Reeling in the years

We met our friends Fay and Kevin at La Especial Norte in Encinitas yesterday for soup. 

It is an old standby.

The chicken soup is still outstanding but the large bowls have shrunk considerably. 

Way of the world I guess. 

You get about twice as much soup here in Fallbrook at Rosas.

Afterwards we drove down the coast towards the Belly Up to see Steely Jazz.

When my wife says no pictures, she means no pictures.

There were two shows, a five o'clock show for the Can't buy a thrill through Royal Scam period and then an eight o' clock set for Gaucho and Aja. Definitely wanted to do the early show, the latter a bit too overproduced and blah for me, can hardly listen to it anymore.

The band is pretty cool. Tom Scott from the L.A. Express, Keith Carlock, Steely Dan's amazing regular drummer, Steely Dan co-founder and guitar player Denny Dias, original vocalist Royce Jones, Freddie Washington on bass, Drew Zingg and the great Grant Geissman (ex Chuck Mangione) on more guitars, Yaron Gershovsky keyboards, a trumpeter and three more vocalists.

The vocals started out a bit rough but about three songs in it started to groove. One of the female vocalists was a powerhouse. What a neat show! I saw Steely Dan with Fagan last year and this sounded way better to me. Course the hall was way more intimate than the forum and the sound was much better too.

Carlock is a monster, reminds me of Frosty. Geissman played the flying V like a demon, great player. Good song selection, would have liked to hear more from Royal Scam and Pretzel Logic but you can't always get what you want.

We had reserved seats upstairs. Bought Thrifty ice cream on the way home. Leslie was wearing ti by the time we hit our driveway, like a little kid. 

So cute.

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Not much else, been getting a lot of cool new inventory, have workers up patching the roof, just in case. 

Went to the art opening at the library on Saturday, a little uncomfortable for me because I wasn't entirely happy with my piece.

Oh well, such is life.

Next time.