Dateline: Davis. California. May 9th, 2012

My son and I dashed in to the UC Davis Mondavi Center tonight to see Patti Smith with Lenny K  on a whim (New York music / art scene, Robert Mapplethorpe/Sam Shepard era, etc.)  She wrote the song with Bruce Springsteen, Because The Night, that went to number 13 in the top 20 when it came out.  We decided to take our chances and buy tickets there to save $10.00.  On arrival, I walked over to the ticket window, but before I could buy tickets, a person walked up to my son, handed him two $50 tickets, said, “Here, take these”, and split with no explanation.  Gone.

Sometimes I mention during the teleconferences that highly interactive animal behavior is going on outside my back door just as Joseph gets the group in state.  That’s what I mean about “stuff just happens” when I mention it.  It just happened tonight – go with the intuition, and it all works out, with just minutes to spare.  Like moving to the middle of the river, the flow.

There was a question and answer session after Patti had read some passages from her new book, and played a couple of songs.  Someone said that they had read that reading was declining and we were becoming a visual image society, and that society and intellect were in decline because of that, and did she think that reading was in decline?

Patti replied that she had just read five comic books, so she thought that reading was still going along alright (laughter) but that her, ” – – – Worst fear was the death of the hive – just thousands and thousands of honeybees dying.  We ought to be more concerned about clean water, and clean air, and the death of a single bumblebee, because of what it means to the future of the whole planet.  A terrorist act – it’s just one thing – a single event, bad as it may be, but if all the bees die – think about that.  We should really be concerned about that.”

That’s a quote, from one of Time magazines 100 most influential people, from TODAY.  Straight from the Horses (1st album) mouth, so to speak.

Your reporter on the scene,

Joel