Viv and I spent most of Saturday night celebrating the solstice at Gravelvoice audio wizard Scott Colburn and his lovely wife Jaye Barr’s new church home, on the deep fringe of Ballard.

I’ve known Scott since we were juvenile delinquent punk rockers back in the southern wilds of Indiana, and had the pleasure of working with Scott for several years at the Frank Doolittle Company, about ten years ago now.

I had a great time, caught up with the doins of all manner of folk, including the man that welded the Broadway’s Jimi Hendrix statue together, Jeff and Brad from Wall of Sound and Confounded Books (who was unaware that his website was down… ), and the always amusing and positively puzzlin’ likes of Rick and Alan of the Sun City Girls.

Their latest hijinks involve the potential tenancy of a former theater near Ballard formerly occupied by a local wildman who once tended bar at the Blue Moon, ran for Mayor, and generally was involved in all manner of crazy public surrealism.

It is good to know that SCG will be picking up that particular mystical torch. I’ve known the ladies since they arrived here in Wetsville and it’s always a pleasure to catch up with them. One fine day, about ten years ago, I journeyed to darkest Tacoma with Alan, Charlie, and my pal Chuck on an expedition which included a pit stop at the pride of Tacoma, Bob’s “World Famous” Java Jive.

The visit culminated in an escape by a monkey from a back room, whereupon the aged proprietress chased him about the appropriately named Jungle Room, wielding a furious broom while scolding him by name to “Get back in there!”

It was without a doubt the finest Pabst Blue Ribbon I have ever tasted.

This afternoon, I amused myself by paying a call on the Asian Art Museum, near my home, and taking in the sights and sounds of the new music quartet Sorelle. They played a piece that included flute transcriptions of whalesong, and damn if it didn’t work.

Later, there was glass-breakage, mirror busting, and violin smashing. Who says long-skirted classical players don’t know how to tear it up?

As I left, I saw the pleasantly ironic sight of a restored B-17 buzzing the Space Needle over the front-and-center view of Noguchi’s Black Hole Sun sculpture, which sits in front of the museum.

All that and a 12,000-word transcription of the Lasky-Stump interview. It’s been a round, firm, fully packed weekend.