1. For about two weeks, at least, I've been thinking about and putting off cleaning the leaves out of the front and back rain gutters. As I age, I'm less and less confident in my balance and the thought of climbing up an extension ladder made me anxious. I've been reading the Silver Valley Classifieds online to see if anyone advertised their services as a rain gutter cleaner. No one popped up.
I decided today I was not going to put off this task any longer. I trudged next door, borrowed Christy and Everett's ladder, and with caution, climbing like a slow loris, I crept up and down the ladder, worked on one section after another, scooping out the leaves. When I finished the back of the house, I took a break, let my nerves settle down a bit, and comforted myself with raisin bread toast and butter. I returned to my job, kept working at a snail's pace, and finished, relieved to be done.
I found comfort in the haiku by Kobayashi Issa:
Oh snail,
Climb Mt. Fuji,
But slowly, slowly!
2. Ed called around 3:30. He was done with his work day and we decided I'd pick him up around 4:45 and grab a bite to eat at Azteca before attending the screening of John Fogerty: 50 Year Trip -- Live at Red Rocks at the Regal Riverstone. This concert was showing on a one-time basis in a hundred select movie theaters across the USA on November 11th. I'd watched a trailer for it online, I knew Ed had had a great time seeing John Fogerty at Northern Quest a few years ago, and I thought Ed and I would have fun watching this concert.
The film was scheduled to start at 7. We arrived at the Regal Riverstone at about 6:40, found the correct theater, entered, and the room was empty. We both thought that was odd, but we shrugged, diligently found the seats in the theater we'd been assigned when I bought the tickets, and settled in.
Time passed.
No one else came in the theater.
The clock struck 7 p.m.
No one else came in the theater.
The movie screen was blank.
At about 7:05, a couple walked in, thinking they were late.
They diligently found the seats assigned to them when they bought their tickets, and settled in. We joked with them about the nearly empty theater.
The movie screen was blank.
At around 7:15, I told Ed I was going to investigate what was going on.
I strolled out of the theater and mildly approached the man at the podium scanning patrons' tickets.
"Do you know why the John Fogerty movie hasn't started?"
He checked the schedule at his podium and saw that it was scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
"Well, there's probably about 10-15 minutes of previews before the show starts."
I slowly shook my head.
"You mean the screen is blank?"
I nodded. "Yes, the screen is blank."
"I'll call the manager."
The manager popped out of a nearby door and said, "Oh!" She chuckled nervously. "I'll go start it."
I returned to my seat. No other patrons had arrived. I told Ed and the couple down our row of seats that the manager had gone upstairs to start the movie.
Sure enough, we saw a light go on in the projection room and before long, the screening of John Fogerty: 50 Year Trip -- Live at Red Rocks got started.
3. Was it worth the wait?
Was it cool to be one of four people in the theater watching this movie?
YES!
I loved this show.
John Fogerty has assembled a superb band featuring not only guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums, but two women as backup singers and other guys playing tenor sax, trumpet, and trombone (I might have failed to list something here). I have not been successful finding the band members' names online, but two of the band members are John Fogerty's sons.
The movie featured the band playing a generous selection of Credence Clearwater Revival's songs and some of John Fogerty's later compositions. In much the same way that Neil Young, at about 74 years old, sang beautifully when I saw him back in May, Fogerty, at about the same age, sang beautifully in this concert/movie. He was energetic. He had joyous chemistry with the other band members. The band opened up several CCR songs and jammed on them raucously. Midway through the concert, the band paid homage to Woodstock and covered songs performed there by other artists: the Who ("My Generation"), Joe Cocker ("Little Help from my Friends"), and Sly and the Family Stone ("Everyday People" and "Dance to the Music"). They sang "Give Peace a Chance". One of Fogerty's sons covered Jimi Hendrix's distorted, fuzzy, feedback-y "Star Spangled Banner".
I very much enjoyed the numerous cutaways from the concert featuring snippets of John Fogerty being interviewed, especially as he talked about his way of writing songs and what he had in mind when he wrote several of them.
I'm hoping this movie makes its way to Netflix or Amazon Prime or YouTube. If it does, I'll watch it again. If I could have tonight, I would have rewound it back to the beginning and watched the whole presentation again.
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