I watched Hardly Strictly Blue Grass over the weekend. It’s a large fun free music event in San Francisco, different bands come in and play on various stages for an audience. I saw Patti Smith playing on Sunday afternoon. She was good of course.

Before that, I saw Mike Mills from REM and Chris Stamey from the dB’s play a tribute to Big Star which was OK. Then Yo La Tengo played at another stage in the park. I don’t think I have ever seen Yo La Tengo play a full set and this time was no different.

I love the dB’s records but live I find them boring. And the last time I saw REM was probably 40 years ago. The funny thing is that REM, the dB’s, and Yo La Tengo all played Maxwell’s several times, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan actually worked there.

I should know he worked the soundboard as I stood no more than 2 feet away from him as I DJ’d on Saturday nights. Or was it Friday nights? So many memory holes, from so much abuse. Ira and Georgia were and probably still are nice people.

I last saw them at my brother’s wake where I hugged Ira who seemed a bit put off by the hug. Once again ‘we’re not THOSE types of friends’ came into being.

Last night I was all set for a good night of sleep. And after about a half hour of slipping into sleep, an alert went off on my phone jolting me awake and leaving me unable to descend to the depths that I achieved mere minutes before.

Tossing and turning and frustrated for the next 7 hours or so. I woke up disappointed but not sad which was good. I shuffled through the apartment and was out to the Path train. No co-workers this morning but it was still a bit crowded.

My afternoon break came and I was once again on Thomas Street enjoying a cigar. I saw a guy on the street who was on the same spectrum as a co-worker whom I call Sméagol. And I was right, he asked where Chambers Street was and I told him and then he told me how he had been lost for 45 minutes.

People gave him the wrong directions and I guess he found me. I watched him head off to Broadway where I told him to make a right and go a few blocks and hoped this ersatz Sméagol knew his right from his left. It seemed that he did.

In the office when I came back there was an Oktoberfest on another floor. Beer and pretzels were offered and a few co-workers were kind enough to ask if I was going and since I really couldn’t they offered to bring something back for me.

I’m not a day drinker so I politely declined. Plus, drinking at work would probably not be a very good idea for me. Still, it was nice to have been asked.