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"we're going to have fun," james reassured me. the day before the gig, my go-to keyboard had taken a crap, so i was fretting. after much swearing, i realized i'm just gonna have to start prying the broken keyboards open & seeing what's inside. but for this gig, i had to take a casio james got me over in lake hughes, a great deal, but set up for classical playing. not much bottom end. my amp had been all set up finally, perfectly, for the yamaha that had taken a crap. it finally sounded real cool with the vocals and kick drum set-up. oh well. james sed it was gonna be fun, & i needed to believe him, so i went to work yesterday, then came home & we loaded up & drove to la habra for the gig & my part went fine except the keyboard just didn't sound full enough. james's band had two subs yesterday, & when jerry lee luithle came in on the first song, big butted woman (not a subtle number), the full bombastity of his thumb-pounding bass on that particular number made me laugh & thrill aloud. it was the perfect fat, humorous, rich, wonderful tone for that silly-cool anthem to dumbness that james wrote! james's friend jll's tone was the most thunderous bass sound i'd heard since manuel (r.i.p.) playing bass 15 yrs ago at a southland vfw... jerry lee was named by his father after the killer & taught robert lucas how to play, james said. jerry lee spoke wistfully of his father, a music lover & honky-tonk pianist, & took videos of me playing. i guess my playing made him think of his pop. and how nice was that. :) it was a long but fun night. the band sounded really loose but tough & full. james, 7 months-plus without mind-altering substances, brimmed with charisma, good cheer, silliness, naughtiness, toughness, benevolence, virility. wobbling with fatigue, trying to get coffee, i watched him from the bar, & there he was: balding, middle-aged, yet there he was, all eyes on him because he just has that: all eyes are drawn to james, bursting with light & life, one of this world's good-will ambassadors... other than this, what i'm thinking about is how tony lopez has the best gear, & his vintage drum kit had some super-cool tones. "tony, play that," me & anthony pointed, & he pounded his super-cool tom-tom, & anthony laughed as i yelled like tarzan swinging from the vines. yes, good-natured anthony was spot-on, & it was great fun yapping with buoyant him, the sweet, shy, boyish man who plays like a lunging predator... so as you can see, all was going well enough, but then on the way home james's tank, the purple parade float, broke down & we ended up having a brain-deadingly-long evening. as we waited & waited to get home, i kept flashing on how many ppl i've read about who, something like that happens & it's all over for them. the car breaks down, they can't get to work, they lose their job, they can't pick up their kid, cps swoops in, they lose their place to live, the dominos fall disastrously, maybe even fatally. for us, he has triple-a & i have a middle-class union job: it all worked out in the end. so there was a lot to be grateful about... we met a kind tow truck driver who took us to a nearby denny's so we didn't have to stand outside, then after some waiting (no one wanted to drive from the city to the rural mountains), a gig-driver with spotless hybrid decked out with twinkling lazer lights, european chocolates, & bottled water scooped us home. in armenian tones, he burred that he couldn't sleep & got the call & realized he wanted to "help these people" (us), so he took the job. his main career, he said, was at a school for autistic children in north hollywood. i conclude that we met some roadside angels because, though salaried to do these tasks, they did them kindly & they did them well... a few hundred bucks down, we arrived home around 5 am to happy dogs, cat slinking around our ankles, tv, comfy bed, home. & that's about it, i think, for now.