[This is kinda part 1 of a 3-part story!]
[part 2]
[part 3]


Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 04:20:43 -0700
To: Andrew Thall
From: Majo no Kiki
Subject: David Wilcox

I'm not done writing this, but here's what I've written so far.

The time line is as accurate as Violent Cases... :)  Ah memory...

But this was a MAGICAL night!  One of the best so far *ever*!!

My poem I wanted to write is titled "Don't be a Stranger" about how I've kinda grown up with David, through all the same phases of life, and how I feel like his songs are telephone calls, and how I want to call him up and say "don't be a stranger!"

I will put all of this up on the web after polishing. :)  But there's a lot to put up, since I have the poem and the letter I wrote, plus the posting I made about this concert...

Wow.

WOW.  What a night!

Kiki
------------------
I have to write this down now, before it dissipates...

I'll start from the beginning.

I posted my long story about David Wilcox and how great he is and asking others to join me for his concert.  My good friend Otmar wrote me back and said basically, "of course he's great!"  And I wrote him back and said, "ooo!  *Please* bring the stretch!  Maybe we can talk to him after the concert and get him to hang out in the stretch!"  Otmar is totally into this idea!

During the week, I try to put together a poem I've been wanting to write for *years* about how I feel David Wilcox is like my best friend, but he doesn't know me at all.  Trying to capture all those feelings of seeing him concert after concert as he's growing up and so am I.  How do you capture those feelings in a one-page-or-less poem?  It was the same awkward shyness that kept me from ever approaching him after a show.  But I write something down -- *very* scratchy -- and an accompanying letter and go ahead and print it out and fold it up and take it with me, feeling silly.

Anyway, I felt we should get there early, but Scott couldn't really wait in line [and doubted there would be one], but sure enough, when we get there at 6:30, there's a long line.  Steve says we should ask if we can get in first because Scott's on crutches.  I said I can't ask that, so Steve does, and they say yes!  So we got in at the head of the line and got a front row table!  I watch for Otmar for a good while.  Scott and Steve say he's probably trying to find parking and not succeeding, but I tell them that he has amazing parking karma and he'll get a spot really close because he always does.  Otmar showed up a little later and sat with us.  "You brought the stretch?"  "Of course, it's parked 1 and a half blocks away!"  Of course!  Amazing.

Now, I'm going to skip the concert part, because if you want to know about the concert, well, you'll just have to go to one yourself!  He's incredible, and I sung to the songs that I knew -- which were about three because he has so *many* songs there's no way to know them all, esp. since a *majority* of them aren't on any CD...

After the concert [and three standing ovations and three encores], he tells the audience that he'll be at the CD booth.

I don't want to talk with him first, I want to talk with him last, because I want to steal him away to hang out in the stretch.  So I let the people thin until they're gone.  The last people leave, and I'm there, and all my friends are behind me, and David walks up, and I flounder trying to tell him all these feelings in a few short words, all these years...and I tell him how he gives so much, and we all want to give back.  And I say he should come and hang out a bit with us in Otmar's stretch.  "And it's *not* a limo..." I begin.  And David says, "I know.  It's a Volkwagon."  And he turns to Otmar who tells him all about it.  Turns out he saw it on the way in and was very excited about it!  He wants to check it out, and asks Otmar if he can pull it up out front.

Turns out there was one woman left who wanted to talk with David.  She'd been staring out on the Golden Gate bridge alone, and saw someone there also staring out alone, and she talked with him and he invited her to the concert, and she was blown away.  Such an amazing story!  How people find David...

Anyway, by then the stretch arrives, so we all go in to the stretch and check it out, including Sheryl, the last woman.  We wave to the security people to come out, but they don't.  Fools!  We're talking to David and it comes around about Burning Man.  "Have you heard about Burning Man?" we ask.  He shakes his head.  And we, all together, try to somehow describe in words what Burning Man is.  David's manager also comes out, and we call out for him to join us.  "Do *you* know what Burning Man is?" we ask.  "Oh sure," he says.  "Well, when are you going to book David at Burning Man!! :) "  He smiles, "we should."  "This year!"  "Hmm...oh.  No, not this year.  We can't this year."  At the same time, Sheryl says, "oh, you *definitely* must go to Burning Man.  You are called to go there."  Or something of that idea. :) heehee!  yeah!

So the manager checks out the stretch, asks David if he's got everything, and talks about getting a ride or a cab or something.  And Otmar chimes in, "do you want a ride?"  So they pile in -- including Sheryl, but we assure her that we're coming back, so she hangs on for the adventure!

No one's in the passenger seat, so we all make David ride shot gun and talk with Otmar.  Otmar obligingly floors it -- downhill -- and David gets a big playful grin.

We park triple in front of their hotel, and David and Otmar walk around talking about the stretch.  David loves it!  Otmar asks if he wants to take it for a spin, which, of course, he does.  The manager is tired and goes up to bed.  David...climbs into the driver's seat. :)

He starts slow, getting his bearings, but gets more confident the more corners he takes.  Then he starts daring himself stuff.  "I'm going to put the back tire on top of that first manhole cover," he says.  "I like the way this guy thinks!" Otmar declares!  He misses it, but not by much.  By then we're back to the hotel, and David -- can't help himself -- *backs* it into a parking space out front.

I want to tell all the stories that were told parked there -- and maybe I will in a longer version of this telling, but here's the highlights...

I told about my 30th birthday, which was on a saturday, *and* on a full moon!  A certain magical night!  So I threw a magical birthday party, which would begin with playful magical stuff, but end with everyone gathering in the livingroom and telling magical stories.  I told a story, then my brother told a story, then my best friend Steph told a story....and that was it.  *No one else* had a magical story to tell.

And at that point, I realized I was with the wrong crowd.

That was 1997, and in 1998, I discovered Burning Man.

David says, "ooo, I have a magical story to tell."  It was a long, leisurely story, where the point of the story was the eventual destination, but not the whole journey of the story.  Which was a lovely thing all in itself -- it was *friends* telling stories, not something David was performing, or had maybe even told before...

He woke up at the dark just before the dawn.  He knew it was about to become light, so he rode into town.  He finally found a watch, and found out that it was only 2:30, but he was awake and so he kept riding.

He realized that he could stay there, or since it was getting colder he could head to Portugal or the south of France, or Morocco, or pretty much anywhere he wanted to go.  And he realized that he was probably more free than most human beings.  And he wondered if he'd enjoy that when he was 50.  Because at 22, you think things like that, like you'll be doing exactly that for the rest of your life...

It was so dark that he couldn't really see all that well, and he was trying to turn his eyes away because "the color part is in the middle, but the dark vision is not in the middle," and he had to look not directly at the road to be able to see.  And he said he asked God to help him see in the darkness, to avoid obstacles, not to tempt Him or to demand anything, but just to trust Him.  He rode on the road for a long time, and every time he came to a choice in the road, he'd look at the choices and ask, "is *this* the right one? is *this* the right one?" to each choice, and when it felt "right" he'd take that road.

At one point he passed a guy with a psychedelic mo-ped fixing it by the side of the road.  He continued along, coming to choices, and making them.  After a time, he heard, "bbbbrrrrrrrRRRRRRRR!!!" and the mo-ped came up behind him and the guy shouted out, "atache!" so he grabbed on to the basket on the back and held on.

He thought David was a Frenchman, but he was American, and David thought *he* was a Frenchman, but he was English!  They come together to a town, and it's just starting to rain, and David kinda rattles the basket on the back that he's grabbed onto, saying, "there's a red light up ahead!"  The guy answers back, "it'll change!"  And it does just barely in time, and they make it through.  Then they come to another one, and the rain is getting more serious now, and David says, "what about this one!  It's also red!"  And the guy says, "it'll change!"  Which it does, but they just barely weave through the traffic as they go, and David is asking God, 'when do you draw the line with trusting and foolishness...?' and he asks the guy, "don't you feel like you're tempting God??" and the guy answers, "of course not, I'm not tempting God; I have no breaks." [!] :)  So they get to a split in the road and he asks David, "which way?" and David thinks he's asking where he wants to go and he wants to go to the youth hostel, if there is one, so he says, "um...to the right, I think, it looks cool with the balcony over there..." so they go that way.  And, "that bridge looks really pretty, let's go there," and on they go, picking for the sake of what they feel is right.  Then they get to a 5-way intersection.  They look at each way.  nope, nope, nope....none of them look "right".  And David's like, "I dunno.  none of them look right."  So the guy turns off the mo-ped and says, "well, maybe something's supposed to happen here then."  And he gets off, and now he sees a sign that was not visible to him before that says, "hostel."

They talk about this.  What is that called when you just Trust like that.  And David says, "well, I call it..........."  And the guy says, "I know, I can't say Its name either!"  David says he calls it his "mysterious travelling companion," and the guy says he calls it "fate" though it's not pre-destined to happen.

Then David says that it's like a boy on a cliff, and the wind is blowing up the cliff, but he doesn't really feel it.  but if he steps to the edge of the cliff, he starts to feel the wind some.  And as he tries further and further -- to *trust* that wind -- soon enough, he finds he can *lean* into that Trust.  And the more he leans, after a while, he notices that he's leaning so far out that he's *horizontal* to the cliff.  And maybe that scares him some, and he pulls back, and "whoa! that's too scary for me!"  And the wind says, "I respect that.  You are an individual and you have control over your own decisions."  But it also just wants to play some too.

I needed that story, because I so often forget that Trust out here...

And he says that meetings like this were not coincidental.  It all happens as it should.  And that we were all together this night on purpose.

We tell him more about Burning Man, and we tell him about the firefall, and we tell him about Scott's mom who spent her career doing administrative work for a burn center and how we've not told her about everything we do...  And David says, "but just *think* of what it'll be when she sticks *her* hand in the firefall one day..."  We're not so sure, but David is.  Maybe he has something there... :)

He also says that it sounds like he should go to Burning Man and asks more about when it is...  And I tell him about Egeria...  And, of course, that he should camp with us. :)

There's more, but I can't remember it all.

I do remember that Sheryl was falling asleep, and at one point I wanted to tell him the whole magnitude of what the evening was to me, and just as I'm getting to the swelling climax of my story and about to make my point, Sheryl wakes up suddenly. "I want to get back," she says, "to that part in your magical story about the psychedelic mo-ped.  Where did that come in?  How did that get in the story?"  She asks.  I'm a tad annoyed, but then I realize that it's all happening as it should, and that I'm getting to wrapped up in it.  Like Yoda's voice I hear "getting too wrapped up in your ego are you, hmmm?" :)  And I realize I just need to shut up and let the evening go, and let her or whoever tell their part...

I get back there eventually, and I give him the letter and the poem.  I apologize for the triteness of "yet another adoring fan" but he says, "oh no, no, I *love*this.  How does one make a *difference* in the world?"

We talk and talk and David is clearly very tired...and we clearly could talk all night...

And they say he's playing again in Santa Cruz and in Davis [?], and David gives us his cell number and his manager's cell number and says if they're sold out that they will get us in.

Saweet!

We all exchange contact info.

And hopefully we'll see David again.

Kiki -- no longer a stranger...