With a purple umbrella and a fifty cent hat, livin', lovin'...

Got to sit inside a black globe and watch a Zeppelin laser show last night.

*smug look* HA!!!!!

No, I will not rub it in. But by our holy mother of all saints and sweet flowers that bloomed in the dawn of time THE SHOW WAS BLOODY AMAAAAAZING!!

Damn I love this band.

Driving there, and back again after the show was great too- Katie taking the freeway because it means driving faster, Portland for the first time minus the glass air-conditioned controlled sheath of a college van or city bus. The lights and the sharp curves run their laughing fingers through your hair as you stick your neck out to feel breathless in the km's zipping past. You deft-swerving to avoid kamakazi sparks off her ciggarette as she flicks it out the window. Pinball Wizard on the stereo.

In short, I had finally left L&C behind for the first time to go out into the city to see what I would see. It felt like the first time anyway. Everything was sharper-cut, and we didn't need anyone or anything except the ride and where we were going to. We turned off the freeway, and then we reached the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, popularly known as OMSI. The show started at 8:15pm.

Imagine if you will sitting inside a pitch black sphere in chairs eased back at a comfortable obtuse-- No one breathes, you cant hear anything or see the tips of your fingers. And then In The Light starts itself. Glowing bits of laser open their eyes, raise their heads and then fall striking the black in front of your eyes, then rear back... soft fluid circles swallow each other and then get re-enter the space as flickering shafts of sharp blue, red, green and yellow.

My favourite was when this gridded tube that moved like a roller-coaster anaconda out of a Beck video glided all around us over the inside of the Planetarium's walls, swooping down to swallow us whole as Black Dog rolled out. Illusion of falling out of your seat into a black hole but with this music playing, who cared? In fact falling and flying was the only thing on all our minds.

The song list altered a bit for the evening- Kashmir and Stairway to Heaven were not originally on the list but played anyway. No complaints from me, hell no.

Light and sound in your brain and soul, and your feet forget the ground.. you actually start lifting yourself up out of your seat, especially when the gridded anaconda swirled you around, to the left up and over with Plant crooning "baby, baby... pretty baby" over and over [which he did do a lot of, tis true]

Damn, I was born in the wrong decade. This was the band to see live, and to remember forever. Eyes fixed on the centre of black at the core of the laser works, letting myself be dragged into the blue long strands moving upwards and page's solo taking over everyone's breathing... our shadows taller than our souls.

To be a rock and not to roll.

We got back that night, with plans to return today for the AC/DC and Floyd shows.

These are the moments which have you stand inspite of the world hurtling on with no ties, no troubles and only one thought and that played by a magic man on his guitar. They are rare, so you hold them to you, even when the sunlight comes in at the window on the day of the family picnic.

The autumn moon lights my way.
For now I smell the rain,
And with it pain,
And it's headed my way.
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired,
But I know I've got one thing I got to do...

Ramble On...

...Got no time to for spreadin' roots,
The time has come to be gone.
And tho' our health we drank a thousand times,
It's time to Ramble On.