happy re-birth, death of the god etc, pagan updated celebrations to all concerned… Did i mention that we had run into Uri Geller at an airport lounge..?. a guy drifting around the place with a really weird vibe, i actually pointed him out to DH “look this dude is a complete alien…” a few minutes later he approached and introduced himself, we had met once before years ago… a really nice person all around he bent 3 spoons for us… now as much as ‘i believe’ my innate skepticism kicks in, but the spoon bending (which he described as “parlor tricks”, the implication being that he is capable of much more) is really an impressive thing up close and personal… we’ve all seen it; he gently rubs the spoon and it bends towards his rubbing finger… almost more impressive than the act of bending it was that it really did seem to continue bending after he handed it to me… say from 45 to 90 degrees… (no, the spoons were there at the airport lounge, i took them out of the pile and handed them to him… everyone i’ve told this to all want to know if he provided the spoons himself) we sat around and talked for a while exchanged some anecdotes and ideas about ESP etc. (years ago in Australia, on our first tour there 1977-8, we found that Blondie was on the same circuit as was Uri… he was on tour doing what he does in many of the same theaters that we were playing in… i recall seeing graffiti backstage in one “URI GELLER LEVITATED THIS BUILDING”… one day we were sitting in an airport cafeteria (in those days we didnt get to go to the lounges) waiting for a flight and i was looking at a copy of the local free paper…. the cover was a shot of Uri’s face staring out intently… on the inside there was only a small article; it said that if one stared into Uri’s eyes on the cover photo ‘something’ would happen… i closed the cover and stared into the picture of the eyes and at that exact second a lady who worked at the airport dropped a huge tray of spoons, knives and forks producing a crash that made everyone in the vicinity turn and look…) finally he said that if i did a “simple drawing” he would try and copy it by mental connection… on the first page of ‘Money’ by Martin Amis i drew a picture of a cat face; two big circle eyes and J like lines indicating a mouth and whiskers… right before i put it down i thought “i bet everyone draws a house” while i was drawing Uri had his back turned, he couldn’t possibly have seen the thing… i covered it with my hand (yes completely) and gave him a copy of another Amis book “Times Arrow” for him to draw his version of what he “saw”, stared at him, thought of the image… well, he drew two circles pretty much the exact size of the ones i’d drawn then said he was having trouble picking up the rest as he started to use the circles as wheels for a crude car… in a way this deal was more impressive than the spoon bending…fantastically he said “many people draw a house”… so is this all psychology… am i a two circle type as opposed to a house type? even if that’s it it still was amazing and there was just that little “something” extra and out there about the whole encounter with him that left everyone buzzed after we parted company… regardless then of any nay sayers i for one am now a fan of Uri G. … above and beyond his tricks he is a really great positive person, we talked a bit about Michael Jackson who he supports… his take on Michaels converted looks is one that i hadn’t heard or considered and is the most reasonable explanation i’ve come across: simply that he (Jackson) was so pissed off at his father that he didn’t want to even look like him… so there’s that Uri was nice enough to put his own version of the meeting with us on his site http://www.uri-geller.com/index.htm lastly for now even though i am appalled by rampant consumerism, media and related stuff, one of the coolest things i’ve run into is only available in Germany-Austria apparently; that is BLACK ICE GATORADE… at one of the German gigs Mark our front of house sound mixer was sporting a bottle saying he always checks out weird flavors and variations of products… being a big gatorade fan i was quite impressed Black Ice gatorade is pretty much black in appearance, really a dark red but when all together in the bottle it easily passes for black, tastes fruity…label is black and silver… why this isnt available in the states is a complete mystery to your humble narrator, i found something on their website to write in suggestions and comments and of course have not heard anything back about Black Ice even though the site thing promises a reply… so if any of you are as intrigued as i am by this dumbass phenomena try going to gatorade.com and inundating them with queries about “BLACK ICE GATORADE!!!!”… i brought two bottles back, even though i hate advertising maybe i’ll put up a pcture… i mean how dare they only have this cool flavor only for sale in Germany??!!? anyway have a nice thingy and happy stuff love to you all chris