It's A BEAUTIFUL Day!!! :D

I just got back from seeing U2 3D!!!

You haven't lived until you've had Bono standing right in front of you, singing "Wipe your tears away" to you and only you, lol!!!

But I've got to back up a bit...

So I wake up and Brian and I discover the way to remove all out mental blocks to writing, lol!!! I mean, I haven't been blocked in a while, but Brian has. But what's more, this method of developing a story has certain built-in almost-guarantees (because there are no ACTUAL guarantees when you're creating ANYTHING) that allow you to proceed with confidence. (And lack-of-confidence is a HUGE writing block in itself!)

Now, this new information -- gathered from a very reliable source -- is, for me, ON TOP OF the fact that my current screenplay is whizzing right along, no problems, no blocks! This new information will simply speed the process up, immensely! :)

So my day is already off to a smashing start!

After that is breakfast with Mom (who is in town for a few days). The meal? PIZZA!!! Domino's pizza with Double Dave's Pepperoni Rolls!!! (If you haven't had Double Dave's, your life is not quite complete.) Plus, as Brian and I are on our way to meet Mom and this feast she's procured for us, I'm reminded of when Brian & I were kids and Mom would order Domino's. So that was nice.

The reason Mom is in town, sadly, is because her mom, my Gan-Gan, is in the hospital. However, after dining with Mom, Brian & I went to see Gan-Gan, and that was a nice visit! :) It's always alarming when your 70+ (80+?) has to go to the hospital, but it's reassuring when you visit her and she's just as quick-witted and funny as ever! :D

After that, I worked on my writing for an hour and a half, then time for U2!

I HAD THE ENTIRE THEATER TO MYSELF!!!

It was crazy!

It was kind of strange, in a really, really positive way, though...

I got into U2 when I saw the trailer for U2 RATTLE AND HUM back in 1988. I had heard their music, and liked most of it. But I wasn't a fan, necessarily.

Then I go to the theater and I see this trailer... Red background, black silhouettes walking across the screen in slow motion as these exciting notes from an electric guitar slice through my ears, and then the slicing notes become this gorgeous repeated melody that life my entire being into the air and fly me miles through the sky, and then the title card: U2 RATTLE AND HUM, OCTOBER 27, 1988.

That's the way I remember it, anyway. ;P

I don't even remember what movie I had gone to see. I just remember being transported by this trailer and I HAD TO know more about this band!

In particular, I HAD TO HAVE THIS SONG!

Turns out, the song is "Where The Streets Have No Name" from JOSHUA TREE, and the rest of the album is pretty damn good, too, lol!

Being who I am, I also had to buy Eamon Dunphy's UNFORGETTABLE FIRE - THE STORY OF U2 and read it, rereading sections of it several times. (This is back when I was 17 and didn't read unless I absolutely had to, lol.) The book lead me to collect U2's entire discography to date.

I fell in love!

I had them on VYNIL, if you can believe that! (Yes, I am THAT old, lol.)

U2 became my favorite band.

I could go into HOW into them I was, but I'm kind of eating up your Net-surfing time as it is.

But in 1991 I was in L. A. trying to be an actor. I wasn't getting any of the parts I was auditioning for, all my personal relationships were imploding (including my marriage) and life was just sucking, hard-core. I was alone on someone else's turf.

Then I heard "The Fly" on the radio, and I wanted to know who this new, exciting band was. This was an amazing sound! Really fresh!

And then I discovered who it was!

RATTLE AND HUM was the album I listened to the least. I prefered their earlier work, particularly UNFORGETTABLE FIRE and OCTOBER. I guess in the back of my mind I had resigned myself to the fact that U2 was kind of over. I mean, I had seen it many, many times before. Bands put out a few great albums, then put out some not-great ones, then they break up and leave the industry. You still have their good albums, you're just never going to heard new GREAT stuff from them anymore.

But then U2 reinvents itself!!! I mean, "The Fly" was every bit as exciting a fresh to me as "Where The Streets Have No Name" was back in '88!

I got to buy the cassette at the same Tower Records that Richard Gere drove by in PRETTY WOMAN, too, lol.

And I guess this theme of reinvention sort of seeped into my subconsious, because the same month I bought the tape I decided to move back to Texas and get my life back together. The idea of leaving L. A. morphed, in my mind, from a concession of failure into the beginning of the next phase of my life. (Which it turned out to be, actually.)

This isn't an "I Owe It All To U2!" type of story at all, lol. It's just an interesting coincidence, the way the band and their music has sort of been the soundtrack of my life through various stages, from teenager into my 20s and into my 30s, so far.

I'm sure you have a band like that.

Also...

U2 was THE band that I desperately wanted to see live. There were a few of them (the original KISS lineup in makeup, natch), but U2 was THE band. And when they reinvented themselves AGAIN for ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND, I finally got to experience that! (No Doubt opened for them, when Gwen Stephani was still the frontman for a ska band, hehe.)

AND -- and this is a little strange, I'll grant you, but no less emotionally significant to me -- I got to see U2inSL (a SecondLife cover band) with my soon-to-be Gnomey Goddess in SecondLife! She is a U2 fan, as well!!! :D

So tonight I go to see them in 3D, a few months shy of 20 years after they first rocked my world with their first movie. My brother wanted to go with me, but he's had a LONG day and elected to crash.

So I went alone.

And I was REALLY alone, lol! I had the whole theater TO MYSELF! It was, for 90 minutes or so, as thought I had a personal screening room! :P Just me and U2. I could sing along with the songs and giggle with child-like glee at how AWESOME this experience was, just enjoy the movie in any way I felt like!

And I DID, too! :)

And it's sort of cool in a metaphorical sense, because it's great sharing music with other fans, but more often or not, when you're listening to their albums, it really is kind of you and the band. You know? The music speaks to you on a deeply personal level (if it's that kind of music, that is, lol) and you always feel like no one else will ever have the same relationship to that music that you do.

And it's true. Because if you love U2 also, you and I don't -- and can't -- have the SAME relationship to that music. Our experiences are unique.

And even though this is atrocious grammar: My experience of U2 3D was WAY unique!!! :D How many other people on the planet have enjoyed a personal screening of the flick?