that me and cuban girl have to stop seeing each other, cuz she took me to the Kodak Theater last night to see Elvis Costello and he fucking rocked.

Maybe he’s having some sort of mid life crisis but it’s nice. I’ve seen the King of America about 7-8 times and never has he played with such vigor and, i dont know, spirit.

ornery as ever, costello played a generous portion of his 20th album, the newly released “when i was cruel.”

i was a bit perturbed by the song selection, but elvis made up for it with three songs from ’87’s “blood and chocolate” (“uncomplicated”, “hope you’re happy now”, and the torch classic “i want you” which ended the three-encore night).

new bassist Davey Faragher rocked out on the right hand side, steve nieve tickled the ivories, and pete thomas accompanied costello at the Kodak, hollywood’s new home for the academy awards.

we sat in the front row of the upper mezzanine.

ran into birthday boy George Wright, who not only scored a new gig yesterday, but doesnt look a day over 25. fucker.

quick tip: the lines for the booze are long. but each bar has a line in the back that no one uses. use it.

after the show, cuban girl and i went across the street to the hollywood blvd mcdonalds and induldged in a mcrib and a shake and watched a family of tourists from africa complain that the Hi-C was “expired.” the mcdonalds lady was trying to explain that she was going to check the CO2, but i wanted to tell the tourists that McDonalds may be a luxury in ghana but in hollywood at 11:30pm it’s just something to toss down your gullet.

instead we just grabbed a seat with a good view of the outrage and ate our fries and laughed and laughed.

saw a trio of old people drinking coffee. one old man looked like he just robbed a raver store. he had three-quarter baby blue pants, a white longsleeve, lots of necklaces and a knit cap. he looked a hundred times cooler than me. which, if you know me, isnt all that hard.

costello played no cover tunes but made sure to insult the people in the orchestra seats to the delight of those of us in the cheap seats.