Yeah. It was an earthquake. A little one, I guess, and far from where I'm sitting at the moment, but it was there, nonetheless, shaking up the towns of Taft and Maricopa and... Bakersfield, I guess.

I felt the shake for a millisecond, but it was enough, and I've been shaky all day anyway, owing to last night's dinner at Anthony and Lara's. The problem was not the dinner, but the discovery by Lara that Von's will give you a ten percent discount if you buy six bottles of booze, and the resulting liquor surplus (now diminished).

Kent and Lydia were there, and aside from the minor conflagration caused when Anthony removed the barbecue lid to check on the coals--an enormous fireball that singed all the hair off his right arm--and the rat in the rafters, we all enjoyed grilled wild salmon and fresh mozzarella salad. And the wine. There was a good amount of that, too.

Anthony and Lara have a new apartment, which features a swanky covered patio complete with tiki bar and hula girl lights. It was the perfect place to relax after a long day of plotting revenge against Mr. C, the man who yelled at me ("Sugar in the gas tank, that's what my mother always said," Lara told me).

Somewhere in there, we formalized the idea we'd been kicking around of putting together a band. It's going to be so great. In a way. If you like the Shaggs (which I do). Anthony and Kent own--and can play!--guitars. I own--yet cannot play!--a guitar. Then there's Lara, our bass player in theory. The theory is that she will procure a bass and learn to play. My job is to be the singer, or "front man." Like David Lee Roth. Lots of enthusiastic smiling and high kicks. Kind of like my current job. The Keelhauler requested the job of "punctuationist," which is like a percussionist in that it involves hitting things, but he envisions a scenario in which he periodically hits, say, a gong in order to emphasize selected musical phrases. The jury's still out on the punctuation, but as a back-up, he's going to write some songs. Bob is the drummer. He is an actual drummer, and I'm thinking that we'll probably have to replace him immediately with someone more suited to our style, say a dog or a banana.

The band's task, which I assigned, is for everyone to bring two songs to the next rehearsal, yet unscheduled. It was a great plan, except that I don't know any songs, nor do I write songs. I called Al to tell him about our great new band, and ask him for suggestions. He recommended "Almost Cut My Hair" by CSN&Y, which will not exactly rock the garage, but whatever, it's not like anyone hearing me play it will be able to decipher it anyway.

So, I'm taking requests for songs to learn and sing for my great new band. In order for me to play these songs, they should incorporate no more than four chords each, preferably fewer. But I'm flexible, so shout out, y'all.