Triggering A Reaction

I've kinda been at war with myself these last few weeks, not really sure how I wanted to talk about the last few weeks. Should I be nice, or should I be myself. I think enough time has passed that now I can be myself. And being myself means being pissed off.

Remember how I was going to buy another Xbox 360 through Craigslist? Well, I kinda wish I hadn't. Because the little shithead sold me a lemon that died after a grand total of two hours' use, and refused to take it back. I advised him that knowingly selling damaged goods is a misdemeanor under Nevada state law (NRS 205.380, to be precise), and the little prick threatened to sue me for slander. Well, the little fuckwad hasn't carried out his threat, so I have a few more cards to play on him. Like checking in with the local police about the possibility of having been sold stolen goods without my knowledge. But in the meantime I have a far worse thing for him - the Fred Phelps Award, to 'Martin L.', for his unmitigated gall (and my naivete) for knowingly selling damaged (and possibly stolen) goods. May the deity of your choice have mercy upon your soul, because your ass is mine, and I have no intention of being merciful.

And now that I was in a foul, angry, depressing mood, I made my way up to Carson City for a week at the Station. And things just didn't get any better. I came in to set-up to find that Mike and Arthur had finally given Cliff his walking papers. And they informed me that, how shall we say........ complaints had been made about Cliff, the kind that can't be ignored. We all agreed that while he was a fine man, he just wasn't doing his job very well, and that he needed to go. He made the same mistakes, over and over again, and never really learned his parts, despite his frequent practicing. In some ways, Cliff had been reminding me a lot of Gordy Lockard, Powerlight's guitarist at the time of my departure, albeit better-dressed and nowhere near as loco en la cabeza.

Cliff's replacement is a 26-year-old Hispanic kid named Miguel (sorry, can't quite remember the last name). He's already made a tremendous impact upon the band in just a few days. First off, he took all of Mike and Arthur's sequences and moved them onto his MacBook - no more fucking Mini-Discs! He's also offered to run the sequences through professional-level mixing software, to clean them up and balance them out. Oh, and he plays live. Damn near every song. Miguel is also a piano teacher, with a great natural ear for music, and was picking up songs practically through osmosis. In three days at the Station, he played more (and better) than Cliff did in four years with the band.

But that Friday night turned out to be a real downer. Already caught in the middle of good friends arguing with one another, Mikey hit me with a doubleshot of bad news - that our next gig on the schedule (the following weekend at CVI) had been 'postponed', and that our next gig at the Station would be two nights only, and following gigs there would remain two-nighters for the foreseeable future. But there was something of a silver lining. Mike and Arthur agreed to my request for a raise of $10 - 20/night, and allowed me the option to skip two-night gigs that were isolated on the schedule (meaning there isn't another gig on the weekend before or after). Which means that I won't be back in Nevada for another month or so. I was also promised that the CVI gig would be rescheduled as soon as it was possible for it to be. I sure hope it's soon.

So here I am now, back in Port Angeles. Despite losing $300 worth of work - not to mention tickets to see Fishbone on the 25th - I wasn't too broken up. As shitty as the run had been, the 'postponement' at CVI meant I could go home a week sooner, and be with Joy. Now I have several weeks off, and the opportunity to see if Ron and John are up to any good. Who knows, maybe I can work out a gig for the local band - it won't be called Dirty Joe any more, that's for damn sure - and make a little money so I can get back to Nevada in May......

I could use a break to the positive right about now.