Camping weekend

Sharon and I escaped for a two night camping weekend - much needed and very nice, indeed.

First night, Friday, we stayed at the private campground at Wolford Reservoir, a few miles north of Kremmling on the shores of, well, Wolford Reservoir. The res was constructed in '92-'94, and began filling in '95, holding about 66k acre-feet and provides some fish conservation and additional storage for Denver water, which they don't seem to need this year.

The campground is boater/RV-heavy, pretty much treeless and not necessarily the prettiest place I've been to. But the spot was ample, the facilities clean and newish - we scarfed down a dinner of chops and mac salad, konked out and left before 8AM.

Despite getting on the ramp pretty early at Pumphouse, we found a busy weekend on the upper Colorado, with a few parties (illegally, we think, still need to check) taking prime spots, leaving their camp and floating down to circle back for a second night, Pretty chincy stuff.

We managed to park in Bench 2, had a terrific evening, great fire, mesquite chicken and black beans/rice for dinner, and a not-too-cold night.

Counted at least 6 trains that night. On the float out, we spotted an osprey, two balds and a golden. Mornings do seem to be great for big bird watching out there.

After all these years, I've seen lots of make-do spots spring up on the run, especially in the lower section. I guess it speaks to the popularity of the reach - a little unsettling to see so much of the riparian shoreline overrun with camping spots now, but it's still a great run and a nice camping trip.

Ted Kennedy, RIP

Truly, the end of an era.

I remember both his brothers. Ted was the lost, last son, the eternal fuck-up living in the shadow of the mythologies around Jack and Bobby. And through hard work, and maybe a bit of penance of service, he became one of the greatest Senators in US history.

The nation, awash in ignorant and corrupt demagogues, is far poorer for his loss. I'm privileged, as a standard Eastern Irish Catholic liberal, to have lived and seen all three.

Yes. Liberal. Not apologizing.

Carlton swings, connects

Guitar heroes come in various shades of showmanship and technique, but we're not sure where Larry Carlton really falls on that scale. Not a full-bore, standards-bound jazzer, nor really much of a heavy-artillery fusion player, and hardly a rock god, Carlton came across at his Boulder Theater appearance last Thursday as a sort of elder statesman/jack-of-all-trades, almost determined to evade an easy characterization, entirely consistent with his post session-years career.

He opened with a touching solo elegy for the recently departed Les Paul called "Goodbye", with whom he had a friendly acquaintance, and proceeded into two sets swinging from buoyant pop-jazz ("Smiles and Smiles To Go") to simmering funk-blues ("Burnable"), and even reached into his past (and present) for the Steely Dan staple "Josie", which he delivered sans vocals (comping the melody line) and after complying with an audience request (hardly unexpected) for a quick solo rendition of his famed "Kid Charlemagne" solo, which he picked off more or less note-for-note. Odd thing, recreating a solo from nearly 35 years ago, but amongst guitar aficionados, the thing remains a revered staple of post-rock era guitaring and Carlton seemed happy to peel it off.

His band consisted of his son Travis on 4 and 5-string bass, understated but flashing moments of rangy brilliance, and a very bad fellow named Gene Coy on drums, equally tough in the pocket as swinging wildly across the solo spaces. Expect to hear more from this cat.

And as for Carlton, the set seemed to serve a bit more bite than we were expecting (Carlton long ago mastered the grittier side of the Gibson 335's broad tonal character), perhaps intentionally to compensate for the lack of a keyboard player. We're not sure that Carlton plays the role of a power trio guitarist particularly well and we were sorry not to be able to enjoy a little more interplay between Carlton's gnarled harmonic wanderings and another lead player - keys, another guitar, horn, etc - but this was obviously a small-deal tour without fresh music to promote, so the three-piece configuration seemed entirely appropriate. Carlton's chops are still in evidence, although (again, as has always been his habit) he uncoils them sparingly, leaning more on nuance, shading and careful harmonic positioning. This lends itself to a better paced set and prevents the blues and fusion numbers from upstaging the lighter pop stuff.

This was, overall, a guitar lover's treat, and the guy's still got it. Catch him if you can.

Deadwood weekend

Back from Deadwood, SD. Went on a ghost-hunting jaunt with the two lead investigators from Fullmoon Explorations - small group, just the four of us.

The drive: Just a shade under 6 hours from Boulder, essentially following I25 north until it bends west to intercept Casper, WY. Then, WY18 due east, across rolling high-elevation prairie with a rocky ridge to the south. Then, US 85 northeast toward the Black Hills (which geographically start in Wyoming), rising up to 6800' at O'Neill Pass, then down to Lead (pronounced 'leed') and Deadwood, which is only 35 miles or so inside South Dakota. Pretty drive for the most part - immense valleys, deep forest, lots of antelope, the occasional vestige of a frontier town - although as a matter of driving, SE Wyoming can get a bit tedious.

The town: Living near two Victorian-era mining towns-turned-gambling/tourist towns, we pretty much knew the drill. Pockets of historic buildings in various stages of restoration, filled but not packed with tourists, fast food and tourist-trade vendors lining the perimeter, and, of course, casinos everywhere. Mostly slots, some tables in the bigger joints. Platoons of tour buses, the usually chain-smoking blue-haired ladies emptying their Social Security into quarter slot machines, some nice neighborhoods just outside the casino district, a few restored old 1890's architecture houses, some rundown properties. The locals we met were uniformly warm, friendly, talkative (especially on the subject of ghosts and hauntings in Deadwood) - very little of that tourist-town fatigue or cynicism we have found elsewhere, although I imagine it exists. The rude, ignorant, pushy, aggressively intoxicated, and needlessly vulgar personalities we encountered were all tourists.

Somewhat larger than Colorado's three gaming towns, Deadwood struck me as a little more kitsch than their Colorado counterparts, especially with the ubiquitous visage of "Wild Bill" Hickok, legendary gunslinger-gambler-turned-lawman-gambler, murdered (shot from behind, in the head) in 1876, just as the town was establishing. Hickok's renown in Deadwood bears only familiar passing to the truth, much of which (save his sharpshooting skill) is shrouded in dispute and mired in that uncomfortable place beside and somewhat beneath legend. The guy was either a semi-repentant murderer, a cool customer, a redemptive figure of Western justice, an icon of American no-bullshit frontiersmanship, or somewhere in between.

Anyway - you can't swing a dead cat in Deadwood without hitting some likeness of Wild Bill, nor escape the relentless romanticism of the gold rush years of the 1870's and 1880's. Deadwood is quite proud to remind you that in 1876, there were up to six murders a day in and around the nascent little settlement. (The place was tiny back then - a little math suggests some difficulty with that claim, but the truth is probably unknowable at this point, and the legend sounds good.) I think one needn't ponder too obliquely that gold fever, lots of whiskey, fast money and hordes of armed, frequently embittered and impoverished ex-Civil War vets all combined to make for a pretty dangerous and violent place. The imagery is period Americana, of course, and we're all suckers for it, but the reality of that kind of life at that time was probably grimier, more violent and more thuggish than tourist-trap displays and gunfight re-enactments can portray.

Anyway, Hickok's gravesite at Mt Moriah, attended here by the throngs from one of the tour buses:


The cemeteries. Mt Moriah, being the final resting place of the aforementioned Wild Bill, is a Deadwood tourist attraction and a regular stop for the near-daily tours. It sits quite high above the town, and is actually a pretty nice little plot. The town's original cemetery grew too small fairly quickly (familiar story in the West) and was moved up here and renamed to Mt Moriah in 1881. The original cemetery used to sit further down the hillside, and some property owners even today who do work around their homes in the area occasionally dig up bones. We had permission to visit Friday night (like most cemeteries, it officially closes at sundown), and a walkthru at night was a little creepy. I did feel during one stretch that I was being followed by someone about 20' behind me, stopping when I stopped, walking cautiously when I resumed. Lasted a few minutes. But short of reviewing all the audio, that's all I can report on nighttime at Mt Moriah.

None of my nighttime shots turned out, but here's one taken the next day, when Sharon and I headed back up for daylight pictures:


We also visited St Ambrose, the Catholic Cemetery down the valley about 6 miles or so and just off a hillside neighborhood. (Everything around Deadwood is on a hill, and some VERY steep.) Much smaller and not restored at all, we both enjoyed this peaceful place very much. Some terrific old ironwork gating, some collapsing graves, and not another person there with us. Most recent burial we saw was 2007 - Mt Moriah appears to be closed for new interments, except perhaps for grandfathered family plots.



Will post some on the investigation a bit later.

Dreams again

Two dreams in the last week or so with Karin - neither compelling or profound, but still nice. First one we were talking on the telephone, second one she was actually talking to me in person.

Sharon's son Mike has been having semi-regular dreams about his Dad as well - evidently some of his possession were moved from their usual spot in the basement for the first time since his passing, and he thinks (and Sharon suggests as well) that may have something to do it.

Carlton

Spun off a quick story for BW about Larry Carlton, guitar maestro, former Steely Dan sideman and all around consummate musician. They never got back to me about an interview - pity, he's a great chat and used to be very accessible to the press. Should run this Thursday.

Couple of weeks off to recharge. What's next?

Hack 'n slash bulletins

It appears that a few former Iron Lore employees who went on to found Crate Entertainment have now secured rights to use the Titan Quest engine for their upcoming, as-yet untitled game. Actually, cool - Titan Quest burrowed its way into my marrow and would not let go. They've probably been using it all along, and just finally finished up the paperwork.

Anyway...bring some joy to the heart of an unreconstructed Diablohead.

And speaking of Diablo - news on the development of Diablo III is typically hard to come by. Blizzard is notoriously efficient at keeping the lid on development news.

BUT...comes word from some unsourced source (huh?) that the game may actually spawn a beta in September and see full release in December.

...uh, December 24th, though?....

Writing...

Squeezed out pieces as promised for Nebula and Kyle Hollingsworth. Nebula ran today and the Hollingsworth piece is still being looked at (I think....uh, maybe I should check) by the good folks at Boulder Magazine.

A word about the Airborne Toxic Event - I suppose critics have a can't-resist soft spot for self-confessional neo-shoegazer rock bands that you can dance to, but I have to admit I'm smitten with ATE's debut CD (now over a year old), and surprised that Mikel Jollett, after our phone chat got connection-dropped at about the nine minute mark, actually called me back to finish the interview. The guy likes to talk, isn't reticent about talking music or ATE or critics or not sleeping or phonies (he DOES NOT like the Eels, said I could print that, and don't even ask why I thought to ask him...), and picking through a 30 min-plus interview for a decent story will actually be a bit of a challenge.

If you haven't heard the band's CD...go listen.