WEEK TWO OF "FRIENDS OF FRIDAY FORUM"

Hello Friends ... Well it was a sort of uneventful 4th of July for me. I worked the whole weekend. Did get to see some fireworks tho. It's been a year since I was in NYC and was finally able to meet Char and Josee to go and see Pearl Jam. Wow! What a time. And it's also been an interesting week politically too. Kerry/Edwards, interesting choice. But, I don't think that they can really represent the working person of the US. The thing that really pissed me off this week ... Fox News making fun of Kucinich, but it was Fox. Michelle [Bismarck, ND]

Quote Of The Day ... It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

Hello MF's ... I think I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Kim, I live in Michigan, I'm 37 and a Pearl Jam Freak/Computer Geek! I have been online friends with Char for over a year now. I think today I'll write about a year ago today when Char, Josee, Michelle were in NYC for a Pearl Jam concert that I wish I would have went to! I had just came back from a week long trek with Josee, where we'd seen 2 Pearl Jam shows in Detroit and 2 shows in Canada, in which I had a total blast of a lifetime. Josee had like a week in between our shows and her going to NYC to meet with Char. At the time I planned the concerts I figured NYC was out of the question for me, but looking back I realize I should have went anyways. I was still detoxing from my 4 shows so I was thinking of them all this whole day and I was OK with that. But when 7:00-7:30 rolled around all I could think of was them at the show and me not at the show...big sigh...as it turns out it was an awesome show for them and everyone. I have the bootleg from this show, I have a T-shirt not exactly from MSG but a shirt with the dates of these 2 shows so I guess I can be happy with that. But...it would have been so cool to not only go to MSG to see the best band in the land, but to meet Char & Michelle in person and also to see the sights Char took them too as well since I have never been to NYC. So on this day, here's to hoping that the next tour we can all see a show together! See ya next Friday........Kim [Michigan]

I never would have imagined that one day I would take an eleven hour bus ride to New York City by myself to see a Pearl Jam, and to meet a friend who I had never met in person, but that's just what I did one year ago this week. I arrived in NYC right smack in the middle of rush hour (or that could have been normal traffic for all I knew), at that moment all I could think was HOLY SHIT! Please just let me get to Port Authority and please just let Charlene be waiting there for me. I wanted to take the city in but I was unprepared for the amount of traffic, people and noise. We met another of Charlene's friends from out west and it great to be with fellow jammers. I rarely feel comfortable in new surroundings, meeting new people but this just felt right. Michelle and I followed Charlene around NYC like little baby chicks following their mother.

I think at some point in the next morning it hit us that we would be seeing Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden in a matter of hours, two days in a row. The best way to fill our time up was to see the sites. In the two days while waiting for the shows to start I think we made the best of our time. Along the way we met some more cool Pearl Jam friends, cooled off in hotel, stopped to eat, had a nice refreshing walk in Central Park and took in more sites. I was trying hard to detach myself, I didn't want to be at Ground Zero or where Lennon was shot and feel like I was at an attraction there to take pictures, but it's hard to when the only knowledge or memories you have from it are from books and television.

I can't delay talking about the shows themselves any longer. I could talk about each moment of the shows themselves in great detail, but what really remains from these two shows in my mind, one year later, is the entire atmosphere of the music and the energy of the crowd. I felt like a little kid at times thinking of the enormity of what we were all a part of, what a rare and beautiful thing it is to be surrounded by people in a room enjoying the same thing. Each one us had our own little adventure to be right there in that moment. People say to me, good lord, you're doing all this just to see a band? If they don't get it, it can't be explained. Getting to see Pearl Jam live is an awesome experience, but getting there is the best part. Josee [Gatineau, Quebec]