In this issue:

* New guardian angel

Dear Pirates of The Chronibbean:

Forgive me if I've slipped into your mailbox sooner than expected.
Events conspire to force my hand.  Please read on.

In this issue:

* NEW GUARDIAN ANGEL (Not a bad name for a band)

I'm in a bit of a journalistic quandary at the moment.  The
Chronicles are intended to be informative and light; satisfying yet
easy to digest; personal but not privacy-invading.  Issue #7 presents a
challenge regarding the terrain between journalist and reader.

My Dad died on June 23rd.

It's a private family matter, and yet it's also an elephant in the
Chronicle living room.  Tell you what--read on if you want, just like
always.  The beauty of email is that you can make it go away very
quickly.

A phone call at three in the morning: "Your Dad died."  A hotel
room in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England.  Air leaving lungs.  Air leaving
room.  Room looking sad.  Damn.

I loved my Dad.  Everyone loved my Dad.  He was the quintessential
Great Guy.  All my friends, male and female, from high school into
adulthood, inevitably fell in love with my Dad.  He always had a smile,
a joke, an anecdote to lighten the mood or make a stranger feel like a
friend.  He was kind and thoughtful, responsible and caring, strong and
easy-going.  A terrific guy.

He just had crappy lungs.  The last year was tough.  He could barely
breathe, and that sucked.

I'm not mad at God.  Dad got a sweet deal.  Eighty-one years old.
Died at home.  No hospitals.  No paperwork.  No bullshit.  Senses
intact up to the end.  Everything in order for my Mom to go on with her
life.

I'll miss him terribly.  But I'm okay with his new situation.  He
can breathe again.

And I've got a new guardian angel.

If that is so, you may ask, have I seen any evidence of divine
intervention?

Yes.

Like I said, I was in Newcastle.  We (The Orchestra) had just finished
our show there on a Friday night, and would be heading to Edinburgh in
the morning for a show Saturday night.  Then Leicester on Sunday.  And
there were four more shows after that.

But I had to get home.

This was not looking good.  Were I the understudy flautist in Jethro
Tull, there may not've been a crisis.  But I'm responsible for 98%
of the electric guitar playing in my band, in addition to a buttload of
vocals.  Without me, things would be a tad soft in the Rock department.

We had no answer for our predicament on Saturday, so off we went to
Edinburgh.  On Sunday, we got our miracle, our divine intervention.

There was really only one guy in the whole world who could step in and
do the shows without cue sheets or days and days (which we didn't
have) of rehearsals.  One guy: Phil Bates.

The guy I replaced eight years ago.

When I joined ELO Part II in 1998, I had to learn 38 songs in a hurry.
The band provided me with a board tape of a live show--with Phil's
guitar and vocal parts pushed up in the mix.  I studied Phil's parts,
memorized them, and began touring.  As time went by, I tailored bits to
my style, changed a few things here and there, and made the guitar
parts my own...but the blueprint was Phil's, and thank God I had
something to follow when I joined.

We called Phil, and found him somewhere out in the Black Country, near
where Kelly lives.  He was available to cover shows on Tuesday and
Wednesday, but that was it.  It was the only hole in his schedule.

No worries.  They were the only shows we needed covered.   I could fly
to the States on Monday, in time for my Dad's memorial service that
week, and return to the UK for Friday's gig in Dartford.  We
wouldn't have to cancel the tour.  I wouldn't have to miss my
family.  A miracle.

Phil covered the shows for me and did a great job.  I went home to be
with my family and say goodbye to the greatest guy I've ever known.

It was a rough week for all concerned, but things worked out divinely.

Thanks, Dad.