Got up early this morning, like 7am, had a funny chat with Julian (he wants to study stand-up bass…at age 10, fer crying outloud!) and when I was off the phone I waked down to Ashland & Main and ran into a friend of ours, Stacy (who now lives in my old place on 11th and Ocean Park) and that reminded me that I aint been to the Tavern in ages. So I was like, yeah, I’ll come round later, but I wasn’t sure if I would be.

Hannah and her mum went to church services and I rang up a really good friend, Dennis Kelley. We hadn’t chatted in ages and so we caught up and stuff. Dennis was an old friend of Arthur’s and has been like familia to Baby Lemonade since the early 90’s.

Later on I made veggie tacos for Hannah and her Mum, which were excellent by-the-way! After dinner I made my way down to the Tavern and hung a nit with Rob and Alia. It was karaoke night and everyone either sang flat or sharp and Rob poured me a nice FAT TIRE ale and despite the loud noises and drunk guy with the pony tail that kept bumping into me, it was OK. I even got a pix of Rob posing for the camera.

And before yet another Pat Benatar song was obliterated, before another ‘dude’ told his ‘bro’, “I LOVE YOU MaN!!!!”, before the lady in the polka dot dressed puked on the fella with the Tool tee shirt, before the Stevie Nicks sound-alike warmed up the mic for the next song, before the Yankee fans on my right talked non stop about how NY could win another World Series, before it all went to hell in a hand basket, I strolled outta there and on to Main street a happy man.

The weather was nice, the people (though crazy as a fox) were cool and the city was calm. Not bad for an Easter night.

Blogged from the bar of Rick’s Tavern (during Karaoke night) and on the mean streets (yeah, right!) of Main street, Santa Monica.

Mike Randle