I guess you could it call it beginner's luck. First off, I've never had a bowling alley in my dressing room before. But at Blusiana, a very nice club in Velden, Austria, I have just rolled a strike on my first roll. (Full disclosure: After that, I had very little luck, but at least no gutter balls.)

The lane is full length, but uses a something about the size of a large softball and has nine pins that jump up on ropes like marionattes after you knock them down. It's a hybrid for sure, but the very fact that it is available after our grilled fish with rice and a fine French merlot has kept this primadonna appeased for now. But they better have the right color M&M's, though, or else.

The ride into Austria was like leaving a fairly nice version of Wisconsin, with slightly bigger hills and gloomy fall-ish weather, and rolling into something like Oz (with no wicked witches) in late August. Klaus says this area has hundreds of mountain lakes at different levels, but I fell in love with this one, and I declare it the very nicest. Then again, George Clooney has an estate on Lake Como, and I believe he can afford to live wherever he likes.

Second day jet lag, along with the adventure of getting lost on the way to the gig, had twisted my ever-fragile mood in a direction not conducive to making music. That was a while ago though and luckily, food and bowling have brought me around.

You can take the boy out of Milwaukee, but ... I think you know the rest.