a happy day in the u.s.a., poker party folds?, rock&roll pizza yumyumyumyumyumyumyum

here are dos flyers for our uno gig friday night... pizza!! this place publishes pix of its pies that are near-naughty... drool... in its sunset months, dang it (i don't know why he won't keep making shows & posting 'em online; he's got the perfect sunken-living room to film in, a little like the old ackermansion, & a large audience aided by youtube), art & his poker party will host us in the afternoon, then we'll take the freeway down over to the pizza gig... it's gonna be a swell time in the southland that night!! ... i hold hope that art's got too much greasepaint under his nails, & he just ain't gonna stop making shows, cause he loves the underdog too much, & how can he let the fatcats squash the little guy once again? his is the longest-running cable access show in smellay. he knows everyone. he's a stone-cold music freak. it's nerdy cool fun. but who knows. everything has its time, gets old, insert ecclesiastes/byrds song here...
mebbe he's ready to give it up. i know i only had my little paper for 3 yrs & giving it up was kinda like giving up a beloved pet, tho i just had to or go nuts from being overly busy. but a bit of me died.
and that's every change, isn't it? c'est la vie... til it isn't!
oh well. best to art. & thanks for having us. :) :) :) :) good lord, this is all gravy. what an amazing, happy day in the u.s.a.... the rest is all gravy... heck, can you believe it?!?

dolly sez... el cid's a really cool joint. and more...

a friend alluded to this quote, & i like it, so here it is: "i think of my make-up as a box of crayons & i look at myself as a blank canvas – i like getting paint on there. it makes me feel better. i'm not a natural beauty. it's not that i'm beautiful w/all that s**t, either – it's just that's what i enjoy & what makes me comfortable." amen.
ronnie mack's barn dance at el cid in smelLAy was great fun. :) i'm still recovering, 2 days later, & i don't even drink!! carilu, western band leader & nurse, had a warm demeanor & powerful, truthful-kinda voice that made art go "whoa." her 1st song, i said, had that bayou swing, & he just looked over & grinned like a kid in a candy store. dear manuel was there w/his friend max & we did the encore together, the one we'd practiced over the cell phone, but not in person! what fun it was to be on stage w/manuel, as well as my "handsome ugly guy" band, as mark calls them (he's wrong. they're character-actor handsome, i think). :) they brought their families & friends & all seemed to have a great time eating, drinking, & hanging out at a really cool venue...
more folks than usual took pix; i've just seen two sets, w/many strange "singing-face" pix of me!! (it's good for my ego to see them, how weird i can look...) :) you can see more pix at www.myspace.com/electricearl, in fact (thk you, earl, & how nice to finally meet you.) the pix here are from dear brian, & the nicknames you read are phil's. :)
i think more folks showed at el cid than sometimes do in bako, among them young cody; blue-eyed smokey miles aka count smokula; art; maureena; russell scott; ray campi; twinkle-toes walter vb; burnin' mike vernon of austin; rabkid david; & more! skip edwards & harry orlove were there in the awesome house band, & more musicians whose mugs but names i don't know. i thanked ronnie mack for having us as we left the stage & he took my hand & said gently, w/a sort of weary lincoln-esque smile, "you are wonderful." :) i heard skip heller dedicated a song to the band, but i missed it while talking side-stage w/all the nice folks who came up afterward. david serby was kind & complimentary, & my regret is we had to get on the road home to work the next morning & missed his set. next time, i hope!... there might be more to say about the eve, but i can't recall right now... so it's off to the drunks for me. :) next we gear up for our show oct. 18 w/dear candye kane in san diego. woo-hoo!
a beautiful weekend to all who read this... be gooooooood, or at least be. :)

the greatest band, right from the u.s.a.: blasters pic-o-rama

-> buon giorno! johnb is always collecting blasters pix for their hugely popular myspace (www.myspace.com/theblasters - i got to start it way back when!), so here are a bunch. send him yours, if you have any! some of these are from our collezione, some from the net, some sent by past-blasters drummer, movie star-handsome surfer jerome. to view pix full size, click on "view all slides," then the one you like, then "view full size." if you next right-click, you can save pic.
-> we dusk devils have a show coming up here in backwardsfield next sat., sept. 27. & two after that in smellay & san diego!! & halloween at narducci's! see the flyers below!! :) :) :) (hope you enjoy the pictures...)

dusk devils at safari sam's

the crappy & the cool: "dark eyes" in lotusland

most trips this yr've been to sf for school, so i've missed LA w/that longing a soul can get for things both seedy-beautiful, haunting-exhilarating, & crappy-wonderful. got to climb the grapevine listening to "maybelline"! then descended home to the live version of "roll 'em pete" on the blasters' over there ep, looking out on kern county farmland, green-flat & smog-hazy, & thinking how rolling down the rd & certain tunes are fused in me - maybe for you, too? my trip was a mix of the crappy & the cool - crappy: the disappointment of NOT seeing my favorite band due to... well, it'd be gossipy speculation, so i won't go there; got a pkng ticket outside roscoe's because i was a dog-tired cheapskate; juke joint night at harvelle's instead had karaoke & funk... cool: sta monica & venice walking (tho the bohemian freedom makes me want to smoke, dang it!); lovely color-popping ocean-breezy flowers & greenery all around; crossing the venice canals & looking left-right down on the little boats; thrift & other wacky shopping; soul food from roscoe's & los burritos; good times & supping w/music friends & family; meeting net friends for the first time, unexpectedly, at 3 balls of fire show in marina del rey (insect surfers' dave, chrome oxide's steve, south bay surfers' david, big tiki dude jeff... & then geno walked in w/jimmy v of thee midnighters - geno who used to manage the blazers!); watching bassist vic gerrard (late of the derailers & many other acts) smile & groove w/his astounding 15-yr old drummer son victor, both cueing in to every move from somber, lumbering frontman mike vernon (whose fingers express what his golem-like countenance doesn't - a seeming contradiction for such dramatic, lush, evocative sounds to come out such a guy!).
to southland friends i didn't see, we'll meet again. :)this kind of solo happy-lonesome blow-off thing i'm blessed to be able to do now & then really fills a person up. i do a lot of stuff alone, but sometimes it seems more fitting, to be able to savor experiences others might not enjoy if they were along.
now on: "el paso," "my babe," "dark eyes," x, freddy fender, the mavericks, sadies, fess, roky, mr owens, los straightjackets, etc etc... if you're still reading, well, may you move gently or goofily thru your day: whichever pleases you most! :)