Last thing about the cosmos for a little while: I forgot to mention lunar rainbows and meteor showers. I saw a lunar rainbow on New Years Eve at Mt. Hood Skibowl which was a first. It’s a pretty rare phenomenon. A little bit about that: www.astronomy.com/science/i…

I also took stock of potential upcoming events visible in the Portland, Oregon area. This coming Wednesday morning, April 22nd, we could have a pretty cool meteor shower at 5am if it’s clear although rain is in the forecast. That said, weather changes quickly. Although we don’t have any total eclipses coming up soon, we will have another nearly total (still partial) lunar eclipse after sunset on August 27 that I’ll be trying to watch!

Also, as someone that loves watching Goose shows live, I appreciate the high quality production of Coachella being live-streamed in real time on YouTube (known buy the pun “Couchella,” although I wish they “premiered” some of their sets at a later date and took a page of out of the Goose playbook. Still nice to tune in for free on YouTube though, in real time! To my knowledge, other music festivals don’t do that, but given Coachella’s enormous size and international recognition, it makes sense.

It’s not my number one festival I’d like to go to, but I’d put it my top five. Current festivals I’ve never been to that are top of my bucket list include Viva El Ganso in (Cancun, Mexico), Shambhala (Salmo, B.C., Canada), and Electric Forest (Rothbury, Michigan). Coachella would probably rank 4th, maybe 5th if I included EDC or Bonnaroo in the top 5.

I watched all of Sabrina Carpenter’s first weekend set, and Foster the People last night, both of which exceeded my expectations. I also watched part of DJ Snake, RL Grime, and Flossadramus play on stage together. These are 3 EDM DJ legends from the 2010s (my wife knew pretty well), doing actual skilled DJing and mixing live. True craftsmen indeed.

While I didn’t watch in real time, I also later saw excerpts of Justin Bieber’s performance. His fans going apeshit was impressive and entertaining to watch! It easily exceeded that of Rush in Rio’s famous Brazil show in way back in 2002, and was honestly more comparable to Beatles fans screaming in 1960s. I know it’s a big statement, but it’s also clearly evident by the screaming supposedly getting so loud, it interrupted the WiFi broadcast. Damn… who would have thought?

Also, as I’ve been guitar-focused, I’ve felt more or less indifferent to most pop superstars, as notably contrasted with the animosity and trolling put forth by some haters. It blows my mind how much of it is out there. Justin Bieber’s songs are catchy, sure, and the guy clearly has a nice voice and some talent, but personally, I rarely get lured in without some tasty guitar riffs.

That said, don’t like an artist? Then don’t listen to them! Just because they don’t inspire you doesn’t mean we should disparage their inspiration towards their actual fans. It’d be an oxymoron to say you’re a music connoisseur and also a troll. Despite his talent, Bieber always seemed hostage to the whims of greedy producers. After my wife pointed it out to me, I could tell now that he’s in his 30s, he’s just doing what he wants to do, which is very cool to see. Honestly, fuck the record companies. I always want to see artists do what authentically their art, even if it doesn’t inspire me the way it does to others. That goes for any genre!