By Robert Bergin
A rather old photo of MIA.
Two nights ago, a dear friend and I walked around campus. Our states were altered, and we talked to things that don’t usually talk back to people. Very good listeners, those things. Needless to say it was a sissy-sentimental sort of evening, so when we walked past our campus’s beloved campanile at 11:57 p.m., what else to do but sit down and wait for the bells to bong? We’d be the first to welcome in Thursday – that was the idea. So we sat. And sat.
Yep. Sittin’ sittin’ sittin’. Nice night. Oh, yes, very nice. I wonder where Thursday is? Oh, he’ll be here. Strange, I’ve always known him to be quite punctual. Yes, me, too.
(Thursday is, of course, a man. Thurs Day. Say Thurs. A very ugly name for a woman, but it works great for a dude. He’s probably in one of those ESPN Ironman things, pulling big rigs.)
After what was assuredly more than three minutes, I checked my cell phone. 12:03 a.m.! All this time we’d been waiting at the front door, and he’d snuck through the garage. Called him a trickster at the time, but in retrospect, he was just being polite. Not waking the neighbors.
It’s a good time be young in Berkeley. A while back Jon Carroll wrote a very nice column about the summer of love. If all this feels a bit like a Carroll knock-off, well, I can’t help it. He writes very well, and if his experiences are as honest as his prose, then he lives very well, too. So, my apologies.
Anyways, a while back Carroll wrote a very nice column about the summer of love. I can’t find it online, but the gist of it was that no one really thought of it as, y’know, the Summer of Love. It was just a bunch of people sitting around in a park, welcoming each coming moment. Sort of living out Person Pitch, 40 years before that album’s time. And while Berkeley has had that blissed-out vibe for the past couple months, at least from my perspective, there’s been a tangible air of anticipation as well.
Y’know that episode of Pete and Pete where Big Pete waxes eloquent about how the Fourth of July marks the summer’s apex? For a lot of us kids, tonight’s Daft Punk concert feels like that. All the hikes, the road trips, the feet out the shotgun window, the fire escape sunsets and the People’s Park basketball games, it’s all been a prelude to tonight.
We are going to dance a lot.
And MIA’s playing at Amoeba the following day? Which one, yours or ours? Ours?? Shit. It’s good to be young in Berkeley. You should probably come over – this weekend is going to rule.
What’s that you say? A YouTube video? I got your YouTube video right here, buddy.