The Swing Auditorium At My House

Nice night out tonight, so Viv and I are sitting in the front yard of our estate watching the bats fly around when Do shows up with a truck full of surprises. She has an old windshield for Viv. Viv is going to do something artsy with it. And she has two sizeable pieces of the Swing Auditorium for me!

The Swing Auditorium was a barn of a place on the Orange Show grounds in beautiful San Bernardino. Elvis played there a few times, the Rolling Stones played their first American gig there. I was once tear gasssed there after a Hendrix concert. I also saw the Doors, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, Ball n' Jack , Soft Machine, Thee Caretakers and others. A band I was in once opened for Eric Burdon at the Swing. Brother A Bomb and I saw many a Roller Derby match there as well.

About 10 years ago, the guy who owned Don Jose's bad mexican restaurants crashed his little airplane into the roof of the poor Swing, killing himself and the Swing. The wreckage ended up in Do's back forty and has sat there for years. Do and her hub were married on a hunk of the wooden stage.

And tonight, I am in refrigerator heaven because what's left of the Swing is in my front yard. Maybe I will make a miniature Swing out of the pieces and get little bobble heads of the rock stars I saw there and recreate the concerts with the bobble heads. The big finish would be all the bobble head rock stars on stage at once jamming in an All Star Bobblehead Jam Session. It could be telecast on Pay Per View!

I am blessed.

I Am Curious, George

A few nights ago, the attendants at the assisted living place Mother Canary lives in ran into her apartment all in a twitter. Seems that resident Ursula, who has M.S. and is prone to fall, was missing. The attendees were afraid she had fallen and couldn't get up. But where?

Mother Canary says "I haven't seen her. But she eats at the same table that George (another resident) eats at. Go ask him."

So they scurried down the hall to George's pad, unlocked the door and found George and Ursula entangled in an undercover lip lock!

Between them, these two must be nearly 200 years old!

Lemme hear ya say "Yeah!!"

Round Midnight

There's nothing like driving slow down Washington St., down the hill toward home, around midnight with the windows all down and the warm summer night blowing all through the truck. I turn on the radio. They play these old lonesome country songs, many sung by folks long dead and long forgotten. Sad, sad songs of heartbreak and loss, of drunkeness and betrayal, of things gone just plain bad. I sing along, out loud. Sometimes melody, sometimes the tenor, many times bass. Mostly good and sometimes bad.

Straight, due north are the lights of three different counties twinkling all the way to the foot of old Baldy. To the northeast, the lights of San Bernardino and the mountain homes of Rim of the World and Big Bear. And eastward, out through the Badlands between Mt. San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, the desert lights sparkle like the promise of redemption.

Millions of lights, millions of people living out their lives on these valley floors. And the sweet, mournful tune of one hard luck song hanging in the warm night air like a lucky prayer.