dead monitor blues don't get me down

as i seem to frequently write, last night's show was fun. you couldn't hear a dang thing, i had a dead monitor & weak mike, the sound bounced & reverberated off the dome's wrestling arena walls in a game of "find-the-beat, suckers," but it still was fun. we started playing, BOOM! and all these punk & emo teens came running out, trying to swing dance; they weren't sure what to do, so i yelled, "just jump up & down!!" later these same kids rolled & bounced off each other like puppies when the ramones-tempoed filthies played (heidi said they sound like green day, but i wouldn't know). mento buru's horns were so loud, your ears about bled (except paul perez -- he seemed to have the mike i'd gotten earlier, which was a shame). mento do that old oingo boingo song i remember off radio-- it says "who do you want to be today" -- at such a furiously-fast, slamming punk-ska tempo, with trombone & double sax/percussion, that if you don't move with it, call the morgue cause you're about-dead... the event was a sort of swarming, teeming one: about 20 bands, food out back, stupid jokes as the females ate hot dogs, musicians' tots with pink spikey hair & rocker clothes, black-clad, heavily tatted, heavily-gutted males guzzling suds & guffawing, skinny boys with eyeliner looking tres hollywood, etc. band dog jason observed the proceedings with a small smile, murmuring, "this is like the old days." every band of a certain age was there. yeah, lots of tattoos and mohawks. and us. ha!... anyway, when we played, it was great to see all those kids dancing uncontrollably, moved by the music. i wore some mardi gras rags & gave them to people in the crowd, later to jon-o & vince, who'd come "just to see you guys," they said. jerry drummer was being blasted by the keyboard monitor, so i said, "now, THERE'S a switch for ya!" i apologized to him later, tho it wasn't my fault (soundman jeff langston, brian p's friend, was there & saved us however he could), & told him, "your hearing'll come back, big guy. it always has!" brian p looked to be having fun, & his solos on "rock the joint" were spot-on. jason was, as always, cool as a cucumber... "the real" bruce wayne, local dj who looks like a movie star, gave us info on being on radio & offered me a swig of bourbon (not today, but thank you). in fact, i haven't been offered a drink so much in a long while. it was a good test. at about 7:30, ronna from bakotopia said she thought they'd raised about $2400 for the red cross -- not bad, not bad! nick belardes asked us to do his net radio show & took a pic of me that's either going to drive people away, or toward this band: lotsa leg! it actually was a pretty cool pic; nick is a talented photographer. well, better go now. adios, ciao, sayonara, hej da, see ya, good people!