I have had a very busy 6 days.



Tuesday, July 2, I was at 4th and B for Neil Finn, who was fantastic. A great show; the band was great and he was in a great, happy mood. Easily the best show I've seen him do (I've seen him 5 or 6 times).



Wednesday I came home and worked out. There is a new 24 Fitness Sport Club near me on Mission Blvd, so I don't have to go to Escondido any more. I saw it the other day but didn't go in it. My workout was at the crappy fitness club at El Camino Real and Vista Wy.



Thursday was July 4 and I went to Ed and Jerry's place. We had a good time, but the girls brought WAY too much food. It was obscene how much food they brought, and lot of it was desserts, which neither Jerry, Ed nor I wanted to eat. They brought all this crap and they didn't eat it either. We could see 3 different fireworks shows from the house; Sea World, Coronado and PB.



Friday I went to the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana for a "Songwriter's Roundabout" which is a show Joe does once a month or so to feature song writers. They play a few songs and he interviews them about their work and the creative process. It has the potential to be interesting but most of the guests aren't very articulate. They answer questions with "Yes" or "No" or "I don't know" type answers.



Saturday I was in Long Beach because Neil Finn was at a small record store playing a few songs and signing autographs. Unfortunately I didn't get anything signed because he had to leave before the line was finished. I was two people away from him when he had to leave. I shook his hand as he was leaving, though. I was disappointed.



Sunday I went over to Ed and Jerry's. We had lunch at a Mexican place, went over to a coffee house and then later we had dinner and watched a movie. We ended up talking about a lot of stuff. I now consider Jerry a friend, too, so we were burning (friendly insults) each other almost constantly, too, which was pretty funny.



Tonight I will finish up some chores, such as organizing the office and finishing my laundry and then I'll watch Tour de France at 9 PM.

Neil Finn tonight at 4th and B. Should be a good show. I am still waiting for stauts from my publisher vis=-a-vis the book. Maybe I'll know more next week. I'm getting anxious.

So, I had to suffer through another "party" gig yesterday. My drummer, Vinh, had a block party and the the organizer/neighbor wanted us to play. We were not prepared to play, since whenever we get together to goof on our instruments we are really just solving a puzzle - "How does this song go?"

We don't rehearse with a goal in mind, and in fact I play very little in between times when we do play. As a result I am not really prepared to sing a lot, have lyrics memorized, play the various intricacies the songs may require, you know, things like that. I have improved immenselyin the last year but I am nowhere near being able to just "wing it." But Vinh was nervous or something and didnt play his best and since we are the foundation of the band the band sounded kinda bad. I was embarrassed and decided to cut the set list short.

It was also a debacle in that at one point, while I was inside the house, the cops showed up because someone had complained about rock music (we had been warming up and goofing around a little bit, which actually sounded better than the actual "real" playing). So, Vinh turned the volume down. I went from in one moment having a nice loud, energetic sound to a wimpy one. And it struck me either really lame or pretty ironic that the band, consisting of giuys whose combined income was WELL over $500K a year (more like $750K, since my friend Ed was filling in for one of my regular guitarists) and here we are getting busted by the cops for playing at a party. In a $500K house, owned by the drummer.

Later my actions were misinterpreted by Ed, who told me the only way to get over my performance anxiety was to play in front of people and take my lumps. But, that wasn't the problem; I have no fear of performance; I have faced audiences of upwards of 200 people for presentations in the past. But, I was prepared, which is where the problem comes in for me with thie "let's play live" thing.

Ed wants to put together some sort of acoustic trio (Ed, Mark who is my "lead" guitarist and I) with an eye towards playing Sunday afternoon beach bar rave up type stuff. His concept is we'd all switch around between guitars, bass, and some percussion set and we'd all sing. It's OK with me; I'd like to do that.