RIP Ram Dass

[Drunk Monk]

So for Stacy's birthday, we went to the Rio for a special showing of Becoming Nothing.  It was a benefit for the Hanuman temple he founded in Taos.  It was also a bad call for a birthday celebration.  The show opened with a bell and gong performance.  That went on way too long.  I mean, I love bells and gongs but there's not much range really and after a few minutes, that's exhausted.  They kept playing the same YouTube vid on the screen - The Last Kirtan - which documented some images of Ram Dass over the years, and then his cremation.  Great, I brought Stacy to a funeral for her birthday. Stacy's cloying new yoga friend came - she's a tad off, but lives on our street and fell asleep quickly. One of my old friends came too - she's a former manager of MQ6 (she was at Legbone's celebration of life) - retired now from a career with the water dept, so she paints, makes sand circles, and practices vipassana.  She's alos a neighbor, down on Ocean View.  Anyway, after the bells and several repetitions of the YouTube vid (it's like 20 mins long and repeated like 3-4 times) some Taos reps babbled on about RD and the temple, and that was only slightly amusing.  Finally they showed the doc, which was good because it was basically a montage of RC talks and he was a great speaker.  But Stacy bailed.  Stacy's friend bailed too.  There was a kirtan after but I bailed (my mq6 friend said that was the best part).  Another birthday fail on my part. 

We're doing a do-over of Stacy's birthday next Saturday.