good night at Gusto. great night.

usually is, but we've pretty much dialed in the formula now...start fast, short break (weird thing happens when your set break is too long...building starts leaking juice), speak truth, fun covers, end big.

another successful demonstration...here's to many more.

...but lookit, Friday night's positive outcome was locked in before downbeat, before setup, before we even walked up the stairs into the Gusto Lounge Autonomous Zone that night...as I detailed in this space before, we make our own luck around here..."manufacturing runs," as my little league coach woulda phrased it.

like, just because my work uniform looks a little different than most doesn't mean I'm not on the damn job...weeks before I donned a pair of light-up heart-shaped shutter shades for our postgame photo, it was me waking up early one Saturday morning--well, 11:00, which is early for me--to hop on my horse over to the copy shop to print out gig flyers.

it was walking up and down the Malecón just about every day shaking babies and kissing hands, interacting with the same public I expect to come to our shows because that makes sense doesn't it?

who do ya think spray-painted our logo on the Gusto walls a week early?

thing is, nobody's gonna care as much about what you want done as you...I accept this, and if I'm giving 73/20 percent to this 5-person project that leaves us with a lot of spare capacity to act.

so day after day before a gig, I'm in these streets...I walk and walk and walk, my destinations uncertain, the journey essential to my being...gone through 2 pairs of SpongeBob flip-flops in the past year chasing down the possibilities.

there is something to be said for costuming and all, but EOD the hat could come right off...it's what's under the hat that draws people in, keeps them close or sends them screaming away...either way, you were interested, I SAW YOU LOOK

it's the stories that keep 'em engaged...I earn my stories one step at a time.

...and so as I sit here typing this, mushroom chocolate bar from the Gusto tip bucket slowly melting the rigid world around me, I can literally feel my plan working.

I can drift into the clouds tonight easy (if only for a few hours) with the knowledge that I have done everything I can to make my dreams come a little truer today.

I will space very far out this evening with the certainty I'll be right back on the ground tomorrow to assemble appropriately interested observers this Friday at Monzón.

it will work, I will it to work.

such a good feeling...and there's always enough to share.

all power to The People.

--Flor!