Charlene and I spent the day with Leon Friday - and then watched his show Friday night at the Osage Casino. Casinos are pretty weird for me. Filled with smoke to the point it feels like your taking a year off your life with every breath. Filled with next-door-folks who have become some sort of zombies staring at noisy light-flashing machines. Even the slot machines are hi tech and weird. Actually, I couldn’t find a "slot" machine - where you could put in a quarter and pull an arm - hoping for a whole bunch of quarters to come spilling out. The casino experience makes me think of some outer space way station like in that first Star Wars movie.

Leon was great. New version of the band. An elevated experience. Here’s the deal... Leon told me that afternoon that he was thinking of doing some extemporaneous speaking. Well, if you’ve been to Leon shows, you know he’s not one for chit chat between songs. The most you generally get is a "Thank You!" or two. Friday night, he did indeed talk a lot. Told the story of how he recorded "Watching the River Flow" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" for Bob Dylan - and how Bob showed him how he writes songs. I’m not sure the audience kept up - but I know they loved hearing the master speak. He made a comment on the wing ding being his Birthday Bash - turning 66. He said something like: "I never realized that when I got to be 66 I’d start to feel like a highway..." Well... he said it better than that.

Lest you think it was all a rock and roll fantasy day and to put it in perspective, after lunch, we tracked down and bought a part for his tour bus out at Camper Land.