The Oceanic Brew Pub's waitress, Rafaela, told the owner, Roy Leahy, not to hire that dumb ass pianist and his chihuahua again to play on Jazz Night. But Roy ignored her. The place had gotten a lot of publicity out of the duo's previous engagement, when pianist Sinbad Rindowski's howling vocal accompanist chihuahua, Sweetie Pie, damned near got eaten by a python that had set up shop inside the house piano. The snake—at the Rindowski's first touch of the keyboard—lunged up out of that lair like the devil himself. Word got around about the incident, and San Diego's Channel 7 News sent a reporter up the next day to interview Rafaela, who demonstrated for the camera the move she'd used to make the snake let go of the little dog: a low crouch, right arm with its weapon (a can of pepper spray) extended, lunging in like a pistol-packing member of a law enforcement SWAT team, spraying the serpent and saving Sweetie Pie's life.

But the second engagement of Ridowski and Sweetie Pie didn't work out. The chihuahua, with a memory like an elephant's, freaked out when her partner tried to take her inside the brew pub, writhing from his arms and dashing away down the alley, Ridowski in hot pursuit, the sheet music he'd dropped fluttering in his wake.

Rafaela, checking her watch as show time rolled around with no performer in sight, cursed under her breath and stalked up to the bar where she got into a loud, hot argument with Roy, blaming him for the full house/empty stage affair. Everybody in the place heard it, and they went into a shifting-in-their-chairs, averting-their-gazes-from-the-combatants mode as it seemed that things might come to blows. But the fortuitous presence of vocalist/pianist team from Los Angeles (stage names Venus and Pluto), who had pit-stopped in Oceanside on their way to a show in San Diego, saved the day, taking the stage to play a handful of tunes, opening with "How You Loved Me On Mars," a strange but beautiful under-the-radar gem from the pen of vocalist