Alanis on Times Talks...

I hope Zoey can be this articulate, and examined, and self-aware as she grows up.  I don't care what she does, as long as she does it consciously, with a good heart.

I Love This Picture...

I do. I just love it.  Zed and her BFF, Elle...that's right, Brooklyn Elle.  The Cowgerelli's came to visit last weekend and the girls were equal parts best friends and stubborn emotional combatants.  It was a fun, somewhat less eventful three days than we had anticipated, but it full on felt like vacation.

It may very well have been the start of this blog neglect that has consumed me.  My knee hurts.  It's hot.  School is ending. Did I mention that it's hot?  There's this awkward creative block that I've stumbled into, and then of course, there's that whole addiction to Xanax thing, but it's nothing, really.

The plan is to use a mix of insomnia, coffee, and relaxation that borders on sheer laziness to snap myself out of it.  If that doesn't work then we're in trouble.  I mean we've already missed blogging a lot...our niece's graduation, the last day of school, most of the Cowger visit...it's embarrassing.  Where's that Xanax?

While The Cowgers Are Sleeping Links...

It was a busy, long week, and then our Brooklyn peeps, the Cowgerellis, came to visit...a three day extravaganza of lazy excess, so there has been no blogging. There has, in fact, been plenty of drinking beer, eating homemade pizza, and chocolate snacks at midnight...a lot of playing catch with Ralph, their wonder dog, and sleeping in. So apologies, not super sincere but guilt filled enough to toss you these links while the Cowgers still slumber...

For lack of better terminology, and also just because it sounds so funny, I'm kinda gay for this summer's showdown.

Laughed out loud.

Twenty-one pictures that will restore your faith in humanity.

The photos in #8 are my favorite, especially the pyramids one.

Big fan of other people's book shelves.

If I win the lottery...

The Woo posted this and it just has to be re-posted here.

Because now we just gots to this.

Going to spend some time with this man in ten days. Beyond excited.

Zoey...I'm Your Father...

For a Hot, Almost-Summer Night...

Mayer Hawthorne's latest, just in time to sweat the night away.  White boys shouldn't be able to sing like this.

Strong Like Bull...

Comerica Park, Detroit, MI - Colorado Rockies vs. Detroit Tigers, June 17 - Fathers Day 2012

Make them strong, I say, or you'll regret it.  Well, I don't always say that, in fact, this might be the first time, but I think it...I do...every day.  I suppose it's only the photo that made me say it out loud.

I meet a lot of kids, most are broken, or at least bent at awkward angles, and almost all at the hands of their parents.  I retreat, feeling defeated some days, thinking if only their parents had built them up instead of tearing them apart.  The world would be an awfully different place, I think. Humility aside, as the Daddy of a rapidly growing daughter, this is what I believe...

1. Tell her no.  Mean it.  Don't change your mind, unless it makes sense and does no damage.  Sometime in her life she needs to learn about disappointment, about not always getting what you want, that there will always be someone waiting to tell her no.  She might as well learn those things from her Dad, who loves her enough to say them early.


2. That "it makes sense and does no damage" part is pretty big.  Be wrong, admit when you're wrong, and give her a chance to explain to you why you might be.  Sometimes the answer is still no, but you're building a woman who needs to fend for herself, not a dutiful daughter, so she deserves the chance to correct you.


3. Don't bail her out of every situation.  Surviving the little stuff helps her survive the big stuff.  Don't steal away her chance at becoming resilient.


4. Do the right thing...always, do the right thing...even when it's hard, even when no one is watching.  The hard thing is almost always the right thing to do, so teach her early that short-cuts and fearful decision making aren't what gets you to the place you want to go, or to the kind of person you want to be.  Doing the right thing will make her work hard, and since when was hard work ever the worst thing for you?  Get her used to extra miles and difficult decisions. Everyone from her own kids to her high school basketball coach will reap the benefits.


5. Help her figure out who she wants to be.  Take her places.  Introduce her to ideas...big ideas.  Steer her toward big experiences, and help her find meaning in all of it.  Certainty and vision is a tough thing to rattle or shake.  She can only become what she has seen, and what she understands.  She won't become anything that she hasn't...it's impossible.  Help her see who she could be.


6. Be the kind of person that makes her proud.  Do things, say things...believe in something.  For a big part of her life she's going to want to impress you, and she may even want to be you...make all that effort worth it.  Be somebody that she doesn't want to disappoint and chances are she won't.


7.  From the instant she can absorb whatever ideas it is that you're selling her, sell them.  Don't parent thoughtlessly, or lazily, there are a billion opportunities for lessons to sink in, and they diminish more and more year after year.  Teach her early and often.


8. Don't hide your mistakes.  Shine a light on them and handle them the right way.  She's watching.


9. Lean on her Mom.  Show her that sometimes your strength comes from someone else, from her, and that sometimes the strongest person in the house is a woman.  She'll take notice, and then she won't buy all that gender garbage that the world is going to throw at her as she grows.  She needs to know that strength is gender neutral.


10.  As cliched as it might be, that "anything is possible" line should be seared into her brain...because it's true.

And then one more just because we can...

11.  Make sure that she knows, far beyond any question, that your love is unconditional. You're approval is not, but your love is absolutely inexhaustible.

Some Pics Just Do It To You...

Caught a glimpse of this pic just before I slipped off to bed, as June was still uploading them.  Instant swoon.  Sap.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

Father's Day at the ballpark...pretty cliche, pretty much us. It was Colorado and Detroit, and from the time we arrived Zo was enthralled.  She'd been there a hundred times before today, but it might as well have been her first time.  She was wide eyed and drowning in giggles, and Mummy snapped about three hundred and forty five photos.  They were just photos at the ballpark until we got home and those same innocuous photos got me teary.  We'll post some later...when I've got the stoic resolve of a non-Father.



Despite the 54 minute rain delay, and the carousel ride that nearly ruined Daddy's day, and the $9 chicken fingers with nine fries, we had the fifth best day ever...maybe fourth.  We were hoping to run into our friends, the Bergquists, but they spent Father's Day elsewhere.  We were also hoping for a Tigers win, and we got one.

It doesn't take much to tilt a Father's Day into something much better than average.  A Tiger home stand, and a daughter who hath no shame...

Happy Father's Day etc...

We're going to the ball game in Detroit...our first of the year!

My Dad is busy busting his back doing various this and that's equating to organizing his life/clutter, so we won't see him today, but hope he has fun mustering up those blisters.

June's Dad is very likely wondering how his house got so quiet after thirty something years, and hoping the Tiger game gets rained out so he can maybe catch a glimpse of his daughter and granddaughter on their way home from a wet afternoon of almost baseball, defeated and pathetically damp.

Me, I'm just happy I woke up this morning walking.  I walked all week.  It's not graceful, and I don't really want to race anyone, but walking on my own two feet is a nice turn of events after nine weeks of assisted stumbling.

Happy Father's Day folks.  More later, but right now, it's time to get ready to go to the ball park.

Waking Up To a Hug

Now I can have a hug whenever I want, thanks to Zoey and Mummy.  I woke at 6:45am to an upset little girl, who soon transitioned into our room, who then proceeded to hand me a Father's Day present...a handmade hug.  The material is from June's sweatshirt and an old pair of shorts...the wing span is Zed's...the hands are a close approximation...



I'm probably a bit of a disaster of a father to buy a gift for, so making one was a fairly prudent idea.  I love it.  We still need to fill it with stuffing...to pillowfy it...or it could just serve as a scarf?  Regardless, it's my new favorite.

Breakfast of Champions...

Waking up to this is just a tad shy of perfection. Mummy and Zed avec hoodies enjoying morning eats on the deck.  I suppose that didn'y wake me...Zed managed that an hour earlier when she busted into our room.

"Daddy... Blair (Zed's ridiculously cute friend) left her snacks in my room (from an evening visit yesterday)."

It was 7:30am.

The house awoke with the mini-crisis, but I lingered in bed for a half an hour more. When I surfaced the hooded wonder girls were already busy cute-ifying the morning.

Is it just me or do people over-exaggerate the whole morning gauntlet as parents? Oh, it's not an all-inclusive resort, but it's not the stock market crash of '29 either.  Of course, a family of four, rather than three, might alter that perception a little, huh? Yeah, maybe.

I'll Take Four Letter Words for $100 Alex...

Zoey got a brand new Boggle game and she loves it. It's pretty great for using her letters, and spelling, and sounding things out and all that stuff...the only problem is that she likes to make words up, and sometimes those words make you laugh out loud...like this one.

 

Oh my. Our daughter plays some serious potty Boggle. I suppose it was one whole letter away from worse.

The Right Music...

This will be my morning music as I head out in the half light tomorrow.  Over the past few years I've come to love the long morning drives past farms and fields, over bridges and train tracks, and occasionally down roads I've never driven down.  The trick is the music...I suppose that's always the trick.  It's Zoey approved, and just tonight June approved, so...gas, coffee, music, drive.

Hangin' with Lord Stanley...

Mikey Vilon, myself, and Graham Gress - June, 2001

Back in 2001 we enjoyed a visit from Lord Stanley at the Boys and Girls Club of London.  I touched it.  I looked for the Oiler entries, and the infamous X'd out name of Peter Pocklington's mother.  I got chills.  If you've never seen sport's most famous trophy, and quite possibly it's hardest to win, you're missing out.

As cool as it was to watch the LA Kings raise the Cup last night, a small part of me was thinking, "I've laid my hands on that beautiful bugger."  Here's some grainy proof.

Nine Weeks...

It's been nine weeks since I woke up and couldn't walk.  Nine weeks.  Today is most certainly better than two weeks ago, but I'm fighting swelling, again...and an on-going discomfort that seems to flip from knee to ankle to foot, and back to knee. So I'm grumpy, and a little frustrated, even a little angry, so I'd steer clear of me and my poor attitude if I were you.

Nine weeks.

I was thinking it was more like six or seven, but I was wrong.  No wonder I've gained ten pounds and feel like biting into everyone I see.  The pain and discomfort has been one exhausting thing, but the restraint in not being a jerk to people has been another, even more exhausting prospect to endure.  I don't get to go to work and be a grumpy idiot all day. I have to be hopeful and inspiring and sturdy...today I feel none of those, and yet I'm trying.  I want to run.  Well, first I just want to walk without issues, and it'd be awesome to not need ice every hour or two, and these crutches can kiss my @#$.  I'm being conditioned to be hesitant and cautious and to not get my hopes up, and that's some $#!%&y conditioning.

So...nine weeks.  I'm officially starting the clock over today.  I'm starting fresh.  Today is Day 1 of my "inconvenience," or so I'll try to tell myself.

And We'll Have Fun, Fun, Fun, 'til Daddy Takes The Zoe-Mobile Away...

The book is "Way To Go, Zoe," and the inspiration is "the Zoe-mobile" that we found in it's pages, and we're building it this summer.  Yup, an exact replica...because, well, why not.

We're starting to make a list of Camp Zed projects since we're only about three weeks away from our official start of camp.  Fun building projects like this might be a bit more prevalent in this seeming summer of rehabilitation.  Mobility might be an issue.

At The Urging of a Toddler...

We were reading books at the edge of bed, Zo all tucked in, and me sitting on the floor beside her.  It was something halfway good about raccoons and getting lost and finding your way home...some pretty common library fodder, when we were about to clamp the book shut after the last page, and were just about to utter the usual, おしまい (oshimai) meaning "it's over, the end, that's all, Goodnight Irene," well not literally, when we spotted the authors photo on the back flap of the book.  Zoey pointed it out and so I told her that she was the woman who had written the book.  I asked her if she was going to have her picture on the back flap of a book someday.


"No," she said matter-of-factly, "I don't think I will."


"Oh," I uttered sadly, "that would have been cool."


"No, I think you should," she smiled, "I think you should have your picture in a book and then Mummy and me will read it."


"I should do that?" I said curiously.  We've never talked about such things.


"Yes," she said emphatically, "You should write a book and get your picture in it, and I'll read it."


An odd exchange, or perhaps not...either way, I suppose I shouldn't disappoint my daughter.  I mean, it'd be easy enough to just wrap up what I've got and print them up.  I just kind of never get around to it, like a lot of things in our lives, only this time my daughter's called me on it.  Strangely without any real knowledge that there were projects cooking.


I've decided that it's not all that different from the day job.  You know, a lot of attention paid to things that no one else is paying attention to.  I kinda just want to make do and make beautiful things, even if nobody else cares.  Sounds strange, maybe...but I don't care.  I've noticed my head and heart made much lighter with beautiful things...made much lighter than the rest of the distractions in my life could ever make me...and yet we don't chase after that feeling.  i don't know why?  Practicality, embarrassment?  Whatever it is we need to forget it and chase all that good stuff.  I suppose that's how people become sommeliers, and musicians, and foodies, and the like.  They just want beautiful things.  All my daughter wants is to see her Dad's picture in the back of a book, so...quit typing and start publishing, you fool.

Waiting for Stanley Links...

Exactly how I'm feeling after this win.

If we're getting one more shot at the whole wedding day thing...we're getting married on a NY rooftop. You're all invited.

OMG...genius! Jimmy Fallon performing the theme song from Reading Rainbow as The Doors might have.

Aside from the obvious dude falling, how incredible does this enterprise look?

I want.

Cute picture...Anthony and his daughter, Everly Bear.

Oh man...I wish that I could do that.

Speaking of Anthony...I've always wanted to read his book, but hadn't gone as far as shelling out the loot to buy it...then the universe reminded why when I found here for free.  You're very welcome. I'll take genuine and heartfelt cosmic appreciation in return, that's all.

Monifa is the cutest thing we've ever seen since Rudy appeared on The Cosby Show.

Hey...this is cool!

Umami Burger at home!! Whoa!

When you go to the LCBO here in Ontario are you always snatching up a copy of "Food & Drink" magazine?  Here's an awesome online substitute that'll make you hungry/thirsty/envious/ignorant.

Our friends Dustin and Kelly are going to this because they're cool as hell.

Love NYC?  You should watch this.

Really wishing that this guy could have stuck around LA just long enough to hang with Lord Stanley.

The Force is Strong With This...Gym Suit?

Zed got a new purple gym suit for gymnastics.  I know because I was there in that awful store when it happened.  I'd never been surrounded by so much pink and purple, nor as much shiny material, and hair scrunchies etc...in my entire life.  I nearly died.  I was definitely short of breath.

This outfit is much more my style...



A Daddy-made kimono with an ever so soft whisper of Jedi Master* thrown in there.  It probably doesn't work for gymnastics, not really, but throw a light saber into the mix and that's one kid that I want to play with at the park.

*Yes, that is a tensor bandage around her waist.  Daddy's are the undisputed Jedi Masters of improvisation.  

For Sunday Afternoon...

You're very welcome.

You Don't Know Unless You Know...and They Know

After reading a Facebook status, a brief eight or nine word insight into the past week and the upcoming week, we felt good about sending our friends, the Bergquists, a stupid package of randomness.  I don't even know what made me think of doing it...or wait, I suppose I do know.  It was one of those snowball things where something little throws itself on your lap, and then anidea forms, and then that idea gets bigger...and then perhaps you see something that makes you think, "Oh, that'd be cool," and before you know it you're mailing a package to Ann Arbor, Michigan....a FUN package. Well, okay, pretty fun.  Maybe not capital letters FUN...but fun.

Heading into a semi-difficult week the Bergquistimsteins could use a stupid package.  And then I read this  while drinking my coffee this morning, and thought, "whoa! I'm sending this too!"  Bill Simmons recent column reminded me so much of the biggest sporting family I know...seriously, THE BIGGEST...capitalized, that I had to post the link.  It's right back there in case you missed it...highlighted.

Don't ask me what made me a sports fan growing up.  Maybe it was parental influence?  Maybe it was the cool thing to do?  Maybe it was growing up in small, rural and industrial midwestern town where there was nothing else to do?  Or maybe it's just because whatever is stirring our more recent infatuation with reality TV is the same thing behind falling desperately in love with the reality of Hockey Night in Canada, or ESPN College Game Day, or Monday Night Football, or This Week in Baseball.  Whatever it is, there's no question that the original "reality TV" was sports.  Besides, being a fan connects you to emotional places that you might never have gone otherwise.  I was young but I still remember the day Wayne Gretzky was traded and seeing tears in my Mom's eyes as she watched from the living room doorway.  I remember sitting down, astonished, when Magic held his press conference to tell everyone that he was retiring after contracting HIV.  I remember Patrick Ewing getting drafted, and the night that Villanova played a near perfect game and left me near tears, hiding my face in my pillow.  I remember Len Bias.  Sports puts us in emotional positions that we're so often waiting for our own real life to do...it's like practice for real world disappointment, and real world humility, and...and...and...

I guess you sometimes don't think about how you became a fan until you watch your children start stumbling into doing the same.  Right now Zoey is still interested in what color team Dad is rooting for, and she sings "Hail to the Victors" but only because it's fun.  She likes going to the ballpark, and jumping up and down when Daddy jumps up and down, and playing hockey in the living room when the game is on the television, but she doesn't have any afflictions just yet.  She hasn't been disappointed by a player, a city, an owner, a game, a season...not yet. We're waiting.

Right now we want the Kings to win the Cup, Derek Fisher and OKC to win the NBA title, the Tigers to turn it around and the Dodgers to stay strong.  We want to watch Euro Cup 'cause on that level soccer's kinda cool, and we're tired of trying to find an NFL team to get behind.  We want year two of the Brady Hoke era to not leave us sleepless.  We want Ohio State to finally fry regardless of their new head coach, Jesus H. Christ, and we're going to try awfully hard to fall in love with the Brooklyn Nets, 'cause the Lakers and Knicks are #$%ing us off pretty badly.

Yeah, it's all pretty hard to explain to people who don't get it.  The Bergquists get it...so I hope they read that Simmons story and smile.

Links for Lunch

Geek...loser...call me whateer you like but this is interesting stuff. At one point in my life I was one of them. You know, a wide eyed kid with a baseball card collection.

This is a must see.

Love the last Bill Murray quote on page one.

Maybe the best YouTube Channel going (thanks to my friend Luke for tipping me off).

I'm with Bobby Flay (wow, I never thought I'd ever utter such a statement) in that a burger doesn't need to be a freakshow of ingredients.  There's nothing basic about the basic burger.

Imagine what you could be doing every day.

Uhmm, wow...that's all I have to say.  Denzel is just flat out a man amongst boys.

Never read a single Ray Bradbury book...and now I feel bad.

Stumbled into this story and the last part made me laugh out loud.  Do the ladies really think Dads are sexy?  I know my wife does, but in general I mean?  It's not something I ever contemplated seriously until I laughed out loud just now.

See this blog by this family. Well they're cool as #$%& and their daughter is the fo real shizzle.  Daddy...ridiculously smart dude and perilously cute Dad to his daughter....Mommy...one of the best heads on shoulders I've ever met, mostly 'cause it's full of brains and stuff, but it's jam packed with funny stuff too...and sincerity.  Read the blog, or don't, but it's your own fault if there aren't enough awesome families in your life.

I would very much like to visit this place.

Wanna read the Rolling Stone cover story on Zach Galifianakis from May of last year just like I wanted to? Too #$%&ing bad if you don't subscribe to their archives.  Horse$#%&.  Jann Wenner is every bit the turd people make him out to be.  So let me get this straight, I can grab a copy of the magazine from the library for free, but if I want to go to your web site, where you make copious amounts on income from advertising, not to mention the basic PR and marketing benefits of someone hanging out on your web site, I have to pay you?  I get that you might restrict web browsing of recent issues to increase readership, but your archives? Your #$%&ing archives.  Rolling Stone Magazine, you are dead to me.  No wonder Hunter Thompson hated your privileged and rotten guts so much Wenner.


Baddest dude alive.

Zoey, Cal, Ozzie, and Pudge...

Tonight, while rooting through boxes and boxes of old baseball cards, Zo decided that it was pretty fun and wanted in on the rooting.  She surfaced from piles f cardboard and plastic covers with a treasure of sorts...a thirty-nine cent treasure to be exact.  Tonight Zo got her first baseball card...an old O-Pee-Chee Cal Ripken card.  She was tickled beyond belief.  She loved it.  She even stayed up late to root through cards with Dad, and she was happy to do it.  Before she was swept off to bed she had somehow lifted a 1984 Ozzie Smith and a 1977 Carlton Fisk off of me like a pickpocket.  I believe as I type this she's falling asleep with them, and that makes me smile.

In all that rooting around I stumbled into some favorites...



Fergie and Willie...awesome.



Lou Brock and a 1954 Willie Mays...even more awesome.



What's a collection without some Mickey Tettleton...one card out of dozens. I had a serious obsession.



Sure you weren't using steroids Sammy...

And in one of the boxes, this beauty pic from Opening Day at Tiger Stadium in 1994.  Sigh.  Zoey was particularly enamored with her Dad fifteen years pre-Zed.


CJ Profota, Brad DeWagner, Woody Johnson, and Brian DeWagner - Opening Day 1994, Detroit

Sometimes it's well worth it to go rooting through boxes.  I could have posted photo after photo of favorite cards, and who'd have ever believed that Zo would get so excited to root through piles of old Upper Decks and Boumans, but she was.

I always said that someday I was going to leave those boxes and boxes, and bins and bins of hockey and baseball cards were going to get left to my kids someday.  Good to know that she's gonna kinda dig that.  She doesn't inherit this one though...it goes to the grave with me.

Blame It On The Rain...or Knee

You couldn't really blame it on the rain, but I thought it made for a nice title, and an illusive chance to sneak a lame (but kinda awesome) song into a blog post.  Mostly you can blame my absence on this knee, and all of the distraction that it's represented.  Lucid thoughts have been few and far between. Too much ice maybe?

I promise to do better, as I walk better, and make it worth people's while stopping by.  Links, and pics, and semi-insightful stories is all anyone is looking for...what I never realized was how much focus that took.

Cross my heart and hope to...well, no, I won't do that...but the blogging will improve.  I promise.

King St. W. + MEC + Patagonia = Two New Backpacks and Lofty Ambitions

Daddy and daughter went backpack shopping in Toronto.  The block of King Street West, right where Blue Jay Way dumps out, offers an outdoor equipment retail environment unlike any other city I've ever been in, at least East of the Continental Divide.  There's MEC, and Europebound, a few smaller stores, and now a Patagonia.  If you're not buying a backpack...a sleeping bag...a Gore-Tex jacket...or something as crazy as a SUP paddle board, or bouldering crash pad, then you shouldn't even be in this neighborhood.  You'd better have a wallet full of cash and some serious outdoor aspirations.

Zed just needed a backpack that didn't have #$%&ing Tinkerbell, or Dora the Explorer on it.  Daddy didn't need one at all (but bought one anyway).  The plan is to slowly introduce Zo to one outdoor adventure after another...both top notch deals, and your Joe Average camping type trips.  As Camp Zed rapidly approaches the hope is that this little girl is game for absolutely anything.  We'll start with a dog, orange juice, and binoculars carrying little backpack, and progress from there.

Now who wants to go camping this summer?

The Weekend That Was...

The Dave Matthews Band at the Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON - June 2, 2012

We officially left the world behind us this weekend as we juggled two concerts, in two distant cities, with no crutches, and an excited Bachaan in tow.  It was the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Detroit on Friday night, with Zo sleeping over at Grandad and Bachaan's house.  Anthony Keidis and Co. knocked us over.

Flash forward to Saturday morning...scoot to Bachaan's to pick her and Zoey up for a short weekend in Toronto.  Drive the 3.5 hours up to the city.  Check-in and leave Zoey and her Bachaan to their own devices (dinner, wandering, meeting up with our friend from Japan, Yuka) and shoot to the Molson Amphitheatre for the Dave Matthews Band show...something like our 17 billionth.  Then back to the room to a wide awake Zoey party, watching the lights on the CN Tower and visiting.

What's the most creative you've ever gotten with childcare and social enterprise?  We dragged Grandma to NYC to help us watch Zo and enjoy the city, on our dime.  This time we pulled Bachaan into the fray.  For a free trip to the city...travel, hotel, and a little bit of this and that all covered, Bachaan took a few evening hours to show her granddaughter around while Mom and Dad went to the show.  We spent Sunday as a family wandering around the city and soaking each other up.  It's a great little enterprise.

First, we get to go to a show.

Second, we get to bring Zoey, and not dump her off anywhere.

Third, we get to give Bachaan or Grandma a chance to get out and do something fun...for next to nothing.

Lastly, we get to hang out with Bachaan or Grandma in a cool place. Always a fun part of the deal

All good.

Not sure if you've done the same, or if you've even contemplated something similar, but the practice gets two thumbs up from these two discerning parents. So what's the most creative you've ever gotten with travel, fun, and childcare?  If someone tells you that you can't have your cake and eat it too, they've never met Bachaan.

What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Red Hot Chili Peppers...

 It's official. I've just seen the best show I've ever plunked dough down to witness. The Red Hot Chili Peppers destroyed Joe Louis Arena from the opening song, "Monarchy of Roses, to the very end when Chad Smith introduced Nik Lidstrom to the 20,000 plus crowd and the roof nearly blew off of Joe Louis Arena. It was incredible. The baby's first in-uteran concert, and it was a perspective bender.

 

You forget that the Chili Peppers have been going strong since 1983, and I've never been a show where literally every song was a hit...song, after song, after song...It was the loudest I've ever heard any crowd...any crowd...they sang every word, and Anthony, Flea, Josh and Chad didn't mess around, with very little yapping between songs, just hair parter after hair parter. At one point Flea thanked the Detroit Red Wings for letting them use they're building, and Chad Smith poured out a pretty heart warming thank you to Detroit, mentioning how proud he is to be from Detroit, and how he'd grown up watching countless hockey games in that same barn...how he'd seen his first concert there...Rush in 1980..."air drumming with Neil Peart the whole time." The impromptu tribute made 20,000 people blush with rare pride for a city that just seems to keep getting kicked when it's already down.

The band ripped through song after song...but the one that tore the place to shreds was a bombproof version of "Under the Bridge." Afterward it struck me that I may have just lived a bit of a musical dream. I never thought that I'd ever hear Under The Bridge," live.

Now it's bedtime and then we'll wake and pick up Zoey and Bachaan in the morning. We're off to see Dave Matthews in Toronto. Certainly a weekend that makes up for the last crippling month we've endured. Wow...I'm still kinda floored. I just saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I just saw Nik Lidstrom's final thank-you and goodbye to the Motor City...I just saw a band I'd been waiting to see since high school.  Am I really supposed to sleep now?