The Night Shift

[WildcatOne]

It's been a busy weekend and it isn't over yet...we're going to Galveston today. My Dad fell and broke his hip Thursday night. They're replacing it Tuesday, he'll be in there for a while and his recovery will take a good amount of time although their new methods of doing this are much more advanced than it used to be. I'll be keeping a watchful eye on him, but he doesn't like me (on the surface) so I'll have to keep a distance...Friday night, we played in Hitchcock, Texas for the Santa Fe VFW post which is in danger of going out of business because they're broke. It was all decorated and packed full of supporters, and they danced like crazy all night long. A "typical" Pee Wee Bowen Band gig, only this time the band had all 9 pieces in place and working. We have a sax, a trombone, 2 trumpets, Pee Wee on vocals, bass, drums, keyboards and guitar. We produce BIG sound. It's pretty darn awesome at times...the horn guys read dots and write up charts and stuff and they harmonize and take solos and stuff, it's turning into an orchestra. The crowd in Santa Fe loved every minute of our show and they will have us back in 3 months to do this again. No problem. Last night was a different deal. We played at a place called Brady's Landing, which is located in a very rough neighborhood in Southeast Houston. It's where the ship channel ends and turns into Buffalo Bayou...industrial plants on the right and high-crime rate on the left, and Brady's Landing is one of the swankiest joints I ever played. It is a 320-foot load-in and load-out, which wouldn't be a problem if I'd have had my dolly with me, but when I was loading out of the house to leave, a driving rainstorm came up and I was getting soaking wet and I didn't have enough time to put the dolly in the '70 Volkswagen Beetle I'd just bought yesterday to take with me...it ran great and made the gig and back as smooth as silk, but I'll get to that in a minute...this party was about as chock-full of earthly delights as anything I've ever seen...huge ballroom full of beautiful people, one wall completely stocked with the finest buffet money can buy, an open bar with 3 full-time bartenders, and a dessert table that would be worthy of a 3-Stooges cake fight...plus, a dance troupe and a DJ with a computerized sound system that played during our breaks...and us...the crowd was a dud. Young kids. The dance floor would fill up when the DJ played hip-hop and dance/techno, but during our sets, we got limited response and only a few folks danced all night...2/3rds of the way through the 4th set, this cute chick comes up to Pee Wee smiling, and we had just started a song...Pee Wee turns around and says "Hold it!" We all stopped on cue. He says "Whatchou want, Baby." This smiling, cute chick takes the mic from Pee Wee and says "I just wanted to ask you if you could please play some good music so I can dance solo, you know what I mean? Tee Hee!" Pee Wee took the mic back and said, to the full house: "I have no idea what you mean, baby. You've had 9 guys up here playing and singing their ASSES off all night long and I've seen you dancing...and you have the nerve to come up here and say THAT to us...unless you want us to play that crap the DJ has been blasting out during the breaks..." (I hung out with the DJ and he is a cool guy. We had to switch out some plugs so I could get my gear turned on and he was cool with it and he had a first-class deal...lights, 10,000 songs in a computer data base, lots of power, a mixer, the whole hi-tech deal...but even though I got out there and danced with the crowd during the breaks, I can't say the "music" they're into is what I'd want to have on my system...) "...so you'll have to wait for us to finish. We have 10 more minutes..." And this other chick that had been dancing all night to every song we did, walks up and yanks the cute little airhead, who was still laughing and smiling and shaking her head as if we missed her whole point off the dance floor and pushes her back to her table...Pee Wee turns around and looks at us, we're looking at him, he says "What the &$"@! song were we doing?" Ron yells "In The Midnight Hour!" We hit it where we stopped and finished up the set. When we were finished, the DJ put on some "good music" and the cute little chick got back out there and shook her bootie like she wanted to do. We can tell when a lady's had a little too much to drink. The moves they do are all the same. Their arms are raised up over their head and they wave their body around like a rubber band. This is supposed to be an evocative tribal ritual or something, but it is a red flag to musicians. Trouble awaits to snap you behind the bait...We smirked and started the lengthy process of loading out our gear through the ballroom, the lobby, the walkway, the parking lot, to our rides. The 9-piece band made $130 each for the gig, not bad. Pee Wee told me we're booked all the way into 2009 now. If everybody keeps it together and stays the course, we're going to end up on top in Houston. The keyboard guy is skipping some gigs that he doesn't want to do because he says it doesn't balance out for him to make the trip for what he's going to get paid. Taking the bitter with the sweet doesn't work for everybody, I guess. I told Pee Wee to bring in a guitar player for those gigs and move me over to keyboards like we did when I first joined. I know all the arrangements now and I can pull it off with no problem. He said he likes what I'm doing on guitar, and he wants to keep me in that slot, not that he didn't like my keyboard work, but we might just do the gigs withouth keyboards, and I was cool with that. We'll make more money but what I did in the past when he skipped gigs was I played twice as much. I can do that, but it'll be Pee Wee's choice of whether to move me over to keys or keep me on the 6-string. It doesn't make any difference to me at all. I'd be just as happy to do either instrument. Other than that, we have solid committments from everybody. The irony of that situation is how the keyboard guy has talked about how some of the horn players irritate him and he says they hurt the band when they do this and they do that...hurt the band? How about skipping gigs. Does that hurt the band? Go figure. The guy is a fantastic keyboard player and we've become good friends, but that "hurt the band" thing sticks in my craw...anyway, I bought the 1970 VW Beetle yesterday. It's a 90% finished restoration, there are a few things it needs, but it runs and looks great...I showed it to Pee Wee and he flipped. He LOVES the old Bugs...it has a newly-rebuilt 1600cc engine that replaced the 1300 that was in it. Like any 37-year-old car, it has its quirks that I'm learning, but it putts on down the road and it is a good-looking car. A guy came up to me and went crazy over it, he has all this info about the Houston VW scene...he was driving a new bug that's tricked out big-time and he cruises these meets and he knows eveybody...I got his number...I told Debby...why spend a fortune on something I don't really want? I can get this and be happy. How many times ya gonna live? She said if it's what makes you happy, get it, then...so I did...she went out and looked at it and she fell in love with it..."Baby! Take me for a RIDE!" So I did...she laughed and giggled and wiggled and had a great time in it. So I did good all the way around. Life is good. On to the next adventure! Cheers, WC1

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Very cool report WC,,,looks like things are all turning out great!!

[draglist]

Great report, Cat. Good luck with your new car. bp

[jim sanders]

hope all is well with your dad John....

[Gator]

The Beetle...Great 'Cat.......

[Novel-T]

The Bodacious Bug driven by a Cat that plays for a Pee Wee down Texas way.

that sounds like the start of a song

[WildcatOne]

Thanks, it is a great Beetle...I was lucky to get it when and how I did...
I just got back from UTMB (University of Texas Medical Branch) in Galveston. My Dad had his hip replaced today and he didn't do too well with it, but he's pulling through and they're watching him close. They had to come up and get me to go down to the recovery room and spend time with him to calm him down...he was kinda freaking out after they brought him in there...I have never seen my Dad like that...and I'm sure I won't ever see him like that again. He was delirious and he didn't know what he was saying, where he was, what had happened, etc...I just calmly kept with him and told him it was OK, he did fine, we're going home here in a few minutes...long day...I told the nurse, if he don't use all that stuff you're giving him, why dontcha just go ahead and give me a few spikes of it. Looks like fun...I've never seen him act like this...she laughed...the cops pulled me over on the way home. I have a rear brake light out on Ludwig I didn't know about. They let me go, but I was like, what the...when his lights came on...Went by to visit my friend Herby, the trombone player in Pee Wee's Band, who has been sick since labor day in San Antone when we played that wedding gig. He was very sick when I showed up. Then his ex-wife showed up...I've known her since we were kids...and she called 911 and had him taken in an ambulance to the hospital. I went down and visited him this evening before my Dad was out of the woods...Dad was in surgery for 4 hours and recovery for 3 hours...they're going to do a bone marrow biopsy on Herb Friday. It doesn't look too good for Herb right now. I told him I'd pray for him. Prayers requested for both him and Ray (my Dad). Dad's all fixed now, but he's going to wake up tomorrow with a hell of a hangover...some rehab time and he'll be good to go. Debby's taking him and Muriel to California to visit his brother when he's up for it. When she told him and Muriel that, they both perked up...great timing by Debby...Thanks for the kind words for him and my new baby (VW). I already did a little work on it, replaced a turn signal light in the back. Taking it to a detail shop later this week. Applying DragList sticker to it coming up this weekend. Life is good. WC1

[jim sanders]

great read WC1..

[Rapid Randy Baker]

You are a good man WC!! Proud of you.