show was really good. it worked. small doesnt necessarily mean intimate but on this night it did. everyone was hanging out before the set watching a really charming burlesque show (which is, by the way, a regular happening at the el cid). perry, his wife and kids, our friends, our crew, my folks, and all the people who waited outside in line all day were mixing in the crowd. there was no 'us and them'. just us hanging. vibe.

i generally judge shows on two levels; one being the public general show level and two being my selfish personal internal experience. they are often unrelated. the set on a macro level was great. everyone was into it. perry was on fire. we even had a crowd surfer. very proud of him. on the personal level, how do i put this, i am looking forward to having more room onstage. i find it difficult to get lost in the physicality of performance when i am constrained spatially; when i cant move around freely. if the analogy is sex (i know, i know, a worn analogy but i think effective still) it is when you are having sex with a beautiful woman; you are feeling it; she is feeling it; but, your pet is on the corner of the bed staring at you. so great. really great. but not all the way lost in it.

perry told a story from the stage about janes playing club lingerie back in the day. i wanted to add something that he didnt mention. it was a 21 and over club. so before we started playing i went to the back door and let in my friends who werent old enough to get in legally. the club caught me and kicked my friends out. i then told the club that i wasnt going to play. so perry took me outside and we walked down sunset blvd and he tried to talk me down. finally he said that if i would play the show, he would do a bar run. i was convinced. as we neared the end of the last song, he left the mic, jumped onto a table, a railing and onto the bar without touching the floor. he then ran down the bar kicking over everything for the entire length of the bar and disappeared backstage. heroic.

so la cita and el cid; two for two.

gag is off. we are playing at the "el cid" in silverlake. you cant buy advance tickets. its $9 at the door. doors open at 10 and we are on around 11. it is not a big place. i know i said a couple of posts ago that we would eventually make room for you all. i still believe that is the case. but i think 'eventually' is the operative word there. there will only be room for a couple of hundred of you all this time. i will post a more precise capacity when i get the number. rehearsals have been sounding really solid. should be a good night.

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." -- Winston Churchill

this quote came to mind this morning as i considered going out to participate in history today. id be voting anyway but today feels different. the fact that i get to vote for a man with, what colin powell perfectly described as, "intellectual curiosity" is a gift. and this of course coming after eight years of being forced to watch a man, who takes pride in his ignorance, preside over the greatest unrelenting catastrofuck of a presidency of my entire lifetime. anabelle and i are off to queue up and cast a vote toward a better nation.