Orange Cat, Yellow Dog

When the black dog is here, Sonnyboy follows him around outside, peeing where he’s peed, sometimes attempting to get beneath him to prevent him from peeing on anything but Sonnyboy. It’s weird, but who can understand the ways of dogs? It’s also nice because, when you call the black dog, who knows his name and comes when he’s called, the yellow dog follows.

He’s not bright and he kind of prefers someone else to be in charge. No shame in that, Sonnyboy.

Yesterday, he tried to follow the cat around the yard in the same manner. Which shows the limits to the “I’ll let you pee on me, if you just tell me what to do,” approach to life. Because cat pee stinks. I owe the cat one for failing to deliver.

Kevin Gordon

We went to see Kevin Gordon last night. He was, of course, incredible. The drumset was gorgeous. I’m convinced you can tell the difference between the plastic heads and the skin heads. You. Not me. Not just me. Anyone. You can hear something in the skin heads you can’t hear in the plastic. A kind of thickness to the strike.

We were sitting close enough that the bass drum resonated in our rib cages, our chests echoing their native lub-dub, lub-dub and that thump, thump, thump overlapping.

The drummer held his hands the old fashioned way. The jazz way. The way my dad did. That’s called “the right way,” but I wouldn’t say so in public.