26 February 2003
Southwest Tour 2003, Day 3

I need to get better about carrying a camera around. Dani and I are presently staying with her family in L.A., who are all marvelously insane. Her mother, in particular, is about six years old. There's a manifesto to that effect tacked up on the study room wall: "I, Sandye Linnetz, on the first day of my 50th year, am hereby tendering my official resignation as a Grown-Up." We just got back from a hike on the neighborhood trails, caking full inches of mud on our shoes, picking up earthworms, breaking open sedimentary rocks looking for fossils, talking to horses and goats, and singing Broadway musicals while jumping into piles of leaves.

Needless to say, it's a comfortable place to be. At The Depot last night Dani launched into "Hipshake," which she declared to be her "dancing song," but apparently the rows were too narrow for people to get up (or maybe they just didn't have enough cocktails in 'em yet). So I got up and danced, all by my lonesome, spinning across the floor. Somebody had to do it.

Another thing. Michael Shafer is big-hearted fellow, a bear of a man, and a god of a chef. I usually try not to eat before going on stage, but The Depot's menu was too much to resist. Two words: seared tuna.

Rock Soup in San Francisco was a lovely sendoff show. You all continue to rock my world. Special thanks to Steven, ever-loyal, who raced to catch BART right after his evening class in Berkeley; Michele and Erik for the useful list of things-to-pack; Mary and Peggy at Rock Soup for venturing into unknown territory; Andy and Dave for flying out just to hang with me and see a few shows; and whoever wrote the song request on the back of a business card and passed it, fourth-grade style, to the front of the audience. Unwritten Letter #1, yes ma'am.

Off to an interview with Radioio, then to load in at Genghis Cohen. Wish me luck.

- VT