The quirky pride and joy of Sacramento, California, Cake plays on the XRT Sunday Night Concert this week. This show was recorded Live On Letterman last summer from New York and of course, there will be trumpet. Several years ago, Cake was coming to town for an XRT show and I hosted a lovely affair at a local establishment to give away some tickets. The place was Brisku’s Bistro in Irving Park, a very nice neighborhood bar/restaurant with a friendly vibe and good food, including excellent hummus. When I got there, a bible study group was seated in the dining area discussing some difficult chapter from Leviticus. They weren’t ordering drinks (a few might have helped) and my first announcement about the next phase of the evening’s activities was their cue to move  on to Exodus. A different group of folks started to filter in, XRT music started to play on the PA and the trivia questions were ready to be asked. The night’s special guests, courtesy of our sponsor, were Captain Morgan and his not so motley crew of lovely assistants. (A more piratey version of the Leettes.) When they arrived, everyone lined up to get a leg up photo with the Captain and his crew while I handled the microphone like a cutlass. Eventually, all the Cake tickets and XRT collectables were given away and the crowd had dwindled to a few regulars. An exhausted Captain Morgan (I think his day job was a tour guide) asked me what time it was. We both assumed it was long past our appointed hour to abandon ship but a glance at the phone revealed that only 20 minutes of a 2 hour gig had expired. With a look of horror and his best buccaneer voice, the Captain said: “Argh! It is as if time itself has stood still!”  A pirate’s life for me, indeed.