Not too long after my last post, I got myself more-or-less together, and headed up the peninsula. The idea was to drop off at Jameco on the way, grab my doo-dads, then make it to Julie's in time to negotiate with Cher.

First of all, there were two accidents on the way, so I didn't get to Jameco until 5:30pm. Their will-call office closes at 5:00pm.

Second of all, when I reached the bar, Cher was the only person there, and was busily packing away the alcohol. They're having a little problem with their landlord. "Little" in that he raised their rent by 90%, and they can't afford to pay it. If I understand properly, they're at least temporarily going without a liquor license, so he can't put a lien on it.

I'm not sure how that works, but in any case, they're only going to be at that location through the end of May, and they're going to be running crippled. This was not a good time to work at getting a larger slice of the shrinking pie...

I sent Maria a warning, and set up. I'm not known for running away from unprofitable situations, after all.

And, oddly, it wasn't a bad little night. We didn't make a huge amount of money, but I ended up with enough to make it worthwhile - definitely more than last week (Hell, more than Saturday and Sunday combined...). A birthday party came in and kept the kitchen busy, for one thing. The birthday girl, Sarah, was basically the only one in that group that sang.

But then, I could probably rent a hall and sell tickets to hear her. An amazing voice, that one.

We never had a crowd, but we had a nice little party going. The ever-present jannypanlj, for whose presence I'm always grateful, Maria and her Tim, timenchanter for a bit (there was some surprise that we didn't reach Timmie critical mass), Grace and Joshua (a very fun couple of very good singers), and the return of Rex (it's been a month).

We built up to 3 "busy" rotations (roughly 8 people apiece), and then it settled down to myself, Sarah, Jan, and Rex. Jan and I ended up singing 15 songs, Sarah sang 11, and Rex did 8. He was a very happy camper.

In between, I talked to Maria, who obviously wasn't thrilled with the turn of events. She's going to scout around for other potential venues in the City, which works for me. She's, well, honestly, she's flaky as all get-out, but she's a fun party girl, and forward, which is, in the end, all I need. If she can get something started, I can keep it going.

So we'll see.

Also, George is scouting around for other locations. Given the number of clubs being shut down, this shouldn't be that much of a problem (the Cat Club? They pulled the license of the Cat Club?!??). And while they're not the most astute business people ever, George and Cher are good, loyal people. That's worth a lot.

I shut down around 1:00am, because it was down to Jan and myself. We did a few silly songs, because we could (we need to work on If I Had $1,000,000), and then I started tearing everything down. I was on the road by 2:15am, after promising Cher I'd be back next week - multiple times. She doesn't seem to realize I'm the patron saint of lost causes.

I stopped off at Denny's on the way back, and had a fairly nice salad. April tried not to laugh when I told her that only Denny's could make a grilled chicken/pecan/cranberry salad greasy.

Then home, and sleep in reasonably short order.

I've been up for an hour or so, and need to get moving - I need the Jameco parts for tonight, and have that 3:00pm appointment at the Hyatt. I also need to put some money in the bank, and talk to them. I discovered that they charge $5 a month if the sum total of all accounts is under $100 on the last day. Which is fine, I'll do what I can to keep $100 in there. But they charged 3 different savings accounts simultaneously...

And I've had a call from Purple about tomorrow. There are some songs I'm just going to have to have - some are on the latest shipment, but that shipment left Australia on Monday. Well, Sunday, given the date line. The likelihood of them showing up in tomorrow's mail is low. So it'll be download time.

He also pointed out that Tricerasoft now has the SBI library, at a better price. Tomorrow afternoon will be busy.