Life races by.

Just a few mental notes to myself: experiences I'm starting to forget, and want to document the best I can:

Seeing John Williams conduct the San Francisco Symphony as it performed most of his greatest film scores. When you hear other conductors interpret Williams' film repertoire, they inevitably take the tempo up or bring an agressive tone out of the orchestra, as if performing music written for film needs to be artistically justified. How awesome it was to hear Williams' do his own music as he heard it in his head. The Raiders March. The Star Wars End Titles. Jaws. Schindler's List. And most heartbreaking of all, the entire last act of ET (bike chase through ET's ascension), as it was shown on a screen behind the orchestra - you could imagine William's conducting the orchestra as they actually recorded the soundtrack, because that is exactly how it was done.

Listening to the then-nascent "Industrial Light and Magic" magicians talk about the special effect technology in the surprise hit "Star Wars," sometime in late '77/early '78 in Cupertino at the De Anze College Flint Center. Being roughly nine years old at the time, details are hazy, though the import of the occasion, which was instigated by my father, wasn't lost on me even then. With Apple still a garage venture down the road, I bet Jobs or the Woz were in the audience with the rest of us Star Wars geeks. I'm going to search old news archives to try to find out what exactly went on that night - I'm betting we were being talked to by Gary Rydstrom or Dennis Muren (or both,) and I remember seeing footage of the cameras rolling past the Death Star surface props as explosions were set off in the trenches. We were all just a bunch of geeks, sitting at the edge of a cultural revolution.

Meeting Pope John Paul. It was like a mosh pit: we were directly in front of the barricade in St. Peter's Square, with literally thousands of people pressing from behind to be blessed by La Papa. Let's see - this must have been around 1984, so I remember some of what was going on; I remember realizing that I was fulfilling what many of the people around me had waited for their entire lives, and I remember my mind going completely blank when he took my hand. I noticed he caught my eyes, murmured (it was not possible to hear what he said over the general roar of the crowd) and moved on. His white car followed not far behind, as well as legions of Vatican security agents taking photos of each person that came in contact with the Pope from every angle. The rest of the day is a bit hazy: I remember listening to many hours of the papal address in beating sun, I remember nausea and tunnel vision, and I remember finally realizing where I was, sitting in the shade outside St. Peter's eating some type of holy wafers being fed to me by a kind nun. And I remember drinking a nasty warm can of Coke.

Meeting Satan, in the form of Linda Blair, circa 1993. Actually, this wouldn't be so tremendously memorable if it weren't for the fact that Ms. Blair is so darn sweet and perky that it's just difficult to believe she played the demon-possesed "Regan" in The Exorcist as a tot. I had traveled a great distance (well, to Pleasanton - maybe 30 miles or so) to meet Ms. Blair, because I had heard on the radio that she was signing cans of pea soup in honor of her Exorcist vomiting scene, which is said to have utilized said soup as a main ingredient. I got my can, and a signed photo to boot.

Interviewing Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, for the Almaden Times, circa 1999. She was doing a press junket in honor of some Shockwave games that were being released with her character's involvement, and there was a demonstration scheduled for the media at high noon. I arrived at the hotel to find a large conference room with a long table that seated 20 which was well-stocked with ice-cold bottled water, press packets with photos, Elvira comics, and a biography, and an Elvira standee in the corner. And a nervous PR gal. The time for the demo came and went, and no other media folk arrived. Finally, a flurry of headset activity took place, and moments later, Elvira appeared (in her natural red-headed form) with two or three handlers, appearing slightly befuddled and somewhat embarrassed that no one deigned to show up for the demonstration save this dude from a neighborhood shopper (which would be me). Nevertheless, she did her best to give me a personal demonstration of the games - but then couldn't get them to work on her laptop. Being somewhat starstuck, I still wrote up a nice interview for the Times, but being too nervous to ask for an autograph, I had to buy one off eBay a couple years later.

Did I mention I'm mostly writing this stuff for myself?

Seeing The Pixies at San Jose State in '89; loudest concert ever.

Maybe I'll continue this project someday... I hear a sad little girl in the distance, so it's fatherin' time.