Oh damn, still in this dream.

 ... in Rickmansworth with the Ska/Reggae band at a festival held at the local airfield.

A good time had by all. People bouncing up and down and generally enjoying themselves. Given that the Reggae band is a hybrid of professionals and rank amateurs this counts as a win. Everyone tried hard and the few odd dropped beats (not from the drummer, who is an old pro) didn't detract.

And just like the function band they have decided that I must do a difficult bit of guitar, so rather like the function band making me learn EVH's solo from "Beat it" (which they can't play anymore - every cloud...) the Reggae band has decided to play a Reggae version of Hotel California, much like the Moonrakers' take on it. The problem being, of course, that they change key from B minor to F sharp minor. Which makes the bends in the solo much more difficult, as they are fretted close to the nut, rather than in the middle of the fretboard. Ho-hum. The first-finger bends of the C sharp (2nd fret, 2nd string) are probably the most difficult, despite only being half-tone bends.

Anyway, I played all the right notes in the right order (admittedly with some variation in phrasing) so that was all right. If other folk didn't manage that no-one else noticed as everyone was having a good time.

Onwards and sideways.

Ten minutes after my previous LJ post I was sitting down trying to change a plug on a power supply for my GNX3. I was stripping the cables with a scalpel (stupid boy). Somehow or other I managed to put the scalpel through my left index finger tip. Blood everywhere, and much panic and pain, dammit. This was three hours before soundcheck.
Sticking plaster on I loaded the car and drove to the gig, taking with me that wonderful guitarist's salvation: superglue. When I arrived I removed the plaster and applied a layer of superglue across the wound (please don't try this at home unless you really need to), and completed the soundcheck. I don't normally take painkillers, and I've never taken painkillers with alcohol, but there's a first time for everything. An hour before the first set I took two ibuprofen washed down with a large can of 'wifebeater' as Stella Artois is known in these parts.
The first set was pretty painful, but still manageable.
The wedding audience were hell-bent on enjoying themselves and had been drinking copiously, and many were dancing like madfolk of the nicest kind, which rather took one's mind off things.
Half-an-hour's break and we were into the second set: wound on finger still superglued shut.
The audience were by now considerably drunker and really enjoying themselves. Some of the women were getting...a bit...(looks for euphemism) frolicky. After the set a particularly attractive (but hugely drunk) woman collared me as I got off stage and started talking in a somewhat slurred fashion. Honestly, thought I, why don't the sober ones ever try to engage me in conversation? However after five minutes or so when I still hadn't made a pass or anything (am still a gentleman and drunk women....well, they're off limits) she said to me (and this shows just how drunk she was, because she can't have been focusing properly)
' You're so beautiful (hahaha), I know just the man for you.' [Falls off her chair and hiccups.]
Aaaarrghh!
I tried, gently, to explain the fact that I preferred women, in fact am exclusive of my own gender when it comes to the physical. Finally managed to extract myself from further humiliation and packed up my kit.
Sometimes it just seems that whatever is ironic in life is always destined to be the piano that descends from above at 9.81 metres per second per second acceleration to land squarely on my head, Wily E Coyote style.
Fuckit. I'm not gay yet, but the enemy gender certainly have a talent for making me wish I'd been made slightly differently.
There's always chastity, which I deem to be somewhat better than demeaning myself with such folk.

Gigged last night at the Dorchester Hotel with the function band. Corporation of Ireland's Charity Ball. Sound problems all night, skillfully camouflaged by one and all. Feedback at start of gig because Irish fiddler on previous to us had a radio mic on same frequency as one of our singer's mics. Sorted quickly but noisily. Two songs through the second set my Fender Blues Deluxe (amplifier) blew up, and spluttered into silence with flatulent lack of grace. Thankfully one of the two sound engineers (Nigel) and I managed to reconfigure everything pretty quickly and we got me back up and running direct from FX into PA before the song had finished: but it rather put pressure on a chap. Keyboards said he hadn't heard me sound so good ever - bloody cheek! Nige, however, deserves a pat on the back, and a pint next time he's not driving. Think the company's called ESL. Anyone reading this from England who uses them, buy Nige a drink please, on the basis of what goes around, comes around.
Home by 3.00am.
Sleep by 4(ish).

Up at 9.45 to let nurse in for aged and sick father (84, multiple myoloma). and then to hospital for his bloods at 1pm.
Have been meaning to mail K Milligan & see how teeth are doing and whether he can remember if any of his nurses were pretty, but somehow it has (like so many other things this week) eluded me.
Weird - have gone from being elder son with glamorous girlfriend to being 'youngest daughter' and caring for aged parents, and what's worse, a single one a that. A year's a long time. Time enough for GG to find herself married and living a new life in a new country. Time for the Old Man to be diagnosed with something you'd really not want to happen to your worst enemy, never mind the best man I've ever met. Thinking about it, it's not that weird that I've turned into a carer in this case. But I think parents are probably the limit of one's endurance as well.

Might have to use Blackface Twin until I can find a fix.
The Marshall half-stack stays in the studio until I can afford a roadie again (which would be nice) as am not built to lift it with some of the 'get-ins' the function band has had, and it's a bit of a 'one trick pony'.

Still feeling a bit bad over John Kerry thing, but am bouyed up by the nature of the continuing debate over the nature of the American body politic. I am heartened by the level of debate and thinking going on in the politictoon forum. Some of the folk on there remind me of why I admire (& in general like) the US.

I no longer feel that the Republicans can hold on to either house unless something worse than John Kerry happens. I do feel, however, that once the present administration's tenure comes to an end, the Dems are going to have to proffer some sort of olive branch to them. Perhaps just not go after Bush et al like they deserve. Avoid impeachment or charges - ridicule will do: but that depends on how nasty the skeletons in the closet really are, & I have my suspiscions, alas. And in order to find out, the process has to be started: and once started, I'm not certain it could be stopped - thankfully not my decision. The US has to decide if it wants to wash its dirty linen in public, but in general I wouldn't recommend it unless some advantage can come of it.
Pension the blighters off and sentence them to life on the golf course, and complete political impotence everafter.

Unifying candidates from the Dems sound best of all - but who knows.
Dammit, got to go and cook for the crumblies.