My Bob Dylan concert turned out to be a bit more adventure than I had planned. I did get the rental car and scraped together money for gas and all ...and it's a good thing I had invested all that money in tickets so many months ago or I might have backed out ---because the concert "in the Gorge" wasn't anywhere in the particular Gorge I had so blithely visualized. When my friend Marianne and I printed out directions from Yahoo!, I first assumed there had been some silly error. After all, the results were obviously way off base: the travel time from Portland was estimated at five and a half hours, and the one-way mileage at 236 miles ...oh, ha, ha, ha, silly silly Yahoo!
Uh. Uh-oh.
Yes indeed. I had overlooked one teensy detail when I casually assumed that The Gorge Amphitheater was probably somewhere around, say, Maryhill or something. I kinda *forgot*, I guess, that the Columbia Gorge is not just Multnomah Falls and Eagle Creek and so on, but in fact composes the northern boundary of close to three quarters of the breadth of the State of Oregon and THEN shoots clear up through the entirety of the State of Washington ...Heck, in my previous naivete, I was lucky it wasn't in British Columbia! As it turns out, it really *was* close to 500 miles round trip. Hurriedly, I was calling the rental agency and moving my reservation pickup time earlier! Sooooo, that's how we got our little Road Trip as well.
By the way, are you aware that there is close to NOTHING for MILES and MILES and MILES travelling for HOURS and HOURS and HOURS in Central/Eastern Washington?
Simply MILES and MILES in which to wander.
Honestly, I was so happy to be on a road trip that even endless hot miles of brown hills and scrubby sage flats only very occasionally wavered in it's guise as a Happy Tourist Jaunt. We started out in the familiar and beloved Columbia Gorge outside Portland, running right along the gleaming river with looming basalt cliffs and frothy white splashes of waterfalls, windy energy and Green Green Green of trees! Across the river, the pitiless sun on brown grass gave fair warning, but we lived in the moment. Then, of course, we CROSSED TO THE OTHER SIDE. You really don't need a map to know when you're in Washington HERE, just notice when everything turns BROWN. Since the highyway now took us far from riverside for many hours to come, the landscape started to sizzle to the tune of SERE, or is that seared? Softened here and there by wandering creeks and their brave little riparian zones of green, we waterlogged Willamette Valley minions were always a bit uneasy in the face of so much dryness. Water ...water ...snow ...SOMEthing! After 150 miles or so in the desert, we began to crave ice cream and reacted like hungry seals barking for fish when we spotted a handpainted sign with the magic words DAIRY QUEEN just outside the booming metropolis of Wapato, Washington. Veering off the highway, we were instantly TWO WOMEN WITH A MISSION.
Incredibly enough, although there is little to Wapato except municipal buildings, government funded ghetto flats, tiny run down businesses with signs in Spanish, some reservation offices, and turn of the century brick warehouses --we couldn't seem to find the darn Dairy Queen!! Finally we decided that it must be right near MAIN STREET, isn't that where EVERY small town puts their Dairy Queen? But what, oh what, constitutes "Downtown" in Wapato? Using logic gathered from childhood in smaller towns, we zeroed in on the concentration of the OLDEST little buildings we could find. These turned out to border and be surrounded by some all-encompassing street construction scene that had all of the "Downtown" (if I may use the term very loosely for a small collection of buildings apparently little renovated from the original saloons and general stores that sat there 100 years ago) planted amongst simple dirt and rocks-- in place of apparently vanished roadways --and, of course, giant clouds of dust. With steely determination, we forged on, churning up dirt and gravel, ultimately to be rewarded with a virtual OASIS of modernity ---an actual Dairy Queen, looking exactly like every other Dairy Queen anywhere, anytime. Kinda eerie, actually.
But the main things is, we got our ice cream, slurped it down happily and hit the road again fast. Time Warp aside, we WERE able to escape the Wapato Zone (our endlessly circuitous ride in search of the Dairy Queen had us a bit worried that perhaps All Roads Lead Back To Wapato). With a brief sense of nostalgia, but no backward looks, we were on the road again -- with The Wapato Experience but another adventure fading on the receding highway. Ahhhh!
Of course, when we finally turned off for the amphitheater, and then drove ...and drove...and drove, through endless roads bordered by vast vistas of vegetation (corn and PEPPERMINT fields--smell that!), we saw absolutely no signs of habitation ...unfortunate since I was noticing that the gas gauge was dancing along right around EMPTY. Oh, the adventure, the excitement, the UNCERTAINTY of it all! THIS, oh yes, THIS is LIVING!!
Wouldn't you say?
But eventually we saw Big Men flagging people toward long fields of grass with a multitude of cars parked on them, and one rather large fellow, with a crudely lettered big sign saying SHERRIFF on his orange jacket (in case, I suppose, you hit the flagger, so you know exactly just how much trouble you're in NOW), looked at us like we were crazy when we asked directions to the nearest gas station . And in that country-sort-of way, I guess, he hazarded that it was just along down there and to the left.
Oh yeah.
So we drove, down along there, and along ...and along ...and along...
And along...
Well, you get the idea.
And we twisted and turned, we veered this way and that (would that constitute turning left, there or there?), and then some more we veered. We veered and we peered over endless flat vistas of fields, with no habitations in sight, no slightest intimation of a town or anything more sophisticated than an occasional edifice of bales of hay, as BIG as a building and roofed with tarp, but ...sadly ...not actually buildings as such. In fact, man-made structures, other than vast networks of sprinkler systems, were so scarce on the ground that we initially would become quite excited when we noted such structures looming ahead, only to be crushed when near enough to identify it as only a rather massive vegetative GLOB, albeit stacked with humanoid ingenuity. Sigh.
And eventually, we reached a highway, looking ominously quite like the very highway we had travelled so many miles away from on that original turn-off to the amphitheater, and while we valiantly tried to steel ourselves to "Go left" as we had been instructed, still ...our hearts faltered on looking left and seeing only miles and miles of highway and flat fields, and so-- shuddering-- with trepidation, we hesitated.
When, lo! What did I glimpse, not left, but straight ahead, on the far horizon, almost completely hidden by trees?! Could it be?! COULD IT BE?!! YES! YES!! YES!!! Bouncing in my seat and hollering like a castaway sighting a ship asea, I cried THERE! THERE, it's the TEXACO STAR!!!
And breaking into the ancient theme song for Texaco, like a crazed fragment of demented childhood memory, I made a beeline for the Promised Land of Texaco, to the tune of:
"You can trust your CAR
to the man who wears the STAR
the BIG (!)
BRIGHT (!!)
TEXACO... STAR!!!!!!!"
How fortunate that in my trembling uncertainty, and my well formed scepticism of both authority figures in particular, and directions in general, that I had awkwardly paused far to the right of the area where I *should* have positioned the car to perform the directed left hand turn ...because otherwise the far trees would have completely hidden the Red and White Texaco Sign from me ...and we might have wandered yet untold eons.
But yes, after many a touristy fumble, having to plead with other gas station customers to reveal the location of our rental car's lever that opens the little door over the gas cap (it was cleverly disguised as something that looked and was located where I'd expect a lever to adjust my SEAT), and then pleading anew for the secret wisdom that allows the pump to actually release gasoline (which was NOT on the directions), i.e. "We'uns iz frum ORE-I-GUN, an' aback thair, we didn't not NEVER pump no gas! Pleez, pleez, pleez, mister, kin ya shew us how t' DOO it?" --yes, after ALL of that and more, we did again set off in search of new adventures and did, in time, arrive at the Gorge Amphitheater, to there partake of musical mysteries.
Mysteries, the first of which was, have you EVER seen such a CITY of outdoor POTTIES? And WHY don't they SMELL really bad?? Has Better Living Through Chemistry really come up with some extraordinary chemical (capable of destroying all life on earth, right down to E.Coli and beyoooond?) ...or do Bob Dylan fans and Baby Dead Heads just poop and piss cleaner and more odor-free than the ordinary ilk? Perhaps I really HAD arrived at some NIRVANA OF THE OUTDOOR POTTY!
(In fact, being the ultimate cynic, I had brought a complete roll of toilet paper along in my backpack, but in actuality, there was EVEN toilet paper in these Super Pooper Palaces!)
And another mystery, one that almost brought me to my knees in awe and mystification, there ARE NO ...I repeat... NO... SCALPERS! Who could have known? Who could have known that SUCH A PLACE could even EXIST?! I had no idea that the common and ubiquitous city scalper was such a puny thing, unwilling to traverse a paltry 236 mile jaunt to rip off seekers of the Musical Holy. AAAAAHHHH!
In fact, there were clusters of waif-like seekers, forlornly pleading for "Extra tickets? Got any extra tickets?"
A kind of " Hey buddy, have ya gotta Bob Dylan concert ticket ya can spare?"
Saddened, sobered, but ultimately unwilling to altruistically yield our own tickets to these Lost Ones, we stoically waded along in line, cattle call style --no hyperbole, I do believe those were actual cattle stalls we were sorted through-- and reached the Guardians of the Gate to the Inner Mysteries. There we were searched, thoroughly or relatively cursorily, depending upon the temperament of your Guardian (Thank Heaven we weren't in the line being searched by the guy with the glove and KY --I mean, HE looked EVERYwhere!!), and with many a roll of film confiscated and many a water bottle unceremoniously emptied on the ground with a hearty "You can fill up again down below buddy," we eventually found ourselves processed, inspected, and released into the inner sanctum, where reincarnated scalpers sold soft drinks for $4.50/cup and the city of Potties simmered serenely.
And, it's true, the Gorge was beautiful, shimmering in broad sinuous curves of the Mighty Columbia, twining' round velvety brown hills sunning below endless blue of sky and space, and there was actually sweet green grass to sit down on, in graduated waves down the hillside facing the stage instead of seats, and the sun blazed beneficently, if mercilessly, in sensuous counterpoint to the blessed cool carress of the fresh Gorge breezes.
Ah. Halcyon years reign here.
I sat on the grass, wistfully reluctant to give up the view, but eventually moved down to the concrete flat right before the stage, where we finally came to stand literally front row along the padded guardrail fronting the stage, and where we and a very young and happy and mellow crowd became a dancing and singing celebration with Bob and his fabulous band, with The Man himself no more than 15 feet or so away from where I stood. Incredible. A Mystery. But so it was, and so it happened.
But first appearing was The String Cheese Incident, a band whose name did not particularly promise me musical delight, but who turned out to be very enjoyable to listen to, fake words to (for non-initiated ones like me), and dance with ...they seemed to have quite a personal following . People called their names, sang the songs and seemed to carry on as if we had stumbled into a mellow neighborhood party on a balmy summer evening.
I can't judge if it is a ritual or was merely an inspired gesture of the moment, but soon another MYSTERY occured. Objects, at first unidentifiable to me, began to fly into the air, in a gently whimsical geyser of sunlight-catching discs. Spinning, floating, flying and tumbling ...this little aerial performance seemed imbued with good-spirited magic. But what, I wondered, ARE they? Small, circular, flat ...I murmurred to my friend, "They LOOK like, well ...like little tortillas."
And, it turned out, indeed they WERE.
Somehow, when I mentioned this later in telling the tale, the first question people seem to have is: were they CORN tortillas or FLOUR tortillas?" Personally, I think THAT question is just as mystifying as the original Miracle of the Tiny Flying Tortillas incident. After all, what DIFFERENCE does it make whether they were made of cornmeal or made of white wheat flour? I mean, are other people aware of a VARIETY of Flying Tortilla concert rituals? Are they then able to differentiate the subtle nuances of meaning attributed to Corn versus Flour Flying Tortillas? Mystery ...all a MYSTERY to me, although charming and somehow soothing to witness. Who could have known tortillas were capable of such aerial gymnastics? Never would I have imagined that a tortilla could be thrown so high and far as many of these tortillas did soar.
But for the record, they were FLOUR tortillas. White flour tortillas. Make of THAT what you will.
Ah, and then String Cheese cheerily departed, and the ritual cleanup of the tortillas was briskly performed on stage, with one apparently ravenous roadie grandly ripping off big bites of said tortillas. The crowded simmered and flowed and some left and some arrived and I was surprised to note that most of the audience was much younger than I had anticipated, many in late teens or early twenties by the look of them, and mellow good naturedness mostly ruled. And when Bob and his band members casually strolled out with no fanfare and simply struck up the first song, all these youngsters were yelling his name, and greeting the bandmembers by name, and singing along and dancing as happily as one carefree tribe. I was quite charmed.
One young woman near me occasionally lifted her own harmonica above her head with both hands, seemingly offering a dancing harmonica tribute of some sort, her face entranced and ecstatic. The harmonica flashed a metallic smile, bouncing beams of setting sun, gleaming with serene power. Young women who worship harmonicas, a mystery and a wonderful one! I had come to the glen of dancing harmonicas and I was happy and at peace.
The Mystery of Bob Dylan is both simple and complex. He immediately, with no words besides those he speaks directly to each one of us in song, converts us with joyful worship to every form of music he has mastered, which seems to include most every kind. With a little smile that somehow conveys a touch of tongue-in-cheek word-to-the-wise here or a little private joke --just between him and 20,000 of us --there, we conversed in euphoric harmony. He spoke, the guitars assented or questioned, by turns. The harmonica stepped in and howled out epiphanies. We crooned and sighed and cheered along with ballads, we jazzed in exquisitely heartrending Blues, we kicked up our heels in pure country joy, and we ROCKED with all Our Might. We became the Tribe that held up our hands and opened our hearts and throats and danced to the anthem of The Rolling Stone, ... and when suspicious sweet billows broke out among the crowd to hearty acceptance of the dictum that EVERYbody MUST Get STONED --well, I for one, was so happily ecstatically ONE with the music and the band and the singer and the song and all that can be sung and has and is and WILL --that not one single toke was needed since I was as HIGH as any of us can GET!!:-)
And so the MYSTERY was CELEBRATED.
PRAISE ALL!
Sigh of complete happiness.
And although we would have enjoyed a leisurely sprawl on the grass under summer stars, the Columbia a shining swirl of molten silver under the bright moon, we were still content as we left the Phil Lesh & Friends serenading all the Baby Deads ...who magically, if eerie-like, seem to exist in a perpetual Summer of Love, even though it was probably their grandparents who attended those original Grateful Dead convivialities.
Drifting off, we sought our car in the vast sea of uncharted cars. An infinite number of cars had pulled in and been parked in a somewhat free form pattern on the grass, leaving no landmarks to guide us back. And as we trekked along in ever more convoluted wanderings, this time under a peering moon, we now had lovely Lesh-ian background music for our own personal I Lost My Rental Car in the Parking Lot of Life soundtrack. But after uncounted moments under the summer night sky, we did recognize our little rental car, and began anew our adventuring, another 5 and half hours through True Nightdark Highway Wilderness. And having entered this silent country of darkness, where the moon seems to cast no real light, we found ourselves travelling where signs ominously admonish "No facilities next 49 miles," and where headlight-sudden apparitions materialize in "Car and Night Creature Dance on the Edge of Death" sequences --with each creature getting larger as we progress: from the huge cat-like creature: "WHAT was THAT!?", to the even huger and molty-plumed Dog-like creature: "WHAT in the HECK was THAT!!?, which logically could only be followed-- in my words-- by a GIANT HORSE-LIKE creature, which turned out to be a very ordinary DEER leaping across with annoyed glance at our intrusion. And as hours wore on, my friend drifted in a sleepy sea of "Hmmm?" and "Uh." and I was driven to endless monologs (not unlike this whole story) to keep my attention alert until we did --FINALLY-- reach our sleepy little Portland homes in the quiet hours of 4am.
And we knew one thing.
We had gone, we had adventured, we had discovered, we were THERE. And it was good.
Other stuff...:
More about Tourdates:
Lyrics:
Ever wonder, just for curiosity's sake (or research) what other artists have covered Bob's work? Well, lots! No surprise:-) Check out the Dylan Cover Albums site.
The Soundzone for the Phil Zone page, follow the band on tour by downloading performances.
Interviews: April 2, 1997 on radio Dead to the World.
Octoberl 17, 1996, another one.
And for more Columbia Gorge info, go to my HotSprings homepage for a short homage, with more links to come:-)
