A Message from Rita
...written on 03.10.04, @ 11:27 a.m.
Wed March 10, 2004
Yikes, all of my favorite diaries had updated when I got on today! Even the news! Busy morning.
Thank you for all of the kind notes, emails, and thoughts about my last entry. I appreciate the care and concern. I can't rightly explain what I've been going through, or what my relationship with Min is, was or will be, but don't worry, as I do know I will always retain my core happiness and optimism.
Sunday afternoon, after my last free class, I came home and crashed for a cat nap. I woke up and according to our plan, called Min. We decided to go to Nagoya for a night out.
Before we left, Min brought over a song that he wanted me to record to an MD. I recorded it about 7 times for him. Can you see that earphone in his ear?
He listened to "Raindrops keep falling on my head" almost nonstop on the train, on the subway, walking the streets, sitting in Starbucks, eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, I was amazed at his focus. Sometimes he gave me the right earphone while he kept the left, and we walked down the street both plugged in, almost skipping to the song's upbeat tempo.
We indulged ourselves in Nagoya on Sunday night. We shopped at a big bookstore, went to the Hard Rock for steak, went to Starbucks for dessert, and decided to stay the night so we could go to the Nagoya Blue Note Cafe the next day to see Rita Coolidge perform.
The next morning we went back to the bookstore, went to a bank's exhibition of the history of currency in Japan and the world,
Starbucks again, and more shopping at the Gap, Tower Records, etc. We had to keep ourselves entertained for eight hours before we could go to the Blue Note that night for the concert.
It was a snazzy venue. The service was superb. Ticket prices for the concert were $80 for a table seat and $58 for a movie theatre style seat on the far side of the stage.
Rita Coolidge will be 60 years old this May. I have this image of her in my head from the movie "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid" where she played a Mexican girl who tumbled in bed with Kris Kristofferson, who could only say "Jesus!" "Jesus!" as he tangled his hands in her silky long black tresses.
So, she's changed a little since then. She did say that Kris was her favorite (and only) ex-husband and that she will be getting married this summer, I think to a Japanese man, Tatsuya, if I understood her right. She kept pointing to the back of the room, but I never could see who she was indicating.
Her first song was "Superstar". She cowrote it and it was a hit for the Carpenters. It starts with "Long ago and not so far away, I fell in love with you before the second show." She said the song was inspired by Eric Clapton.
I could nitpick her choice of costume or bemoan the lack of strength in her voice, but those external things seem so cheap to the real point of the evening, that she was doing what she was passionate about.
She finished the show with "Higher and Higher", and came back for one encore. I forget the title of that one, but the message was appropriate, rather than waiting to wither and die like a rose on a vine, "I want to leave while I am still in love."