My apologies to Twitter.

Objects in photo are as close as they appear.

No zoom necessary

So I'm sitting on my couch watching my Lakers celebrate, wondering if I should head downtown and join in the looting of a discount shoe store, when my doorbell (text message alert ringtone) rings. It's T-Bone. He says John Mayer just posted on Twitter that he's doing an impromptu show at the Hotel Cafe at 11:30, five bucks. Five minutes later, I am in my car. Even coming from the west side, I beat the crowds, slipped in before the line had begun to form. If you haven't been there, The Hotel Cafe is about the size of a large coffeehouse. We abandoned prime wall position for the sake of proximity, shuffling to within 7 feet of the stage. And wouldn't you know it, a mere 12 minutes after he had said he'd be there, in strolls Mr. Mayer right behind us and up onto the stage. For a solid hour and a half, it was just JM, his electric guitar, and a hundred or so of his most attentive local fans. It was just awesome. He played mostly new stuff from his upcoming album, mixing in some old stuff here and there. He did do "Free Fallin'" and, I wanna tell you, he owned it. He was funny, frank, and surprisingly candid, admitting at one point that for a long time he had been an "arrogant douchebag," but now had a better perspective on life. At one point, he picked up a cell phone from a guy right in front, said hi to the stranger on the other end and then excused himself to go play another song. Just a funny, playful, relaxed vibe. When a girl shouted "I wanna be inside you" between songs, no one laughed like they might at a larger show where such things waft around without identity like a fog of marijuana smoke. It was as awkward as if she'd said it at a dinner party. When the show was over, he signed whatever anybody asked him to sign, he posed for seemingly every photo he was asked to take.

From the moment I stepped inside, I was already realizing this was perhaps a once in a lifetime experience. Nights like this are the stories I hear people tell of times they saw somebody play before they were famous or just happened to be at the right place at the right time. This time, I was a part of it and I knew right away how lucky I was to be there. T-Bone has dragged his roommate along with him, a guy who was not a JM fan at all. This guy was giddy with glee at the end of the night, an instant convert succumbed to the power of the experience and to one of the finest living guitar players. Say what you will about this city, but nights like this don't happen in too many places. The Lakers win their 15th championship, morons set cars on fire, and John Mayer slips into a quiet club to give a hundred people a show they'll be talking about for years. Just a Sunday night in Los Angeles.