DUFF-O-CIDE

"A Duff is a Designated Ugly Fat Friend. They are most commonly spotted within a small group of girls hidden behind a large burrito or super-sized meal. They have a violent temper and must be approached with extreme caution. They get drunk and occasionally hook up with average people. Duffs, beware: This group will no longer tolerate awkward, hung-over mornings waking up next to you...Duff-O-Cide is a union of concerned citizens with a shared goal of spreading awareness about the Duff problem in San Diego, through the use of power chords and guitar distortion." -- Scott Gawlik, lead guitar

WHISKEY TANGO

"Our name is a code that police use to describe white trash. Example: 'We got a 4:20 whiskey tango on the corner of Bixby and Fourth.' Translation: We got some dope-smoking white trash...it also means to do the drunken stumble. When you have a lot to drink and begin to stumble around, you are doing the Whiskey Tango." --Phil Bensimon, bass/vocals.

THE COYOTE PROBLEM

"When we moved into this neighborhood, one of the first things our neighbors told us was, 'We have a coyote problem.' I love listening to the coyotes howl almost every night. It's a beautiful, ancient sound. They're magnificent animals, really, just trying to survive like the rest of us. Coyotes ply the netherworld between the city and the country. They're the ultimate suburbanites. They've been hunting these hills for 100,000 years. We've been here for two hundred. Maybe I should have called our band the Human Problem." -- Peter Bolland, guitar/vocals.

EVE WHITE EVE BLACK

"We chose the name of a Siouxsie and the Banshees song that our singer Amy and I love. It's an aggressive and loud song that captures you with its insane howling by Miss Sioux. The title is also a reference to psychosis and the multiple personalities of a woman who is schizophrenic in The Three Faces of Eve" (the book and film). -- Neva Chiva, bass.

TIGERSHARKS

"There are three types of people in this world: sharks, guppies, and shark bait. Sharks are the doers; they act instinctually and without fear. Guppies are the majority; they lack certain qualities necessary to explore deeper waters and are regularly feasted on by sharks. Shark bait tend to be young and female, and even the mightiest shark must realize that, while tempting, shark bait can actually be quite dangerous. We chose to name ourselves after the most stylish shark in the sea: the homey wearing the stripes." -- Travis Hunter, guitar/vocals.

VIII FRAUD

"Our band name was taken directly from the pages of Dante's Inferno. Our songs are about people in the different levels of Dante's conception of Hell. We're completely secular -- I'm not even sure if any of us really believe in Hell, or gods for that matter, but humans make an interesting study, and humans live to f--k things up. According to Dante, the eighth level of hell is for the fraudulent, the liars, the panderers, and the false flatterers. I think that covers nearly the entire human race." -- Jen Otis, vocals.

THE BUZZKILL ROMANTICS

"In my last band, I started to gain a reputation for anti-enthusiasm, eventually acquiring the nickname Shruggs Buzzkill. But that's pretty bland on its own, eh? Everything I write is about the downside of love, the exultation of passion, and the conflict between reason and emotion. Hence Romantics, [although] more Edgar Allan Poe than Valentine's Day." -- Jason Hee, guitar/vocals.

ZONE 4

"Our first guitar player was an architect, and he noticed most of the buildings he drew up around here need to have a certain rating to be able to stand up to an earthquake. Seismic zones are labeled one through four, with the numbers representing increasing risks and magnitude of damage likely to occur due to earthquakes in those zones. Here in San Diego, buildings have to be rated to withstand a 'zone 4'--type quake." -- Jim Popeney, guitar/vocals.

THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER

"We're a gang of Jews and homosexuals [who] draw our main inspiration from the rioting queers at Stonewall, babies throwing temper tantrums, the Hell's Angels at Altamont, and really ugly, greasy sex noises...we're proud of that p-ss waterfall that got us banned in Baltimore. So we took the [band] name from a book by rock critic Greil Marcus called Lipstick Traces, because we figured he might write about us if we plagiarized him." -- Brandon Welchez, vocals/saxophone.

BORBORYGMUS

"[It means] bowel sounds, the gurgling, rumbling, or growling noise from the abdomen caused by the muscular contractions of peristalsis, the process that moves the contents of the stomach and intestines downward. The group has been rumbling around the San Diego area since 2000. The sounds they make are the perfectly normal gurgles and growls from the belly of the musical underground." -- Marcos Fernandes, percussionist/improvisation.

ABIGAIL'S ATTIC

"Our first bass player grabbed a dictionary, and I did too. We started at A. She came up with Abigail, and I came up with Attic. An 'Abigail' turns out to mean 'a woman's servant' -- weird sh-t. At every show someone yells out, 'Who's Abigail?' and we show them our mascot doll. She always sits on the bass drum. Abigail is a cutie pie who aspires to front her own all-mascot band someday." -- Val Easterbrook, guitar/vocals.

MIDDLE-EARTH ENSEMBLE

"Besides being an obvious rip-off of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the name also describes the style of music we play. Looking at Earth from space, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe all come together in the Mediterranean, literally meaning the 'Middle Earth.' A lot of our music is derived from the Middle East. Also, Led Zeppelin had an influence on us. They had a lot of Middle Eastern elements in their music, as well as many lyrical references to Tolkien...we do instrumental covers of a few Zeppelin tunes." -- Frank Lazzaro, drummer.

BLOODBAT

"It started as a Kinko's error. We originally called ourselves Bloodbath, but the first time we had show flyers printed up, they cut [the flyers] at the wrong size and cut off the H. We went ahead and got a refund from Kinko's, but we kept the name Bloodbat because we're goth, so blood and bats make sense. All our [song and album] titles now play on existing titles...our Christmas album was I Saw Mommy Ripped by Satan's Claws." -- Jose Torres, guitar.

KETCHIKAN

"The three indigenous Pacific Northwest Indian tribes are the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian, who considered northern British Columbia and southeast Alaska their territory. Ketchikan has two meanings in the common native tongue among these tribes. Depending on how it's pronounced, it can either mean 'sound of bird's wings' or 'stinkpit.' We tell girls it means sound of bird's wings, and we tell guys it's stinkpit." -- Jarad Johnston, guitar/vocals.

B-SIDE PLAYERS

"San Diego is an odd place to grow up if you are Chicano...in my personal opinion, Chicano culture in San Diego is considered a novelty. It has been designated simply to a park in National City and similar areas were you can't deny the overwhelming presence of the people who live there. These are the barrios of San Diego. They were designed to keep a culture and a race of people segregated from the rest of America; glass menageries to keep novelties like Mexican culture in. There are other cultures in similar situations here, to be sure, but Mexico is in our blood, so this is who we represent. We are the Brown Side Players, and we are taking the culture out of glass cases and displaying it to the rest of the world." -- Russell Gonzales, saxophone.

RETURN OF MR. BLACKSHIRT

"The name came from a person I used to work with who only wore black shirts. Just a normal T-shirt, not a uniform or anything like that. He wore the same black shirt every day or he had a closet full of black shirts so he could wear a clean one every day. I never had the nerve to ask him, and the legend grew from there. So he left the company for a while, and after a few months he came back to work. Thus, the Return of Mr. Blackshirt." -- Mike Eckhart, guitar/vocals.

A WEEKS WORTH

"A week is the cycle of our life's routine. We work in this cycle, plan in this cycle, count the time that has passed, and even use it to justify our behavior. Some people promise to themselves this week will be different, while others enjoy a steady routine. Seven days can mean as much as the creation of the world or as little as the menial accomplishments many strive for in their work lives. Either way, a week's worth is what you make of it, just like everything." -- Danny Geiger, guitar/vocals.

DAMARU

"The Damaru is a two-sided percussion instrument that is shaken with two balls striking the membranes as part of spiritual practices in Tibet, India, and Nepal. The most powerful Damarus are created from human skulls, as described in Mickey Hart's book Drumming at the Edge of Magic. These drums are known to have mystical powers and can wreak havoc if placed in the wrong hands. In Hindu philosophy the Damaru is the drum held by Shiva through which the universe is created. The Damaru symbolizes the mystery of manifestation and the evolution of the cosmos." -- Frank Lazzaro, drummer.

TALL

"I was watching an episode of VH1's Behind the Music about the Black Crowes, talking about the Robinson brothers' rocky relationship and how at one point it boiled over as they were completing one of their studio albums. The fight came to blows, and one brother took the masters from the studio and threw them in the garbage. The name of that [Black Crowes] album was going to be Tall, which is a euphemism for getting high." -- Stuart T. Smith, vocals

HOLIDAY AND THE ADVENTURE POP COLLECTIVE

"Holiday references both vacationing and the great Billie Holiday. When Louis [Caverly] and I began working on old and new songs and decided to 'get the band back together,' therein lies the collective. When put together, our name combines the specific with concepts, dreams, and great escape. Think 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.' "-- Derric Oliver, guitar/horns.

PRIDEBOWL

"We started in 1994 in Sweden. I'm American and the other four original members were Swedish. After learning a few punk covers and adding a few originals, we were ready to play our first gig in the tiny town we lived in, Varberg, but we needed a name. After some long, weird drive through the country, the word 'Pride' popped in my head. Then I thought about how the Swedish bandmembers loved to bowl, since that town's six-lane alley was probably the only local place one could find people having fun on any given day. So we came up with the name 'Pridebowl' and said it over and over until it didn't make sense anymore. We really wanted a name that wasn't in the dictionary." -- Aaron Goulding, vocals

THE ROSERY

"One morning I went out to a family IHOP breakfast with all my relatives. My grandma pulls out this giant box of sheet music, old hymns, and popular singles you and I have probably never heard of that looked like they survived the Holocaust -- most of them did, dated around the 1940s. One sheet of paper literally started to crumble as I picked it up -- a chorus girl's résumé with a list of songs she knew. 'The Rosery' was one of the numbers listed, and Rose happens to be my mother's and my grandmother's middle name." -- Lucas Coleman, guitar/vocals

INNERLIMIT

"Our name comes from the idea that the percentage of our brain that people use today is a fraction of what it should be. We have a lot more potential than we can even conceive. Television, media, and the government are all key players in the dumbing-down of the human race. Innerlimit dares one to explore the known realms of thinking...to create a better world." -- Drew Bent, vocals/percussion.

SIMEON FLICK

"I was named after an Indian boy that my father treated at a domestic psych ward during the Vietnam War...this eight-year-old boy named Simeon had a rare pituitary dysfunction that matured him too early so he was, in effect, a boy trapped inside a man's body. I could probably say the same about myself. People I meet are often disbelieving at how rock-and-roll my name sounds, to the point where I actually say I didn't have it legally changed or anything. I just had cool quasi-hippie parents." -- Simeon Flick, guitar/vocals.

STOLEN

"Our name came from the foothills behind our neighborhood in El Cajon. Eight years ago the property was sold to build a new housing development and a Wal-Mart. The hills were a part of all of our childhoods...we felt as if they had been stolen from us. We decided to carve 'Stolen Hills' in one of the concrete slabs in remembrance of the hills. When the band formed six years ago, we shortened the name." -- Erik Clabeaux, bass/vocals.

A PARK TRADITION

"Our three founding members, John, Nick, and Scott, all grew up in a town called Newbury Park [California], where absolutely everyone is in a band. You could go to a show somewhere almost seven nights a week and always have a friend or two playing. It might be because there's not a whole lot else to do there. When we moved to San Diego for school and realized not everyone is in a band or is supportive of new music, we thought we'd keep up our town's tradition here." -- Nick Norton, guitar/vocals.

FAT MAN'S MISERY

"One, I've been playing guitar for 35 years, and this is my first blues band. I've primarily been in progressive rock bands. Two, I'm fat. Not just a little overweight, but at my heaviest I was 431 pounds. It makes me very different from most people. The alienation and pain of being generally looked down on by others is something that is part of me, part of my guitar playing. Three, I am a very proud second-generation native of San Diego, and Fat Man's Misery was a place in Torrey Pines that my sister the bass player and I used to go when we were kids." -- Lee Loveless, guitar/vocals

SHOESTRING STRAP

"When our outlaw country/bluegrass band first moved from playing living rooms to having actual gigs, our mandolin player Keith borrowed a strap from our bass player Kent. One day Kent wanted his strap back. You would think a mandolin might have smaller strap pegs than a bass, but not so. It stretched out the [strap] holes so much that Kent's bass would fall off, repeatedly, onstage. Keith still didn't want to buy a strap for some reason so I offered to give him a shoestring as a strap. We also wanted a name that's impossible to say drunk." -- Dave Lowenstein, guitar/banjo

TRAVEL AGENTS

"The name was adopted from a classic Dragnet episode that dealt with psychoactive drugs like LSD, and 'travel agent' was a term for someone who guided you on your trip, so to speak. It could refer to a dealer, or also a spiritual guide, such as a Timothy Leary type. The show was so absurd and comical, with the Dragnet cops asking tripped-out dopers, 'Who's your travel agent, kid?' Since the band does psychedelic music in the style of the Grateful Dead and other bands from that era and genre, we decided it was a good fit. Ironically, I have since become an actual travel agent." -- Frank Lazzaro, drummer.

FUNKY POX

"Three of us in this seven-piece funk, soul, and R&B band are biotech research scientists, including one Ph.D. The name originated from a lyric in the 1973 Tower of Power song 'Soul Vaccination.' We promote our band as having infectious grooves, and not just because the bassist, keyboardist, and guitarist spend our daytime hours researching viruses and enzymes." -- Fred Kokaska, guitar/vocals.

WOODEN BADGER

"All of us in the band are huge Monty Python fans. The name is a reference to a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Bedevere's 'Trojan rabbit' idea fails because they forgot to get into it...Bedevere says, 'Um, look, suppose we built this large wooden badger...' " -- Tenacious Lee, vocals

7TH DAY BUSKERS

"Busking is a European term for performing on city streets, subways, and at outdoor markets for tips. Before I moved to San Diego, I spent two years in Amsterdam and Ireland as a street musician, playing for tips. I stood out a lot in both places, since I was probably one of only two or three banjo players in the whole country.... When I formed the band here, we had no name at first, it was just a rotating roster of musicians who played -- busking -- at the Hillcrest farmer's market. We still play there every other Sunday, the seventh day." -- Shawn Rohlf, banjo

MAKAI

"Makai was formed in May 1988 when seven out of the nine members of Devocean left that band due to financial disagreements. Makai in the Hawaiian language means 'towards the ocean' or 'ocean side of the island.' When someone says the Makai side of the island, they mean near the ocean. Since the makeup of the band at that time was mostly islanders and because we had just left Devocean, we decided on Makai. People who have never heard us play sometimes think we play only island music." -- Benmar Felizardo, vocals

NETZER

"Netzer is Hebrew for 'branch.' While you don't normally associate a branch with hard rock, this word has a special symbolism for us. The biblical prophet Isaiah talks about a branch from Jesse who will rule with righteousness. We believe that this refers to Jesus. Plus, 'Netzer' sounds cool." -- David Kasdan, bass/vocals

TUBBY

"I was asked to put together a band for the Sandbar, so I called a bunch of people I'd always wanted to play with. We met the night of the gig, and I realized we hadn't bothered to come up with a name. The Sandbar had an even smaller stage back then, so I was practically sitting on this big plastic storage tub. Hence, Tubby was born...we still can't agree on a better name." -- Neil MacPherson, keyboards.

THE GRAMS

"We got our name from the notion about how the human body loses a total of 21 grams weight upon death and how this is attributed to the weight of the soul leaving the body. I constantly discuss soul matters in my lyrics, so when we heard that notion we knew we were about to sniff out our new name. We were drinking beer at a gig when it came to us." -- Chuck Schiele, guitar/vocals.

THE SHAMBLES

"Ray Brandes and I were doing an acoustic thing we had dubbed the Fiascoes...Manual Scan was on hiatus around that time, and Ray and I decided to put a band together. One of our first attempts included former M. Scan drummer Brad Wilkins. We were tossing possible names around at a rehearsal, and as a joke we started to riff off of the fiasco theme. Every stupid name got a good laugh, until Brad said 'the Shambles.' We all just stopped and looked at each other. It was us. It was perfect." -- Kevin Donaker-Ring, guitar.

(Repost of two earlier deleted blog entries)

MY BRUNCH WITH YOKO

Yoko's personal secretary called me early on a Friday afternoon.

"Miss Ono and her companion will be arriving in Dalton Georgia around 3pm tomorrow. She regrets that she won't be able to accompany you to your residence, the demands on her time during this trip are overwhelming. She would, however, like to meet with you for brunch. Do you know a suitable establishment where the three of you might be guaranteed a modicum of privacy?" I gave the name of the fanciest restaurant I know within driving distance, so the secretary could call ahead and make reservations for Yoko Ono and her two companions.

How did an obscure underemployed writer-cartoonist end up having a brunch date with Yoko? An old friend of mine, Rickey, a rock memorabilia buyer and appraiser, did some work for a law firm hired by Yoko several years ago, when she was suing a company called the International Collector's Society. He gave expert testimony about the value of items Yoko claimed the firm had sold and owed her money for (more than $160,000 worth) and ended up befriending the diminutive pop culture icon, continuing to advise her about the art resale and collector's market to this day.

It turned out that he was traveling with Yoko to look at potential exhibition sites for the Art Of John Lennon gallery tours, and they'd be passing near where I was staying in rural Georgia. He offered to "drop by" my house with Yoko on their way to the city and I said "why not?" thinking he was surely joking. A week before they were due to arrive in Atlanta, he called to say "It's on, me and Yoko will be there Saturday."

I spent the next week maniacally cleaning and re-arranging my home. I became obsessive over my typically unspeakable bachelor-pad bathroom, experiencing something akin to waking nightmares at the thought of Yoko Ono using my toilet for reasons I still can't (or would rather not) understand or explain. I'm talking bugfk crazy, I was scrubbing chrome-like sparkle onto all the surfaces with Lysol every quarter hour at least, nearly 'round the clock, and even went so far as to price having a new toilet installed the day before Yoko's arrival. My plan was to relieve myself in the woods behind my house (bears do it) until AFTER Yoko's visit, to insure a pristine seat for her mind-bogglingly famous ass cheeks (dude, her house has white walls and carpets! My bathroom USED to be white…)

Luckily, since Yoko's secretary informed that we'd be meeting at a restaurant instead of my house, I could finally use my toilet again without stressing over whether my careless aim could end up being Yoko Ono's predominant memory of meeting the guy who worked on the UNofficial Beatles comic book series.

About that comic, Yoko knew about it and had graciously neglected to sue our Hillcrest-based publishing company, Revolutionary Comics. We'd been targeted in another of her lawsuit roundups because our comic covering the Beatles' lives together and apart was published without her authorization.

Luckily, Rickey intervened and provided Yoko with copies of all eight issues, along with an entreaty to read them before pursuing litigation. I'm told she was impressed with the research and effort that went into the comics, as well as the obvious love and affection shown for its subjects and for her (writer Todd Loren liked Yoko second-best among the fab-five, ranking her in adoration just behind her late husband). Yoko instructed her lawyers not to press against us, that there was nothing libelous, inflammatory or even copyright-infringing in our comics, so I was already feeling pretty indebted to Rickey long before he set up this informal meeting between the three of us.

Our brunch was arranged for 1pm Saturday at the Dalton Depot, an upscale place about 45 minutes down the mountain from where I rented a cabin while on sabbatical from San Diego, working on some writing projects. The restaurant is built in an old train depot which dates back to 1847, with the railroad theme extending as far as little model trains that circle the interior of the restaurant on a scale track lined with miniature trees and zooming thru tiny tunnels. Its historic pedigree and blue chip atmosphere made it seem the perfect place for an informal meeting with one of the world's richest women.

At about 9AM, I got a call from Rickey on his cell phone. "Hey, Jay! We're in the car right now! Wanna say hi to Yoko?"

GULP!

"Herro, Jay! Richard has told me a lot about you! I understand we'll be eating at an authentic Joe-jahhh railroad depot?"

I was vastly unprepared for her humorous/ghastly attempt to fake a southern accent on the word "Georgia" and I have no idea what I said in response. Probably "Er, uh, well, um, errrrr…."

She said something like "Well, we'll see you soon," and put Rickey [Richard?] back on the phone so I could give him directions for their driver. I told him I'd be waiting out front and to look for the guy who appears to be seconds away from actually crapping an actual brick.

I don't even want to dwell on why I then scrubbed my toilet down one more time before leaving for Dalton, despite the fact that Yoko (thank whatever gods watch over lunatics like me) would not be squatting within thirty miles of my hermetically sealed commode.

My watch said exactly one minute before one o'clock when a sleek towncar (not a limo) pulled into the driveway in front of the restaurant. I started walking up to the car to open the back door for them but their driver beat me to it, getting out and stepping around to open it. Rickey got out first, nodded in my direction and then bent over to hold his arm out and help a teeny tiny Asian woman out of the car.

Yoko has fairly short hair, upswept, and she was wearing a pair of tinted glasses that covered approximately half her face. She had on black slacks and a kinda glittery blouse that I think was purply-black, short sleeved.

Not at all flashy or "odd" looking, except maybe the giant glasses tinted so black under the sun that her thin mouth looked like the horizon of a darkening night.

I was struck by how small she was – like a child, really. Rickey, standing next to her (who knows or cares what HE was wearing), isn't exactly a giant, but she still looked like a schoolgirl next to him.

I stepped up, I'm sure looking as nervous as I felt. I was glad I hadn't overdressed – just my nice gray Polo short, dress gray pants, a stone necklace with a white onyx elephant (John and Yoko's first band was Elephant's Memory) and a new pair of black Italian loafers I'd bought just for this occasion.

Rickey shook my hand and introduced Yoko. She reached out to offer her own handshake, saying "Nice to meet you, Mr. Sanford." That's when I first became aware she was wearing membrane-thin clear surgical gloves, almost invisible to the eye. I only noticed because her hand crinkled as I shook it. I must have looked down at her hand with the evident fear that I'd cracked her fragile flesh or something. "Oh, I wear these everywhere. I hope you don't mind."

Why she thought I'd mind, I don't know. Maybe some people get offended and assume Yoko considers us all germ-infested untouchables. Me, if I had the entire world reaching out to shake my hand everywhere I went, I'd probably wear burlap gardening gloves every time I leave the house.

To my surprise, she crooked out her arm as if expecting me to take it. I looked at Rickey, he nodded again and I linked my arm around hers - the next thing I knew, I was squiring Yoko Ono into the Depot.

There was an unusual amount of people in there for lunchtime, nearly a full house. The staff was clearly expecting us. I suspect they spent the night and morning before our arrival notifying everyone they knew that Yoko was coming for brunch, that's how uncharacteristically large the crowd was. We were escorted to a nicely placed table at the rear of the restaurant (boy, I never got to sit at that great table on the other two occasions I'd been there…).

Yoko ordered unsweetened tea, Rich and I ordered sweet tea and we made small talk while looking over the menus. Yoko was asking me about the area, how long I'd lived there, what it's like, were there a lot of restaurants like this. Rickey said my torso-length hair had grown even longer since he'd last seen me (I wore it down that day) and suddenly Yoko was reaching out to stroke my hair! Indoors, her glasses had cleared so I could see her eyes and, even though they were Asian-thin, I could see she was looking at me really intently. Staring, even, as she ran her fingers lightly up and down the length of my hair.

I had a split second thought - "Jeez, is Yoko Ono coming ON to me?!?!" – but then I could tell the little 70-something-year-old lady wasn't thinking at all along those lines. "Why do you wear your hair over your face like this? I'm sure he and everyone else here would rather see what you look like!"

That's when it dawned on me that, to her knowledge, since our mutual friend Rickey was gay, she assumed I must also be gay. I doubt she ever would have stroked the hair of such an epically heterosexual male, especially one she'd just met, in such an intimate studying manner, though I can't say for sure why I feel this way.

I think I "ummed" and "errrred" and "ahemmmed" a bit more but I somehow managed to crack a little joke and said "My ears get cold real easy," and she let out a little hiccupping giggle. Somehow, having made Yoko giggle put me immensely more at ease than I had been up until that particular moment. My back unstiffened, my toes uncurled (I hadn't realized how tightly they were clenched in the grip of my too-tight new shoes) and I managed to sip the iced tea our waitress dropped at the table without choking or spilling anything down the front of my most (and only) expensive shirt.

We talked about the menu. I told her I'd chosen the place because I knew she was vegetarian and they had a great selection of specialty salads. She mentioned a restaurant they'd found the previous day that specialized in gourmet vegetarian food and I sort of regretted not having done more research before recommending the Depot as the ideal place for us to eat.

On reflection, it was probably fine – she ordered a vegetable plate, I ordered pasta primavera, Rickey asked for one of the specialty salads and we were left to nibble on our rolls amidst a mildly awkward silence for a moment before Yoko looked me straight in the eye again with that unnerving look of hers.

"So, you're an Aquarian?"

I should have expected this, having read about her fixation with astrology (and having been asked my astrological orientation when first contacted by her assistant). She said "That explains your creativity. Did you draw the comic books I saw?" This took me by surprise, I didn't think it would come up, Rickey having given her that set of Beatles comics quite a few years previously.

"No, I only edited those. I was still teaching myself to draw then." This seemed to fascinate her, to discover that I learned illustration only AFTER getting into the comic biz, and this became the topic of our discussion until dinner salads arrived a few minutes (seemed like hours) later.

Rickey told her about the comic strip I do for the Reader's music section and she said "Well, you know, nobody ever encouraged John to draw either, not even the other boys in the Beatles, and it wasn't until we started meeting art gallery people that he realized his art actually meant something, that it wasn't just John scribbling again."

I'm not sure why this sentence literally took my breath away. I couldn't breathe for a moment, it felt like my blood entirely stopped circulating.

I'd been instructing myself all week to NOT bring up John, to NOT mention the Beatles. I wanted to congratulate her on her #1 single she had at the time, "Walking On Thin Ice" (the dance remix), to talk about her own music, her own career, thinking this would surely be more rewarding for her than the endless discussions people want to have about her husband, dead twenty three years, and the band she was not only never a part of but that the world had long accused her of ruining.

And here she was, mentioning John and the Beatles in the same sentence, all the while staring into my eyes as if my reaction would be the basis of whether she likes or dislikes me from that moment onward.

I'm not positive exactly what I said when I was finally able to breathe again, but it was something like "If great artists aren't recognized for their art until late in life, then there may be hope for me as an artist after all!"

Yoko's entire body seemed to smile at this, not just the perfect white teeth she fleetingly flashed (dentures? Why was I suddenly picturing Yoko's teeth in a glass of fizzy water and sitting atop a Romanesque white pedastal?!). I think I heard another of those disarmingly girly chuckles, just barely audible, with the slightest shudder of her shoulders as the only proof I can offer that the chuckle really happened.

I was awash with marvel at how surprising my brunch with Yoko was already turning out to be.

Our dishes were served and I finally did get to congratulate her on that #1 single. Neither John nor the Beatles ever came up again, I suspect to everyone's relief.

We talked a bit more about self-taught musicians and artists and I mentioned being close to a young woman in prison who's using her time to followup on her own artistic aspirations, like writing short fiction, poetry and children's books. This brought a raised eyebrow and Yoko said "Is that your sister?"

"No, she's, uh, well, we talked about getting married, but she got in trouble and she's going to be in prison for, well, a long time."

"Why? What did she do?"

"She was involved in a robbery and things went really bad so she ended up in a lot of trouble."

Yoko nodded and didn't seem to want to pry, but she still stared at me with a curious expression (possibly trying to decide if I was gay after all). I took out my wallet to show her the photo I always carry around of the young lady in question, along with her lipstick-print on a piece of paper I keep in the same photo slot.

"She's very beautiful," Yoko said softly. "Tell her I said that, and that her life can always be as beautiful as she is, if she wishes it."

I rambled on for a few minutes about the young lady's accomplishments, how she's keeping her head together and remaining true to herself and her ideals even in the midst of so much sociopathic, aggressive humanity. Yoko listened and nodded, seeming to be genuinely interested.

"We have many friends who end up in jail for wrong reasons," she said (making me wonder who she meant by "we" – surely not her and Rickey, they're only casual acquaintances…does she still refer to "we" as in her and John Lennon, I wonder?). "That doesn't make them any less our friends, and we look at them for who they are, not where they are, and for what they are doing rather than what they've done." I think I'm quoting her fairly closely here, if I'm off it's only by a few words.

Her wisdom and warmth, the words she said and the way she said it, filled my heart with appreciation for the tiny little Asian woman with the giant glasses who was once accused of breaking up the world's biggest rock group. I felt renewed respect for this most singular of artists, one who's always held her head up high in the face of indifference or outright ridicule, who followed her own muse and screeched to a different drummer and maintained extraordinary dignity through and beyond the assassination of the love of her own life, John Lennon.

I can honestly say that, at that moment, I decided I loved Yoko Ono. Loved who and what she was. Yeah, I'll never be able to listen to her caterwauling "Don't Worry Kyoko, It's Only Mummy's Hand Bleeding In The Snow" without blowing chunks, and you couldn't force me to listen to "Baby's Heartbeat" again with a gun to my head, but just because I don't "get" her art, doesn't mean I don't love and respect the artist.

We all passed on dessert and Rickey said they had to head back down to Atlanta. Yoko didn't say another word the whole time we packed up to go, while I paid the check and chatted loosely with Rickey. She just watched us and took it all in, not speaking again until we were all outside and their car was pulling back into the driveway (where had it and the driver been while we ate, I wondered, and how did the driver know precisely when to pull up?). Rickey thanked me for brunch and then the driver was coming around to open the car door for them.

Yoko reached out both her crinkly hands (she'd changed gloves twice that I noticed – once before eating and once after) and took both my hands into hers. "Thank you for the lovely time, I very much enjoyed meeting you," she said, I'm sure giving me that penetrating gaze even if I couldn't see her eyes now that we were outside and her glasses had darkened again. "Perhaps we can do this again sometime."

"Next time," Rickey piped in, "maybe we'll make it up to your mountain cabin."

Unlikely, I know, but I'll start hording a few extra shekels anyways, just in case I suddenly need to buy a new toilet.

AN EXCREMENT JOB – GASLAMP BATHROOMS

I was startled the first time I walked into the men's room at 4th & B and saw a uniformed attendant on duty.

"Okay," one patron was telling him. "I need, like, a comb or a brush. Oh yeah, and candy, for my breath. I don’t wanna smell like booze when I kiss my date." The attendant attended. "Here’s a buck, man."

"Thanks, enjoy the show," answered the attendant, his soft voice barely audible over the sound of flushing urinals.

At no time during this entire exchange did the two look each other in the eye.

The attendant - who later told me his name is Robert - handed another customer a paper towel, which the (apparently) inebriated man used to wipe approximately a third of his hands before tossing toward a nearby garbage can. Toward, but not into. Robert bent over to retrieve and dispose of the damp wad, expressionless, his face a blank cipher.

If Robert noticed the nearby thunderclap fart and subsequent kerplop, his face didn’t register it. Instead, he busied himself wiping the sink counter, for about the third time in a minute.

On this night, Robert's customers were there to see Blue Oyster Cult. It was clear that most of the old time rock and rollers were as surprised as I to find someone employed in the bathroom. "This is my other job, what I do nights," Robert told me. "In the daytime, I work at a fast food place. This job is a little better in a way. I actually make a lot in tips here. Sometimes anyway."

"I have no idea what the going rate is for a paper towel, so I didn't tip him," one long-haired patron told a similarly coiffed friend. The friend's right hand never let go of his beer cup from the time he entered the restroom until the time he left, resulting in an impressive display of one-handed zipperwork.

I heard ol' One-Hand tell his companion "Any time a guy's standing near me when I unzip my pants, I'm bothered." This may explain the man's hurry, and why he didn't even bother to wash the one hand.

I made a mental note: if I'm ever introduced to that man, don't shake his hand.

An older guy wearing a beret (?!) who resembled comedian Rodney Dangerfield not only gave Robert a dollar, but he dug deep in his pocket for a handful of change, taking only a shot of aftershave in return. "Why not?" he told Robert, clearly amused by coming across this unexpected entrepreneurship in the men's room. "I've never come out of a public bathroom smelling better than when I went in."

Robert told me that jazz events attract stingy patrons who nonetheless avail themselves of his services and amenities. "Rock shows aren’t bad," he said. "The people are real upbeat. The same guys come back a lot. The best crowd we’ve had in a long time was for Brian McKnight. No drunks, a lot of good tips, real steady flow. It can be a real good place to work on nights like that."

He mentioned something about looking for a third job. However, it was hard to hear him over the sounds of peeing, flushing, handwashing, and the screaming strains of "Joan Crawford Has Risen From The Grave."

Like this blog? Here are some related links:

OVERHEARD IN SAN DIEGO - Several years' worth of this comic strip, which debuted in the Reader in 1996: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/overheard-san-diego/

FAMOUS FORMER NEIGHBORS - Over 100 comic strips online, with mini-bios of famous San Diegans: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/photos/galleries/famous-former-neighbors/

SAN DIEGO READER MUSIC MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/sandiegoreadermusic

JAY ALLEN SANFORD MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/jayallensanford