On my drive home down I-5 South, I have my radio tuned to Sacramento's Alternative Station, KWOD 106.5, on in an effort to decompress and equalize from the 8 hours of white-noise that saturated my skull from the 50,000 square foot datacenter I was confined to.
What?! Did I hear that right? WTF?!?!
Did they just say Maynard James Keenan from T O O L is gonna be at Whole Foods in Sacramento TOMORROW NIGHT?!?! Whole-y Shit! I recall reading that MJK's new venture is wine making. My immediate thought is I hope it doesn't delay the next
T O O L record. :)
So I get home and call the store to validate if I heard that correct. The dude at the Eastern and El Camino Whole Foods Store I talked to confirmed that Maynard will indeed be at the store, signing bottles of his new line of wine he is launching, Arizona Stronghold Vineyards. He continued to explain how its gonna work. Show up after 08:00am on Thursday and receive a numbered card that reserves your space in line. Said card serves conveniently as an order form for Maynard's wines that ranged from $25 to $110 in price. Woe! You need to purchase a bottle of wine to get it signed by the Maynard. NO OTHER MERCH with be signed! NO CAMERAS! NO CELLPHONES!
So I mull this information over in my skull that has been cleared out of white-noise from some Alice-in-Chains - Jar of Flies and a Vodka Tonic or two. I think, how cool would it be if me and George-O, my 12 year old, go and meet one of my Rock-and-Roll Heroes and share and in a Kickass Father and Son experience?? So I spring it on him at 8:30pm or so Wednesday. He said he would "TOTALLY be into it!" He is budding T O O L fan afterall. I digest this all as I fall asleep last night.
I wake up at 07:00am today (Thursday) and think about it. Is it worth it? I gotta drive to the other side of town (approximately 40 minutes one-way) at 08:00 rush hour traffic to get the ticket to get in line... "I would TOTALLY be into it!". Then drive back, wait in line, deal with the Freak Parade. "I would TOTALLY be into it."
So I talk it over with my better half and she says its cool to take him. "Have a good time."
08:00am, I drop George-O at school and head to Whole Foods to get the ticket... ETA 08:45am.
I arrive 08:50am at Whole Foods expecting to see a line of headbangers around the corner. There is NO ONE there!!! "Coool" I think to myself. I walk up, talk to a dude standing at the front door, he gives me a ticket, because why else would someone looking like me be at Whole Foods at 08:50am, tells me that Maynard will start signing at 4:30pm today and to arrive anytime after 2:30pm. Cool. We are number 177. He adds there is 1000 tickets available and we have a great number.
Psych!!!!
I continue to carry my day forward like any other workday, but today I am awaiting Taylor to arrive home from school. He does. I remind him of our upcoming adventure. He says, "Cool...................... THATS TODAY! Awesome!" We are out of the house by 3:15pm based on the contingency he finishes his homework when we get home.....
"No problem Dad."
On our drive up to Sacramento, I tell T how T O O L was one of your Mom's and mine first dates, we traveled to Reno, NV to check them out there. Also, we caught them at them Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. Both dates supporting T O O L's 1998 release AEnima. I continue to tell him how his little brother was almost named Maximus Maynard Zizak (we opted for Maximus Floyd Zizak, obvious reference, obvious better choice we believe too.)
We arrive at the scene and decide to park across the street just south of Whole Foods. We lived in the area for 10+years and knew that parking lot sucks to begin with on a normal day, let alone without the 1000+ Strong Freak Parade. Good choice. We get to the corner and assess the scene, the line was wrapped around the back corner of the building. "WOE!" Taylor exclaimed. We laugh and headed toward the crowd.
We approached the line of people to ask what number they are so we can settle into our reserved spot at 177. First... 520, second 225... last 170... We settle in next to a couple younger punkers and a couple of annoying drunk chicks with foul-mouths. Sad thing about that was, they weren't even cute or funny. Just annoying.
We stood there in the same spot for about one hour and a half, people watching (my personal favorite), chit-chatting with the folks around us and with eachother. We enjoyed talking about if each of these people in line bought 1 bottle of $25 wine, that would make a nice little $25,000 payday. Thing is, the $100 bottle was sold out in 30 minutes and most people had purchased multiple bottles. So by OUR estimates, Maynard pulled in a clean $30,000. (Not accounting for Whole Paycheck's cut.....)
Perhaps the biggest laugh we got out of our conversations was our the actual Whole Foods Patrons, most of which were Suburbanite While Collars coming in for a baguette, a bottle of wine, sushi or an overpriced soup or salad for tonight's dinner and had NO CLUE of the Pending Freak Parade of T O O L fans awaiting them. Some looked at us, laughed and got a kick out of it. Some looked Scared Shitless.
I enjoyed the ones that looked Scared Shitless.
Probably the only real bummer of the day was the music selection supplied by 98Rock. We didn't listen to T O O L, didn't listen to A Perfect Circle, and God forbid, Pusifer. But they were spinning new Metallica... UGH! We digress. You would think that the local Rock station could provide some friggin T O O L.?!?
Finally around 5pm or so, we started REALLY moving. Security was tight the whole time. 3 cops (actually rent-a-cops, but they were pretty gnarly looking canvassing the parking lot looking for ruffians), 2 cops inside, 2 personal security dudes and loads of Whole Foods folks directing traffic. Again, no CAMERAS, no CELLPHONES, no MERCH!
We finally get to purchase the bottle of wine Maynard gets to sign for us, I decided on the Arizona Stronghold Mangus - described :
"Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (and possibly a hint of Syrah). Wielding more acidity and tannin than Nachise, deep black current undertones, tobacco and leather."
Tobacco and leather???... Sounds good to me.
I go to pick one up and the lady at the register says, "If the young man (Taylor) is going to meet Maynard, he needs to have a bottle to sign with him." I say, "So its OK to serve Minors here at Whole Foods?" I shake my head, roll my eyes and reluctantly agree to this LAME ASS policy. Like I am going to leave him in the parking after all this or me stay out there and NOT share this experience with him? Yeah Right.... Mrs. Z. may drop a comment or 3 on this LAME ASS policy here later... Stay tuned for that.
We grab our 2 bottles and head out to the line to actually meet Mr. Keenan. Whew... we are almost there, the anticipation is mounting and the people are getting stoked about having the opportunity to actually have a famous rockstar POSSIBLY look at them in the eyes like they were a mangy, little GrubWorm for most likely less than 10 seconds. And we all paid more than 50 dollars for this experience??!
Rock and ROLLL!!!!!!
We finally get to the front of the line and we are standing there next in line, and we STILL couldn't see Maynard due to the wall of Bottled Water barricading him off from the rest of humanity, cellphones and cameras. Only the person who is getting their bottle/s signed can have contact with him. The personal security guard and Rent-a-Cop wave us through
and we hand over our bottles. We look up and its not Maynard! What!>!>?! Its a dude with blonde, Owen Wilson looking hair, that CLEARLY isn't Maynard, but kinda looked like him... I know Maynard has a very twisted sense of humor and he may have a plant sitting in for him.... then the bottle gets handed to a bald dude wearing a thick, black oversized hoodie.
THATS MAYNARD!
He signs the bottle and in a soft and sincere voice says, "Enjoy." He delicately hands the signed bottles over to Taylor and I.
(Next)
"Thank you." He almost whispers.
I am watching this unfold in slow motion I point to him, lock eyes and utter. "Thank you Mr. Keenan. You rock."
He slowly shuts his eyes, bows his head and breathes... "Thank you."
Taylor and I walk around the Wall of Bottled Water and chat with cool dude John we met in line and have been chatting with about T O O L, STP, NIN, FNM, Mike Patton, Music and Life for the past 90 minutes. We chat about the combined 20 second brush-with-Rock and Roll we just had. Kind of anti-climatic, but exciting, exhilarating and awesome none-the-less.
John and I plan to hook up for any upcoming killer NorCal shows and FaceBook in the meantime. The latter is done.
Taylor and I hustle back to the car to head back to the Zizak HeadQuarters...(remember his homework??) He said to me as we merge into 5:45pm rush hour traffic, "Dad that was cool. I had a good time. Do you know what would be cool?"
"What's that?"
"When I turn old enough we share this bottle of wine."
"Count on it."
(As long as it's not Corked by then.)
I live for that day.
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Linkage-
http://kwod.net
http://www.sacbee.com/livinghere/story/1632015.html
http://www.arizonastrongholdvineyards.com/
We Shot Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_James_Keenan
http://www.toolband.com/
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Upcoming Maynard Wine Dates:
February 26 & 27
from 4:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Tamarac
7400 E. Hampden Ave
Denver, CO 80231
303.488.2000
March 1 from 2 PM – 5 PM
Indian School Plaza
2103 Carlisle Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110
505.260.1366
March 23rd – WFM PLANO
2201 Preston Rd.
Plano, TX 75093
March 24th – WFM LAMAR
525 N Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703
March 26th – WFM SUGAR LAND – 15900 Southwest Freeway
Sugar Land, TX 77479
March 27th – ALAMO QUARRY – 255 E. Basse Rd.
San Antonio, TX 78
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