Summer Time Blues... and Greens, and Reds, and Yellows

What's been happening...here and there and everywhere.

July 3rd: Yorktown has a market every Saturday morning...

Mom shopping for preserves...

I think this boy was intrigued by the sunflower. He was staring at it for quite a while.

Yorktown is part of the Historic Triangle here on the Peninsula, which also includes Jamestown and Williamsburg.  All three being places you should add to your "to do" list.

July 4th: hmmm. It seems I don't have those pictures on my computer or on my camera. I must have left them dumped on my parents's computer. We'll get those at a later date. Trust me,though, we had fun.

July 11th:  STING!!! Mom and I saw Sting play with members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Northern Virginia and it was amazing.

It's no secret that I've been mad at that man for many years now. He first broke my heart when The Police broke up. I knew at the tender age of 15 that he would never be alone what The Police were together. I still followed him, though. I did love him, you know. Really, I did. Have you ever seen "Lost in Translation"? In a nutshell, "The film centers on an aging actor (Bill Murray) and a recent college-graduate (Scarlett Johansson) who develop a unique closeness after a chance meeting in a grand Tokyo hotel."  That movie was like Sofia Coppola pulled it from my fantasy world. With me and Sting in the lead, of course. Hey. Don't knock it. It could still happen.

Anyway, the show was fantastic and I had my second semi-sort of run with the man himself. I'll fill you in on the first one at a later date. (I know. I often say I will fill you in at a later date, but I really mean it this time.)

Mom and I got to the (I really hate these corporate venues) Jiffy Lube Amphitheatre, in Bristow, Virginia, around 5pm and did a drive through the place to see where we could park. The nice attendant was going to let us park in the closest spot and he told us to be sure to be back by 6pm. After a required stop at WAWA, we made our way back and got a tasty parking spot. We're sitting there finishing up our WAWA hoagies and are just hanging out when this guy rides by on a bike and I say to myself, "Hey, that guy looks like....

....HEY! THAT'S STING!"

I thought I put my camera on video mode after I shot this picture, only to find out after he was out of view that I had actually turned the camera off. See what you do to me, Sting? It's just not right. Ah well. It was certainly a memorable moment for Mom and I.

Then, this young kid road by and I told mom, "I bet he's in the orchestra".


So, now we're in our seats and raring to go after our Sting viewing.

Nothing like the sun...

We sat for an hour holding sheets of paper up to block out that sun.

Then, it was time...

Highlights for me? Sting playing the Theremin on Moon Over Bourboun Street! The theremin is the instrument you hear in all those old spooky movies and it was a perfect addition here.

Then, there is this young lady, Jo Lawry. She was Sting's amazing back-up singer. Though, I'd give her more credit than that. She has a beautiful voice. Look her up.

Remember that kid on the bike I said was probably in the orchestra? I'm pretty sure that's him playing the french horn here. Top row, middle. What do you think?

Bad jumbrotron picture. You probably had to be there.

It was a great night and Sting has partially redeemed himself to me. Though, now that I see him solo again, I get the feeling that he was not giving his all on the Police reunion tour. What a brat.

The Police, The Drummer, and The Little Flag That Could

Anyone who knows me for more than two minutes should know that my favorite band of all time is The Police. Whether they are together or not, they've always been and most likely always will be my favorite.

They were my first concert. They were my Beatles. I think you get the picture.

So, you can probably imagine my delight [read: hysteria] when a little over two years ago this little band got back together to embark on a reunion tour. Thanks to many wonderful friends, I had the opportunity to see them at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Hershey Park in Hershey, PA, Washington, D.C., and the show to [literally] end all shows, Madison Square Gardens in NYC. 

It's been almost 10 months, to the day, since the tour ended. I've wanted to blog about this for just as long. Though, I didn't know how to put it all into words. There was too much to explain with a kind of "you had to be there" feeling. 

Now, thanks to one very special lady who is an organizer extraordinaire and creator of the "little flag that could", I don't have to explain. Better words could not have been written to illustrate the experience of a few 100 or more fans of this band and more specifically, their drummer, Stewart Copeland...

"Our Little Flag Game: A strange tradition of the Police reunion tour"

By Kellie M. Walsh

On Thursday, August 7, 2008, at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Police—singer-bassist Sting, guitarist Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland—took the stage one last time to celebrate the finale of their thirtieth anniversary reunion tour [...]
In the middle of the celebration hung a small green flag.
It wasn't much to look at. Its corners were soiled, its face cracked. Its emblem, the silhouette of a horse and rider, held no significance for the Police. To tens of thousands of witnesses that night, it was a mystery.
But to a small group of fans, just a couple of hundred or so scattered around the arena and globe, it was a message [...]
The plan was a simple one: volunteers from the forum at stewartcopeland.net would show their support for the site's namesake by carrying to as many reunion concerts as possible a kelly green flag emblazoned with Copeland’s personal logo of himself on a horse in silhouette.

[click here for full story. It's the feel good story of the season. Heck the decade! And you'll never guess where the flag now resides!]