I side alongside the 'path' Charles is taking (hee hee). And unlike mostly all critics of -art, books, film, and music- who have this desperation about them in wanting to describe their holy insights, I hope you arrive at some answers to your questions, which will be filed into your consciousness for future approaches to the more important and messy discussions of Reality.

Chuck: Please be a sport and keep any and all answers that may come out of that walk to yourself.

Charles! Dude, you crack me up.

Ignore @2. Charles' weird rumblings are a treasure, and I am forever grateful that the Stranger hired him.

How can you all afford to eat/drink/do all that stuff? Do you get it free because you're Stranger writers? That's a serious question.

Well, if you're serious, @5, you might look up some of the events they're attending, to see how much they cost. If you did, you might find out that, say, day tickets to 'Mo-Wave run for less than $20 a pop, or that the most expensive entree at Chico Madrid is $15 (sangria by the pitcher is $6.50), or that the busiest proposed itinerary (Schmader's) pencils in at less than $60 for three days. I appreciate that it's more than you might desire (or be able) to spend yourself, but its not exactly extravagant, either.

@6, it's extravagant on a Stranger writer's salary (or probably any writer's salary), which is why I asked. I wasn't thinking about anyone else.

Well, the weekend's not over, but the highlight has already occurred: making a street-corner rendezvous with a fellow to exchange cash for some groovy slide projector bulbs. Finding spare 50-year-old slide projector bulbs on short notice on a Saturday is about as hard as you'd think it would be, but somehow a miracle occurred. Now, it's TIME FOR DAD'S SLIDES, yippee, there is no greater excitement known to man or possibly woman.