Back to you, Allyson. Hee!

He really and truly called to ask if I could find a good home for Finn, Marti's dog (yes, how Riley got his last name). I think it all worked itself out, in the end.

Expecting a call any day now to find a home for Petrie's fish, if he has any.

Only if they're piranhua, right? Home-finder to the stars' pets, that should be your job sub-title.

Heh. Allyson, I was out and just got home, but would love to beta if beta is still desired.

edit: muHAHAHA! Backsent, with a bit of happy commentary.

Here's something I haven't posted before: a song lyric. Here's the backstory.

Just about twenty-eight years ago, after a gig in Oakland, I was walking past a side street of the theatre and spotted a pair of men's boots dangling out of the back seat of a limo. I stopped and complimented the gent in question (we'll call him, er, Boss) on a kickass good show. He complimented me right back, on my custom pajamas (red baby bunting with black bunny rabbits, custom-made for me, with a plunging veenecked top and wide legs, worn with 5" knock-me-down-and-do-me bondage shoes), and offered me a ride back into SF. I thanked him cheerfully, said no, I had a return bus ticket, and headed off into the night.

About a block away, I stopped in my tracks and stood there, asking myself if I had really just said no to, er, a guy called Boss. Because what had been going on in my tiny little mind? OK, I was a wreck over the big breakup with my best-beloved, but was I brain-damaged, or something? I managed to convince myself, after drawing stares from several of the locals because I was arguing with myself out loud, that all he'd really meant was a lift back to SF.

Whatever. Deb, she has a streak of chastity in her that has occasionally cost her. Or maybe it's plain prudery.

Anyway, the song - which has been performed by our former band (me, Nic, Jeff on lead guitar and drummer Mark) and is on tape, is a wistful little fantasy about what might have happened had I accepted the lift. It's a funky upbeat blues, vamping in A7, for the musicians out there:

Deep Red Joy

Six o'clock on a Sunday morning, the mission man was getting hungry
I said, I know an all-night Chinese joint, you drown your troubles in bok choy
Looked me up and down and grinned, said honey, it aint that kind of need
freshen up your lipstick
let me taste a little bit and
share some of your, share some of your
deep red joy.

Met the mission man in Berkeley, feet up in the hired limo
took one look through the window and I knew that I just had to have the boy
he beckoned 'cross the sleeping guitars, rolled down the window, said, climb on in
you know I like your red pajamas, would you care to
share some of my, share some of my
deep red joy
into the car, into the city
sitting duck, I'm sitting on my luck you know I'm sitting pretty
he passed me the bottle, I hold it by the neck, gone, aint it a pity
we're gonna drink just a little bit....

Sometime between night and morning, he parked his boots and folded his jacket
we got clean and we got dirty and the sky turned as red as a blushing boy
hand to hand and hand to mouth, eye to eye and belly to belly
he left me a note and a number to call and the
rest of the bottle of that old bottle of
deep red joy.

(must dig out the tape, since I'm thinking of playing it with Matt and Nic)

Now I really want to hear the melody.

When we do it, I'll tape it.

Nic plays a thundery cool bassline under my rhythm guitar, and I'm betting Matt - a fingerpicker, not a rhythm guitarist - is going to do some very cool stuff with it.

Was this the first song lyric anyone's posted in here? Should I do more? We had a working band for a few years, and I wrote the songs.

I'd love it. It's poetry, after all.

True.

This one's self-explanatory. We have a killer version of it on tape, but alas, I basically melt down at the end. Not easy for me to sing without melting down. It's in D-modal tuning. It was written in 1977 or thereabouts.

Ghosts

At the edge of a couple of vodka and limes
I am spinning out reasons and offering rhymes
and the alleys that run from the stage to the door
are built for the dead man and lit for the poor

And brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes, where the hell did you go
where the hell have you gone
why in hell don't I know?
And I would like the answer to a question or two
How in hell can I possibly go on without you?

In the back room, the boys crack a bottle and sing
and the radio's going while the telephone rings - it keeps on ringing
and it isn't my problem and it isn't my cue
but the whole conversation is centred on you

Such as: brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes, that mad little man
with the smile that bewitched and the lopsided hands
and they don't like to ask me but they do want to know
where the hell has he gone? Where in hell did he go?

And the gallery's haunted, appeasing your shade
and the rafters still shaking from the notes that got played
we both tried to repair it, we both tried to please
but the dust is still falling on the black and white keys

and brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes I still can't believe
that I'd pick up and go, that you'd pack up and leave
with the distance between us, as you leave me behind
I am fractured and broken, in the darkness, and blind.

And the ghost in my room is the ghost in my eyes
and they say that a rose without water eventually dies (eventually, supposedly)
And the renaissance woman, the study in blue
is the woman whose dreams were all locked up in you

and brown-eyes, I'd give everything that I own
just to taste your tequila slip soft through the phone
But alone with my anger, I'll tie one more on
and pretend I'm alive
when I know that you're gone.

Oh my. That's heartbreaking. And intense. And beautiful.