Friday, April 25, 2008

...And Cultural Revolution Right Away Begun!!!

Around a year ago, after seeing them appear fleetingly on some show as I flipped through the music channel area of the cable box, I got into Gogol Bordello. Sort of a gypsy-meets-The Pogues-meets-The Clash vibe (sort of, I say...); marvelously energetic and crude; breathlessly fascinating. Along the way, my buddy Raw Meat got into the group on an entirely different path, though we eventually ended up playing them quite a lot in the office, shutting the door of course for some of the rawer language to not drift out to the far more innocent ears of our office mates. Meanwhile, on a third, divergent course, my brother Otis discovered the group up in the confines of the extended Bay area.

What luck, then, that the group ends up playing in Santa Cruz tomorrow night.

And so it begins. A road trip by Raw Meat, his girlfriend Roar-achel and myself to see Gogol Bordello. It's more of a pilgrimage really, as Raw Meat and I have tried previously to get near the group, but our plans have gone awry. I pulled out of a spontaneous overnight trip to Vegas to see them a couple months back, riling the Raw One and forcing him to bite a chunk out of a passerby's arm in his anger and his rage. (He is leaving, he is leaving, but the fighter still remains, tra la la la la la la...)

We considered attending their appearance at Coachella, but decided it was just too damn hot to stand in the middle of the desert and watch bands for 472-1/2 hours. Our last resort was to drive several hours up the coast and grab a hotel and turn the whole shebang into a mini-vacation. We definitely need it -- I had to chain the boy up this week to keep him from devouring our I.T. guy, Steve, whom we shall refer to here as "NOT the I.T. guy," since that is what he wrongly insists -- thus, as a reward for just getting something done at work, we are hitting the road.

So, no posting for a couple of days. We are leaving the laptop behind, so we won't get sucked into any work distractions, and we are going to just simply have fun. No real schedule, just some loose directions and guidelines, an area that we have never visited, and a whole lot of open road (once we get out of LA). We're talking Monterey Bay Aquarium, hopefully some Cannery Row, possibly the Mystery Spot, and checking out some beach-like substances. Maybe we will even take in the new Harold and Kumar flick. For me, the best part is that my brother Otis and the family are heading down to meet us tonight to join us on our adventure.

Oh, yeah... and then there's that concert. (I'm bringing the GPS just to increase the chances that we actually get there...)

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