Hello from the home of the King. Nope, it's not England, it's Memphis, Tennessee. Okay, I'll admit it I 've never been much of a fan of Elvis Presley. I just don't get it--I guess there are some people who do, but not me. I'd listen to Elvis Costello for a year straight before venturing to the other Elvis--but hey--that's me. We have a day off today--our first in weeks. I've been catching up on some e-mail and generally avoiding the world at large.

Touring has been great. The Wallflowers are out on the road with us and they've been terrific. If you don't already have their record you should wander out to get it today. Rami, the Wallflowers organ player, has been sitting in with us occasionally and that's been fun. We had really great shows in South Carolina, Baton Rouge and Birmingham, Alabama.

Speaking of Birmingham, it was a very strange show. We were thrilled to have a whole bunch of people there and the Wallflowers played a great show. We played our first few songs and it was terrific. Suddenly, in the middle of a song, a bouncer came flying out past me and leapt into the crowd to break up a fight. Well, we don't usually have fights at our shows, but I guess these things happen. Of course when we figured out that the fight was two girls pulling each other's hair out and punching each other it took a turn into the twilight zone. We carried on and played our show. In the middle of the next song, however, one of the fighters was back and broke a beer bottle over a pole and thrust it towards the face of the other girl. They were both thrown out of the show and the rest of the night proceeded just fine. Luckily we haven't had any violence since.

So, as I write this, most of the band is off at Graceland basking in the americana of it all. I've made it as far as the Lisa Marie (his plane) before, but I just found it depressing, so I figured I'd sit it out this time and gear up for our evening of bowling. We've challenged the Wallflowers to an evening of bowling and luckily they can't do it tonight--we're taking the opportunity to practice up before we lose to them. I know this doesn't exactly live up to all of the glamour and excitement of rock and roll, but it's our lot.

At the moment I'm reading a brilliant book by Richard Ford called "Independence Day". It has nothing to do with the silly movie coming this summer. It's the sequel to "the sportswriter" and it's equally moving.

As far as movies go. I think I've seen all the summer movies so far (except Cable guy) and for the most part they've been a dissappointment. My favorite so far was, believe it or not, "The Rock". It had a plot, great characters and was fun to watch.

On the music front, it's been a duel between Ben Harper and some old Neil Young stuff lately, although the new Ani DiFranco record is completely terrific as well.

Well, that's it for now. Be Well. We'll see you out on the road.

Peter