Yes, Deer...

No, I didn't spell that incorrectly.  More later.

How was your week?  I ask because mine was a real doozy.

So it's Thursday night and I'm waiting for the wife to pick me up from work.  I leave at four.  Round about four thirty, I called her, wondering where she was.  Round about five, she returned the call, apologizing profusely for falling asleep and telling me she was on her way.

Closing in on six, I got another call: she had hit a rock and gotten a flat.  Triple-A was forty five minutes away, so she'd be really late.

An hour later, guess what?  Yet another call.  Triple-A hadn't exactly appeared yet, although she had been on the phone with them for a while, attempting to give directions to the apparently direction-impaired soul driving the truck.

I don't know about you but I'd think that a national auto rescue corporation would have something of a sense of direction or at least a GPS.  Old school maps, maybe?

But no.

Another hour later, another call.  This time she called Triple-A and was told the direction-impaired driver terminated the request, which was her prerogative.  Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell my wife; neither Sparky the driver nor the dispatcher.  This caused the entire process to start again.

You'd think a national auto rescue agency would have more than one driver in a large metropolitan area.  Still, it would be up to another hour.

Meanwhile at work, it's getting pretty bleak.  The entire crew has left for the day and I'm holding down the fort.  If I were the easily shakeable sort, I'd be terrified.  Instead I was bored.  Horribly bored.  So bored that I had to resort to doing my own work.  And maybe watching a little South Park.

The next wifely call revealed that the battery was dead.  Why?  Because Sparky the Direction-Impaired driver told my wife to leave the headlights on so she could be located easier.  Meanwhile the occupant of the house in front of which my wife was broken down, wandered over to inquire what she was doing parked across her driveway.  Once explained, she was terribly accommodating, offering food and a rest room, just in case.

Eventually a second driver showed up and had the car running in no time.  He was polite, had no trouble finding her at all and really wanted to assist her.

Closing in on ten pm, I was rescued from work.


FRIDAY

My wife said she'd be at Pep Boys first thing in the morning, bless her, to get the bad tire replaced (we had a warranty).  I took the opportunity to sleep late.

Unfortunately so did my wife. Or rather, her alarm slept late.

Off I went to Pep Boys, in a flurry of loving epithets and general four-letter verbal exercises.  Pep Boys, to their credit, jumped right on matters.

I somehow managed to VPN into work, thus becoming the first member of my department ever to work from Pep Boys.

Hours later, I had my replaced tire.  Too many hours, in fact, to efficiently return to work, so I went home.

While home, my wife informed me she couldn't find her credit cards.

Yes, the Tire Incident had morphed into a Missing Credit Card incident. [I am not blaming any organization or person, other than perhaps my wife for not having had them stapled to her forehead].

I had a doctor's appointment at seven.  Something looked odd about the car.  Of course something looked odd - I had a flat.  Yes, another flat - this time on a different tire.

Cursing Pep Boys and the Universe in general, I tore through the trunk, looking for our poor excuse for a spare and the tools necessary to change it.   Naturally the tire was in plain sight but the tools had entered the fifth dimension, which is located either at the very bottom of a car's trunk or the very bottom of a woman's pocketboot.

Continuing to curse, I somehow managed to change the tire with enough time to get to the doctor's.
While there, I inquired whether he had gotten a referral from my primary.

Oops.

Didn't he talk to me about this?  He just went cash-only.  No insurance.

Oh.

Well, that was awkward.
And wasn't his fee exactly the amount of money I had for the week?

Meanwhile, my wife had taken the entire day off and was spending it snoring on the couch.  As she had given up sleep for lent forty years ago, I left her alone.

SATURDAY

Back among the living, the wife took care of her missing credit cards and license, then went back, again, to Pep Boys.  Pep Boys fixed the issue with haste.

I don't know what they did to my car but it tends to veer toward Pep Boys whenever it sees one.

SUNDAY

After a day of rest, we were off to visit friends.

SMASH - out of the supermarket, we were almost hit.
BLORP - fifteen minutes later we narrowly avoided hitting yet another kamikaze deer.


Go ahead - tell me it's not personal.

Jeff Beck AND Brian Wilson?

Hey - you got your Brian Wilson on my Jeff Beck.

Hey- you got your Jeff Beck on my Brian Wilson.

Like a bad old tv commercial, it started.  What genius put this roster together?  How could it possibly work, logistically?  What in the universe do the two acts have in common?  Does Surfin' USA require a rip-roaring lead?

I'll be honest - I stayed home last time Jeff Beck came around because I had seen his Les Paul tribute on disc but it wasn't what I wanted to see from Mr. Beck live.  We had no idea what to expect from this out-of-the-blue offering.  We also brought my nephew along, a budding shred-monster himself.

We were extremely worried at first, largely due to the nine dollar hotdog and Coke.  I know I sound like an Olde Pharte here but recently I have been charged twenty five dollars to park and five for a soda; this is patently ridiculous.

The Beck camp blew it on merchandising too: there was not a shred of product with his name on it that didn't also have Wilson's name.  El Becko seemed to appear as an afterthought, even on the twenty dollar coffee cups.

We were excited, having spent the better part of a mortgage payment on seats.  The excitement turned to disappointment when we got seated, as I was apparently on some form of advanced hallucinogenic when I ordered.  I remembered ordering first section; we got seated further back.  Fortunately there are no bad seats at the Tower Theater (David Bowie and Al DiMeola recorded live albums there).

Looking at the stage, we were trying to decide on whether to be excited or horrified: there was no separate stage setup for the two acts.  We were hoping this wasn't going to turn out to be some bizarre circus.

I am not a Beach Boys fan.  I don't dislike them either.  I figured they were price to pay to get to see Jeff Beck.  This went right out the window with the first song.  Brian and crew took the stage and sang an incredible tune a capella.  Never heard it before but it was spellbinding.  Many have made sport of the Beach Boys' failing vocals but there was not a sour note the whole evening.  Imagine the best Beach Boys cover band in the world, then put Brian Wilson and Al Jardine up in front of it and there you have it.

My wife slowly turned into a fan but kept shaking her head about what we must be doing to her nephew, who is younger than every one of their songs.  He came to watch The Master play, not watch a nostalgic surf act.  However, he did truly appreciate the show, even if he had never heard most of the songs.

There was a veritable city of musicians onstage.  At any time there were up to five guitars, three keyboards, drums, percussion and everybody sang  [Mike Love who?].  Brian Wilson was in fine form, regardless of his past or what you might have heard.

After an energetic set, they cleared the stage for Jeff Beck, keeping most of the instruments there for later.  Jeff and company hit the stage with a bang and his trademark grin.  The band consisted of a tall black drummer whose name escapes me, Rhonda Smith on bass, a tall lady on violin, Jeff and an additional guitarist(!) who turned out to be triggering keyboards with his guitar (like Jennifer Batten used to do).   Yes, I'm horrible with names.  Everyone was in top form.  Rhonda Smith is a monster on bass.

They did Stratus, Big Block, Where Were You, A Day in the Life, How High the Moon, Rollin and Tumblin, You Never Know and others.  He even whipped out a tear-jerker of a version of Little Wing.  I didn't think things were going to work with a violin and guitar-triggered keys but it all fell together well.

The most interesting part was when they called Brian Wilson and most of the band back.  They sang while Jeff segued from Goodbye Pork Pie Hat into Brush with the Blues.  It was absolutely staggering. It was like Jeff was playing the Beach Boys as an instrument.  All the harmonies were there, as if they were some giant sampling keyboard playing along with the band.

Although his sound was not as clear as Brian's, Jeff delivered in spades.  At the end, everybody played.  And sure enough, Surfin' USA got a rip-roaring lead.

Before the show started, when we were getting nervous, I said out loud that this didn't look good and I'd love to be happily surprised.  I was.  We were.  And my nephew heartily approved of his second Jeff Beck outing.

See this tour - you won't be disappointed.