I don't know why I'm worrying so much about it, since my glasses will cover it up perfectly tonight, but the band management has been so picky as to what I'm wearing, how I look, yadayada, that I've been getting a little nervous at every physical appearance anomaly that shows up today.

At the band management's instructions, I got my hair cut today and close-shaved my face to the point of pain. Hell, they're paying me a hundred bucks for the gig, I'll do it. I saved the receipt from the haircut too ... who knows? Tonight I wear their clothes, read their lines, but I play _my_ music. That's what counts.

The cable that connects my Hammond B-3 to its Leslie speaker cabinet wigged out at last night's dress rehearsal. Now when I turn the organ on, there's a persistant and loud buzz coming from the speaker, sonically pulsing in and out in rhythm with the rotation of the speaker horns.

I woke up incredibly hungover this morning, and blessed the fact that I only had to reach to my nighttable for the iBook, also sleeping ... within fifteen seconds I was at la.yahoo.com searching for organ stores in Los Angeles.

The only place I found that had the correct cable was at the corner of Vermont and 46th in South Central. Just mere blocks from the flashpoint of the '92 riots.

I dragged myself out of bed, into the shower, and hopped on the 10 towards downtown. I exited Vermont Ave, skirted the USC campus, and passed by the LA Coliseum, wondering if pro football will ever return to LA. The Coliseum looked run-down, vacant, and destroyed. Its crumbling facade was almost reminiscent of its ancient Roman cousin, though it wasn't an earthquake that brought down the LA Coliseum. I really hope they get the place rebuilt someday. There's too much history there to let go to waste.

Further down Vermont, the neighborhood deteriorated, and the racist in me wanted to drive very fast, refusing to make eye contact with anyone within range. I pulled a quick u-turn into a parking spot right in front of Reed's Music Store, popped my trunk, got the old cable out, and walked into the store.

It was a beautiful showroom, an antithesis to the neighborhood, almost a time-warp to the 1950's, filled with pianos and organs of all shapes and sizes. A well-dressed salesman greeted me when he saw the cable in my hands. "Ah yes, the gentleman with the Leslie cable. How are you today, sir. Let me see her. Yes, 6-pin to 6-pin, we just got these in stock last week. You're a lucky man."

"You're tellin' me?"

The cable was eighty dollars, a bargain in this case, and the band is paying for it. I hung out in the store for a while, browsing around like a kid in a candy store, drooling over a Hammond C-3 in near-mint condition "on sale" for twelve grand.

(once, when I was doing computer consulting for Keith Emerson (of Emerson Lake and Palmer), he invited me down to his studio to see his C-3. It was a polite invitation, he didn't mean it, so I never took him up on it. I fixed his powerbook and wound up playing Super Nintendo with his son for a few hours -- weird experience that was, and a long time ago...)

I made it back to Venice ok, and now I'm on my second cup of 'Throat Coat' tea, a 'proprietary blend' of licorice root, wild cherry bark, fennel seed, cinnamon bark, orange peel, slippery elm bark, and althea root. It's supposed to make me sing better tonight. My allergies have been messing with my voice lately, so every little bit helps, I guess...

The band is meeting at the studio to load the U-Haul in about two hours, so I'm just trying to relax and calm my nerves. There's supposed to be a bunch of "industry people" there tonight, whatever that means. I've got a lot of friends coming, which is a good thing, and the roommates will all be there. This past week I figured out that it's easier to get people to a 7:30pm show on a Saturday than a 10pm show on a Saturday. I can't count how many times I heard "No, I already have plans ... oh, wait, it'll be done by 9? Oh, that's perfect, of course I can make it."

A little over four hours til showtime ... I'm gonna nap for a while. I've posted the details of the show so much on this site already so I won't do so again. On the off chance ya might wanna stop by or know someone who might, here's a link to some free passes ... Just print them out.

Seeya on the flipside. Wish us luck.