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PART 2
Houston is where the tour
really started for me. No chance of going home til it's all over.
Watt really is a grumpy old man. He insists on everything running on
exact time schedule-wise. That insistence can seem very growling and
accusatory at times. Is this really the way to run a tour? Even if you
are the boss? There's something to be said, however, for achieving the
status of grumpus. It usually means that you've earned the right to
that status. After 49 tours I'd say that he's got the right. So there.
But that doesn't mean we ain't gonna butt heads a little on the issue,
even if I do got the right to do so. The guys at Rudyard's tell me not
to go on at 10:00 but at 10:30 cuz they know it's gonna be a late crowd
that night. I don't argue but when I finish my set the old man is growling
at me about it! So it becomes an arguing point for a few days but then
we finally get on the same page with each other... as long as we both
make sure the sound man and promoter are on the same page with us and
it's smooth sailing with a lot less thoughts of mutiny. Mutiny? Did
I say mutiny?
Once again a good show. Da Guyz are still working through their stuff.
I don't really have a clear perspective on the Secondmen yet. I like
it even though some folks in some audiences react negatively to a "keyboard"
band. Yeah, ya gotta expect that from them damnsters dat want everyding
to be just like everyding always was. Well, it ain't dat way cuz it
ain't gonna be dat way and dat's dat! I'm a lumberjack and I know! And
after the show we shoot down to the fabled house on the bay in LaPorte
that I've heard so much about. Cool house and Mike McGuire, the guy
who owns it is really cool (heck, I just found out his dad built the
Astrodome!) and when Watt growls me awake at 8:00 am with "you gotta
move your car so we can go..." I wave my speaking fingers in the
air, maybe fart a little in his direction, go move the car and then
crawl back into bed after das boat drives off. Two more hours of sleep
and I hang and talk to Mike about stuff and the boneheads left in such
a rush that they forgot some things (hahahahahaha!!!) that I proudly
deliver in New Orleans. Ha!
At the Shim Sham is where I think I'm finally feeling solid with the
mission. The weather has finally made itself a player in the fandango
and I like it. The night before in LaPorte there was no A/C in the room
where I slept but there was an open window and a sudden breeze that
lulled me to sleep like a good memory—like when I used to lay in
bed in those early summers with the window open and the night bringing
in my favorite Chuck Berry song that made me want to turn up the transistor
radio at my ear but that would wake my parents and they'd be pissed.
I usually hate the road to New Orleans having driven it so many times
but this time it kinda went by unnoticed. Hmmmmm... And when I pulled
up to the club there's a parking space right in front with my name on
it. Wooooo!!!! Too bad I had no time to contact folks in the city that
I know but my friend Kirk, yet another Irish dancer, came to the show.
The real surprise was when a guy in the audience claims he saw me play
in Milwaukee some years ago and right then and there we figured out
exactly when and where. Too much! It was a night where after the show,
Sheila Spargur, who had booked the show (and at whose apartment I was
staying), had misplaced her keys and we couldn't get in. But some kids
at the show had invited us to a party a coupla blocks away and when
we walked over there most of them had already passed out. Ha!
The guy's name was Jordan and when the show was over he, Kirk and I
were yakkin' in the street when two young women in black—friends
of Kirk—came moping by on their way from a funky barroom experience
and much animated yakkin' ensued. Getting later, we all said goodbye
and I gave Jordan a ride to his house where I crashed. But not before
walking down the street to the neighborhood bar (we were in the Irish
Channel) and having a coupla more beers. Back at the house I met his
girlfriend Martha who seemed a really nice lady. Not from Milwaukee,
he met her here. Next day we sat and yakked and went to a burrito joint
for food. Yeah, it's mildly hot and definitely humid and I'm enjoying
the sweating aspect of it all. Call me crazy but I do like this kind
of weather at this time of year.
So on to Mobile where I was able to add another state to the list; I'd
never played in Alabama before. But geeezz! it was almost disastrous!
I had no problem finding the address of the venue except that when I
found it... there was nothing there! I mean the place was closed! And
I don't mean for the winter! And I had no idea what to do or where to
go as the sun sank and it got darker and later and I double-checked
and back-tracked again and again and there wasn't anyone I could call.
Can you say: panic? Well, if you can, so can I, but not long after I
said it I got a phone call. Luckily, Watt had my cell number. It turned
out that the updated information on the address change had never reached
me. Everyone knew except me. So how do you spell relief? OK, you get
the picture—the day was saved and I made it in plenty of time.
Whew!
The (This Bike is a) Pipebomb crew showed up and damn! it was a fun
night with some silly footwork on the "Ministry of Funny Dances." It
don't get much better than this! There was a really cute but way wasted
gal who glommed onto me—hell, she was licking a number of guys
including some Secondmen. ha!—and no, I really couldn't handle
a drunken dame tonight. But I gotta praise the girl (can't remember
her name) who brought the great habanero salsa. It rocked! At the end
of it all I made it down the road to Pensacola and a couch at Ted, Rymodee
and Jennifer's new house. They're getting ready to hit the road and
once again they're trying to drag me out on tour with them and I'm always
tempted to just pick up and go but this time I'm on the road until after
they play in Austin. That's a drag cuz Pipebomb tours are really a blast.
Tallahassee was the home of the late, great Red Barber aka Tampa Red.
One of the legendary sportscasters, I think he coined the term "In the
Catbird Seat". I used to listen to him on NPR every friday morning until
he died in the early 90's. The man had soul and humanity. He was the
redneck who, under much racist pressure from both his peers and the
times, made the brave decision to treat Jackie Robinson not as a controversial
spectacle, but as the baseball player that he was. When Robinson stepped
up to bat amidst the boos of the fans, Barber heard a voice in his head
that commanded him to "report"—nothing more, nothing less—for,
after all, he was a journalist. And report is what he did. Quietly,
with dignity, giving the ballplayer the respect he deserved as a man
and as a sportsman. Here's to you, Red!
Of course, the last time I played the Cow Haus back in the summer of
'99 it was one of those nights when everything went wrong. I broke strings,
dropped instruments, spilled water into instrument cases, forgot the
words to my own songs and, upon heading back to Pensacola that night,
the fan went through the radiator and I was dead in the water for awhile
(I had AAA and got towed the rest of the way and fixed the radiator
the next day—all for less than $100). The Cow Haus was in a new
location now and not extremely air-conditioned. This time the show went
pretty darn well. Nothing broke! But I gotta say that it's amazed me
how audiences seem to really like the tenor banjo these days. It used
to be that after about two minutes of picking on the 4-string beast
that folks would tune it out and show less than enthusiastic appreciation.
Maybe it's the "bluegrass fakeout" factor in effect but it might also
be that folks' ears have opened up a bit in these post-Riverdance (and
post "Oh, Brother...") times. Not that R'dance made the world safe for
Irish tenor banjo, but it has gotten folks used to the idea that traditional
Irish music is a different thing and a different sound than American
traditional. My experience had usually been that people didn't really
"get it" and I'd be sitting there feeling like a chump.
During Watt's set I escaped to the band room next to the stage to wrestle
with a NY Times crossword puzzle. C'mon, I can't listen to the band
every fuckin' night; I'll get sick of 'em! Besides, I've become addicted
to x-words for the past year or so and I was really jonesing for a fix.
I'm not sure what Watt and the band's evaluation of their show was (I
tend to stay away from such musings for mental survival) but from where
I was it sounded like things were really kicking in for them. I admit
that as much as I liked the concept and sound of what they were doing,
some of the early shows were missing on a few cylinders. Like maybe
bad plug wires. That's par for the course but there was nothing I could
voice about it until now. They know they're still a pretty green band,
so there. My rule of thumb at this point was that while listening to
them this night I clicked onto answers for about five clues. This being
a big puzzle from the sunday magazine, I'd say that's a good thing.
Coming into Tampa, I encountered the first real rain of the tour and
(finally!) an actually funny bit on drivetime FM radio—a super
low budget commercial for "Easy Way", an appliance/beeper/cellular phone
store. Yeah, every once in a while I end up listening to these crappy
T40/Country/Classic stations just because I've heard all my tapes dozens
of times. On this tour I've probably driven in silence more often than
any other I've done. But commercial radio in this country is pretty
damn bleak. No, it's horribly robotic! These DJs think... on second
thought, how could they think? Uh uh, there ain't no thinking involved.
It's all automated monkey dung served up like frozen poopoo popsicles.
I'm not here to be fair. I'm just here to voice my goddam opinion. Anyway,
the rain squall served to bump up the humidity factor and wouldn't ya
know? The Orpheum had no working A/C. That didn't really bother me.
We conjectured later that it made the difference between the rambunctious
Tallahassee audience and the reserved acting Tampa crowd. These folks
knew how not to overexert themselves.
After the show we slid over to Gabe's house. He's a friend of the captain.
But no sooner did we dock there than a few partiers came by with some
beer but they stayed outside on the porch where I eventually went to
be sociable. There are times when Miller Lite is not such a bad thing.
I left my pitiful social life behind in Austin, I haven't had even the
hint of any cute kidnappers since Albuquerque, I just feel like listening
to a pitiful drunken conversation in the middle of the night. So there.
I ain't proud. And then I ain't awake any more but there was a ding-dang
dream that kicked me in the ass and then there was the barking dog and
then there was the domestic argument next door to which I woke. And,
let's face it, that totally wiped out any dream I may have had. Some
dreams don't stick. They end up being like super glue on dirty surfaces.
En la mañana, there would be bagels and dancing girls. Just like
in somebody's dream.
Moving right along, Jacksonville was a very oddball gig. Don't ask me
why... you just hadda be there, bucko. But first, getting there from
Tampa was reason enough for me to stop at the "Fantasy of Flight" air
museum. But damn! it cost $25 to walk through the exhibits! Uh uh, couldn't
do it this time so I bought a t-shirt instead. As you're driving up
I-4 on the north side of the highway you encounter an old DC-3 diving
into the ground with a paratrooper hanging for dear life on the tailwheel.
Now THAT'S a Hell-Ride! And when I pulled into the parking lot there
was a line of old Model T Fords in front of the exhibit building. Kinda
like the whole idea of how this poor man's touring concept began. We
can blame it all on Henry Ford. But a flathead motor can be a beautiful
thing. So why am I thinking of an ex-girlfriend right now? She drove
a Geo Metro and that really doesn't count. I could never explain that
to her, though. She was an idealist in a neo-hippyistical-vegetarical
way. And I could probably never explain why seeing the Daytona Motor
Speedway off in the distance made me feel good about all the time I
spent as a kid reading Hot Rod Magazine when Junior Johnson, Fireball
Roberts, Dan Gurney and Richard Petty were tearin' up those sweltering
southern tracks. Ahhhh..... old-school Nascar and big 7-liter blocks!!
But did I mention that the gig was kinda oddball? I thought I had a
great show but for some reason the goons were out tonight. One big lummox
made himself very vocal right in front of me in that way that I don't
know whether he's trying to be a pain in the ass or if he's just inherently
a pain in the ass. Either way, he was a pain in the ass. But the only
thing you can do in that situation is make guys like that part of the
show. Don't ask how to do it; just do it the best way you can. Other
than the lummox, the crowd was great. And, of course, he was a lummox
in Watt's set, and then there was another lummox later in his set who
was probably even more ludicrous; I mean, he was so ludicrous he was
funny—y'know, the kinda jerk who doesn't realize he's made himself
into a joke let alone a horse's ass. I'd say his comment about doing
gravity bongs pretty much explains a lot. And apparently there was someone
else of the lummoxian persuation (a girl apparently) during that set
that I didn't notice. Doesn't matter, the creepies were out tonight.
And wouldn't ya know that the show was being webcast? It all went out
over the internet so I hope it was entertaining for the listeners at
least. If anyone heard it and/or recorded it I'd like to hear how it
all played. Should be good for a hoot.
I found the club and the staff there to be really cool, especially the
owner/promoter Tim and his wife. Lotsa good stories from past Watt tours.
The opening band EMA gathered us up at the end of the evening and took
us on Mister Toad's Wild Ride to their house. Damn! We drove and drove
and at one point I thought we had gone all the way to St. Augustine.
Geeeezzzz!!! If anything the trek was funny. I mean, after all the goonism,
why not? Jerry said this band reminded him of that early Velvet Underground
droning vibe. Yeah, good call. These were really nice folks who had
a big house with plenty of sleeping space and I noticed that the room
that Jerry and Pete slept in had all the whips and the funny hatchet
thingie and, uh... I made sure to sleep in a different room... with
the door closed. No, I don't think I heard any strange noises in the
night.
Next day Watt and I butted heads again over computerisms (this was an
ongoing heckle for awhile—his "barbie purse" iBook vs. my old Mac
PB-190. the 190 worked fine once I had wrestled with it and access numbers
a bit. so there!). Heck, after the previous night's safari all I wanted
to do was get my bearings before trying to follow the boat outta the
maze we had sailed into. He's got this mapping software that he relies
on and he insists that I need it on my computer as well. Gee, whatever
happened to the concept of one person asking another person to see their
map? He calls me a Luddite. He's wrong. I'm a Luddite with portfolio!
Of course, if it weren't for me asking directions to the Tampa club
a few days before he wouldn't have figured out that all the info he
was feeding to the computer mapping god was wrong anyway. Ha! Seems
the zipcode that he thought was the club was actually the promoter's
address... in a different city. It was my cellphone that saved the day,
hyuk!
But once outta the maze and on the highway I made a minor detour in
my route to Charleston. Simply, I jumped from I-295 (which would have
skirted the city) onto I-10 to get me over to I-95 going north. Maybe
that added a coupla miles to the trip but spiritually it was better.
A few years ago I realized that I had driven every inch of I-10 except
for what lay east of Tallahassee. As of this tour the only part I haven't
travelled is the span between the intersections of I-75 and I-295. My
disappointment is that I've never made it all the way to the Atlantic
on I-10; but now I've at least seen and driven on both extreme ends
of it. Y'see, I-10 was the highway being built right next to the house
where my mom took my sister to have her hair done. Dragging me along,
I had no interest in the hen session that took place inside so I was
on my own. A swath of houses had been removed from the existing streets
through which the new interstate would run and this home was just on
the reprieve side of the destruction line. This street would be one
of the non-accessible overpasses so a huge crater was dug out of the
earth and I used to climb down into it and play in the constuction site
and when the overpass bridge was finally erected it was the greatest
slab of cement to crawl under with a cold soda and stare at the dirt
roadbed reflecting the unmerciful sunlight on those hot summer days
in the early 60's. There was always a radio soundtrack drifting over
from someone's open window or back door; AM radio when the DJ's had
personalities; in the heyday of early surf instrumentals, the Tijuana
Brass, R&B pop and early Motown; no Beatles yet; JFK was still alive.
South Carolina proved to be a high point of the trip. First of all,
it was new territory for me. I've only driven through it in the past
and this trip would involve some non-interstate travel, something I
always look forward to especially on such a bright sunny day. Once I
hit Charleston I allowed myself to travel too far because it took me
over that exhilarating cantilever bridge that spans the bay and it afforded
me a great view of the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. I love seeing
stuff like this. I had been hoping to tour the USS Alabama in Mobile
but once again didn't have the time to do it. This is one of the things
I hate about touring... never really having the time or the funds to
engage in such activities. So I dream of that "romantic" sojourn where
I'll have the luxury to actually do some sightseeing for a change, without
having to watch the clock on when I have to arrive at the club or what
time soundcheck is. Doing 19 shows in 20 days doesn't leave much time
for frivolities. And with all the driving, rest and relaxation are pure
luxuries. So for now I'm satisfied to get a memorable look at these
monuments.
Now we visit the Averted Disaster Dept.—aka the reason why this
breifly became the "NO LICENSE PLATES" tour. While stopping for gas
on the road between Tallahassee and Tampa, I was alarmed to discover
that I was not carrying either my vehicle registration or proof of insurance
in the car. Yeah, it's realizations like this that make life a magnet
for unsavory encounters. It would be just my luck that a cop would stop
me for some reason and I would have to explain everything and no matter
how true that explanation might be I might be ticketed or asked to visit
the particular arresting officer's station. Not good. So upon getting
to the Orpheum I immediately called my housesitter and told her to look
for the folder on my desk that likely contained the documents I needed.
I was sure that in the frazzling events of the abandoned car incident
not only would the titles, registrations, etc. of the controversial
vehicles be in the folder but the Toyota documents as well having recently
renewed its registration. But no, she didn't find anything that looked
like what I needed. Hmmm... this was not good.
It's been a common occurence for me to get stopped by highway cops (and
city cops) for not having a front license plate on my car. Different
states have different laws in this regard but the enforcement is just
too damned random. I'm sure that in my case I'm stopped because of the
"certain profile" factor (yes, cops have told me exactly that after
I come up clean in their computers). But that profiling (and out-of-state
plates) would be enough for some patrolman to pull me over and maybe
ruin my whole day. But what could I do at this point? I couldn't go
home and search for the stuff myself. I could only hope they somehow
turned up. This was Florida and, as I learned later, front license plates
were optional. In Texas I'm still unclear on the issue. So I observed
and, like those mental road games I played in my head, I began counting
the number of cars that had no front plate. I was amazed to find that
MORE THAN HALF the cars on the road at any given time were plateless.
This was consistent over a period of days and I imagined if a cop stopped
me for the offense I would simply ask him as nicely as I could to count
the vehicles himself. Even Ryder rental trucks were plateless! This
strikes me as a precedent. How do you enforce such a violation when
there doesn't seem to exist a reasonable rule of thumb? Also, there
is evidence that many newer cars and trucks are built with nary a provision
for the affixing of a front plate. It seems to me that the legality
of standard equipment on an automobile is something that should be regulated
at the federal level; not the state level. If a car built in Detroit
or in Japan, for that matter, is built in "violation" of a particular
state's code but is allowed to be sold legally in that state, wouldn't
that then invalidate that state's laws? At least in a partial sense,
grandfathering notwithstanding?
OK, enough with the license plate rant! You get the idea.
Luckily, in Charleston the whole issue became moot. The owner of the
Cumberland had to kick us out after soundcheck since he needed to lock
up til the first bartender arrived. The club was about a block below
the public market—an historic row of open air buildings that someone
wrongly deemed to be the old slave market—and I found a restaurant
that satisfied my craving for a good salad. I left the laptop at the
club but had my notebook with me and when I clumsily opened it up to
write (it had all kinds of stray papers stuffed in it) lo and behold!
out dropped the envelope that contained the missing Toyota documents!
Shazam! Turns out I'm more organized than I suspected. What a relief!
Now I won't need to play charades or show-and-tell with any cops. Of
course, I will admit that I was actually looking forward to such a confrontation
just to see if I could talk my way out of it. Sure, call me a fool.
I'll resemble the remark.
The show itself was a good one. The opening band was a countryabilly
outfit that may have been a little out of place on the bill. They didn't
really grab the crowd but afterwards they chalked it up to it being
a "character building" gig. Yep, some nights are like that. For the
most part I've felt I haven't really done a bad show and this was no
exception. I had become a little impatient with myself over the fact
that I was pretty much doing the same set every night—something
I've always had an aversion to—but I had to keep reminding myself
that it was a different crowd and city each night and the set I was
doing now was working really well both time-wise and structure-wise.
The one strange incident came when I told the audience that it was my
first time playing anywhere in South Carolina and some big guy in the
crowd cried, "Bullshit!" I challenged him a bit but he insisted I was
full of shit. Huh? When the set was over the guy saunters over to me
and calls me a "fuckhead" to which I just smiled wryly and said, "Yeah.
I enjoy being a fuckhead." It was clear that he thought I was lying
about having never played in the state before. But then he started acting
as if we knew each other already and so I quit humoring him because
I didn't know him and he obviously thought I was someone else and there
was no telling who that someone else could be. He kept insisting he
was in on my "little joke" and that I had been there about ten years
ago (which was not possible) and this is where it got disturbing. The
guy coulda been a psycho who would refuse to believe anything I said
on the matter. So I let him buy me a beer and managed to exit the worrisome
conversation which had now become unintelligible since Watt had started
playing. A bartender assured me that the guy wasn't dangerous but I
made sure to stay away from him the rest of the night. Who knows who
he thought I was or what kind of encounter was had those ten years ago?
Odd.
I crashed at the house of John and Aja, two very nice, very cool folks
who had a reggae band and who both worked at a place that conducts carraige
tours in the historical city. It turned out John didn't have to work
the next day so he offered me a free tour. Since it was a very short
distance to the next show I went for it. We got the carraige with Jason,
the horse that Aja insisted was the coolest horse in the whole stable,
and we pulled the tour through the Battery. Charleston has a rich history
dating back to pre-Revolutionary War times and was the site of the beginning
of the Civil War and next time there I'll have to see Fort Sumter as
well as the Yorktown. Great old homes there and a very strict historical
society that prohibits any tampering with the historical nature of the
architecture. One thing that stood out was the home which once housed
a gentleman upon which Margaret Mitchell based character of Rhett Butler
in her novel "Gone With the Wind." And, of course, there was the home
in which George Washington slept. It made me want to review my American
history again. There was a time when I knew so much more about these
things and somehow forgot so much of it in my pursuit of things pursuable.
It's a shame how the attainment and maintenance of a productive life
tends to take Americans away from the idea of where we are and who we
are because let's face it, like it or not, we are a country with a background.
It's sometimes a sordid background; men make mistakes, and sometimes
even grosser mistakes, but it's also a mistake to ignore this past because
by doing so one is also ignoring the potential that lies within the
present to correct those mistakes.
After the tour, John and I walked over to a great burrito joint (was
it called Sophia Greenburg's? damn! can't remember!) for chow and we
ran into a friend of his, a homeless guy named Terry (whoops, that might
not be right) who was petitioning for a bid to run for mayor. John spoke
very highly of this man so I signed the petition. Yeah, the American
dream at work out on the streets of the cradle of the South. Apparently
he was a Vietnam Vet who fell on the kind of hard times that puts a
man on the streets. But according to John he's one of the most honest,
helpful people you could find anywhere. It made me feel sad and happy
at the same time.
Up the road to Columbia I managed to find the New Brookland Tavern by
dead reckoning. What a snap! Who needs mapping software, boyyeeEEE!!!!
This felt like one of my best shows and it seemed like one of Watt's
best shows too. At one point while he was playing a girl in the audience
asked me if I knew of any illegitimate children I had fathered. Wow!
What a question! She told me that her ex-boyfriend was a musician and
began to describe in detail the similarities she saw between him and
me. Things like exact hand movements, body posture, facial expressions,
vocal inflections, and she said we had the same nose! Gee, I was speechless!
So I began thinking and calculating who I could've had in late 70's
who birthed this child. I'm still thinking and calculating. Gee, I now
think it could have been the witch who ran the astrology store! But
I don't think so. Would she have been of such a persuasion to kiss and
not tell me anything? Ever? Uh, maybe but somehow I don't think that
would've been her style. And I really doubt if it was her anyway. And
I kinda doubt if was anyone else I had been seeing at that oh so special
time when I was living at the beach and being the roller skating devil.
Hmmm... who knows... coulda been anyone at anytime and then again it
was probably no one at all and the girl is mistaken. She was earnest
enough not to be crazy!
This is where the weather started to turn. When I walked outside to
load up there was a definite coolness in the air that felt really great.
Nothing against hot weather as you can obviously tell by now but the
contrast is most welcome. I like the heat but I'm never anxious for
the summer to insinuate itself onto the springtime too soon. The summer's
gonna be hot enough but to experience the change of seasons is priceless.
Mark the words of this old man! We sailed over to the apartment of James
and Abby (he works at the club and his band Fling was the opener) where
he let me park in his space in the underground garage. Getting our gear
situated in the abode, me, Jerry, Pete and James moseyed downstairs
to the bar that was in the ground floor of the building. I'd had a coupla
beers at the NBT but here I had a good ol' Beam & Coke and then a good
ol' Harp to follow it down. Yum! So we yakked about a buncha stuff and
finally took stock of the definite "vibe" in this place. It was a DEAD
bar! As in Grateful Dead! Uh huh. I hadn't noticed the neon Steal Your
Face in the window upon walking in but they were playing some Phish
on the system and the girls had "that look." Know whudda mean, Vern?
No matter. We had a swell time. Back up in the apartment I made call
to the Magnolia Cafe in Austin (the Lake Austin store; MY store!) and
put in a to-go order for a big ol' Three Alarm platter for me and Watt's
men... told em' to deliver it! Vida, one of the coolest waitresses in
the world, took the order and actually passed it on to the kitchen.
I had hoped that either Heather or Adam were cooking tonight but they
were both off—they make the best Three Alarm meals (essentially
a breakfast taco with potato and lotsa jalapeño and chipolte
cooked in and then some). Darn! I really needed to harass Heather—get
her back for all the food and 'tude she's thrown at me. Anyway, Jamie,
the waiter/host who used to live in the 'linas, got on the phone and
we yakked about shit til he had to get back to work. But I'm still waiting
for that food! I guess they didn't think I was serious about getting
it.
When I got off the phone everyone had passed out but I wasn't ready
to sleep yet and I sat in the kitchen and chimped diary til I couldn't
keep my eyes open and finally starting cutting Z's in the hallway. The
morning was a rude awakening. A loud, relentless noise woke us and it
didn't take me long to realize it was an alarm going off against my
underslept and not quite hungover state. Watt was already awake and
fully dressed and running out the front door with his gear shouting
to us, "It's the fire alarm, guys! Fire! There's a fire in the building!"
He disappeared and left the door wide open onto a deserted hallway which
I stared down in both directions and wondered if anyone in any of the
other rooms had heard it or if maybe everyone had spent the night elsewhere.
Jerry had gone downstairs to investigate, the Fire Dept. having already
arrived, and, just as I was groggily gathering up my stuff to make a
run for it, he came back up with the news that it was a false alarm
and then the alarm fell quiet. All this time I had a hunch that was
the case but I wasn't gonna chance it cuz ya never know. And perhaps
if Mike hadn't yelled us the rest of the way awake, if it had been a
real emergency we might have not have stirred soon enough and would
have been in some real trouble. A shivering thought. It was 8:00 am
at this point. Too early but I knew there would be no way to get back
to sleep so I took a shower, gathered up my gear and we all left for
our respective boats.
Down in the parking garage I remembered that I had meant to change strings
on my Takamine acoustic right after the show but had gotten distracted
by conversation so I made the decision to change 'em right then and
there. I hadn't changed them since early March, just before the Irish
festival in Dallas, and, thanks to not having used this guitar since
then, they had been pretty fresh throughout the first part of the tour
but I could tell that they were getting to that "ready to fail" stage.
There are certain telltale tuning inaccuracies that usually tip me off
in advance and I've learned not to ignore these signs unless I'm willing
to spend part of my set restringing on stage. No thanks! The weather
was now in the cool range and it was a joy to focus on this task in
the bracing morning air using the hood of the Toyota as my workbench.
By the time I reached Atlanta the road vibrations would have helped
the strings settle into pitch. But I'm sure my clumsy backing out job
helped too. Damn, I had forgotten I was parked next to a structural
pillar til I heard my fender crunching on it! Not a serious accident
but it was the last perfectly straight body panel on the car. Now it's
as imperfect as the others... a zen hot dog... becoming one with everything.
It was early enough to go to a bank to get a money order to send some
gig cash back home to my account so my housesitter could pay some of
my bills but the bank I went to wouldn't sell money orders to anyone
other than their own customers. Huh? I really don't understand this
policy; makes no sense to me. I found the post office and had no problem
getting a m.o. and popping it into the mail to my bank. Thank you, Benjamin
Franklin! Folks in this country don't give you enough credit!
PART 1
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