Clearing Up

Another in the continuing saga of getting stuff done on my cars!!! I had the fiasco of the engine mount replacement, and not long after, Scruffy got a flat in spectacular fashion!!!

I was letting surrogate son drive her, and he took some kind of steel bar to the back tire!!! As you can see, they were really needing to be replaced soon anyway. I'd just bought a set for Kutcher, and would have preferred to have a bit more of an interval between buying the next set.

He called AAA and they changed to the space saver spare. I had one of the old old ones that was mostly slick that's a little better than the space saver, so we put it on until we were able to get to the tire shop.

And that's how it looked from the inside!!! The guy at the tire shop tried to pull out the bar. It didn't come out.

Very shortly after the tires were replaced, the battery went out, so I bought a new one. Back when I had three S Series Saturns, I'd replaced all the batteries with Die Hards. Most car batteries, it seems like you're lucky to get three years out of them, I remember them going for 5 to 7 years or more back when I started driving. Not long after I had met my now wife, her grandmother bought two new batteries for her Oldsmobile diesel, and had the presence of mind to save the old ones for her granddaughter's new guy, and those were some of the best batteries I ever had!!! Of course, they have a very high amperage, well above what my Maverick required, so that probably helped. Anyway, all that to say, back around 7 or 8 years back I had it in my head that the Die Hard batteries that you used to be able to get from Sears had always been more reliable than the ones from the parts stores these days. When I yanked the engine out of 3, I saved the battery, and when we sent Jade away, I saved the battery. I picked up a trickle charger, and kept them maintained, and when the first one gave up, swapped to one of the others, and it went for another several months, then with the next one as well. It seems like my impression of the Die Hard brand was correct. Unfortunately, it seems nearly impossible to locate any of them anymore, so I've got a parts store 3 year battery in there now. Anyway, none of that was particularly difficult, just expensive, around $600. Oh yea, there was one issue getting the battery, the system wasn't working, so I had to go back the next day, and they returned it and re sold it to me with the warranty activated, and for the inconvenience, they discounted it by 10%, so that was nice.

Sometime in there, a friend of mine pointed out his headlights, which had been hazy, and he'd cleared up. He tells me that he just used Mother's mag polish on them, two passes, and they came out real nice!!!

The headlights on Kutcher were very hazy. I'd actually purchased a 3M kit a while back, and have been intending to pull the headlights out to polish them, but they're not easy to get out!!! I was thinking I'd do as some direct, and mask off the surrounding body and use it, but this sounded considerably easier, so I went ahead and bought a jar. It didn't take much doing at all, and they look way better!!!

Since I've done before and after GIFs of cleared up headlights before a couple of times, I went ahead and did it again!!! Not perfect, but gets the idea across!!! Both of the previous ones, I actually replaced the lights. I've polished plastic headlights before, notably on Baby, and possibly also on Jade, but apparently didn't get pictures. I was going to do an instant post with just the headlights, but decided to add the tires and battery as well.

While I'm at it, I'll make mention of the Studebaker stuff. I've picked up the stuff to update the fuel system on the Hawk, but haven't gotten it installed yet. Since I'm putting an electric fuel pump, I decided that adding a fuel pressure regulator would probably be wise, as well. Since I'm not sure what kind of pressure I'm running, I decided to add a pressure gauge as well, and I picked up a couple of pipe nipples and a tee to plumb them together, probably with the clear fuel filter right before them both. To establish a baseline, I put the tee and gauge in the line to the carb, and went to start it to see where the pressure would be. It cranked a couple of times, then just clicked.

I was a little irked that the deep cycle AGM battery I'd put in had already died, and put the charger on it the next day. It still just clicked after I'd charged it a while. Huh. Pulled out the starter, and it seems to have given up. I figured my dad had bought it from either Auto Zone or Reilly's with a lifetime warranty (I wouldn't buy one without a lifetime warranty) but it appears to not be the case. Of course, back when he was putting it together, Pep Boys was another store that sold lifetime parts. Seems they've become just a tire store now, but I got in touch with them about it. I'm also thinking of buying a mini high torque starter instead, but I don't know if I can get one with a lifetime warranty.

Oh, and just last week, we fired up the Maverick for the first time in a while!!! Did like I'd done with the Studebaker, primed the carb, and a little quick start, and it started and ran until the carb ran dry!!! I'd added an electric fuel pump years ago, and I disconnected both ends to see if it was pumping, and it wasn't. Next, we'll prime the mechanical fuel pump and put a short hose into a gas can, and see if it'll suction off that, and if so, we can probably just add several gallons to the tank, and it'll be running!!! Of course, it'll need tires, too!!!

Beach Boys

I've previously mentioned that one of my favorite things to do is to go to the beach. Ordinarily, I only end up making it once or twice a year, sometimes on or around my birthday, and sometimes when I'm on vacation.

It so happens that surrogate son also happens to love going to the beach, and since I've had some latitude in my schedule these days, I've been able to go several times this summer!!!

I think this may have been on the trip I'd previously posted about. Surrogate son was forming perfect spheres of the sand!!!

There's a pile of them in the foreground, in the shadow.

This was another trip we made to Horny Corner, with surrogate son's sister and another friend. I think his mom may have been there that time as well.

I know one time, maybe two times, my younger and surrogate son had gone when I had something else I was doing. We have a large duffel bag that has our beach towels, swimsuits, and sunscreen in it, and he'd taken a smaller bag with just his towel, suit, and sunscreen. One of the times, he didn't get the sunscreen swapped from the smaller bag, and got a sunburn. This time, he looked like he'd been slapped on the shoulder by someone with a lot of sunscreen on their hand, and that area didn't burn or tan!!!

This is the sand structure that we made on that day. I started out by drawing the moat, then removed the sand and piled it up in the middle. The moat wanted to cave in. The setting sun made for a cool effect on it!!!

Something else I'd not mentioned, Grill 'Em All has relocated down to Horny Corner!!! They used to be next to a theater in Alhambra, and I'd been there at least once. I was familiar with Grill 'Em All because they would help out at the Oinkster during Burger Week, and I think Oinkster may have featured some of their burgers during it.

They've still got the metal theme going, but now with a beachy locale and vibe!!! I may have been craving a premium gourmet burger... Anyway, on the same day, we ate there, and it was awesome!!!

I like the picture of surrogate giving his sister the side-eye!!!

Surrogate son got the Behemoth, which is served on two Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwiches!!! It was too much for him!!! I got the Witte, which has cream cheese, deep fried bacon, sriracha, malt vinegar aioli, and grilled onions. It was glorious!!! Also got an order of Primate Fries, basically In-N-Out's animal style fries, but the fries are better.

Got this picture of the seagulls in the run off channel from the showers on another trip to Horny Corner. In the background, you can see the inflatable play floats they've got set up out there. They only let a limited amount of people on at a time, of course, and depending on the day, there can be a line to go on it. We went one time, and on our most recent time down there they'd taken them down for the season.

We've also gone a few times to Santa Monica beach. I like it a little better, it's got some surf. The first time we went there, surrogate son had wanted to walk out on the pier, so after the sun had gone down and we'd changed, we did. It drops down on the end for a fishing platform, and when we were heading down, one guy had his pole bent down, so we had to stay and see what he caught. Turned out to be a spiny lobster!!! I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to catch them with a pole...

Got a nice sunset picture...

And the fabled pier...

Last time we were there, a Coast Guard chopper doing maneuvers. It was kicking up a good amount of vapor with the rotor wash!!! Stayed around for a while.

Another beach selfie with another friend!!! This was on the time before the last time we went to the beach.

Oh, I had a cooler that I would usually take that came with our house. It was old, and as it got used more, the plastic on the edges and the lid started cracking. I bought a similar size replacement, and then a couple of weeks later, I was taking a walk, and one of our neighbors had a give away pile that had another similar sized cooler, but with a split lid, so now I've got two. They also had a nice boogie board that I grabbed, but we only made it to Santa Monica one time since I got it, and the surf wasn't great for boarding, the waves would crash as soon as they formed.

We stopped by a Taco Bell on the way back. Next door was a donut place, and on the side wall, they had the donut angel background!!! It has a little curb that you have to hop up onto, and it's not easy to balance. Took pictures of surrogate son and myself in front of it, but we were both off center. I moved the donut on his picture!!!

Battle Scars

As I mentioned in the comments on the latest car stuff post, I took Kutcher to get an alignment done, and then bought a whole new set of tires. The guy at the alignment shop told me that most of the front end could use updating (truly not surprising, I think most of it is the factory original stuff) and the motor mounts also look pretty bad. Back when I'd had the new engine put in, I'd bought a full set of mounts, since they're almost always shot when you pull an old engine out, but the guy who put it in told me the old ones looked like they were in good shape, so I had a full set already. They were the cause of the injuries shown here!!!

Most all the damage came from working on the rear engine mount, which was the last one I did, and the worst of the lot!!! First up, I was under the car, and was trying to slide into a better position, and I slid my head right into one of the jack stands, hard!!! My wife, up in the house, heard me on that one!!! I wondered if I was bleeding, but wasn't going to check with my greasy hands. Of course, it was still hot out, and I was sweating, but couldn't tell if it was sweat or blood rolling down!!! When I was wrapping up and came up to get cleaned off, I asked if there was any blood there, and my wife said there wasn't, but it did leave a mark!!!

Not long after I'd banged my head, I was trying to get something moved using a crow bar. Don't remember exactly what I was doing, but I remember what happened!!! I was under the car again, and the crow bar came back and hit me right on the bridge of my glasses, and knocked them off. It rang my bell, and the first thing I wondered was if it broke my glasses. Fortunately, it didn't. When I got cleaned up, I checked that area as well, and right between my eyes I've got a bump that persists to this day. I'd wondered if it would blacken one or both of my eyes, and today it showed up!!!

Surrogate son saw how my right arm was all scratched up, and asked if Sidney had got me!!! Younger son noted that one area looked a little like angry eyes and a mouth!!!

And there's a triangle or anarchy sign just a little up from there!!!

And, as always, I have to post pictures of the old mounts!!! First up is the first one I did, the front mount. As you can see, it had a pretty big crack or tear on the engine side, and smaller on the other side. It was the simplest one to do, but of course, a complication had to arise!!! It has two bolts that come up through the cross member, and one cross bolt. When I went to install the new one, the back bolt hole stripped out. I was able to find a nut with the correct thread at the Home Depot, which I picked up that night, and installed the next day. Of course, it was between the two sides of the mount and below the radius of the round part, so it was near impossible to get an actual wrench on it, but I managed to get it.

Next is the one from the front of the engine, on the passenger side. This one looked to be the most intact, but it has the circular area in the middle (this is from underneath) and some people say this mount has a hydraulic dampener in it. If it did have fluid, I never saw any sign of it, but the circular area is damaged. Three bolts on the body, two into a frame rail, one into the fender arch, and a bolt down into the engine, and two nuts on studs from the bottom of the same part, most easily to get at from below.

Third is the other end, the transmission end on the driver's side. It has cracks in the rubber on either side of the cross pin. It mounts to the frame rail with two bolts going down, and two going into the side, and has a cross bolt holding it onto the bracket on the transmission. The mount itself is pretty straightforward, but it's right below the air filter box, and the battery tray, so those had to come out. Of course, there was a bit of corrosion under the battery, so I took a bit of time to clean out and neutralize the acid, and wire brush off a good amount of the rust. Since I had the battery tray mount and the hold down out, I gave them a coat of paint.

The fourth and final mount, on the rear of the engine came last. This is where things got really fun!!! Remember the part where I said I'd bought a set of mounts before I had the engine put in??? Well, when I dug them out, there were only three of the four. This was the missing one, and as soon as I discovered it wasn't there, I ordered one. I had the thought that maybe the guy who put the engine in had used this one after all, but when I got it out, that doesn't appear to have been the case!!! The rubber around the cross bolt was completely gone on the one side, and not even connected on the other!!!

It was on Thursday that I'd been putting on the transmission side mount, and hadn't gotten this one yet. Right about the time I was finishing off the transmission mount, it arrived, so I went ahead and got started on it.

It has three studs that go through the cross member, and one bolt from the bottom. Not too hard to get loose, but then it has to slide up, and the side towards the engine is wider than the bracket on the engine, so it has to twist and go to the side to get out. Got it out without too much difficulty. Also, the longest stud came loose and made things go even easier. When I went to put the new one in, it didn't want to go. Got it sideways, past the engine bracket, and was trying to get it straightened and dropped into the mounting holes, and it didn't want to go. It goes over the steering rack, and the stud wasn't making it to the other side.

I worked on it until around an hour after the sun had gone down, and finally called it for the day. That night I watched every video I could find on it, and also came up with the idea that, since the transmission side and front mount both had a cross bolt holding them in place, I could pull both of those and get a better range of motion out of the engine. I did that the next day, and also loosened the bolts holding the sub frame on to try and get more range of motion out of it. I messed with it all afternoon, and into the evening, and didn't get any further.

My wife had the thought that Cheese Ball (the guy with the huge afro most famous from his starring appearance in the “Bold and Brash” clip) may be able to help, and she got in touch with surrogate son to see if he could get in touch with him. He works at a rod shop, and has done a lot of general mechanic work. Surrogate son said he called and messaged him like 20 times, and he finally contacted me late, maybe around midnight, and said he had good news and... neutral news. He can come and help out, but it will be around 2 AM!!! Said he'd keep me posted. Called around 2, and said he was with him, and they'd be along in a bit. I think he called again later, saying it was going to be later, but they were on their way. Ended up being around 4 AM when they got here. Cheese says he's done several of these mounts on various Toyotas and Scions, the trick is to have small hands!!! He takes a look under the hood, and says it has way more room than on the Scion XB, it should be easy!!! I think that jinxed it.

I was out there helping him for a couple hours, when surrogate son came out (I think he got a nap in) and I handed off the helper duties to him, and came in and tried to get a bit of a nap in myself. Close to 8, I'm awoken by the sounds of victory!!! I head out, and he said that finally after fighting it for hours (made me feel a bit better that I'd had so much trouble with it!!!) he pulled it out, and then dropped it back in, and it went right into place!!! I thanked him profusely and told him not to be a stranger (also never got a chance to show him the Studebaker in detail, I'd texted him some pictures and told him about some of the mechanical issues, and he said it looks even better in person) and he took off.

Later in the day, I headed out and put everything back together. Mostly, the hardest part was getting the cross bolt back in. One of the things Cheese had done to try and gain a little more room was to loosen the hard line to the power steering rack, but he'd put it back and tightened it, but when I got everything back together, it was squirting from the fitting. I took it loose again, and then put it back together, and there were no more leaks, but of course, the fluid was low, and it sounded terrible. I was going to check to see if I had any power steering fluid, but when I checked the cap, I saw it uses Dextron automatic transmission fluid. I'd grabbed a couple of partial jugs of just that when I was getting the Saturn engine from my parent's house, so I was set!!! On previous power steering systems, I've just turned the wheels lock to lock a couple of times, and that will bleed the air out. It didn't do it on this one, so I jacked it up again, and did probably about 20 times back and forth, and that did the job!!! It was after dark by the time we finished up.

So one mount turned into a three day job...

Missing

The printer that I recently bought, as mentioned, is WiFi connected, so I'm able to use it to print from multiple devices. I set up my wife and the younger's phone with the app to print from. This is the image my son used as a test print.

It's a friend of his that he plays Xbox games with, who lives in Arizona. He makes up some random memes from pictures he takes. A while back, his family was out this way for a wedding, and he visited for a couple days and slept in the basement.

I noticed that it was similar to the missing poster for Walter White in season 2 of Breaking Bad, so I updated it with the joke text that Walter and Walter Jr. find on his Aztec, borrowed my son's phone, and took a scan of it for him!!!

I'd forgotten about it, until I needed to do another scan. It's too good to toss, so I taped it up in the laundry room leading to his bedroom. A few of his friends came upon it, and found it to be hilarious!!!

More Car Stuff

Mostly because of my newly acquired inheritance, I've been getting in a good amount of car work in these days. As always, there's more to do!!!

Not chronological, but to start with, I bought a new deep cycle battery to use in the Hawk, and put the one I'd borrowed from the Falcon back in. I'll also mention since I don't have a picture to go with it, one of Kutcher's tires had a nail in it that I removed and plugged the hole. I'd bought a tire plug kit from my previous job, and this is the first time I used it. I've seen them installed before, but have never done it myself. Either I should have gone at the tire more and oversized the hole more, or it's harder to get in than I thought, I had to fight it to get it in!!! It's holding fine, though. The tires are all getting worn, and I'm thinking I'll do something I've been meaning to do, take it for an alignment, and buy a new set of tires. The oil change light just came on, and it will be the first one I've done without being able to buy employee price oil. One of the driving lights burned out, but I bought a pair of yellow ones to replace the factory white ones with not long after we bought it, and this may be the perfect time to install them!!! Oh, and I bought myself a pair of ramps to make some of these maintenance tasks a bit easier.

I'm also planning on doing a repair on the bottom of Zonker's front bumper like I did on Scruffy, it has a little portion in the middle that's hanging down now. That was a big part of the reason I bought the ramps!!!

On to the things I've done to the Hawk, I got all the window tint removed from the front windows. It wasn't as difficult as I'd thought it was going to be.

Also got a reflection of Zonker and of an unmentioned cat with coffee T-shirt my wife got me in the window picture!!!

One of the first things I did to try to get it to run cooler was to flush to cooling system and install a high flow thermostat. After I drained it, I removed the thermostat and added the flush, ran it for a while, and drained it again. As I did this, I got a better look at the sketchy looking routing of the upper radiator hose. The water pump and air conditioning compressor run off one belt, and the alternator drives from the A/C, and the hose was running between the two.

While I had the hose off, I got a look at the groove it had cut in the hose, and did not like the look of it at all!!! On my first run to the local auto parts store, they were good enough to let me go behind the counter and see if I could find a molded hose that might work better. A portion of part number D72224 turned out to work quite nicely!!!

My other thought was that the upper radiator hose appeared to be higher than the radiator filler, which could possibly cause a bubble in the system. I found a filler neck tee that I planned to put in place of the splice junction. I made the first purchase from my former work for a U-bolt to use as a solid mount for it, and added a bracket to hold it between the belt. I also tensioned the belt a little more.

After I'd done all the cooling system work, I was thinking I should have got some T-bolt hose clamps from my previous work while I was there (I'm not paying their shipping costs!!!) While I was looking around for something else, I located a couple I'd previously bought!!! Makes for a cleaner looking installation!!! I'd run it a couple of times in the driveway for around half an hour at a time, and the temperature didn't get all the way up, but the first time I noticed the electric fan wasn't coming on all the time. I cleaned the terminals and it seems to be working fine ever since.

I had ordered pizza a couple of nights later, and the younger and I took the Hawk to pick it up, as well as try it out and see how it did. It made it without and cooling issues, but it would surge while driving. Steady throttle, and it sounded like I was on and off the pedal. On the way back, I thought I'd take the less steep but longer back way up the hill. Around half way, it starts acting like it wants to cut out. I throw it in neutral and rev a few times (still acting like it's running rough and not really wanting to run) then try going again. It stalls out. I re start it, and it wants to die again, then does. I re start it again, and there's a road going off the side that I'm pretty sure goes down to the next street over. I head down it, and it's doing a little better not climbing, but the road is super sketchy, it goes down to one lane, and rutted dirt!!! I had the idea of taking it down to our street and parking it there, but it made it halfway down the street between, and stalls. I roll it to the side, and try re starting it again. It starts, but it's running really rough. It had gotten warm, but not like when I'd brought it home. I was thinking the heat was causing an issue, so I'd let it sit and cool for a while and try again. Oh yea, where it was, they now have no overnight 2 AM to 6 AM parking now.

We walked up, ate our pizza, and I walked back down a couple hours later. It re started, but was still running rough. I drove it over to the bottom of my street, and it stalled as I was rounding the corner. I was able to re start it, and drove it to the same back way street I'd last attempted, and it stalled out going around that corner, too!!! I called it for the night, rolled it back to the side of the street (no overnight restrictions there!!!) and once again walked up the hill.

The next day I headed down to see if I could figure it out. I was suspecting a fuel delivery issue. I recalled from when my dad had it, it came with a cork float for the fuel level sender, and after 40+ years it just kind of came apart!!! Probably, ideally, I should probably drop the tank and get it cleaned. He had installed an inline canister style fuel filter before the fuel pump, a clear filter with replaceable elements just before the carburetor, and the carb has a built in filter. I took out the clear one to get a look at it, and it was caked solid, and the gas in it looked like dirty brown water!!! Thinking I might be onto something, I headed over to the auto parts store again, and got a replacement for the carburetor filter and the inline filter. I just removed the clear one, planning to get a replacement element at a later time, and put the new carburetor filter in. It seemed to run much better with just that!!! That night, I drove it straight up the front way, and it pulled all the way!!!

You may have heard the old cliché, the old cars, if they break down you can fix it on the side of the road with a screwdriver, crescent wrench, and a pair of pliers. That was exactly what I did!!! Oh, and one of my neighbors driving by told me it's a beautiful car!!!

I cut open the old carburetor filter, and it looked pretty gunked up.

I had ordered replacement elements for the clear filter, but then noticed that the glass was cracked, too, so I ordered a new one of those.

The next day, I pulled it up on the ramps and replaced the canister filter. I noticed it is concerningly close to the exhaust, and decided that I would fashion a heat shield before I wrapped up the work in that area. I used a Monster Energy Drink can, it has to be better than the nothing that was there before!!!

I've also vacuumed it out, and used some carpet powder on the interior carpet, and re vacuumed it. My surrogate son gave me a black ice air freshener. Neither of these has completely gotten rid of the rodent smell, and I laid down another layer of carpet powder and will vacuum it again tomorrow. Should see about getting the five years of dust washed off the car cover, and clean out the trunk. Should also see if the spare holds air, and pick up a replacement tire if it doesn't.

I've figured out some of the operation for the radio, it was a nice HD radio Pioneer unit back in the day, but the antenna doesn't seem to be working. I'm thinking of swapping in the one that was in the Homecoming Saturn, it's got nearly the same function as the ones in Scruffy and Kutcher, and having Bluetooth is always better than off a thumb drive.

One other concerning thing, the voltage gauge... always seems to show on the low side!!! If you rev it up, it'll come up, but cruising or at idle it's well under 12 volts. I'd mentioned the underdrive crank pulley, and had had the thought that the slow spinning was possibly the issue with the cooling. Having read up on the water pump, it seems like they are more than is necessary to keep things cool, even at lower speed, but the alternator could possibly not be spinning fast enough at lower speeds. I had thought of buying a couple of V-belt pulleys and different size cogged drive pulleys and a belt, and making a belt overdrive. Since the aren't that expensive or hard to install, though, I'm thinking of getting a one wire conversion to try out before I go that route. Years ago I installed a GM alternator on the Falcon with a one wire conversion, and it is awesome!!! If you just start it and it's only idling, the headlights and dash lights would be dim, as though it's not getting a charge, but rev it just a bit, and you can see it turn on, and it stays charging strong. No gauge on the Falcon, but from the lights, you can see it working!!!

Oh, and speaking of Scruffy, it developed a freakin' rod knock!!! Right around the time I was having to retrieve the Hawk, and I got the old transmission and engine that had been down at my mom's house. Drove it straight to a shop, and had them do a full rebuild, and swap it in since I no longer have access to a nice big flat driveway to do these things. Set me back probably more than it's worth, but you know. I form an emotional bond with my machines.

Matte Black Cat with a Rat Kings Tat

This week we went to the previously teased Gaslight Anthem and Counting Crows concert. It was a venue I'd never been to before, the YouTube Theater.

The YouTube Theater is in Inglewood, on the same property as our recently added NFL stadium (which I've also never been to before). I had seen a few shows near there at what used to be the Great Western Forum. The first show I ever drove myself to was there, Quiet Riot, with Whitesnake (before most people had heard of them). My friend Sean and I went together. Later we also saw Ratt there, with Bon Jovi opening, back when Bon Jovi had just come out with 7800° Fahrenheit album, so also before most people had heard of them. Much later, my wife and I, along with her brother in law and his wife saw The Scorpions there, around the time their Crazy World album was out. Anyway, the thing I recall from going there was that it seemed like you have to drive quite a ways from the freeway to get there.

But I digress. We got there and parked not too far from the entrance and made our way in. Security is better there in the sense that you don't have to empty your pockets, go through a metal detector, then get wanded down anyway for your belt buckle. I think it was a body scan instead, a guy just ahead of us got pulled out for a more thorough search. Since the place is fairly new, it's real nice, and it was easy to get in and find our seats, which were pretty good. We were on the front row of the first balcony, a bit off to the left. The younger was wondering if there would be an opening act or acts like last time, and I noticed that the setup had a Gaslight Anthem banner, and figured there wouldn't be.

The guys from The Gaslight Anthem start heading out, and Brian Fallon gets on the mic and says his daughter would like to say something. She gets on the mic, and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Gaslight Anthem!” From there they go into a song I wasn't familiar with, Have Mercy. Right after that they go into Positive Charge.

They did two cover songs in the set, and another I'd not heard before and haven't been able to positively identify. Since I'd mentioned Tom Petty in the teaser post, it was interesting that one of the covers was a Tom Petty song, Honeybee from the Full Moon Fever album. I recognized the song from the riff!!! The set list was as follows:

1. Have Mercy

2. Positive Charge

3. Handwritten

4. The Weatherman

5. Dark Places

6. Time Spent Playing By Her Side?

7. Howl

8. Honeybee (Tom Petty cover)

9. Mae

10. Here's Looking at You, Kid

11. Lovesong (The Cure cover)

12. Mulholland Drive

13. The 59 Sound

14. 45

Brian was wearing a hat for most of the show, so he wasn't especially photogenic. Once again, I wasn't able to identify who the picture on the drum was supposed to be, but I tried to get a good shot of it. She looks so familiar, I sent a picture and asked my wife, and she wasn't able to tell, either.

Also noticed that they had action figures on several of their amps!!!

Seven of the songs they did in their set they had also done at the previous show. It was cool to finally hear Howl live, and in the teaser post I'd mentioned Tom Petty, so it was cool they covered him!!!

They did the change over with the lights up, and the partition curtain behind the stage up. It goes back a ways, and they have a roll up door for a loading dock at the back, looks like a good design!!!

While we were driving there, I played Spaceman in Tulsa, and told the younger that I bet Counting Crows will play it tonight. It just seemed too perfect for them not to play it!!! They took the stage, and it was the first song they did!!!

The set list was as follows:

1. Spaceman in Tulsa

2. Hard Candy

3. Mr. Jones

4. Virginia Through the Rain

5. Omaha

6. Cover Up the Sun

7. With Love, From A to Z

8. Miami

9. Colorblind

10. God of Ocean Tides

11. Blues Run the Game

12. Round Here + Raining in Baltimore

13. Boxcars

14. A Long December

15. Rain King (intro with something with the lyric, “It would have been fine if you would have been the one”, another song I wasn't familiar with)

16. Under the Aurora

17. Hanginaround

18. Holiday in Spain

I'd never heard Colorblind live before (to be fair, not a song I'd been clamoring to hear live, anyway) but it was another I recognized from the into riff. They did a cool effect where they did a rectangle cone of light over Adam, with brighter chaser lights going around the perimeter. Also did white spots over the rest of the band.

Before he went into Cover Up the Sun, he spoke of how some songs are fables, but rooted in reality and featuring real people. He said the song features Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and his grandson Clifton Collins, Jr.

Before he went into With Love, From A to Z he told the story of how his dad had to go into the military during the Vietnam war. They'd been in Boston, and ended up moving to Texas, and traveled in their Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon. After he mentioned the station wagon, the crowd cheered, and Adam said that the mention of the car always gets a cheer!!! Adam said he had a stack of books, and read them and watched the scenery of the Appalachian Mountains and the open plains. And how now he travels the country and sees a lot of it. I always had thought that the storytelling of Cover Up the Sun sounded like a tale of touring the country in a tour bus. The line near the end, “Let that diesel fly”, as well as the traveling descriptions from the first verse always made me think that.

They left the stage after Rain King, and I had a feeling they'd be back for an encore. Sure enough, they did!!! I was thinking that the perfect song to end the show with would have been Bobby and the Rat Kings, but I guess they didn't want to play all night!!! Upon reflection later, I noticed that they didn't play any of the 4 songs from the original Butter Miracle Suite One, all of which I've become a fan of. They did play five of the songs off the most recently released Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets, which I guess makes sense, since Suite One was a few years ago. They did play Boxcars, which has the mention of the matte black cat with a Rat Kings tat that this post title is from (and made me take a look at Kangol hats, to see if any of them appealed to me!!!). After the show, I was looking to see if anyone had posted clips from the show (there are a few), I came across the cinematic official video for Suite One, and it's pretty good!!! Also, it features the aforementioned Clifton Collins Jr.!!! Also where I got the image at the top of the post of the Rat Kings CD.

Oh yeah, I didn't have any trouble identifying the picture of the girl on the Counting Crows drum head, it's the Butter Face girl from the Butter Miracle cover artwork!!!

As we headed out, we swung by the merch booth, to see if there was anything that appealed. As we had headed out of the venue, I saw one guy with a shirt from the hook line from Spaceman in Tulsa, “I'm a Motherfucken' Rock and Roll Star”, that I thought was pretty amusing but probably something I wouldn't wear much. The Gaslight Anthem had one with the lyric from Positive Charge, “It's Good to be Alive” (which, IT IS!!!, and a great sentiment, I thought) with band images underneath that I picked up.

The younger liked the Butter Miracle: The Complete Sweets tour shirt, with the dates in a circular pattern on the back. On the front of his, it has Counting Crows, and the sleeve of mine has The Gaslight Anthem. A couple more overpriced shirts to add to the collection!!!