Rainy Day Woman, #86 to Elmvale.
It’s raining today. Hard. Leading into the Canadian Labour Day weekend, and we are blessed with the remnants of Hurricane Katrina. Brilliant. The summer is well and truly done and dusted.
So I’m riding the 86 to work this morning, watching the rain wind its way down the huffed-up bus windows and I find myself humming “Everybody must get stoned.” (No, Canada hasn’t turned me into a complete pot-head – I just have a thing for Bob, that’s all.) A little light came on in my head, and I had an epiphany -no, seriously everyone must get stoned ….. by Mick and Keith I mean.
I went to the Rolling Stones concert here in Ottawa on Sunday night. It rocked my world. An 8-storey high stage as wide as the football field, flames shooting from the top, giant inflatable lips, giant beers, 42,000 Stones freaks, a mechanical stage that brought my heroes Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie out to centrefield – about 10 metres from where I was standing. It was an assault on my sensibilities and I loved it.
I saw the Stones play in Osaka two years ago. Maybe it was our position a million miles away from the action, maybe it was that they didn’t play “Beast of Burden,” or maybe it was the Japanese-sized beers and polite, toe-tapping audience – but it had nothing on Sunday’s concert in Ottawa. They haven’t played here in forty years right, so Keith Richards (lovingly described in the Globe and Mail as a “shambolic pirate”) swaggers up to the microphone, cigarette smoke wafting from his weathered mouth, and growls “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that.” Apology accepted Keith. I love you.
My dream job used to be watching films raw, and then compiling the soundtrack to make it spectacular. My dream job now is to be Lisa. Or at the very least, be her friend. Now I don’t know if you guys know Lisa. Not my sister, but back-up singer Lisa, with the most outstanding set of pipes ever known to man. The Stones did a cover of Ray Charles’ “Night Time is the Right Time,” - the song all the Huxtable kids sang on the Cosby Show that time. Knights of Columbus! Lisa put Rudy Huxtable to shame. She was insanely amazing. If anyone out there has the ability or connections to make my dream come true, you know where to find me okay?
So yeah, I’m at work now. The rain is still coming down. I’m dry finally, and I have come to accept that the summer really is over. I’m okay with that though, as at least it finished with a bit of Brown Sugar. I truly believe “everyone must get stoned” – at least once, and if you’re this lucky, twice, by Mick, Keith and the lads.
