today

...i finished the fw weekly cover story (praise ceiling cat), saw a squirrel playing in one of the flowerpots on our front porch, and almost let augie the kitten out when i neglected to close the door securely after taking the cans down to the street (big love to dre for seeing him and shooing him back inside the house).

walked to the ginger man to get a beer and a sammitch (inspahrd by ray and jon's favorable comments at the last stooge prac) and ran into paul of paul & nicole (regular wreck room habitues back when it was possible to be one). since the bar was closed and i didn't feel like waiting 20 minutes for them to open, i headed over to montgomery street cafe for a chicken fried steak instead. the waitress couldn't believe that i was old enough to remember smilin' jack in the funny pages. walked home and took a nap with midnight on my chest and the who on the dvd player.

my sweetie came home and we headed for big d to see mike watt play a show that was as much wish fulfillment for yr humble chronicler o' events as the nervebreakers at dada, boris at rubber gloves, and powertrane at the blind pig in ann arbor. got there early and spent some time knocking around lower greenville. stopped for drinks at snuffer's next door to the granada, where jay hardesty and i used to go to flirt with one of the waitresses when we got back from colorado in '80.

brian, one of the cats who works at the granada, worked at the cd warehouse where i sold my entahr rekkid collection between 2002-2004, and is on both volumes of the one hundred second dash comp. met up with liles and paul quigg of decadent dub team fame and had some righteous seafood and talk at aw shucks across the street from the granada. also met the cat that owns the webb gallery in waxahachie, which justin robertson has pulled my coat to many times and where my sweetie has been but i haven't. we'll have to make a trip out there some sunday when i have off from work.

watt actually played every song i wanted to hear -- well, nothing from contemplating the engine room, but a handful of songs from double nickels on the dime, "the red and the black," and "funhouse." the toons from the new opera sounded good, too. he looked fit and seemed to be almost exploding out of himself with enthusiasm. his missingmen set up close together enough that the titanic bassist could smack raul morales' cymbals when he took a notion to, and gtrist-singer tom watson nearly collided with the drummer at one point.

watson sings kinda like ed crawford did in fIREHOSE, and plays gtr like a cross between d. boon (the choppy riddim) and nels cline (the _outside_ moves). the versh of "little johnny jewel" they encored with was a little on the rough side, with watt goading raul to go off on the drums when watson played the song's trademark four-note ascending riff, but we wouldn't have dug it as much if it'd been as practiced as middle-slotted band the lions' rawk-moves-by-the-numbers set. those cats could really play, but their catalog of poses seemed kinda contrived next to watt and the missingmen's organic vibe. a nice (late) capper to a great weekend.

(these missingmen vids are from sweden 2006, but you get the idea.)





ADDENDUM: bought a raymond pettibon t-shirt from watt too after the show. hooray!