we get up early enough to hit the beach on the adriatic. the venue tonight in ravenna has another venue too smack dab on the sand.

they have lunch waiting there. the weather has turned sunny they say, like the first real day of summer, instead of the rain they’ve had.

(i still have not been able to use my oil slicker.)

if i told how great lunch was, you’d have to kill yourself, so i won’t. outside on the beach in that italian sun in may is a dream, and the stuff they serve up is a wet one. they just can’t help it. pasta done to perfection every where at every turn. i’ll stop now.

then a stroll in the surf for good luck.

the food. the water. the venue boss, chris, married to the most beautiful woman in all of italia, waiting on us for all of lunch. it was exhausting. fell to sleep in a back room so i could wake up from the dream.

then we drove to the venue, bronson. another well done rock venue. my amp loves these places even if i think i’d be better off in theaters any more. so i use the opportunity to make that amp chug some chunks all over the stage. hefty stuff. and there in sound check we nail another 2 new songs; “the undiscovered country” and “she can’t help (she looks that way)”. maybe its some new songs i will also need for gypsies in the next few days to record. i wonder what i am going to do about that when we are trying to record a new gypsy record this week.

then we go eat again. the sky has changed to a threatening storm. it delivers an energy to me always and all my molecules ignite into a happy delirium. the restaurant is just there at the sunset, next to the green green field with the blazing crimson red flowers poking out of it.

they serve up the best pizza again. then the vongole. then another pizza for dolce. then the grappa. wine in between. espresso to get out the door.

its officially exhausting eating here.

when its time to plunkuslamboost, we take the stage fiercely and swift. like a surprise attack. not the usual slow grab of the instruments and  stupid drab checking of the wires and sound of things. no. we dive right in knowing full well the shoot will open. and it does. “erosion” again way too fast, and then blare into “swamp thing” hugely. and on and on it goes, blare after blare. then the quiet jazz segment of the set, as a piano trio. then back into it with soe up on stage and saucing up the songs with her singular style and steamy sultry slinky surge. then back out of that and we battle into “ride the rail” to overtake. then without a moment in between, plunge into “blanklet” .. i mean “thin line man”. it goes on and on like this.

by the time “better man then me” took over the set, i was feeling illin. dinner is a spurned mistress. she doesn’t like not having all  the attention up here in the small future. and my tooth is beginning to howl from the revenge of a rogue vongole shell that cracked something. it all becomes a blur. we press on. at the end, we are soaked.

we missed the rain too. it came during our plundering set and skedaddled before we finished. damn. then back up for the encores, and we do an impressive groove of “increment of love”, but by now i’m letting the ingestion become the psychedelic manifestation it wants to become. so i rant. slow enough for them to translate, but rant just the same. tell them the story of adam  and eve … except tonight its atom and the eve of destruction. whatever. through in a bit of barry white too. and stirred.

when we were done i was really well done. completely over done. had given too much and realize i hsouldn’t be out here playing everynight like i used to do and at this length and volume and speed. from now on, i need to remember to take a day off every other day or so.

but that amp was so f@cking great.

when we get back to the hotel i am liquefied. find my room and shower the night off me. the bed swallows me whole. but rumor has it that its mother’s day today. must be sunday. just in time to skype the moms back home.

good bye. good night. good and gone.