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I was forwarded this:
From a Berkeley resident:
>
> Here's a story you'll like. I was lucky enough to be invited to the
> Kerry fundraiser in SF last night. At $1,000 a head for admission
> (fortunately, I was a guest), the Grand Ballroom at the St Francis
> Hotel on Union Square was a friendly -- if high-powered -- sea of
> gray suits, bald spots, and diamonds. A music stage at the far end of
> the immense chamber was occupied for a while by an over-amped
> acappella group, who were fair, no great shakes, but too loud to
> stand anywhere near; so we stayed at the opposite end, where the
> excited small talk of 2,000 well-heeled Bush defoliators provided a
> pleasant sonic buffer. I was frankly getting a little bored, waiting
> too long for Kerry to come out and speak from a podium midway down
> the left-hand side of the room. After the acappella group ended, I
> thought, "Finally! We're going to hear the guy from Mass with JFK's
> hairline." But then, oh bummer, more activity onstage - another band,
> another 30 minutes of standing around, waiting, having to settle for
> more little pieces of pork tenderloin with lime glaze on tortilla
> chips, and bits of marinated chicken in miniature cracker cups - if
> you can stop a waiter - instead of the classy dinner I was expecting
> for a grand a head. (Typical freeloader, aren't I?) So the playing
> starts up and I'm tuning it out, immersed in funny conversations with
> my friends, not really hearing the music. Then this bass line catches
> my ear. It sounds awfully familiar, and penetrates the buzz in the
> room. Hey, I say to Pam without looking up, these guys are covering
> "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," and they're ripping off the Dead's
> arrangement! But it sounds pretty good. So I look up and squint at
> the players, who are a good 75 yards away. What? Can it be?? Holy
> Shit! THAT'S PHIL! "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's
> Easter time, too!" And there's Mickey pounding some pads! And that
> guy with the gray beard on drum kit, it's Billy! And shit, there's
> Ray Manzarek on keyboards! And Boz Scaggs is playing guitar! And Roy
> Rogers on double-neck! And that's Norton Buffalo on harp! We work our
> way through the crowd toward the stage, which was only slightly
> easier than at the Coliseum on NYE, and all the gray suits, bald
> spots, and diamonds within 30 yards of the stage are rocking out! The
> band fires up Johnny B. Goode, and we all know who they're talking
> about. Then they blast into Iko Iko, with Mickey taking lead vocal,
> shouting the refrain that became, in my mind, the anthem of the
> night: "Gonna set your flag on fire!" It was inspiring and
> incendiary. Afterward, Kerry came out and told us, among other, more
> important things, about how he discovered the Fillmore West and the
> Dead when he came to SF after Viet Nam, and how the Dead have
> remained a big part of his life ever since. As soon as he said it, a
> woman just behind me screamed out, "Yeaaaah!!!!" I turn around
> expecting a hippy chick who got in, like me, on a miracle ticket. I
> see a 60 year old, perfectly coiffed woman in a $2,000 gown, looking
> every inch a CEO, with a huge grin on face, shaking her fists in the
> air. Every one around me is grinning, too. A couple of high-buck,
> gray-beard lawyers in front of me start up the chant: "Go Johnny! Be
> Good!" And you know, I started to believe he will be. What a night. I
> arrived with the intention of voting for the hairline - anything but
> a Bush. I left with an honest belief in the man.
>
:hippie:
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