1/6/2004

First jam of 2004 had us back as the core four in Smash Studio A.  There were no guests, no substitutes, just Coffee, Kev, Trister and I sharing the newly renovated Studio A.  The Smash staff was as dickish as ever and we vowed once again that this was to be our last night at that studio.  The place has the nerve to disrespect us by hanging signs all over the place that say in January Special for Studio A, 7 days a week, when you buy 3 hours of time and get one hour free.  It was as plain as day on the signs, no restrictions on the offer, yet they don't give us the discount. That is just "nerve" and terrible customer relations.  At least wait till we are gone to hang the signs if they are meant for everyone but Deadstein.  We were probably their best customer in 2003.  We didn't even get a bottle of whiskey from Smash as their best client, nothing but disrespect from that place and we are too old to be disrespected by the likes of them. So I guess we will be playing there next week.  I hope I'm kidding but I cannot imagine anything else.  Enough with the negatives.

We missed Brotpen and MiniT last night as we were only four little people in a big room.  I did play piano for the last 3 Garband songs though and had a really good time doing so.  As Kevin said, I was  becoming my own worst nightmare.  Short of a bad Desolation Row that lost stamina after 2 verses we did pretty well in our playing and holding the music together.  The sounds were good and so were the groves.  Jack-a-Roe never lost a beat and tough ones like If I Had the World to Give were some how salvaged.  We are beginning to loose our Estimated abilities as that song only worked during the jam.  The Passenger was very good, powerful and fun.  Most stuff was something to write on the Internet about.

Kevin, Coffee-Bro and I met at the Fresco Taco where I tried a steak burrito for the first time and it was too messy to eat but there was nothing bad about it.  A cool thing of the night was that Kathy was seeing a movie in Clifton off of Route 3 last night that ended at 11:15, it started at 7:45 (Lord of the Rings), so we met at Paulie's Pizza, the mafia NJ pizza joint on the way home.  Pretty cool to see her munching at the counter when I arrived.  In addition, I don't have to see the movie now.  Giants hires Tom Coughlin as a new head coach and the Knicks traded for Stephan Marberry and Penny Hardaway so they all have a new look.  All I know is that this losing basketball team costs me an additional $10 to park due to them.  Everywhere in the world they are trying to squeeze another buck out of you.  Why couldn't everyplace be the Fresco Taco?  Life would then be so grande.