What is Hip?!

So to continue, after dinner we repaired to the House of Blues and got in a strategic position to see A. who plays 2nd trumpet and stands at stage right. It was as always a KILLER show and I was so proud of A., and proud to have brought my man and his niece to see my buddy's band! God, they rocked!!! We danced, I snapped some pic's, it was awesome. And before the encore I told Stefano that if they came out and did "You're Still a Young Man" that I would melt into a puddle right here on the floor and he would have to go borrow a mop in order to soak me up and get me outta there. And they came out and did that song!!! I was dying! And it was so incredible to watch my friend up there playing the actual song, one of my fave songs of all time--a surreal but amazing feeling!

After the show I knew the afterparty would be in the Foundation Room so we tried to find it and after running into Rozzy who pointed the correct way to us, we finally found it. A. joined us and we began ordering drinks and catching up. Stefano's little niece, who is only 20 years old but looks older b/c of the way she wears her hair and dresses, got bought a drink by her waaaayyyy cool uncle!!! This was only my 4th or 5th time to the House of Blues; actually Stefano and I had been there last Tuesday for our DJ friend's Troubador Tuesday event and that is held in the Bronze Peacock room, another room I'd not been in before. FUN! After a few drinks and much camaraderie we dropped A. off at his hotel, dropped off niece at Stefano's 'rents' gorgeous high-rise condo building, and headed home.

Saturday I had to be up too early in order to get to my FINAL Board meeting of the High-spanic Health Coalition. I would be handing over the checkbook and other financial documents--hallelujah! God, it's SO NICE to have one less thing on my plate, yo. One less thing lobbying for my limited energy and attention. Now I am down to serving on only 1 board, the local Women's Health Board. But frankly they are kinda scatterbrained, so so far there is not too much heavy lifting involved.

Since the HHC board (as well as the women's board) are comprised of women naturally they ran over time due to all the incessant, tedious and excessive chit chat so I excused myself ON TIME and got the hell out of there. I ran home to shower, change and get down to NASA as my peeps from the DFW area had driven down and I was to meet them there for T.'s little kid band concert. (T. is a band director for Dallas I.S.D. and this was his kids' little Houston tour.) My peeps that were visiting was T.'s wife Boof, our friend Catyaq, Hand who is visiting all of us from Tokyo, and our friend SW who had been nice enough to drive the 4 of them down in his car. (T. obviously was traveling w/the kids.) These are all friends of mine from college--my best friends from that era, to be sure!

It was so great to see them all and it was fun to be at NASA. I had just been there last May w/S and his daughter, of course. We took lots of pic's and I enjoyed the bands playing. The kids were adorable and T. sat in with them--a ringer! They even played Tower Of Power's "What is Hip" which I had just heard the previous night w/the REAL TOP doing it! After the bands played we futzed around NASA a little bit and then it was time to head back to Houston proper, drop off their luggage at my place (I had insisted they all stay at my house and J. had gotten the place looking real nice and visitor-ready which was great!), then meet Stefano for dinner at a wonderful nearby Tex-Mex restaurant, per Boof's request. Catyaq, me and Stefano were the only ones drinking :-( but me and Catyaq had humongous delicious margaritas so we made up for the others.

After dinner we ran by the liquor store on our way to Stefano's harmonica player Larry's house, as he'd requested that we bring Mudslide fixings. We headed to Larry's so we could catch the big boxing PPV, which MOST of us were excited about! It would also be my 1st time meeting Larry's wife, who of course had heard a lot about me. She had bought this ridiculously large carrot cake that must've been, no joke, about 10 layers high! Ahhhhh... it went well w/my coco rum! They had a couple other friends over for the fight too and during the undercards we all mostly socialized, though Catyaq fell asleep in her chair, heh heh. Great fight though, lasted all 10 rounds and our guy (Pacquaio) won, especially to Boof's great pleasure since she is also Filipino.

We dropped everyone off at my place and I headed to Stefano's for the night. Catyaq and Boof slept in my bed, SW slept in the 2nd bedroom on the futon, and Hand slept on the couch downstairs. Plenty of room for my pals! The next day we all slept in and I wandered over in the late a.m. to get all dolled up for another big day. We all went to eat lunch at a notable legendary BBQ joint and ended our visit together with a visit to Amy's! Stefano and I pointed them towards the northbound freeway and then we went to pick up li'l bro and get to my gig.

The gig was a benefit/40th Birthday party for KPFT, where we just played that radio spot a week ago. It was an absolutely beautiful day out--sunny and warm enough for short sleeves, FINALLY! I checked in, they gave me my performer lanyard and 3 free drink tickets for me and my boys, and we proceeded to explore and commence drinking. There were lots of folks Stefano and I both knew from the music scene and it was a real friendly, laid back, fun scene! Our band was scheduled to go on LAST, which I felt a little weird about. Earlier performers included big time names, like Ray Wiley Hubbard, Guy Forsyth, and Randy Weeks!!! BTW Stefano knew Randy from his 12-years living in L.A. (Stefano's band had opened up for Randy a time or 2 back in the day) and introduced me to him and took a great pic of us together.

By the time we went on it was dark and I was worried everyone would be gone but there was still a small but mighty crowd left. Unfortunately George fucked up MAJORLY on 4 songs and even Leo turned and gave him a dirty look at one point. But the crowd still danced on and I learned a looooonnnng time ago to keep smiling and rocking on like everything is great and 99.9% of the audience will never even notice any fuck-ups. After we finished people came up to me with lots of compliments so it was all good. None of us wanted to stop the party so we all went over to the bar near my brother's place and had more drinks. Mr. Wonderful Stefano and I ended the night at my house although he was pretty drunk and basically passed out on me, hee hee!

So tonight we've got rehearsal and Leo is making me rehearse twice/week until our CD release party in early April. I told him I would do this for him for RIGHT NOW but one of the days must be Friday or Sunday so I don't get burned out! It is really not fun spending my entire day going to Job #1, then Job #2, then driving over to Leo's neighborhood without any kind of break the entire day and then getting home at 10pm. And I am SOOOO susceptible to burnout and I MUST be careful with myself.

This week has been pretty laid-back, and unbelievably I had Monday-Wednesday nights free! I went home on Monday night and relaxed and tidied up and got some DVR-catching-up-on. Tues. night I went for a run--of course on the one cold and rainy evening of the week!!! And last night I agreed to meet DA (who's on Spring Break this week) at a midpoint Hooters so he could finally give me my house key back, we could watch the Rockets game, and he could buy me drinks/dinner. It was actually kinda nice to see him and he apologized again for being so damn mean to me before. He invited me to his house for a BBQ on Saturday but I'm going to be working the rodeo all day at the sheriff's office recruiting booth. He mentioned that we "could get back together" but that won't be happening. I am falling in love w/Stefano and Stefano's already in love w/me and I love being with him. So DA and I ate a bunch of fried crap, I had 3 different drinks, and I said I had to leave at halftime. He gave me a hug in the parking lot and said we should do this again. I dunno. I haven't even heard from DA today so I get the feeling he's up to playing some kind of "cool" game--which I've no time for.