed his hobby and told him he had real talent. From there Michael became linked to icons Roger Daltrey, Peter Frampton and Mick Jagger. He’s was added to their inner sanctum. As he rummages around a pile of photos scattered around the floor he throws in front of me a photo of Rick James….I look at him . “It’s Rick James, Bitch”, he says in his best Dave Chapelle impersonation. Rick James is leaning over a rock along the San Francisco Bay and snorting cocaine. He laughs and tells me a story about how he was going to do a cover shot for Rolling Stone Magazine when Rick James invited him to do some drugs. Well Michael in his convincing way somehow convinced a somewhat non-compliant Rick James to get outside and take a few photos. I can just see it. He has numerous photos around that tell stories. Stories that have never been told.
On my way out of his place we talk briefly about his marriage to a top model, the mother of his acting son who lives in LA. His son’s room is a shrine of baseball bobbleheads. It is the neatest room in this Upper Haight flat. He reminds me to let him know if I know of any women who would be looking for companionship. Michael is so cool. I don’t think I know of a single woman out there who could appreciate this eccentric visual historian of some of San Francisco’s most charming and colorful history.
“Funerals and deaths are the departed’s message to remind us to go out and live life” – The Very Reverend Alan Jones, Grace Cathedral
It has taken me a day to settle down from my harrowing plane flight. I’m not afraid of flying, but flying in the high winds that hit the West Coast of the US yesterday was not a joy ride I enjoyed. I was sitting there in seat 12F mentally writing my own obituary about how I was rushing back to Northern California to my cousin’s funeral, my second of the week, when my plane went down in the SF Bay. It was one of those flights where you hear that whistle. You know the sound. It’s the one you hear in the movies where the plane makes that soaring screech before it hits the ground? We had to abort our landing twice as our captain told us that the wind shears were too violent to provide us with a predictable path to the runway. Inside the plane, we slammed against each other with each turbulent drop and rise of our plane, trying not to act worried. The woman next to me grabbed my arm subconsciously and I didn’t even want to look at her for fear I’d get scared too. I tried to distract myself with the newspaper only to read about the great confidence we should have in the pilots of today, an article about Chesley Sullenberger, a local hero, and someone you would have wanted at the helm of our plane yesterday. We eventually landed and everyone rushed to the men’s room full of relieved tension. Even the pilot came rushing in to a bunch of smiling and relieved faces.
The quote for this post is a thought provoking one from the Reverend who presided over my first funeral I attended this week. I just wish I didn’t need these reminders. Seriously, so far two funerals for dads under the age of 55 this week and I get the message. I get it , I get it, I get it. I sat there yesterday listening to my son’s classmate singing “100 Years” by 5 for Fighting and I just about lost it. I could not see my son singing next to my casket like that. Every other dad in the church must have been thinking the same thing. I looked around and I’m sure people were thinking “That could be me”.
Kids with C-3PO
I stopped myself as I asked myself if I would rather have more time to plan my death or go quickly in my sleep. What? I can’t live life like that. I need to live life every day for the sake of happiness. As soon as these recent deaths came in fast sequence last week we didn’t need to say anything. My wife knew how I was feeling, “There is solidarity and certainty in death. We’ll all die some day, but let’s not live to die, but live to live well”. For the first time I can ever remember, my kids came to visit me at work and all of us went out for lunch. Just so nice to see your family together to break up the day. It was just the beginning to the start of a great family weekend.
Saturday was our normal soccer Saturday as a family followed by the President’s Cupgolf tournament. The President’s Cup was chilly but a great way to see the best golfers in the world in an intimate setting on our local home course. Golf is unique because of how close you get to the players and the fact that you are actually walking around on the playing surface with them, not like most sports where they look like gladiators in a pit.
Tiger Woods
My 7-year old daughter doesn’t play golf yet, but I loved it on Sunday night when we ask everyone in our home what was their favorite part of the weekend and she chose to say that seeing Tiger Woods in person while snuggling close together as a family sipping hot cocoa was the best.
Sunday was followed by early morning Little League baseball again on a cold and blustery day. It was another coffee and cocoa morning. The evening was finished with a trip to see Star Wars in Concert. This was my son’s favorite event as he got to see all the costumes from the movies and watch the movies unfold to an orchestra which played the famous score that won many accolades and the Academy Award. Seeing his eyes light up and his feet tapping to the music reminded me of myself at his age. My wife and I caught each other watching our son and smiled that knowing smile that he was having a good time and enjoying himself. It was a long day, but he was so excited to watch that he didn’t want to take a break to get food because he didn’t want to miss a thing.
Yes, the Reverend Alan Jones was right in saying that funerals and death bring us together to reflect and remember on those who have left us and to help celebrate their lives. He was also very right in saying that love binds us too. Spending a wonderful weekend with my family and exposing my children to some great experiences that they will never forget is something I will always cherish. It is love and great times spent together which bind a family in experience and spirit. It is those pleasant memories which we will use to grow and to help us remember the best of times at the worst of times… like when we are sitting on a plane with some crazy stranger grabbing on to your arm so tight.
Been a bit since I posted thoughts here. A lot has been going on in life so it is good to capture these thoughts now. I have been inundated with life events that have put me in a very pensive mood about what where I’ve been, where I am and where I am going in life. After these last two weeks, today is defintiely a Brand New Day.
When I arrived home yesterday I saw the biggest smile on my wife’s face. To be welcomed by a big kiss a day after coming home to find that I lost a close relative to a heart attack was definitely a good pick me up. This may be the beginning of a brand new day on our journey with cancer. My wife’s joy was from her follow up post-op appointment with her surgeon. I think her doctors were also relieved to see her smiling as well as she said that they all gave her big hugs. Yes, my wife was her usual “chatty Cathy” self again, and that meant all was really well. It just dawned on me that it had been over 18 months since I had seen that excitement on her face. I had missed her “text” message in which she had told me how happy she was. She had been in good spirits, mind you, but this was just different. Some say our journey of survivorship is over, but I think when we look back it has only just begun.
One of the things that I didn’t know would affect me so much is the way Breast Cancer Awareness has grown so much. Last year when my wife was just starting her battle we might have missed all of the action, but this year we both seem to be more aware of how powerful a movement Breast Cancer Awareness month really is. I felt like every week there was a walk or run for breast cancer and I did notice a lot of products in the grocery store when purchased gave back to some breast cancer research fund.
Ingrid Michaelson sang for Breast Cancer at Slide
For example, Ingrid Michaelson, pictured above, sang at a local club last night here in San Francisco with proceed donations at the door going to Breast Cancer Organizations in the Bay Area. The song ”Be Okay” has become a feature song in the fight against breast cancer. She was also part of the Hotel Cafe Tour last year in which the album, Winter Songs, gave $.50 for each sale to breast cancer research.
SF 49er Cheerleaders wear pink tops for breast cancer
This past weekend, all of the NFL paid homage to breast cancer and its survivors. At the 49er game, donations were taken at the gate, referees wore pink, cheerleaders wore pink and players wore pink. Before the game, 50 breast cancer survivors were introduced to the players. One of the captains, 49ers QB, Shaun Hill, who wore pink cleats during the game, met with the survivors. He was later quoted as saying how he had put on the pink cleats without thinking. He didn’t know anyone with breast cancer, but when he met these women and saw the spirit in their eyes he said it suddenly became real to him and the shoes meant something. He said it even rattled him a bit before the game started.
Zach Johnson, PGA Tour Pro, sports pink ribbon at President's Cup
And just yesterday I was at the President’s Cup. Nothing formal was done around Breast Cancer Awareness but a couple of the US players, notably Phil Mickelson and Master’s Champion, Zach Johnson, wore pink ribbons. Phil’s wife Amy, a native of Northern California, is currently battling breast cancer. What was readily apparent was that Phil made a point of saying hello and stopping for a second to speak with every person who wore a notably pink cap or ribbon to stop and sign an autograph. Several elderly women who wore Susan G. Komen shirts were startled as he stopped to say hello and give them each a hug. It didn’t go unnoticed by me or any of the thousands of spectators who saw this connection and warmth he exhibited especially when compared to other golfers who whisked right by the crowd without any kind of acknowledgement to the screaming fans.
So what does this mean? To me it is just the sign of how powerful a community of similarity around a single cause can be. I wish the same thing could be done around heart disease. Just like the push for a mammogram, perhaps everyone should get an EKG. With the obese population we have and the number of people who die of heart attacks each year, why shouldn’t we all get one. I probably need one and my cousin who passed away in his early 50s in his sleep earlier this week could have used one. I bet his 3 teenage children and wife wish that he could have had one.
My son with the NFL ref sporting pink wristbands and ribbon
These events when they hit so close to home just make me think more about my life in so many ways. What was the last thing I did with my cousin? Gave him a High-5 and a hug at the 49ers home opener. How good does that make me feel? It helps me feel like my peace with my cousin is there. It reminded me that when you see someone make sure you leave a good impression with them until you see them again and to remember that smile until the next time you see them. My cousin and his wife and family are models to me of where I will be in 10 years. I can’t help but see that in 10 years I don’t want my heart to fail on my own children and leave them fatherless as they just get started with their lives. It is sad though. My cousin was my 10 year barometer in life. His death to me is a kick start to remind myself to do as much as I can to spend quality time with my children and really make sure they know me and my wishes for them. My life is an open book to them. No secrets. My fears and hopes and dreams are there for them to inspect.
My cousin and his wife were the first people we told on my father’s side of the family when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and they were the first to help out. My wife and I are beside ourselves about how lucky and fortunate we are to be winning the battle against breast cancer a year later at the same time we are seeing people who seemed so healthy leave us behind. There is no rhyme or reason it seems.
NFL All-Pro LB Patrick Willis sports his pink gloves and cleats
Finally, my son’s classmate’s dad finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer earlier this week as well. Yes I feel like signs of my life area ll around me. Watching another dad with similar age children leave behind a wife to take care of a 10 and 7 year old is just so sad. When first diagnosed he told me how his main goal was to fight the cancer as long as he could but he knew he couldn’t win in the long run and thus his other goal was to impart enough of his thoughts on life to his two sons so that they’d have something to guide them. Watching the 10 year old this week, his father did a good job in preparing him for the inevitable day. Sad that it has to be at such a young age though for such a good kid.
So where do I go from here? As I said, it’s a brand new day. We can only go forward, live life to it’s fullest and make sure we taste every experience we can get and share it with everyone in such a way that we have an impact on those who might have to be reminded or forget the power of the human spirit.
Yes, this is a joke! This isn’t a real celebrity sighting by me since I wasn’t there, but through my friend Greg, he brought me , in name only, close to Dina Manzo, the star of VH1’s My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding ($1.15MM) and Bravo’s Real Housewives of New Jersey! Greg happens to be friends with her nephew and niece. I had told him of my fondness of reality TV and the crazy episode where she interviews personal assistants and asks them to wash her hairless cat. He of course went ahead and told her (I thought he was joking) and they took this photo above!
As you know, for me celebrity sightings aren’t about really big celebrities but those who get their fleeting 15 minutes. Some get more. Some get less. Some are honestly real celebrities and some get it for odd reasons. I guess reality TV shows are one of those odd reasons, but I love the guilty pleasures of reality TV because there is “some realisim” there. There are lessons to be translated, motives NOT to be copied or copied, and some compelling personalities.
Of course even these shows are not really reality. That said I did marry a New Jersey girl myself, an Italian one at that. So this show is just an over-the-top view of what marrying an Italian New Jersey girl would be like. I think my wedding cost only $45K and not $1.15 million. You might say I got off cheap! I do have to say this photo is one of my all-time favorite celebrity photos relating to me. Now if she were kissing me and not the napkin, I think my own Italian wife would be feuding New Jersey housewife style! And if you have watched the show, you don’t mess with the Manzos. LOL!
I run from hate
I run from prejudice
I run from pessimists
But I run too late
I run my life
Or is it running me
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems
When lies become the truth
That’s when I run to you
- lyrics from “I Run To You”, by Lady Antebellum
Lady Antebellum
We recently were given tickets and meet and greet passes at the Kenny Chesney Sun City Tour with opening acts, Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert and Sugarland (they cancelled). We were lucky to have some time before the show with Lady Antebellum, a trio from Nashville (in the photo surrounding my wife and I from left to right they are Dave Haywood, Hillary Scott, and Charles Kelley).
Winners of the 2008 ACM New Artists of the year and performers of the recently #1 hit “I Run to You” they are a great group of 20-somethings. Not your traditional country artists, they have a real soulful sound that provides a new sound that has widespread appeal. “I Run to You” is about an expression against hate, prejudice, negativity, and the redemption of love in society. Hey maybe country music is growing on me.
I should add the the trio are a great group of kids and were terrific with our two children, signing autographs and giving them hugs. It was the first concert ever for our kids who were in total awe.
For those who are interested, many new artists give their fans a chance to meet them in Meet and Greets that are made available through a ticket purchase opportunity or via fan clubs, although our tickets came from their management group. Miranda Lambert also had a Meet and Greet arranged before this concert.
Ben Wildman-Tobriner is only the second San Franciscan to win an Olympic medal and ironically he was taught by Ann Curtis, the first San Franciscan. Ann has a pool in Marin where I learned to swim during my summers and where my children now go to learn. Recently, Ben showed up at the pool during our kid’s lesson so that they could touch the Olympic Gold Medal that he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as part of the 4×100 meter freestyle relay team (he swam in the semifinal heats). Ben currently holds the US Record in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 18.87 seconds. He also was the World Champion in the 50 meter free in 2007.
My other connection to Ben is that he went to the same high school I went to (years apart) and was also on my school’s swim team. Ben is a self made kid. It is very rare to see a kid like Ben from the inner city that is not made of swimming pools become an international swimming champion. Our high school (Lick-Wilmerding) is not a sports powerhouse. With only 450 kids, you usually get drafted by coaches to help fill out sports rosters. In highschool my swiumming team was a motley gang of kids who didn’t wear speedos or skin tigh swimming caps to remove resistence. We had maybe 8 kids on our team. The same was with Ben years later. Ben swam at the local boys and girl’s club in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district. No pristine facilities. It is like the the Rocky of swimming pools.
Ben went on to be a star in the Stanford University swimming program and is now at UCSF Medical School where my wife is currently being treated for her cancer. He is now torn between medical school and his swimming career. Ben has a great humble head on his shoulders and has given back to the pools that helped him to get where he is today. I only wish the other swimmer on the US team that won 8 gold medals has the same character as Ben.
“I have learned that there is no failure in running, or in life, as long as you keep moving. It’s not about speed and gold medals. It’s about refusing to be stopped. You might find that one particular direction proves difficult, but there are many directions on a compass. Infinite, in fact. As long as you keep searching, you’ll find your way.” – Amby Burfoot, Executive Director of Runner’s World Magazine
This has been a long week, but not as bad as one would have thought it would be. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in a week. Surgery, dentist appointments, music concerts, fundraisers, gymnastics classes, baseball clinics, shopping at Target, and of course your normal 55-60 hour work week done.
Because of my wife’s surgery I did a lot of the normal morning chauffeuring and morning herding of the kids. I am so lucky to be blessed with really cool kids who understand the gravity of some of the things their parents are trying to accomplish and were really well-behaved. My 73 year old mother told me that she thought I had the coolest 9 year old and 7 year old. Of course that is a proud grandmother speaking. This is the same lady who laughed at me early on as a parent saying I was too strict. On Tuesday, the day after my wife’s surgery, I put the kids to bed and made sure my wife was settled in and comfortable before heading out to a concert. I was feeling a bit guilty about going to a concert the night after my wife’s surgery but she told me to get out and that she was okay. It was not just any concert, but my first Country music concert. My daughter asked me where I was going and with whom. When I told her that I was going with my best friend, Dave, my children asked, “What makes a Best Friend?” These questions get harder don’t they?
I told my children that the criteria for a best friend changes with age, but in the end the best friend is always there when you need them and sometimes when you don’t even know you need them. My friend Dave has done everything friends do. We’ve gone to concerts together. We played on the highschool basketball, swimming, track, and cross country swimming teams together, we drove long roadtrips together, we were each other’s best man, we’ve seen historic sporting events together, and we helped each other out when our fathers died. But now we are heads of our households and spending time together is few and far between. Now a best friend is someone you can call after not talking to them for a month and inviting them out of the house on a school night. Dave really is the best friend a guy could have. Dave is always honest and dependable, and when I’ve made mistakles in life that I’ve regretted he essentially put his arm around my shoulder and told me it was alright and to put it behind me. I remember his telling me for his bachelor party that he didn’t want me to do anything too crazy in case his legal career took off and he ran for public office someday. I never questioned it. Dave is that trustworthy and honest. If he ever did run for public office, his background would be as squeaky clean as you could possibly imagine.
When I called Dave and asked him if he wanted to go see a country music concert, he thought I was kidding. The last concert we had seen together was for Foreigner in the 80s and we went on a double date (we rubbed our shoulders as we reminisced about our dates sitting on our shoulders for a couple hours so that they could see). I told him I couldn’t take my wife and since his wife had been egging him to get out of the house anyway, off we went. We went to see Keith Urban, who to the non-country music set is married to actress, Nicole Kidman. He hadn’t even heard of Keith Urban but I convinced him that you haven’t really lived in San Francisco until you’ve been to the famed Fillmore Theater (The Fillmore). The Fillmore was a haven for 6os rock. The Who, Cream, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, and Hendrix all played there and now it is an honor for anyone to play there. The intimate setting with chandeliers and posters commemorating all the bands who have played there make it an ambiance like no other. Dave was in awe.
The Fillmore Stage
Fillmore Balcony
We thought it was cool that here we were, two 40 somethings surrounded by hundreds of teenage girls and their mothers. We were definitely not in our element for this particular show, but we laughed at the irony of the situation as we were probably two of the older people there and needless to say we were probably the only two who didn’t know the words to every song. We did take mental notes on whether this was the kind of event we could see our children at in 10 years ( as I watched the 3 “Tweenage” girls scream in front of me and blow kisses I wondered where their parents were and envisoned my daughter begging me to go to a concert like this on a school night). Seriously though we were able to catch up with each other and check on each other’s condition, our wives, our kids, work , and our other friends. We laughed and said that we needed to start getting out more often. The concert actually wasn’t half bad and we were quite impressed by Keith Urban’s guitar play as you can see in the following videos:
The concert was part of a VIP secret concert series in intimate settings to help promote his upcoming album.Although it was a concert on a weeknight, Dave and I agreed that it was a pleasant distraction and we were both recharged and ready for the week. I even got home and went for a run to clear my thoughts. Although it was 11pm I ran longer than normal. The concert had filled my head with many thoughts and hanging with Dave brought many memories. I started to vividly remember the long talks we’d have about what we wanted out of our careers on the long drives back and forth between Northern and Southern California suring our college years. The life paths we’ve taken aren’t exactly the ones we dictated to each other but we had found different roads to get there and had pushed until we found our way. Along the way I passed my neighbor Dean Karnazes (Karno) in the darkness of the night. I didn’t acknowledge him as we passed each other as he was deep in thought as well.
Karno is one of my inspirations although he doesn’t know it directly. As one of the greatest endurance runners ever, he’ll be the one to tell you that running is his therapy and where he gets piece of mind. He says the greatest words he ever got were from his high school track teacher, “Run with heart.” His runs are not about speed but about mind over body. Tonight I did as he says he likes to do and ran past his destination just because I felt good. My mind just turned off and I ran and ran. I dedicated tonight’s 6 mile run to my wife. She continues to amaze me. More beautiful and radiant than ever, her surgery on Monday barely stopped her. She didn’t even have to take her pain fighting Vicodin pills and was already off running good deeds for others like the other mother in our class who is at home recovering from breast cancer. If you don”t believe that breast cancer can create a community, you’ve never seen this sisterhood.
Still, I’ve had to intercept her on a couple of occasions this week to have her stop exerting herself. She is learning to run with heart as well, but she can ease into it as far as I’m concerned. I have to remind her time and again that the road is still long. I think she is just now discovering what it means to give back and enjoy life but she needs to pace herself.
I wasn’t going to post this but a couple of my younger co-workers at work have been bugging me. And then I was having lunch today with some friends and they mentioned that they had been to this club in Vegas called Pure.
When we were there on Valentine’s the club was hosting a party with Heidi Montag of The Hills along with her boyfriend, Spencer Pratt. For those of you older folk like me, The Hills is a pseudo-contrived reality soap-opera. Anyway Pure is a high end club located in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas with a white room, a red room and the Pussycat Doll Night Club. I also like the outdoor deck with sweeping views of the Vegas Strip!
Like I said, I don’t consider Heidi Montag to be much of a celebrity in my book, but here you go!
Heidi Montag of The Hills
For those of you over the age of 35, you can skip this post for sure. Pure is a nightclub to truly do some people watching. There was a QB, Carson Palmer and a WR, Houshmanzadeh (sp?) from the bengals there that evening. And like most clubs in Vegas, you have to spend coing to get the VIP tables. Also, the young attractive girls get in free or in a priority line. That’s Vegas for you.
Last year I had the opportunity to meet and have dinner with Gold Medalist Apolo Anton Ohno in New York. Apolo is an inspirational story as he was raised by a single parent father who straightened out a rebel and turned him into a world champion and 5-time Olympic Medalist.
The one thing I found interesting about Apolo was the great story about his relationship with his father. Skating set him straight and his father saw it as a way to keep him focused. Apolo told me that his continued dedication is how he pays his father back for helping to keep him straight and owes all his success to his father’s fortitude which served as a great example.
If you haven’t heard the story about how his father left him out in the remote wilderness to think about his life, you should read about Apolo’s life.
