Summer concerts - now and then

I had big plans this week - U2 was supposed to be performing at the Oakland Coliseum yesterday. But Bono's back injury while rehearsing in Germany, which led to back surgery and a need to recuperate, sort of ruined that for me. The latest news is that he is doing well rehabilitating with Lance Armstrong somewhere in Europe - at least according to People Magazine. The concert is supposed to be rescheduled, but it probably won't happen until some time in 2011.

I am hoping that this postponed concert experience works out better than the one I had in college, when a bunch of friends and I got tickets to a Bjork concert. We bought the tickets from the Wherehouse Music store, which used to be a ticket vendor. And then Bjork got a bladder infection the week of the Los Angeles concert. At the time I was pretty pissed that it got cancelled - but now that I've experienced a bladder infection and the extreme pain that comes with it I totally get it. The problem was the concert was cancelled and all the ticketholders were encouraged to get a refund and repurchase tickets if and when the concert got rescheduled.

My friends and I went back to the Wherehouse Music where we had bought the tickets - and it was a our bad luck that in the time between when we bought the tickets and needed to get a refund, Wherehouse Music had left the business of being a ticket vendor. They refused to give us a refund and the concert was never rebooked. So we were just out the money.

I am hopeful that the U2 concert will get rescheduled - even though I know it probably won't happen anytime this summer. But I do have another option for summer entertainment - and it will be a lot cheaper than tickets to U2.

The Spin Doctors are scheduled to perform at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk - for free. Now the Spin Doctors are not one of my favorite bands at any rate, but they do hold a special place in my heart as the first rock concert I ever went to with my friends. I was 15, and my cousin bought me three tickets to the concert at Great America - featuring Screaming Trees, Soul Asylum and the Spin Doctors. It was the perfect day for a group of noisy, goofy teenage girls - we all had season passes so we got in for free to the park and we spent the day riding all our favorite rides and flirting with the cute boys who worked on the log ride.

At the end of the day, we headed over to the amphitheater and were shocked at all the beer and pot smokers in the audience. Now I know it's just part of the concert-going experience - as with the U2 Rose Bowl concert when the person sitting behind us started puking as the concert ended due to a mix of too much beer, too much pot and too much sun.

At the Spin Doctors concert we sang along to all the songs we knew, which I will admit weren't that many. But we loved the Spin Doctors "Two Princes" and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," probably like every other kid our age. The music wasn't great and the performance was just okay. But it was at a time when my little trio of friends thought life would always be just the three of us having a good time - back before college, relationships, careers and life made it a lot more difficult to get together for things like a concert with our favorite band of the moment.

'Glee' gets another year

When "Glee" started it's first season it had so much potential. It was funny in kind of a snarky way. The characters were amusing, the actors good a pulling off their roles. And there was really good music mixed into every episode.

I liked the love triangle of Finn-Quinn-Rachel (and maybe Curt deserves to be in there too) and I liked the love triangle of Will-his wife-Emma. I guess I can relate to Emma and Rachel having feelings for someone they will probably never stand a chance with, but it was fun to root them on.

I was excited to see where things would go with the couples as the show took a break mid-season.

But when it came back, something just seemed to be awry. The weekly plot of coming up with ideas for a song to sing at competition - or to teach some kind of lesson to the kids - just started to get old. Also, the couples I'd been longing to see together in the first half of the season where quickly torn asunder for really no good reasons.

Something about the second half of the season just felt a lot more superficial than the first half. And the music turned bad, too. It started to seem like the writers were coming up with plot points just so they could use as many different musical genres as possible. Finn and Puck get a job where Will's ex-wife works seemingly just to have a chance to sing Beck's "Loser." There has been no mention of the job since that very short scene.

The low lights for me this season were some of the bad renditions of the songs. Rachel sings U2's "One" in an episode and I may be biased as a huge fan of the band, but even people I know who listen to them casually said it was a bad mix. The "Loser" rendition was also bad as was a song from "Les Miserables" that was turned into a duet.

I haven't done an actually count, but the number of songs performed in each episode certainly seems to have gone up all in an attempt to sell more on iTunes.

In the season finale this week, the students lose the competion but get another year to make Glee work. Hopefully, the writers take it to heart or the show may only have another year.

Music mix offers a rhythm to the run

Now that I am back into working out regularly, there are a few key ingredients I need for a good work out.

One is the proper attire, which mostly means a comfortable pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, a tank top and New Balance sneakers. Though I can hardly believe I did it, I dropped $100 on the pair of yoga pants I have now at Santana Row about a month ago. They are comfortable, the right length (which is an issue for me at 5'1") and as my friend said when we were shopping they make everything look a little perkier and shapelier. Luckily, I get my New Balance shoes and Gap tank tops for cheap at the Gilroy outlets.

Another key ingredient for a good work out is a couple of magazines to keep me occupied while I am working on cardio machines. The truth is I get kinda bored on the elliptical, bike or treadmill so a magazine is a good distraction. I wasn't going to the gym for a while so I had a backlog of People magazines. People is perfect because there are lots of pictures and it's light reading. It doesn't take a lot of concentration and the type is larger than in a magazine like my favorite read, The New Yorker. But after a few months of a six-day a week gym habit, I quickly caught up on the magazines. So now I've been mixing in an issue of Entertainment Weekly here and there, or Esquire or GQ, which have surprisingly high-quality and clever writing.

But perhaps the most important part of my workout routine (and something that has been a part of it since my first fitness stint back in college) is good music. Back when I used to run in college and at San Jose State University, I used to carry around a Sony Discman. When I was using cardio equipment, I'd prop it in the cup holders. When I was using weight machines, I wore baggy men's gym shorts so that I could stuff the Discman in my pocket. It was heavy and unwieldy.

Times have certainly changed. Now I run with my iPod nano strapped to my arm with headphones that have soft earbuds to block out all the outside noise. I have 600+ songs on the iPod so it's easy to mix up the music. I have to say I have eclectic taste in music in general, but especially when I workout. I don't really care what the lyrics are as long as it has a fast pace and isn't heavy metal. When I first started jogging at the gym, I listened to the soundtrack from "Slumdog Millionaires," which has some great high beat per minute music on it. "Mausum &Escape" is what I use to start the jog because it sets the mood and rhythm.

So when I was preparing for the 5K last weekend, I spent some time thinking about with what music I might want to start and end the run. I wanted to use the music to help pace myself - like two fast songs for jogging and then one slower song for walking. But mostly I wanted fun stuff that would keep me going when I got a little tired out.

So below is my random mix:
Hop on a Plane - Tegan and Sara
Mausam & Escape - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Blah Blah Blah - Ke$ha
Amphetamine - I Can't Go On I'll Go On (Bandslam soundtrack)
Sexy Mistake - The Chalets
Upside Down - Jack Johnson
Beggin' - Madcon
Mean Girls - Sugarland
Supermodel - Jill Sobule
Walking on air - Kerli
Party at a Rich Dude's House - Ke$ha
Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
Single Ladies - Beyonce
Shake It - Metro Station
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas
Get On Your Boots - U2
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Gimme More - Britney Spears
Whatcha Say - DJ X-Change

I put on an hour and 10 minutes of music, just in case I really blew my average time of a 40 minute 5K (on the treadmill at the gym.) The songs that gave me the biggest motivation included Mausam & Escape, Supermodel and Girlfriend, perhaps because of their timing in the run. I crossed the finish line to Beyonce's Single Ladies so I didn't even get to the one song by my favorite band U2. But I am sure I will get some more use out of the mix at the gym.

And anyone who has suggestions for other songs to add is welcome to share them.

Rose Bowl a nightmare of a venue

So last Sunday at this time, I was nearly to Pasadena in anticipation of the U2 concert at the Rose Bowl. I have never before traveled to a concert that required me to drive five hours one way and rent a room for the night. In fact, I am really not much of a concert person - except for when it comes to U2.

The boys from Ireland really played a little bit of a trick on all of us from the Bay Area. Tickets went on sale for the North American tour last spring and there were no tour dates in Northern California. The closest options where the Rose Bowl in Pasadena or Vegas. Most of the die-hard fans I know opted for one or the other. I chose the Rose Bowl because I figured it would require one day off work and one room in a hotel - saving time and money.

Like I mentioned last week, I did not really think about the Rose Bowl as the venue, or the logistical issues created by it. Partly this is because I've never been to a real football stadium, and partly because I was blinded by a need to see U2 live, no matter what the challenges. If only I had known that the Monday I'd arrive back at home from the concert that an e-mail would be waiting for me from U2.com to announce an additional leg of the tour in North America next spring - with a concert scheduled at Oakland Coliseum.

Of course, the tour promoters obviously did this on purpose to get people to go to the Rose Bowl for a concert that broke attendance records for both the band and the venue, and was broadcast live on YouTube, and was filmed for a concert DVD.

If I'd known about the Oakland show, I certainly wouldn't have gone to the Rose Bowl. The experience was an interesting one to say the least. The concert was great and it was pretty amazing to see close to 100,000 U2 fans all in the same place. A U2 concert is kinda like a grab bag, too, since you never know who the opening act is going to be almost until the concert begins. I didn't know Black-Eyed Peas were opening until we were waiting in line to get into the stadium a couple hours before the concert was set to start and the announcement come over the loudspeakers. Through the years I've seen a few opening acts at U2 concerts. I've seen Kings of Leon and Damian Marley, whose performances I didn't really enjoy. But I've also seemed No Doubt and now the Peas, who both put on great opening shows.

Everything inside the stadium was great but it was everything outside that was a nightmare. We got down to Pasadena around noon, checked into our hotel and with my sister's g-phone got directions to the shuttle stop for which we had purchased tickets. The shuttle was 1.1 miles from the hotel so we opted to leave the car behind and walk to Old Town Pasadena for lunch before heading to the shuttle. Though it was late October, temperatures in Pasadena were about 89 degrees, and every restaurant had long waits. We ended up at an Italian restaurant I'd tried before with a 30 minute wait for a table. By the time lunch was over we headed to the shuttle stop. There were signs from the shuttle station saying the Rose Bowl was a 1.5 mile walk away, but we had our tickets secured so we lined up for the bus.

The shuttles from two locations in Pasadena started running at noon and continued to run throughout the evening. We had no wait when we boarded the shuttle around 3 p.m., though I wondered what things would be like after the concert when everyone was trying to board at the same time.

The bus dropped us off near the stadium and we headed over to the Picnic in the Park, which had been described in e-mails from the Rose Bowl as a place to hang out before the concert, get food from local vendors and see live entertainment. By the time we arrived, the area was pretty packed and if there was entertainment lined up, we couldn't find it. It was hot, dusty and crowded. We stood in line for bottled water and lemonade. The only highlight at picnic in the park was that El Cholo was one of the food vendors. El Cholo is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles from when I was in graduate school down there. It was just a 20 minute drive from my apartment and had the cheapest valet in the city. The warm tortilla chips, the green corn tamales and the cheese enchiladas are amazingly good. Since we were still full from lunch, we opted for a couple of green corn tamales to share. The tamales are only made seasonally in the fall and the masa is a creamy sweet mix that is stuffed with cheddar cheese and mild green chilies. It was the only good thing about Picnic in the Park.

So after we had rehydrated a bit and snacked, we decided to find our gate and get in line. We were pretty close to the front of the line and gates were supposed to open at 5 p.m. But as with most large events, the gates opened half an hour late, and as the wait went on, more and more people pushed and crowded in front of us. We grumbled a bit about it, but mostly let it go since we had assigned seats unlike all those general admission fans who were pushing to get to the front of the standing-room-only crowd.

The concert itself was pretty great, even though U2 skipped my favorite oldie "I Will Follow." They sang a lot of stuff from the latest album, and it was clear that most of the people seated around me didn't know many the newer songs. I think I was the only one around me who knew the lyrics to "No Line On The Horizon" and "Magnificent." But the group did play some older, more obscure songs such as "In A Little While" and "Ultraviolet." They also sang a song from my favorite album "Unforgettable Fire" so I was content.

After close to two and a half hours, the band was done and it was time to leave the stadium. We opted to wait until the stadium cleared out a bit before walking down the steep steps (we were in row 68 of 75 rows) since my mom and I both have fears of heights/falling that can be triggered in big stadiums. Probably the lowlight of the night was when we were sitting and waiting for the crowd to clear a bit and the woman behind us started saying that her friend (who had been smoking marijuana and drinking beer all night) wasn't feeling very well. Soon she was puking into a beer cup and we decided to get a move on.

Outside the stadium we looked for the shuttle bus line, and things were kind of in chaos. We could see the two lines for the two different shuttles, but there seemed to be no end in sight as security guards blocked every seeming entrance to the line. We walked and searched, and walked and searched for the end of the line for at least 20 minutes before we gave up. We knew there was a way to get back downtown since we had seen the sign that said the walk was 1.5 miles from the shuttle stop. But my sister's phone was dead so we had no directions to get back. We asked a security guard who gave us directions, but then noticed no one else was walking the same way. Then we asked a police officer and he gave us the exact opposite directions of the security guard.

But soon enough, we found a crowd and started the 1.5 mile - largely uphill - to the station. Along the way we walked past cars that were close to a standstill - and even saw the passengers of two cars get out of their vehicle to fight about something (a bit of ironic considering Bono's strong message about world peace). It would have been a fine walk had we not been standing/walking for the greater part of 10 hours and had we not been up at 5 a.m. for the drive to Los Angeles. But somehow, at a snail's pace, we managed to make it to the shuttle station. I even felt sympathy for some of the other concert goers who were walking in heels, and those who stayed behind to wait in line for a shuttle that surely would deliver them home later than us.

Along the route back, there were signs telling us how much further we had to go. The first half mile seemed impossibly slow, but then as the terrain flattened out, we picked up a little speed. When we got to the shuttle station, we knew we still had a mile to go to get to our hotel and we considered stopping for water at one of the open bars or an ice cream shop that was open late. But we feared if we stopped, we would lose our momentum so we kept trudging along. We made it back to the room by 2 a.m. and all opted to take a shower to get rid of the sweat and dirt from the day.

We were up by 8 a.m. for an expensive room service breakfast since no one felt like going out to eat since we just wanted to hit the road for home. We got home by 2:30 p.m. on Monday, and I logged onto the computer to check my e-mail and work on some assignments for the office.

And there, of course, was the e-mail announcing the Oakland show. I was irritated for a while, thinking of how I could have avoided the logistical nightmare of the last two days. But then I got over it and made sure I had secured a presale ticket for the June show. After all, I haven't missed a Bay Area U2 concert since my first show in 1997 - Popmart at the Oakland Coliseum.

CNN gets it right: a reporter's life is stressful

I hate when I follow a blog or a columnist and it is days, weeks - or even months on a rare occasion - between postings. So I feel a little guilty that my postings have been much more infrequent in recent weeks. In fact, as anyone who follows this blog knows, it's been nearly a week since I posted.

Blame it on the Pinnacle Awards special section I had to design, edit, and partly write, last week. And on the day I took off to drive back from the U2 concert in Pasadena. Or the student interns who called in sick or took a week off to go to Hawaii. This week felt like I was weeks behind schedule, even with the work I did on Saturday, and writing a couple columns late in the day on Monday, after getting very little sleep and driving for nearly six hours. It's the life of a journalist, and probably one of the reasons "reporter" was named to CNN Money's list of stressful jobs that pay badly.

Others jobs that made the list include social worker and probation officer, so basically reporter is right up there with people who are breaking up families or following around criminals.

I am technically not a reporter anymore since my official title is city editor, but I still do plenty of reporting, writing, page designing and sometimes even handle receptionist duties since that position is filled by a part-timer. But perhaps I am not the only reporter in the world who is grinding my teeth in my sleep and having nightmares about work on a regular basis - and occasionally crying a few frustrated tears.

But there is a reason some of us reporters stick with a job that offers a mediocre salary and lots of stress. There are moments that make it all worthwhile, such as the reader who came in today and said he feels like he knows me since he always reads my food column. Or discovering last night that someone who has been a mentor with the Puente program at Gavilan College for going on three years (I am a mentor with the program, too) signed up originally when he read a story I wrote about the need for more male mentors.

It might be a world of stress, but the little impact I can have on the world makes it worthwhile.

U2 will rock the Rose Bowl and YouTube

I might have mentioned a time or two, or a dozen times, that I am a big fan of U2. So when tickets went on sale for their latest tour I knew I had to see them. I've seen every tour since Popmart and didn't want to miss the latest tour, but when tickets went on sale for the U.S. stops, nothing was listed in the Bay Area. The closest options where Pasadena or Las Vegas. Being a working journalist - which means I don't have a lot of expendable cash (and the tickets were already pricey) or free time - so I thought going to Pasadena would require less time and money.

But when I bought the tickets for Pasadena there was one big thing I didn't take into account - the venue for tomorrow's concert is the Rose Bowl. It hit home about two months ago when I started getting mass e-mails from the Rose Bowl staff encouraging U2 ticketholders to pre-pay for parking or shuttle bus passes and that the parking lots would open at noon - for a 7 p.m. concert. The first e-mail said 96,000 people are expected at the concert. That is a lot of people to transport to a venue. Suddenly, the quick trip to Pasadena seemed like it might require a little more planning. So we rented a hotel room near Old Town Pasadena, got tickets to one of the shuttles, and planned for an earlier arrival time just in case there is mass traffic on the highways and streets of Pasadena.

By this time tomorrow, I will be wading through a sea of people to my seat, awaiting the Edge, Bono, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. For anyone who hasn't scored tickets for the concert and wants to see it, it is supposed to be played live on YouTube at 8:30 p.m. PST.

Now I better go find those tickets and prep for the long drive early tomorrow...

My dreams are keeping me up at night

This week has been a rough one for me, and unfortunately I haven't even been able to escape into a good night's sleep. I've been sleeping just fine, but my nights have been full of very vivid and disturbing dreams. It seems as if my stress during the day finds a way to manifest itself at night.

I've always had very vivid dreams and have been pretty good at remembering them. Whatever is going on in my life is usually what makes it into my dreams - my friends and family make a lot of appearances as does work-related stuff. I usually know I am developing a serious crush when a guy I know shows up in my dreams. But some weeks the dreams just seem to come out of nowhere.

One night this week I dreamt that I argued with the owner of my company, a man with whom I speak probably just a few times a year. Most of the other details have faded, but it was an argument about a membership renewal not being paid.

The next night I dreamt about vampires, perhaps because I had watched an episode of "Vampire Diaries" right before bed. The dream incorporated some of the ideas from the show, and in it someone was trying to get me to let a snake bite me because then if a vampire bit me they would get poisoned and would leave me alone. I woke up in the middle of the night scared until I realized it wasn't real, and then I thought if I could only remember all the details it might make a good screenplay some day. And then I went back to sleep and dreamt some more about vampires.

The night after my brain incorporated characters from "Dexter" and the guest star from the last "Law and Order: SVU." I wasn't involved in this dream, but was watching it like a movie. Dexter, Astor and someone else were driving all around trying to track down Stephen Rea (who played the guest role on SVU) so that Dexter could murder the bad guy. There was even some elaborate scheme set up at Rea's hotel for Dexter to get him. I woke up again feeling on edge.

I got one night's reprieve before I dreamt about going down to the U2 concert at the Rose Bowl (which I will be doing Oct. 25) and not being able to get to the concert because we didn't have our shuttle bus tickets. The dream was full of waiting in line and struggling to get to the venue. And for some weird reason, the shuttle stop was in an amusement park, and was like an amusement park train instead of a real bus. We had yet made it to the concert when I woke up. Luckily our shuttle tickets came in the mail today, our reservations for the hotel are set and I've got the U2 tickets put away for the day of the concert.

After nights like these, I often wake up feeling almost as tired as I did when I went to bed. But, of course, the worst nights are the ones when I dream about work. There are nights when I dream about designing pages and missing deadlines. I guess the worst dreams, however, are the ones where I dream that I have already gotten up and gotten ready for work, and then wake up to find I haven't done any of that.

I'm not really sure what to do to eliminate these dreams. I could stop watching so much TV, I guess, but I think these dreams are probably coming more from a stressful few weeks at work. I can only hope that tonight when I go to bed my dreams will be normal again, or better yet, maybe I won't even remember them.

U2 breaks the humdrum of Thursday

I went to a U2 concert at 1 p.m. today - well, kind of. The concert was actually in Sheffield, Scotland. I was in my office in Hollister. But thanks to the wonders of livestream webcasts, I listened along with all those British fans while uploading stories/photos to the Internet and prepping InDesign pages for next week's paper.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I am a colossal U2 fan. I talk about it a lot. I just love them. I have piles of their CDs. I've seen every concert that has come to Bay Area since Popmart in 1997. I have posters up in my room, like a teenage girl. I try to see everything they are involved in, even when it is really crappy movies like "The Million Dollar Hotel."

You get the hint. So when I got an e-mail from U2.com, to which I subscribe, this morning that I could log on and listen to the concert, of course I wanted to listen. I wasn't sure if it would work since the computer equipment in my office doesn't always perform well - I actually have to use three different computers a week because not one has all the stuff I need to get my job done. But at 1 p.m., I logged on to U2.com to see if it would work. The site, of course, was overloaded by fans from everywhere trying to log on at once. I gave up and went back to it fifteen minutes later, and soon I was listen to "No Line on the Horizon" as if I were part of the crowd.

With my headphones on, it sounded so much better than just listening to the CD because it included Bono's ramblings, the sound of the crowd and a little bit of that energy I always feel at a live U2 show. They played a few songs from the new album. I have to say the songs sound much better live than they do on the album, which I found a little flat compared to their past few albums. They played past hits such as "One" and "Beautiful Day," and even some songs from my favorite album, "Unforgettable Fire."

I listened to most of the concert, with a few disruptions to answer the phone or handle a customer who came into the office - and of course, a few times there was silence while the site was "buffering."

Unlike an in-person contest, there were a few moments when I was confused about what was going on. I walked away to pick up something off the printer and when I came back someone with a South African accent was talking. I believe it was Archbishop Desmond Tutu talking about apartheid and anti-retroviral medication.

I even listend a bit after the concert ended to the local radio deejays - the local stations broadcasted the show live - and some of the fans who called in to share their thoughts. The fans were certainly more diehardthan me. One man has seen the band live eight times - on the current tour! I can't wait until I get to see them live myself in October!

For now, at least it was a nice break from a regular, boring Thursday. Maybe U2 can broadcast a concert for me every Thursday.

Photo by Melissa Flores

One of the posters up in my room.