21 june 2000
summer?

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I went through this entire day without once acknowledging the onset of summer. Time flies when you're old.

And now I'm getting a migraine, which is ok, since I'm about to go to sleep, although I dug out my leftover percocet from its week-long slumber just in case it's a bad one. At least I know what brought it on this time, and it's my own fault. An excess of dairy is one of my biggest triggers, and I devoured a milkshake and a large piece of cheesecake tonight ... serves me right.

Mom and dad emailed me a new picture of my niece (see above), who is growing up way too fast for her poor uncle's comfort, trapped as he is 2454 miles away, unable to follow her growth on a daily, or even monthly basis. The pictures are really nice, though.

Had the following email exchange with Angel over the course of the last two days, and in the wake of the under-attended Luna Park show ... it started with a message I sent to the band email list, thanking everyone for their support and announcing our Roxy gig next month. She wrote me back...

I am presuming that this message came from Chuck!

I think it is wonderful, and thank you for taking it upon yourself to think to do it. I talked to a lady who books the large Farmer's Market in Riverside, and she is very interested in our band. ([IceDog] thinks the thing to do is to play various smaller venues to expand our fan base so we're not recycling the same customers.) I admit Riverside is a bit far, but it might be fun anyway. I used to play that venue with a country-western band and I really enjoyed that place. We're talking around the middle of August, anyway. In the meantime, we might want to rethink that Chinese place you know about from Orange County, as well as that place in Marina del Rey, I guess. [IceDog] aslo thinks it would be a good idea to play a concert in some small venue w/ no drama, just to see the response, cuz we won't know until we try. (That comment came after I asked if he thought we'd do better w/out the drama. I'm not wanting to give up on it personally, but I also want to be smart about this whole thing.)

Anyhow, thank you again about the notice.:)

To which I replied....

Yes, it came from me. :)

About the drama -- it's really strange that you'd bring up losing it now. After the Luna Park gig, I had nothing but _EXTREMELY_ positive comments about the show. The drama was flawless!!!! Perfect!!! The whole show worked great as a show. I know where [IceDog] comes from (concentrating on the music) and it may be a good idea to do some shows without drama, but maybe under a different name (?) -- but, at this point, it would be bad to lose the drama. It's just starting to work, and REALLY well.

The Chinese place in OC, we may blow the roof off of it (in a bad way). Riverside isn't that far, certainly doable. The Blue Cafe in Long Beach may be another good venue. There's a big new club grand opening in Hollywood next week called the Knitting Factory. We should look into it.

Goto this site -- she was at the show. See all the good things she said about the drama.

We're at a point as a band right now where we're ready to move to the next level, especially musically, since the drama just jumped up a notch. For that, we need more songs and more options. I think, from everything you said in this email, we're heading in the right direction.

Which apparently made her feel a little bit better...

Man, did I ever need a letter like that right about now!!!

A zillion thanks, in fact I'll probably print it out!

Sometimes because we're "cutting edge" in the true sense of the phrase, it can be lonely when some people don't understand it. [Selva] said, for example, "I try to invite my friends, but they just don't get it." She however left two more addresses on my answer machine last night for our mailing list, so she's trying, I think.[IceDog] says if we don't pull in people for the Roxy, we won't be able to play there again until we "prove ourselves" in dinky clubs. I'd be happy w/ 75 people...Could you find out stage dimensions for the Blue Cafe in Long Beach? And if they have an existing PA? Thanks 4 the letter!

Of course, I was dining right across the street from the Blue Cafe last night, but I didn't get Angel's email until today, and I never thought to check the place out. The band is certainly under a great deal of pressure for attendance, and it's doubly difficult for us going on at 8pm, when most clubs don't start filling up until after 10. We also got rather spoiled when we pulled over 200 people into the Roxy for our third gig as a band. Everything seems like a disappointment after that.

And Angel so loved what Rachel wrote that she emailed her to tell her. That's so much like Angel. She seemed to be really having a bad time of the whole thing, especially with the band on "vacation" this week and no-one around to really talk to.

Speaking of Rachel, we met tonight in Santa Monica and it turned out to be a really fun evening. I thought it was gonna be just dinner, but we wound up going to see "Shaft" as well. The movie was wildly entertaining in a violent and overstated way. Jeffrey Wright almost stole the movie from Samuel L. Jackson, but Sam was the epitome of cool, with the exception of Richard Roundtree, reprising his role as the original Shaft, the coolest of the cool, sauntering out of a bar with a beautiful young woman on each arm as his nephew looks on. It was a really fun movie.

After the movie, we grabbed a late bite at the Cheesecake Factory. The conversation was terrific, as Rachel is a wonderful person, honest and real, and I almost found myself not wanting to leave, even though the drive back to Malibu was beckoning, as was the prospect of a very full day of work tomorrow, brought on mostly by the fact that I spent most of today goofing off. Our waiter tonight was also entertaining, a cute youngster fresh from Chino, newly arrived in Brentwood to carve his future in the big city. He was so innocently buoyant and cheerful that it was infectious. I hope this city doesn't murder his spirit too quickly ... it's so refreshing to see happiness for the sake of happiness, so rare these days.

Gonna sleep now before the headache gets any worse. I'd rather not be awake for the peak of it, because then I'll be forced to take some aspirin or leftover percocet, and I'd rather avoid any kind of pills tonight, or any night for that matter. Can't seem to form a coherent thought anymore. A shame really ... I feel I have so much to think about right now.

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21 june 1999: : didn't write

21 june 1998: black caesar's cajun cat : If the houses are going to fall onto the road anyway, why carefully dismantle them? I mean, c'mon, this is Hollywood. Let's get some TNT, invite Mel Gibson and Danny Glover down to fire off some one-liners, and bring those two domociles crashing down the hill in a haze of desert dust and pyrotechnics. Then bulldoze the road clear and open it up so I can drive to my friggin job without going 50 miles out of my way. OK?

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