"I am the original Lounge-Lizard Drummer."

So said my friend and co-worker Ed Grell when The Madame and I went to see him and his band The Sunspots play down at The Plaza last night. Man, nothing beats having Santana's "Smooth" dedicated to you and your wife by your lizardy friend in a real-deal Las Vegas lounge. There's not much to say about the show that Madame Flamingo hasn't already said, but I will say that, after only six weeks or so, I'm more dialed in to the local music scene here than I was after twenty-one years in Minnesota. For example, after he heard me blowing some old memorized Parker riffs to test out some of the new saxophones that came into the shop, Ed cordially invited me to bring my sax and sit in any time I was free. For those of you playing the home game, that means that I now have a standing invitation to come by and jam live onstage at places like The Plaza, The Golden Nugget, Mandalay Bay, and Caesar's (just to name a few). Every single one of those places is much cooler than anywhere I ever played back in Minnesota, and the possibility for exposure is massive; this is why, as we speak, I am having cards made so that I might disseminate the Gospel of Buckwalter to anybody showing an interest.

In other local news, word on the street is that Westward Ho going to be the next old-school casino to bite the dust; you can read all about it here. Sadly for Marathon Man, he'll miss the Ho's last day of business by almost a month, but we simply must make room for more condos. The article makes it sound like the deal is very hush-hush, but it's pretty much an open secret around here. Rich, the Lithium-popping cokehead whoremonger and erstwhile manager of our teensie guitar department has actually already put some money down on one of the new condos in the as-yet-to-be-named development, so the whole thing is moving forward. Looks like we'll have to find another casino with gambler-friendly Let It Ride tables.

And yes, I said that Rich is a whoremonger. He told me all about his most recent encounter just a few days ago, but that's another story altogether. Let's just say that he was much later for work than he had intended, mostly owing to the fact that the massage parlor... uh, I mean motel... over in Pahrump is a little bit farther away than he thought. It's Vegas, baby. That's how we roll.