From: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org (good-noise-digest) To: good-noise-digest@smoe.org Subject: good-noise-digest V4 #63 Reply-To: good-noise@smoe.org Sender: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk good-noise-digest Tuesday, March 27 2001 Volume 04 : Number 063 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Gorka in Portland Part One [SMOKEY596@aol.com] Gorka in Portland Part Deux [SMOKEY596@aol.com] Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux [SMOKEY596@aol.com] Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux [ThePsyche@aol.com] Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux ["cycle12345" ] RE: Gorka in Portland Part Deux ["samsara" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 21:56:10 EST From: SMOKEY596@aol.com Subject: Gorka in Portland Part One Okay, I seem to remember Sam having trouble posting a long post. Since mine hasn't shown up yet, I thought I'd try breaking it up into two emails. Here goes! Okay, so this post was really written for the Ellis Paul and Don Conoscenti lists, but I didn't feel like editing it out for this list. B You may not know some of these people, but it's a good story anyway. B :-) B I'll post John's set list on a separate email later, and also the picture site if anyone is interested. B Warning....long story of Smokey's weekend adventure to follow. B And hey, there wasn't a clunker in the bunch. :-) Arriving in Portland, Maine, 1:00 on Friday, were Smokey, Karen, and ol' G.W. Bush himself! B That's right. B President Bush landed in Portland at the same time that we did. B I even saw Air Force One on the runway as we taxied in. B Security and Secret Service were everywhere, tying up traffic and thoroughly pissing off our taxi driver. B I wasn't in the best of moods myself, after being hypnotized by the luggage carousel going around and around...empty. B All of the luggage was in. B Everything but MY bag, of course! B B After filing a claim, we hopped into the taxi and headed for our inn. B The taxi driver was, indeed, familiar with our friend, Chris Darling, and his radio show. B He was listening to some rap music on our ride tho, which confused us a bit. B Diversity is good tho. :-) After checking into the inn, Karen made a call to Chris. B Once he heard that Karen had seen the ocean but once, he immediately offered to drive us there himself! B B It was fantastic! B It was cold and a little rainy, foggy and moody. B The waves were huge and crashing onto the rocks as the foghorn sounded. B Several gulls and a lighthouse in the background completed the picture. B I would certainly love to see it in nice weather, but you just can't beat the atmosphere of this type of day on the coast. B Amazing. Chris dropped us off in town then so we could find a place to eat. B We ended up at a lovely Italian place in an old house. B More atmosphere! :-) B I was confused when we were served celery and grapes with ice cubes instead of bread to start with, but hey, what do I know? B We had a good dinner and better conversation, and then headed up the street to the inn. B It had snowed Friday, and it made for sloshy walking, but we were up to the task. B Back at the inn, my bag had still not arrived, so I settled in for a night of sleeping in my clothes with my contact lenses in Dixie Cups of tap water. B Before going to sleep, we turned our radiator on, we thought. B However, we found ourselves awakened in the night freezing to death with the radiator whistling like an impatient tea kettle. B Five o'clock in the morning, concerned that we were either going to be gassed to death or blown up, Karen bravely made her way down to the lobby to inquire about the heat. B Ah, the man said the whistling was a GOOD noise. B It meant he had just turned up the heat....for the whole house! B One thermostat for forty rooms. B B Well, at least we weren't going to blow up. B AND, my bag had arrived at 1:00 in the morning. B :-) Saturday turned out cold, but sunny. B There are lots of wonderful things to do in Portland...May through October. B :-) B It seemed that everything we wanted to do was closed for the season. B But we're creative people, and we found some fun. B We headed out walking again, visited the City Market, saw Longfellow's childhood home, went to Old Port where there are lots and lots of neat shops, and ate lunch at a chowder house. B We also took a ferry ride to one of the islands. B Again, lovely scenery...lots of lighthouses and ships and birds. B We would have stayed on the island to look around, but the guy selling tickets told us that the only place open was the IGA. B Heck, we can visit that at home! B :-) We made the long, and I do mean LONG, walk back toward our inn and decided to stop by the theater to check things out before the show that evening. B Everything we had seen in the way of publicity had John Gorka's name on it, but we rarely saw Ellis' name. B (Karen, post the paragraph about Canada!) B Needless to say, we were a little upset at that! B John was headlining, with Carol Noonan opening and Ellis playing in between. B Anyway, as we were approached the theater, John came walking around the corner. B Karen gasped and hit me, yes, hit me! B You all watch our for her when you meet her in person! She can pack a punch. B :-) B We had that split second where we had to decide dowesaysomethingordowejustkeepwalkingbyandpretendwedon'tknowhim. B We walked on by. :-) B We went into the theater and met the two guys representing the Maine Arts Council, which was sponsoring the show. B They were very relieved to have us there to do the selling for Ellis, and told us to come on back at about 5:00 when Ellis would be there for his sound check and we could set up for merchandising. B To be continued...... SMOKEY "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"bG.W. Bush Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 21:57:16 EST From: SMOKEY596@aol.com Subject: Gorka in Portland Part Deux We arrived back at the theater (via taxi this time!) at about 5:30 and our ears immediately picked up the sound of "The Ballad of Chris McCandless" echoing throughout the building. B Ellis was just finishing up the sound check, so we started setting up the CD area. B We were obviously the merchandising "experts" there. B The volunteers for the Arts Council sold for John, and they had no idea what they were doing. B I tried to help them out a little, since I'm familiar with all of his work, but they weren't prepared at all. B On the other hand, Karen was busy finding tape and rubber bands and pens and decorating our end of the counter with Ellis posters and pictures, and I had the ol' credit card imprinter out and the CDs all on display and the mailing list ready to go. B We were psyched! We manned the area and sold a few CDs before the show, then claimed our "reserved" seats for Carol Noonan. B Chris had arrived by then, and we got him a seat in front of us. B I was very impressed with Carol and bought two of her CDs. B She performed for about twenty minutes. B Then Ellis came out right after her. B He performed eight songs. B This is not in the right order (Karen, help me out!) but here they are: Maria's Beautiful Mess 3,000 Miles Eighteen (first time in public!) Independence Day (first time I'd heard it) Ballad of Chris McCandless (first time I'd heard it) Conversation With a Ghost The World Ain't Slowin' Down Words (encore) He also told the Deadhead Pilot story and the Stolen Cell Phone story and talked about Chris McCandless before playing that song. B The crowd seemed like they were hearing the stories for the first time, but they also were very enthusiastic, so I'd say it was a good mix of old/new fans. Karen and I raced out to the lobby then to sell CDs, and we were bombarded! B :-) B It was great! B John and Carol were doing brisk business too, so it was good to see everyone do well with the sales. B We went back in for John's set. B He was just great, very happy and funny. B He did almost exclusively requests. B Poor Karen. B She finally got up the nerve to shout out "Semper Fi" and he said okay, moved the capo, and then some bozo called out another song and he switched! B By golly they're lucky I didn't see who it was! B :-) B He never did go back and do "Semper Fi". :-( After John's set, we raced out again to man the CD booth. B Ellis and John were both around, signing autographs for everyone. B Chris got to have Ellis and John both do promos for his station. B We had also met another online fan from the discussion board, and she offered to give Karen and me a ride back to the inn, which we gratefully accepted. B That's when we heard the "cat" yowling next door. B It wasn't a cat and it wasn't yowling. B Control yourselves, people! The next morning, we were picked up for breakfast by Chris and his lovely wife, Magda. B She is soooooo friendly and fun! B They are a great couple and will be wonderful parents when those twins come! B They took us to a favorite breakfast spot of the local fishermen. B There was a line out the door waiting for breakfast, and we could tell why once we were served. B It was excellent! B We had a great meal and conversation before they took us to the airport. B I encourage any of you wanting to travel to that area to hook up with them as hosts. B They were wonderful! So, I am back home now, back to work, back to my boring inland life, dreaming of what is yet to be. B Tomorrow the sun will rise, and who knows what the tide will bring, to quote Tom Hanks in "Castaway". B So true. B So many adventures that I never imagined happening. B So many waiting in the wings. B I'm looking forward to them. B Enjoy your days, folks! :-) SMOKEY "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"bG.W. Bush Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 22:10:39 EST From: SMOKEY596@aol.com Subject: Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux Run for your life! My email is full of B's!!!!!! Don't get stung!! How the heck did that happen? SMOKEY "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"bG.W. Bush Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 22:16:59 EST From: ThePsyche@aol.com Subject: Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux Thanks Smokey for a wonderful adventure, I wish there were more than just two installments! Imagine seeing Ellis and John together.....what a night! I have booked my seats for Ellis in Chicago in October, going to take my sister for her first EP experience. Took her to her first JG experience as well......she's older....funny how we have flip flopped roles as we have gotten older. Thanks for taking me along on your musical journey. Peace, Ellis Paula ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 22:26:16 -0500 From: "cycle12345" Subject: Re: Gorka in Portland Part Deux Bbbbeats me, kid! I enjoyed very much your two-part review, but I had to wonder at all those big "B's". See, you should have pretended that they were intentional, and then challenged people to figure out their special significance . . . Bbbbye for now! Steve > Run for your life! My email is full of B's!!!!!! Don't get stung!! How the > heck did that happen? > > SMOKEY ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 23:10:56 -0600 From: "samsara" Subject: RE: Gorka in Portland Part Deux Smokey, that was the coolest review! And the greatest other stuff! Thanks! We felt like we were there! I don't know what the B running theme means but I'm hoping someone will fill me in... When someone says B around ME, I immediately think of bongs! That's how old I am, and so proud of it! SK "Something tells you and then you know." ------------------------------ End of good-noise-digest V4 #63 *******************************