In working on my book, I've been writing about the year 1992, and on August 28th of that year I attended an Emerson Lake and Palmer concert at the Universal Amphitheater. In the decades since then, I had casually remembered it as a good show, one that I attended alone (or at least went to alone). I also went to another ELP show the next day, at UC Irvine of all places, with a group of friends (or "friends" as I think of them now). Pat drove us down there in a pickup truck that I think belonged to his brother. I rode in the back, in the pickup bed, with two other people, and that was a good concert, too. But in writing about the first show at Universal, something was bugging me, and when something bugs me I have learned it is for a reason. It is my intuition trying to tell me something, so I stop to figure it out.
What was bugging me about the ELP concert at the Universal Amphitheater on August 28, 1992?
I didn't know at first. 1992 was the year Emerson Lake and Palmer reunited after a long hiatus. If you're a fan, you'll remember they had a two-thirds reunion in 1986, when Keith and Greg teamed up with Cozy Powell, and there was another short-lived group in 1988 called "3", featuring Keith and Carl with Robert Berry.
But Keith, Greg and Carl, the one-and-only Emerson Lake and Palmer, broke up in 1979, a year after "Love Beach" was released, and they didn't get back together for 13 years, until 1992. And they toured that year. They had a new album out called "Black Moon". It wasn't exactly "Brain Salad Surgery" but it had some good stuff, and you knew they'd be great in concert, even if Greg's voice was a little rougher. It was ELP! How could they not be incredible?
I took the bus down to Universal City by myself; that was the first thing I specifically recalled about attending that show. The #35 bus (or was it the #135?) ran all the way down Reseda Boulevard, turned east on Ventura, and took you to Los Angeles, if you were going that far. I got off at Lankershim, the Universal Studios stop, but I didn't walk uphill to the venue right away. You see, I'd brought a couple of drinks with me (those little 8oz Screwdrivers in a can from Seagram's), and I stopped to surreptitiously sip them from their brown paper bag. I was standing on Lankershim Boulevard across from the steep access road that leads to the Universal parking lot.
And was I thinking about someone. That was the next thing I remembered. And I'm wondering now why I would've been thinking of her at that particular time and location. Why, in memory, was I associating her with the ELP show, and specifically with my activities before the show? That, I couldn't figure out. As far as I knew, she was not an ELP fan (nothing wrong with that; they weren't everyone's cup of tea). But why would I have been thinking about her prior to that concert? Did I think she was going to be there? No, that didn't make any sense, and something like this can present a challenge in psychic work, not knowing if a thought or "mental association" was present at the time of an event (in this case the ELP concert) or if it "arrived in retrospect" (years later, when considering that concert). The exact question I am currently debating is: "Was I thinking about her when I arrived at Universal, or am I associating that thought with another circumstance?" But you have to trust your intuition, and mine tells me that I was thinking about her for some specific reason before that concert.
When we say, "trust your intuition", one of the most important components of that trust is the mental picture you get when you are considering something that makes you curious. "Where did I leave my keys?" for instance. You "ask yourself" where you might've left them, then you mentally retrace your steps, and you receive a snapshot image of where they might be, and voila! You find them. That is trusting your intuition.
It's a little more complex after 30-plus years, but the principle is the same, and when I thought of that ELP concert, my immediate "mental image" was of standing on Lankershim, drinking my drinks (across the street from the access road leading to the Universal parking lot), and thinking of the person in question. This doesn't mean I was associating her with the concert. It could've been in another context. I'd recently seen her at the Lollapalooza show at Irvine Meadows. Pat invited me to that festival at the very last minute, on the morning of the concert. He called and said he had free tickets and did I want to go? Of course I did. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were playing (so was Lush, but I wasn't aware of them then).
And after Soundgarden's set, Pat pointed several rows down and said "look who's here." I did, and then Pat went and got her, and brought her up to say hello. I was nervous because I was pretty scroungy that day, having had no chance to shower and shave when Pat called me to go to the concert. So I was nervous to see her, but also very excited and happy. We had a nice time talking in the intermission before Ice Cube played (or was it Ministry?) and then she had to go back to her seat because she was actually working PR at that show.
In hindsight, though, I have to say that I've wondered if she and Pat "pre-arranged" that meeting. Of course it could've been pure coincidence, but in working on my book I've had some amazing revelations about the early 1990s, which is why I think that meeting could've been pre-arranged. Keep in mind that I say "could've been" and not "was".
But back to the ELP concert, it took place only about five weeks after Lollapalooza, so that could be why I was thinking about her (and I thought about her all the time, anyway), but it didn't seem conclusive as an answer, so again, I wondered, "why is this concert bugging me so much?" and I bypassed the intuitive pre-concert imagery to consider the unusual circumstance of how I got to that show. I thought "Hmm, I took the bus there, alone. Why was I going to an ELP concert by myself? Why wasn't everyone going?" And then I remembered, "Well, I did sit alone, but Pat came to visit me during the show". It was the kind of detail I wouldn't have remembered unless I considered the entire event.
And I thought, "Okay, I rode the bus alone, and I sat alone, but Pat once again had a record company seat, and he drove to the concert separately from me, after he got off work." And I thought, "Okay, but why didn't anyone else want to go?" meaning any of the other "friends". That seemed unusual, given that they were ELP fans. I remembered that Pat, when he visited me during the show, was critical of the band's performance (he could be a bit jaded when it came to concerts) and I just wanted to enjoy ELP, who I'd waited 15 years to see. I thought they were fantastic, so I was glad when Pat went back to his seat (which I think was on the floor. I was in the loge). But before he went back to his seat, he offered to give me a ride home.
I would never have remembered this if I hadn't considered why the ELP concert was bothering me.
Pat offered me a ride home, and probably either came back up to my seat after the show was over, or I met him in the lobby. And while considering this, I visualized us walking to his car in the Universal parking garage.
And then - boom! - all of a sudden, Dennis was right beside us. He has a habit of turning up in these stories, doesn't he? He'd somehow seen us in the parking garage, and caught up, and now he had stopped me because he wanted to talk. I remembered that Pat was in a hurry to get going, and was trying to blow Dennis off. But Dennis kept talking, and he said to Pat, "It's okay, leave if you want to. I'll give Adam a ride home", and I said "no thanks" because Dennis was riding his motorcycle. No way was I going to ride home on the back. So Pat said, "well, if you're riding with with me then let's go". And I tried to leave but Dennis kept talking, saying very specific things, which upset me, and then Pat got upset and came over and started arguing with Dennis, accusing him of "stirring up shit", and at this point I said, "okay guys, I think I'm just gonna stick to my original plan and take the bus home". I'd checked the bus schedule before I left my house. Now I looked at my watch and saw I still had time to catch the last one. "If I start walking now, I'll make it. I have about 25 minutes." Pat was pissed off. "No, no. Don't walk to the bus stop. I'll give you a ride. I just wanna know why Dennis is being such an a-hole." Pat and Dennis were now in a dispute that had seemed to come from nowhere. All I wanted was to make sure I got home, but now Pat was grabbing Dennis by the arm. Was there going to be a fight? I hoped not.
As I was remembering all of this (and the memory was vivid), I thought "Aha! Now I know why this ELP concert was bugging me, because of the argument between Dennis and Pat after the show."
But then, as will happen these days, the memory continued to develop past that point. Something else happened after that argument. And when it happened, Pat said to me, "that's why I was trying to get you to leave, so now you know." And then he said to Dennis, "thanks for being such an a-hole, Dennis! Now you've ruined Adam's night."
Dennis protested that he wasn't the one who ruined the night. The way he saw it, he was trying to help me, by showing me something I didn't know.
And now, in 2024, I was amazed yet again at how memory works, and how I was able to take a single thread - of being "bothered" by the memory of the ELP concert (but not knowing why) - and "pull it out of the water" of my subconscious (like reeling in a big fish) - and astound myself with the results.
Something major happened in the Universal parking garage after the ELP concert ended. And it was preceded by an argument between Pat and Dennis, who seemed to make a point of trying to delay me. Pat wanted us to leave, asap. But then it was too late, and the "major thing" happened.
Wow. To remember that was huge.
But then I remembered something more. Something even bigger and more important. After Dennis left, and the bad situation calmed down, I was asked to go sit in a car so that the incident could be explained to me. I didn't want to sit in this car, but Pat persuaded me. He said "Ah, c'mon Adam. Go talk to her. She's waiting for you in her car. She just wants to talk to you for five minutes." I agreed to do it, and was very glad I did, because she explained the entire situation to me and I felt much better.
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