Last night we played the big Mardi Gras in Galveston at Trumpets on the Strand.
http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/Build ... il/511.php
http://www.mardigrasgalveston.com/festi ... endar.html
I went out on the balcony at sunset and took the 2 pictures below. By the time the parade came through, there were at least twice as many people out there. It was a madhouse, but we played our butts off, had a dancing party crowd and we went over. Pee Wee had words for a guy in the band who's been hot-dogging it, right off the bat, in the middle of the first song he made him turn down...he's been playing twice as loud and he's also been "jazzing up" some of the songs that are supposed to be played by the book. In other words, he's been showing off and making the band suck while he does it...it's Pee Wee's band, ya know. The idea is to back him up and make him sound good...the guy was pissed off and he pulled me aside and said he's going to rig up his own system and fix it so he can play as loud as he wants after Pee Wee tells him to turn down. I didn't say anything, I just walked away from him. Yeah, he can do that, can't he. That'll show him, won't it. Good luck to him in the future! And good luck to me, too. If it's OK with him, I'll just stick with what the boss says to do. I suppose that will work for me, at least. By the time we were able to crawl out of Galveston, the crowd had swelled to what appeared to be close to a hundred thousand. All of them were drunk.
http://www.khou.com/news/slideshows/Pho ... =y&ref=%2F
On the way back, a guy in an import coupe passed us going around 70. When he got 50 feet ahead of us, his right front tire blew out and he kept driving for about a quarter of a mile before he slowed down, throwing a rooster-tail of sparks out of the right front wheel well...then he swerved into the concrete median and threw sparks off of the driver's side, I guess to balance out the show? I thought for a minute I was at an IHRA event or something...he got sideways and came to a stop in the fast lane, turned off his lights and sat there with thousands of cars coming up behind him at full speed...I told Syl, get the you-know-what outta here, man. Just go. Debby was riding in the back seat. I'm used to driving to our gigs and taking Syl, but this night Debby was with me and Ludwig doesn't have 3 seats, just 2 up front, so Syl took us in his car...it was really nice of him to do that for us but sometimes he scares me. He yells at people (who might happen to be drunk and might also be packing) and he drives aggressively and impatiently in traffic, like it's borderline destruction derby. I'm not a perfect driver but I will admit that taking defensive driving changed my life for the better...in '98 I got a ticket for going 95 in a 55...I took that course and it made me realize what a stupid idiot I had been for so long. I drive carefully and I let the other guy be a jerk...Syl doesn't do that, though. He changes into a different person behind the wheel...as some folks do...he pulled some illegal stuff...my mouth opened and words came out. I said man, you're on probation right now for your 2nd DWI. You have a month and a half to go. Why risk having your license revoked since it's red-flagged already and going to jail now? He says, well, it'll be up to the judge. He can decide whether I should go to jail for the remainder of my probation and lose my license, but I'm sober so it wouldn't be a 3rd DWI, and I'd get a fine and get to keep my license after I initially get bailed out and go to court. I said, oh, I didn't think about that. Then yeah, sure, go ahead. It'll all work out great, man. Get it back up to 90. We got home safely. It's Valentine's Day so I'm going to hang out with my wife and be a good husband, but I thought I'd put these pics in. Here's the pictures I took at susnet. I had to lighten them a lot, hence there's a lot of Gamma in them, but that crowd doubled in size within a couple of hours. Cheers, WC1