U2 360, Pretty Vacant and The Pastor's Daughter

“Hello, Hello!” Bono sang.
“Hola!” The crowd roared back.
“I’m at a place called Vertigo!”
“Donde esta?” [Where is it?]

Events don’t come any bigger than the U2 360 concert at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl! It was for me the perfect way to erase the bitterness of the Los Angeles Dodgers being eliminated from the playoffs the previous Wednesday…

My pastor had an extra ticket to last night’s performance, but paying him $60 for the ticket was just the start! It cost $20 to park at Pasadena City College, five dollars to take the shuttle to the Rose Bowl, five dollars for a bottle of water (I bought three) and $40 for a concert t-shirt. I didn’t buy a shirt. I didn’t like any of the designs U2 offered, at least not for the price.

There was a line for parking, a line to get inside the Rose Bowl, a line for refreshments, basically a line for everything. My pastor peppering me with comments in line didn’t help: this line’s going nowhere/this can’t be the right way/did Bono have to go through this/which gate do we enter? For a man of faith, he has a surprising inability to suspend his disbelief!

I thought he asked me to accompany him and his 17-year-old daughter because of my ease with big events and crowds (such as San Diego’s Comic Con or the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in London), but apparently he invited me simply to annoy me. I wanted to say: Man up, grow a spine and deal with it! However, I kept my mouth shut. It’s like this all the time at the house, the pastor’s daughter (hereafter referred to as TPD) said apologetically…

Leaving my pastor to guard the seats, it was in line to buy water that I got my first surprise of the evening. That’s when TPD said she read my Pretty Vacant comic. She liked the plasticized-women-as-mannequin-molds saga. Wow, I thought while we walked back to our seats. I’m always happy that other people can enjoy my stories -- even people I wouldn’t expect!

The multi-cultural Hip Hop group Black Eyed Peas were the opening act, and during this set my second surprise of the night occurred. Somewhere between "Where’s The Love?" and "I Gotta Feeling", Slash (formerly of Guns N’ Roses) came out and played lead guitar to the GnR rock classic "Sweet Child O’ Mine", with Fergie singing lead! It was a fun set! I especially liked Black Eyed Peas frontman will i am mentioning various towns and places in the Los Angeles area: La Cresenta, Montebello, East L.A., etc., but points off for not mentioning Hacienda Heights, my – and Fergie’s – childhood town!

U2 finally came on a little after 9 pm and the two and a half hour show didn’t disappoint. Even though most of the songs they performed came off their latest cd No Line On The Horizon (including the first three of the concert), they ran through a very good sample of their past hits, keeping the stadium crowd riveted.

My final surprise of the night came during the encore! In between "One" and "Where The Streets Have No Name", U2 performed the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace"! U2’s mission of bringing people together through music was highly successful last night, with a pastor, comic book creator/accounting analyst, and a student with theatre aspirations in attendance with other more interesting people, complete with a Hispanic gentleman with a big posterior – but that’s a story I’ll save for another day!

And at multi-generational shows such as U2’s, one can impart wisdom to the next generation. When TPD brings her friends and family to a future concert, I do hope she keeps water and cough drops handy, knowing the concert never, ever ends until the stadium lights turn back on!

The Pretty Vacant Stand-Alone Conundrum

I always wonder if my latest published story will be my last. I was fortunate to do four issues of Codename: Jezebel and five issues of the New G.A.R.D.E., but there is currently only the one issue of Pretty Vacant…

… for now! Mike at Bare Bones Studios has an eight page mini-story for his Pocket Book Heroes comic that I hope will introduce Pretty Vacant to his readers and I have agreed to write another full-sized issue. The sales for issue one (despite not yet having a distribution deal) has been decent, warranting a second issue green light. For that I thank comic shows and the people who attend them!

Even though I wanted Pretty Vacant to continue, I made issue one a stand-alone issue. I didn’t want to walk away from it in the middle of a multi-part story. Too many comics creators do that, and it’s so frustrating. Even Jack Kirby, considered the most influential superhero artist ever, had problems finishing his highly personal, multi-issue Fourth World saga. So Pretty Vacant’s first issue was a complete story, with an ending I liked if it did not sell, yet giving me an opportunity to expand upon what I had already done if sales were good.

I’m now adopting a serialized story format made up of stand-alone stories, a format made popular by such television shows like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who. Each successive issue of Pretty Vacant will be a complete story (with a beginning, middle and end), but feeding into a bigger storyline.

Where does that leave things now? Gigi barely escaped from the exploding Still Life plastination facility, but vowing to rescue Mindy from her frozen fate and to bring the Still Life Corporation down. If anyone is to try and top that, it might as well be me!

The Force Is Strong With This One

Congratulations are in order to the Los Angeles Dodgers, winners of the National League West for two years in a row! And they clinched the division on Star Wars night to boot!

As for me, even though the Dodgers were 50-31 this year at Dodger Stadium, I was a mediocre 6-8. I (and the Dodgers) hope to do much better in the playoffs. Here's to October baseball!

Update: One down, two to go!

Update Two: Argh. I feel like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulled away the football. Again.

A Look Back At Abbey Road

I have met many people who have had difficultly choosing a favorite album or compact disc. It is not that way with me and my favorite album, The Beatles Abbey Road, which was released forty years ago.

It is a musically cohesive, innovative and timeless piece of art, made all the more remarkable that Abbey Road was created by four men under thirty who would soon part ways. Numerous compromises had to be made it order to get the album made, but knowing the limits placed upon them gave each of The Beatles a chance to shine.

John Lennon got to explore his avant-garde side while keeping his rock and roll roots. George Harrison wrote two of his best songs for this album. Ringo Starr was able to write and sing a whimsical song with complete backing vocals by the actual Beatles. And as for Paul McCartney, his assemblage of unfinished song fragments is the musical equivalent of Jesus feeding the five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish!

I won’t go into Abbey Road track by track. Others do it much better than I can, and I don’t think all the songs on the album are perfect. In my humble opinion, Paul should be singing lead on “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, with John singing lead on “Oh! Darling”, and Ringo dropping “Octopus’ Garden” in favor of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. Yet Abbey Road has genuine warmth to it. The best way I can describe it is by loving someone even more because of his or her flaws rather than being repelled by them.

It doesn’t get any better for me than the “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” medley that nearly finishes Abbey Road. Paul starts gently by singing about days gone by and is soon joined by the others in chanting a mantra. Paul then contemplates the price paid for their music and the commitment to continue no matter what (even a break-up) may happen next. The foursome follows up with a rollicking jam that gives each Beatle a chance to shine in the spotlight solo, before bringing the group back together once more to end with a cosmic musing!

(And like The Beatles ending Abbey Road out of sorts with the slight “Her Majesty”, let me add that I really like the remastered disc. Paul’s bass playing really jumps out!)