My neck is killing me. Last night we played our second corporate show in San Diego. We set up on a stage on the 15th floor in a large ballroom. We were told not to mention who we were playing for. I guess it really doesn’t matter, as long as we play well and they like it. Were they lawyers? Insurance agents, like the last show? Whatever jobs they had during the day… last night they had only one job. Fall in love with me. I mean, fall in love with Blue Sky Riders.

And they did. We played a great show. It was a short one… only one hour. Short shows are harder than long ones for the simple reason that we talk and joke and make fools of ourselves when we do our show, and that usually takes 45 minutes of every hour. Telling forty jokes and playing three songs is NOT the entertainment ratio a buyer craves. When I have to trim jokes to fit songs in… well that’s just a burden I would like to not carry.

Back to my neck. We sound checked in a very brief fashion because our audience was waiting to get in the room, and it kind of takes the mystery away to let them see us in our civilian clothes. Georgia leans towards the farmer overalls look, while Kenny favors a full sailor suit; cap and all. Me, most days I proudly wear my mother’s wedding dress. Long veil… beaded front… striking. We wrapped up soundcheck and went to our dressing room to steam our clothes and reapply glue to our toupees.

Show time! What’s the deal with the neck? I’ll get to it. Calm down. Our show was a terrific combination of old songs (by old I mean from our first CD), new songs (by new I mean we don’t really know them as well as we would like), and hits we have written for other people (or in Kenny’s case… songs recorded by Popstar Kenny Loggins).

Our jokes got laughs. My tragic story of growing up on the lower east side and working twelve hours a day in a spoon factory at the age of five brought tears to more than a few eyes. What else?… Oh yeah… Kenny dropped his pants. The entire room posed for pictures that I am relatively sure I will be photoshopped out of. (Question: how many of you have photoshopped me and Georgia out, so you can frame the picture and claim Kenny as a “close personal friend?”)

Here’s the deal with my neck. With the hurried soundcheck… and the excitement of the show… I was three songs into the set before I turned and looked out the window behind us, and realized that we were directly over left field where the Padres were playing a night game. That was it. The rest of the show I played looking over my shoulder, watching the game. It was like being in a hovering helicopter over the stadium! I am paying for that thrill today by having a sore neck. It serves me right. I should have just quit the band and sat on the back of the stage and called my bookie so I could enjoy the game like a real man. The eternal triangle in my life… Band.. Baseball….uh… see? That’s why my life is so complicated. I only have two-sided triangles!

Advil will take away the pain. But it will be a long time before I forget the thrill of watching the game from the Sky, like God Himself.

That was the thrill of the night. Oh yeah, the show too. That was a thrill as well. Yup. Quite a thrill. Some show.