saturday may 7, 2005 – early morning ball, engine room & chez mcgowan

up at 830a for a 915a ball game with a lineup of allen/adam/gm/brent/ryan. carson bailed after a game of chance with adam, who was trying to convince him that bball was in order after 5 hours sleep. met up with brent adair, austin singer/songwriter for 2 on 2 + a sub, constantly interrupted by some scary frisbee dog dude’s (with a voice like the evil dude in silence of the lambs)
dogs who kept bringing their frisbees over in hopes of a toss. brent’s excellent, got a great shot and good moves, but the power duo was adam and ryan – ryan’s like a bull underneath, and adam pretty much can’t miss from anywhere on the court. after the game we all relived the time-honored teenage texas tradition of post-game carbonated beverages in massive plastic tanks from the corner store. back to the house, shower, bagel/fruit, wait for allen who disappeared (possible he forgot we had to go to houston - wait, did i have something to do today?) at some point.
finally on the road to houston, stop in bastrop for more good bbq (cartwright’s) – not quite as good as vitek’s, but solid. drop stuff at chez mcgowan in fabulous houston, texas, arrive at engine room to find a sign for glenn of “the sqeeze” (sic) and no gm on the marquee. classic... more wurly surgery, i’m getting pretty decent at it at this point – pop the hood, put in the new #37 reed, file off enough solder until it’s in tune. this takes FOREVER, but it works. your basic nightmare of an instrument to fix and tune, probably not the best idea to take it on the road, but it does sound great...
sack dinner courtesy mcgowan, our own personal catering for the evening, replete with 1/4 lb. cookie. there was a bank of video games in the back of the engine room, and after soundcheck we found glenn playing the twilight zone pinball machine and working it for all it was worth. houston friends jodi & michelle arrived backstage before the show, then justine a bit later... pleasure to see some friendly faces in the audience. during our set carson thinks he blew a speaker on his amp, haven’t checked to be sure at this point. added alan parsons project’s “eye in the sky” to the set to rave reviews, love playing that song. at some point i was at pico bowl in santa monica, ca & heard this playing, hadn’t thought of it in so long and loved it so much, so we learned it soon thereafter and play it every once in a while. we’re playing a slightly longer set on this tour, about 45 min, so we get to stretch out a little bit so it feels more like a satisfying show. allen wrote the set list with wish this love away on it twice, so we had to improvise toward the end... he’s losin’ it! soon he’ll snap. actually, he may be getting sick, so we’re trying to stay far away... glenn gave us a very public thank you during his set, that was nice, but a very serious fan of his (wasted) kept harassing carson, saying that he (glenn) wouldn’t stop until we paid attention (not sure what that meant, and neither did carson, but she was quite adamant). at some point during the evening i had my go at ms. pacman, high score.