I Love You Man

      I am not going to start this post the same way I did the my last one.  The title refers to the movie which formed the basis of this road trip. The movie, I Love You Man,  with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel and their relationship (bromance) and love for the rock band RUSH was the motivation for the summer vacation.
     Junior's 16th  birthday is Saturday and I wanted to do something special for him.  We have watched the movie together and we always enjoyed toats magoats, jovin, slappin the bass and rockin out to Rush.  I noticed coming home from work, songs like Limelight or Tom Sawyer playing on his computer from itunes and Zach and his friends asking me have I ever listened to the band Rush.  I must admit having been a fan ever since my brother Tom brought the 2112 eight track(there I just said it, eight track), not cd, not cassette or album. Man does that make me feel old.  Sticking a match book cover in the car's eight track player to keep the music playing was always an easy fix, Frampton Comes Alive and Boston are the two that required the most attention due to over use.
     I have been a music fan for as long as I can remember. I have been going to concerts for longer then I care to admit (do you remember the Commack Arena?) but have never been to a RUSH concert.  Bands like the Graeful Dead (my kids ask if I was a Deadhead and I tell them no I just went to a lot (50) of shows), The Who, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Yes, Bruce Springsteen and the East Street Band (RIP Clarence), CSNY, The Eagles, The Allman Brothers, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Journey, The Clash, The Kinks,  Robert Plant, are just a few of the bands that I have enjoyed over the years.  I must add The Good Rats and Twisted Sister to this list, growing up on Long Island in the 70's was home to two of the greatest bar bands of all time.
     When discussing what he wanted to do for his birthday Zach said he wanted to travel to the west coast.  It didn't take long for me to sit down at the computer visit some websites and find out that RUSH was playing the night before his birthday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.  I asked him if he wanted to see RUSH in Las Vegas for his birthday( he wanted to know if I was having a flashback) and our road trip was born. I also wanted him to decide about where and what else he would like to do in addition to the concert. The results are a 15 day adventure, beginning and ending in Los Angeles, that I will continue to blog about for the next few weeks.  
      Zachary, Happy Birthday, I Love You Man.