Wandering Jon

Old people dancing like fools

July 6, 2006 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

This evening I went to the first Idyllwild Summer Concert in the park of the year. The concert was opened by the local musician Sandi Castleberry and her threesome was followed by the main act a latin-jazz/slasa band by the name Brujeria. Both were very good. Sandi Castleberry playing folk and 70’s music from Joni Mitchell among others and Brujeria playing classic salsa tunes as well as some I didn’t recognized but really enjoied.

The crowd was bigger than I expected and it was a good opportunity to see a slice of who exactly lives up here. I wasn’t really surprised by the demographic that showed up. Idyllwild is a popular area to retire, although only for the very cool and active type of retiree. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling so comfy here the last couple weeks 😉 I digress. In addition to the older set there were indeed a surprising number of parents with young children. This seems to be the typical demographic for summer outdoor concerts, the 50+ crowd and parents with young kids. Both groups though did share one thing in common, a beautiful disregard for vanity. The older crowd took to dancing like fools with all the joy and freedom in the world. The similarly kids took to running around and playing all the while dancing to the beat themselves without a care about what the adults around them thought. Frankly, it was only the 30 somethings like myself that were quietly sitting and listening to the music, although I had some serious foot and finger tapping going on. There were momments where I had my whole leg bouncing up and down to the beat!

Why is it though that it isn’t until so many of us reach 50+ that we drop all those silly inhibitions and are willing to cut lose in a grassy field with wild abandon and no cares about who might be watching us and what they might think. I should mention I’ve always had a thing for people that can “dance like no one is watching”. I’ve always considered it one of the most beautiful, blissful and inspiring things to watch… In large part envious and knowing I need to be more like that in my own life.

Nothing is absolute of course, there were a few 20/30 somethings dancing and there certainly were a lot of people in the retiree set not dancing, once again including myself in the retiree set. However, my lack of dancing was in part due to the lack of a partner, not that that should really stop me, but sadly I was solo at this concert and without my love, Elena. She undoubtedly would have loved every minute of it as much as I did, and convincied me to at least try out our salsa moves for a few momments that have grown rusty with lack of use.

Still, it was one of those evening you just feel everything is right in the world. It is a times like this I could really see myself living here Idyllwild, long-term, someday… I never thought I would want to, or even could. Having come up here for weekends for over two decades I’d always written it off as a little town I’d go stir crazy trying to live in. It was never really even a consideration. Though, I’m starting to get below the surface and see the beauty beneath the skin of this little town. Old paradigms are falling away from me.

Chocolate and Beer

July 2, 2006 by Jon Brown Leave a Comment

Hear me out… I never would have believed it. I listen to several podcasts, one I particularly enjoy but can’t catch up with is More Hip than Hippie. These woman manage a hour plus show every week and I’m months behind the current show in my listening. Anyway, they talk about all sorts of things that were once the domain of Hippies, but have one converts in the Hip (read Yuppie) crowd as well. Buy organic produce, or driving hybrid cars, or maybe not being vegetarian but drastically cutting ones intake of meat. In every episode though that also talk about chocolate and beer… Yes, during the show they drink beer and eat chocolate… together! Now I love chocolate with wine, especially port, but with beer? I dismissed this as some weird ghetto white trash concoction, until I finally tried it. I’m currently munching on gourmet dark chocolate from Whole Food Market and drinking a White bread Pale Ale (lighter than most of the beer I’d drink, but good) and the combo is excellent! Unbelievable, but props to Dori and Val. Give it a try sometime.

Another typical day in Idyllwild and a couple self portraits

July 2, 2006 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

Today was just another typical day in Idyllwild. I woke up a bit early and took the opportunity to take a mountain bike ride with Tucker in the relatively cool morning. I was back by 7:45am for a quick shower then headed into town to my favorite of all breakfast hangouts Cafe Aroma . This place is magical and once again I met another interesting group of people. Today was a group of three women from San Diego and a guy visiting them from New York. Over the course of a couple hours we chatted between tables and I had a individual 15-20 minute conversations with each of them coming over to my table on subjects varying from immigration to art. All the while Ernie Ale playing is gentle guitar in the background. It doesn’t get better than this. This really is what I love about travel, it’s the carefree meeting of people, the exchanging of ideas with strangers. I love it.

After my long lingering breakfast I headed back to the cabin and spent a few hours on the computer continuing my Photoshop education. I spent the time mostly trying to find a good organizational tool for my photos, like the organizer included with Photoshop Elements, but properly linked up to Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop… like Adobe Bridge is, but Adobe bridge is a quite poor in terms of tagging, organizing and importing so I want something better. The “answer” is Adobe Lightroom which isn’t yet available yet but promises to be “the” solution I’m looking for. My fingers are crossed the windows beta will be released soon. In the interim I’m checking out Iview, although I don’t find it very intuitive. Well that’s what I spent the day sorting out. As promised I thought I’d post a couple self-portraits of where I’m spending my time in front of my computer here.

Here is me hanging out on the deck and to the below to the right is me literally hanging out in the “backyard”. Usually Tucker will wander around a bit and then lie down under the chair hammock, very sweet. Of course with me running back and forth from the tripod he was curious to see what I was up to so you don’t get a photo of him napping.

Now honestly I do spend a portion of the time indoors, after all my laptop battery only last a couple hours and the weather and sun don’t always cooperate with me being outside. Ironically it’s nicer being outside when it’s overcast since it’s cooler and there isn’t as much glare on my laptop screen. On days like today the weather is a big factor. Just a few minutes after I took the shot in the chair hammock a little thunderstorm rolled in sprinkling down rain. This in my mind of course was the perfect opportunity to head up the hill behind the cabin with my camera in hopes of catching a photo of some lighting. Unfortunately as was the case the other two times I saw a flash of lighting and went running outside in hopes of catching a photo, I had no luck with the camera. The lighting seemed to be mostly striking on the other side of the peak. I did get a pretty good hand held self-portrait of myself though and found a new found respect for photographers with patience to sit and wait for their shot… I waited about a half hour on a rock watching the grey sky, which was a beautiful little meditation really, listening to the thunder’s echo swirl around me as it bounced off different mountain peaks and valleys, but didn’t see any real lighting. Then I waited about five minutes for a lizard to reappear from the hole I saw him duck into hoping it would make a good photo, but that didn’t happen either… once again respectful of photographers with patience. Still another beautiful day.