The agony I went through to see Bjork

I've been fascinated with Bjork since about 2001 ish when Vespertine came out. So when I saw she was touring North America, I snatched a ticket for the show in Montreal, which was the closest place she was playing to me. That's a long way to travel to see a show, but I had miles and thought it would be nice to hang out in Montreal for a couple of days.

I got to the park in the morning thinking I would hang out most of the day and then get in line for the show. Well, around noon, there were already thousands in line. I wanted to get as close as possible so i got in line. After 5 hours of sitting doing nothing and listening to the people around me all having fun speaking french, they finally opened the gates. It was like stampeding cattle. People all crammed up against each other to make sure that not a single person got past them.

After taking our tickets and passing through security, we were released to the back of the show area, a hundred acres outside with a stage at the far end. Everyone, including me, took off faster than Carl lewis for the stage. I got there in time to get pretty close, maybe about 20 people back from the stage. This is where it starting going downhill. I was already tired from hanging around this park all day with absolutely nothing to do and nobody to talk to (I don't speak french), so I decided to sit down as other folks were doing. But as more and more stampeding cattle came up, they were all jamming up against the back of us reducing my sitting area to literally the size of my butt. In order to sit down or stand up, I had to vertically rise in a space no wider than my body. i had nothing to drink or eat, thinking i would be able to get these things during the show.
After a couple of hours I asked the girl next to me if she had anything to drink and she gave me a apple juice box. That was the last thing I had until 11 pm.

After another hour or so, things started happening on stage so everyone stood up and packed even closer. This pretty much ended the chance of sitting down again.
Well, out came the warm up "band", which consisted of this hillbilly named "Will Oldham".

He and his straggly beard started playing an autoharp and playing some of the most boring and annoying music I have ever heard. He tortured us for an hour. When he announced he had one more song, the audience burst out in applause and sounds of joy. I would have rather watched drunk orangutans eating fish guts and vomiting all over each other, then licking the vomit out of each other's hair.

Another 45 minutes or so went by and we were all getting all geared up for Bjork. My body was killing me and my legs had divorced me an hour earlier.


Well, out comes.... the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Yes ANOTHER warm up "band". These guys are another one of those hipster bands that think they are too cool to have a bass player. The band consisted of a drummer, lead guitar, and a girl singer dressed in a ridiculous outfit with purple tights.
They finally started banging away and making all sorts of irritating noise. The first couple of songs were fun and a welcome relief from Will "Valium" Oldham. But after a few songs, this band showed their real colors. They were childish and were just doing the same old crap song after song, and it became apparent that they were rather amaturist. The singer had to keep pulling up her tights, about every minute or two, kind of like infants do with their diapers.

Finally, finally, they quit. Another 45 minutes. It was probably 8:30 or so, about 3+ hours or more since I was first crammed in. I was now running on fumes but certainly could not give up now. When Bjork walked out, the crowded crammed up again to the point where I was unable to move in any way at all. It was a vice from all directions. Bjork starts playing and it is absolutely stunning, which temporarily made much of my pain go away. Then it happened, at the end of the first song, the guy RIGHT next to me sticks his fingers in his mouth and lets out a long, screaming, ear piercing whistle that pretty much destroyed whatever hearing I had left. His head was no more than 1 foot away from my ear. It was impossible to move even 6 inches away because I was packed in so tight. This guy let out a airhorn after every single song, so I had to plug up my ears for about a minute, usually missing the end of the song.

So then the guy on my other side sticks his camera up above the crowd and starts snapping shots which of course is not allowed. The body guard by the stage saw this and pointed his super high beam flashlight right into the guys lens so he could not get a shot. Now I had a blinding white light in my face and a bone crushing whistler vibrating my head. I finally asked the whistler demon if he would stop. He just looked at me and went right back to it. The camera guy continued to snap pictures each time the bodyguard took a break with the light, the light went back up, the camera guy waited, then started it all over again. This continued to the end of the show.

Near the end of the show I had had enough and turned around to leave. It was impossible. The people behind me could not move a single inch out of the way because they were so pressed in. And I mean not an inch. I turned around and stood there not evening listening, no longer having even the slightest interest in this disaster. FINALLY, the show ended and the sardines around me slowly, ever so slowly started to move back. I now had room so I started walking. My knees gave out and i hit the ground in a hard thump. I had to sit there for probably 10 minutes before I could even get up. I walked to the beer stand, ordered two beers, and drank them both in 20 seconds. I had not eaten or drank in 7 hours.

I will never go to a concert again.

A flight that I enjoyed less than an aerobatic ride

I'll cut to the chase; in 1986 during a flight lesson, my instructor and I hit a powerline.

I like articles that get right to the point. Most articles would have opened like this...

"It was a warm morning, not unlike any morning in south Louisiana, a slight settling of mist in the rich green fields. The beauty of a certain green field was interrupted by the rainbow of colors of our hot air balloon, tethered to the ground, anxious to ascend skyward, anxious like a horse ready to ride..." and a bunch of crap like that.

This flight was my third lesson and only fourth time to be in a balloon at all. Prior to my lessons, I had only crewed 3 times and flown once as a passenger. This is rather unusual I think; most pilots have a substantial amount of exposure to ballooning prior to their flight instruction.

My lessons took place in south Louisiana near Hammond, a densely forested area that in retrospect is not a very good place to learn how to fly. The only good part was that it forced me to learn how to land in very small places, usually just a hole in the trees where a house was.

So our 3rd flight was routine and after about 45 minutes, I was getting rather fatigued. I was at treetop learning a bit of contouring when it was clear that i had over-valved and we were headed directly into a tall pine tree about 20 feet from the top. My instructor, who I will call "Todd", (his real identity is unimportant for this story), sat down in the bottom of the basket and said dryly "I don't want any part of this" just as we crashed into the branches at about 8 knots. After we pulled all the limbs out of the basket he suggested that I take a break for a little while, which I wholeheartedly agreed with. Todd took over as we came directly over the I10 interstate, and thanks to a wind change, were now flying right down the middle of the median with 2 lanes on each side of us. Now, this was a very wide median, so there was no real danger of whacking side mirrors off the cars, so I did not see any problem, but let's remember that this was my 3rd lesson and did not realize how illegal and stupid it is to fly along with cars on a high speed freeway.

Todd decided to do a rather stupid thing; a few touch and go's down the median. Once approach was fine, then on the 2nd one, about 30 feet off the ground we heard an explosion overhead and saw a big fireball. Later we both agreed that we thought the burner had exploded. The powerline was the worst kind in that the poles were buried completely in the trees on each side of the interstate, completely invisible from any point of view. We had contacted the wires right at the skirt while in a descent. This is pretty much the worst way to hit (i think). Immediately upon impact the wires arc'd, blew some sparks, and my suspension cables starting popping. This balloon was a Barnes and had 18 cables. By the time the fireworks stopped, 14 had been severed leaving 4 to hold the basket. The problem is not the ability of the cables to hold, but instead, that they were mostly on one corner which makes the basket tip down in a rather steep fashion. Each cable has a tensile strength of roughly 1,100 pounds.
Todd immediately closed all tank valves which is the precise action that should be taken at this point. We were lucky that the power system breakers did not automatically reset as we jumped from the basket to the ground, a drop of only about 8 feet if I remember correctly.

I was rather shaken and sat on the ground for a few minutes until chase arrived. Hot on their tail were the police and two TV news crews from Baton Rouge. The news cameras were on us within seconds. Todd went and sat in the truck with the window closed, leaving me to deal with them. It was at about this point that I realized I had made a poor choice in an instructor. The news crew made sure to show all the damage and sensationalize the whole situation as much as possible. This is a news crew's job, make something out of nothing. As proof to this, let me divert the story with proof of my opinion.

Three years ago, my copilot and I did a gas flight out of Albuquerque and landed two days later just outside of Biloxi Mississippi. We were tired and low on ballast so we decided to do a standard landing in a tree'd area in a forrested area which is a safe place to be (no powerlines). In gas, any landing is a good one, and they most often are not pretty. We came in at tree level, saw a clearing, threw out the trail rope and popped the deflation port. The landing was gentle and of no danger. We could care less about the trees, but when ABC showed up, all they could talkl about was the "crash" no matter how many times I told them that gas landings are purposly executed in this manner. Well, the camera went live and the Reporter started out; "So tell me about this balloon crash". I responded "Well, this was not a crash, it was a standard gas landing". She just kept it up, repeating the word "crash" over and over again, with me correcting her each time. She realized that I had ruined her interview and stormed off. So back to the main story here.

My brother was on chase and being a rather responsible person, begin following the wire directions to see what sort of businesses and houses might be affected. He saw a concrete plant and took off running that way. The guys at the plant claimed that I had just ruined an entire batch of cement and would be suing me for the loss. Little did they know that my brother just happen to work in the concrete business (no kidding) and let them know that this was BS and promptly showed them how to water the mix to keep it viable.
We got everything cleaned up, gave the finger to the news crews, and headed home. Todd got on the phone and had a new set of cables overnighted to my apartment. The short story is that two days later I was back in the air. I could not get the balloon below 3,000 feet. Todd calmly told me that if we were to land, I would have to get a little closer to the ground. Over the next half hour I was able to get down to tree top level and started an approach. At this point I did not care what the landing spot looked like; I just wanted to get down. Well, I should have cared at least a little bit because the landing field was a muddy mess with dozens of cut off stumps. the mud/water was about about a foot deep. The envelope was draped over all the stumps and was a complete mess. It took an hour of staggering and tripping and falling through the mud and stumps to get the balloon out. It was hot and miserably humid. We went home, Todd got on a plane and headed home, and I just sat in a chair in my apartment, alone, and rather discouraged. I don't think it could have been any worse except for the fact that we escaped a wire strike with our lives.
A week later I got in contact with Dave Koenig, an excellent pilot, to continue my lessons. Dave took good care of me and after 3 more lessons I soloed and got my ticket about a month later. I now have 22 years and 800 accident free hours under my belt including a gas rating.

The worst mistake you can make if you are writing a blog/article/book

Ask your friends to read it.

First, most of them will only do it out of obligation. For some folks you will have to hold a gun to their head or threaten to beat them with a rubber hose or make them stand in an ant bed or something.

Second, you are not as good as you think you are, so this puts your friends on the spot. If they even respond, they will have to lie and say it is great or something.

If you want to write an article for the paper, write it, send it in, and don't tell anybody.
If you run a blog, let people keep up with it on their own and never ask them to go read anything on it.
if you want to write a book, well, the odds of getting it published are about 100,000 to 1.

I read the above about 10 years ago in an article about non-writers trying to write. It was much longer (and much more entertaining) but this is the gist of it.