:: Tallboy6A ::

:: Friday, October 11, 2002 ::

NOW EVERYBODY SING ALONG TO THE OFFICIAL ANTHEM OF FALL TOUR 2002.

THANKS FOR PLAYING.

M
:: mike 7:40 AM [+] ::

9/30-10/01- The Last Days of Tour

I drove 45 minutes from Detroit to Ann Arbor, lay my t-shirts out on the lawn of U. Michigan, and slept. I had to wait for my friend Adam to get out of work. By association, that would mean I'm not at work. Funny. I definitely do something. I guess it's just south of "work." Strictly defined, that is.

I reconnected with my friend Adam, hung out, slept on his couch. I’ve had a recurring dream out here, that New York City catches on fire, and the tether that holds me there snaps, and my whole family, all my stuff, is gone. What would I do? What if it happened? This has been in the back of my mind for a year. If anything happens, I want to be there. I'm having re-entry anxiety.

Oct. 1 U. of Indianapolis

Last show of tour.

The student activity committee talked about taking me to Hooters, but then admitted that it’s a weird place. Almost always there's one girl who's pregnant, but still running around in those little orange shorts, and the little white tops. I didn't want to go, anyway. For some reason, because I have a guitar, I'm always supposed to want to go to Hooters. "You're a musician...let's go to Hooters." Fact is, the food is awful, the girls are freezing cold from the air conditioning, are cranky as a result, the beer is lousy, and you're not allowed to change the channels. So we hit Applebee's for a chicken fajita rollup. It's actually beginning to pass as food.

The show came, and went and was good. I was loose, and in disbelief at the end, which stood in front of me. A white light emanating from my merchandise table at the back of the U. of I foyer. I sang, and began rounding things up in my head.

Best shows:
1) Hastings St. Ballroom, Detroit, MI
2) U. Wisconsin, Madison, WI
3) Columbia College, Columbia, MO

Weirdest food: The Bloomin’ Onion, Quincy, IL
Number of hookers who propositioned me: 1
# of times I had to leave stage to go to the bathroom: 1
# of songs written: maybe 2
# of pages written: probably 350


...and so on.

I pulled into NYC, 12 hours of a car ride later, emptied the car, and fell into a comatose sleep. Gratitude. And no damage to my self or my stuff. Nothing broke during that entire trip. 37,000 miles of driving and I didn't even get even a parking ticket. Well, I got one. But still. I've been to remote rural places, dangerous urban places, long term parking in Kansas City, the back room of a Motel 6 that abutted an airstrip where my screams for mercy could have been masked easily enough...and everything was in one piece. Dirty, but in one piece.

I woke up at home, glowing with this good fortune, and went out to my car, which was parked directly outside my apartment building. In the night, some crackhead had punched in the back window with his fist, and cut himself pretty badly. This apparently didn't stop him, because he opened the door and bled all over the interior of the car to find something to steal. He rummaged throught the mounds of empty plastic bottles and boxes, opened the glove compartment, bled on it, found nothing, and left.

It felt good to be back home.

THE END.

THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.

:: mike 8:44 AM [+] ::

9/28 – Detroit, MI

I was up late with Jason LeVasseur, drinking and talking about the road. He related another great trick he does with his van. He has a bed in the back, and rolls up to hotel parking lots late at night, sleeps in the back, and in the morning, wakes up and eats at the free continental breakfast. Jason’s been at this for a while, he’s got tricks to teach, and I’m all ears.

I slept late, thank God, and woke up completely confused. My brain is scrambled. I have no idea where I am. Matt, in another move of genius, arranged for a late, 3pm checkout. He’s unreal. I rolled out about 2pm, missed any chance of breakfast, and instead retired to the bar for a sandwich, a beer, and the Lions game with some rabid fans.

The Lions, in an incredible showing from Joey Harrington, their new quarterback, got their first win of the season, in decisive fashion, and I noticed something: everywhere I’ve been, the home team has won. Colleges win, pro teams win. I’ve never been with a losing home team, this entire tour. Even here in Detroit. Very weird.

I hung out in Detroit for a while, and played a small café named Xhedos. The Wisotsky’s were there, and we watched a cute, blond 5 year old girl get up on stage and free associate while her dad (the soundman from last night) played a chord progression. Her lyrics were something like, “Oooh. Yeah yeah. I like toys. I like my toys. Me and my friends play a lot. And these little fingers on my hand, oooh. I broke some of them off, but they grew back, but they’re smaller, and I have to take care of them that I don’t break em off again, ooh yeah yeah…” She banged her hand on the mic a few times and then announced, “OK. I’m finished,” and walked off. Awesome.

:: mike 7:03 AM [+] ::

Sept. 28 – Hastings St. Ballroom, Detroit, MI

The Wisotsky’s are angels, and Matt is the spearhead of a Detroit-based promotion company called SANAP that he is trying to get up off the ground. He’s a sophomore at Wayne State, and has been trying to get me back in the Detroit area since the Mike Glabicki tour of 1999. We were in correspondence for that whole time, but it was kind of impossible for me to get out there. Thanks to this last tour, and some work getting it routed, it finally happened.

There is no way to overstate how amazing this show was, and the length that Matt and his crew went to to make it fantastic. He made t-shirts, posters, flyers, tickets, hired security for the parking lot, filled my hotel room with beer and Faygo (if you don’t know, that’s the official pop of Detroit’s own Insane Clown Posse), found an amazing, unstructured art space with raked seating and room for about 150. He found a P.A. system that worked pretty damn well. But I guess the best detail was the giant backdrop that they painted of the grill of a car, with my name in the license plate. It was about 9’ x 5’, and the friggin’ headlights lit up. Unforgettable.

Tired as I was from the insanity of Nebraska, and the drive before that, I went for broke. The so-called “Cheesecake Girls” drove up from Indianapolis, and it was so gratifying to have friends from one city meet up with friends from another. This is the reason I do this. My goal has been to have a party with cool people there who are turned on, smart, artistic, interested, curious, and most of all, activated. I will never forget this show, ever, ever, ever. I did everything I possibly could to live up to the amount of effort they put in. I hope I held up my end of the deal, and musically related my gratitude.

This was the best show of tour. There will be pictures circulating, I’m sure. Check for them, or ask Matt W. He’s on the message board.

All hail the Motor City.

:: mike 9:39 AM [+] ::

Sept. 27 – hi to the Wisotsky’s and off to Nebraska.

Don’t ask. I drove to Detroit to get my stuff there, slept about 4 hours at the Wisotsky’s house, and hopped a red eye to Omaha, where I rented a car and drove to Lincoln, for the U. of Nebraska’s homecoming. I’d be there one night, and back for the Detroit show on the next day.

Jason, from Chicago, had given me a Jack Johnson boot which is awesome, and I played it over the PA because all the soundmen had was “redneck music”, as they put it. Some people came over on the strength of Jack, and I started soundcheck on an outdoor lawn, with a huge sound system. I looked out over the lawn, started tweaking sounds, and all of a sudden, sprinklers popped up out of the lawn and started dousing everything. Luckily my stuff was not sprinkled, because I was too tired to believe what was happening, and would have just hugged the mic stand and electrocuted myself, gone to the afterlife, and finally gotten some sleep, there. I figured my parents would have made back all the money that I cost them in one lump settlement from the liability lawsuit with U. Nebraska. It would be nice. Mom would be driving a car I’d bought her, just like the basketball players do for their moms when they get their big NBA contracts. I would be like the Kobe Bryant of death, electrocuted by a PA system suddenly submerged in water. Someone will have to edit that sentence down for my gravestone. I’m too tired.

After a few frantic minutes, Groundskeeper Willie turned the hose off, and we began soundchecking again. Two minutes later, gigantic pre-recorded church bells from a nearby spire began pealing out the 4 o’clock hour. I asked, “Is that going to be a constant?” “Yeah,” the soundman, in a Poison Tour shirt stretched tight around his belly responded. “Every quarter hour. Not much we can do about that.” I listened again. The bells were in G major. Every quarter hour. I had to use them to my advantage, somehow.
On the hour: play “God”
On the quarter: play “Skimming”
On the half: play “If I were the Pope”
On the ¾ hour: play “Shook Me All Night Long”, and cross reference AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells”, which was on the same disc.
On the hour again: give up.

They had me start around 5. Quickly, the sun went down, and it became freezing cold. People huddled against each other on the soaking wet grass. There was no lighting system, so I slowly faded into the night, right before their eyes. The church bells rang out every fifteen minutes. I was delirious with sleep deprivation. I forgot what city I was in, and made a joke about the “big tire that you guys have on the side of the highway here.” They stared at me, confused. They didn’t know about the tire, because that big tire is actually a promotional ad for a tire company, and it’s located in Detroit, 1000 miles away. I was in Lincoln. I am a “Spinal Tap” episode come to life.

I needed sleep. Bad. I wanted Detroit to kick ass. But I was definitely low on fuel. Just sleep. Every available moment. Sleep.

:: mike 9:36 AM [+] ::

12 hour drive from Quincy, Illinois to Detroit

Reality continues to bend and morph. Hideous shapes appear in front of the car and I swerve wildly. I break out in cold sweats, I speak to dead relatives. I apologize to my grandpa for taking the money he left me and recording Bite Size instead of going back to school. I’m sorry, Grandpa. I’m sorry.

Machines call my home answering machine and speak to it. They mechanically dial my number, having accessed or bought it from pay stubs, from old employers gone bankrupt, from department stores where I’ve bought goods and services in the false belief that the transaction is complete at the point when money and product changes hands. The transaction is not complete, even still it is not complete. I am now awash in an information pool, my numbers, buying habits and dental records are bought and sold by machines humming in brightly-lit rooms. I am duplicated and targeted, and these machines peck at my wallet like hungry birds.

I am driving a machine and holding a machine to my head to access the messages these foreign machines leave on my home answering machine. “Hey, this is Johnny, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reach you but I wanted to tell you about an exciting new offer on mortgage rates from Louisana Federal Savings and Loan…” “Hello. This year, the democratic ticket features a fine middle class Italian American candidate that you would be proud to endorse…” “Are you not making enough money? Work at home and make two, three, even four times what you make now, simply by watching the television…” Some machines cut the line when they reach my machine. They put my machine on a different list. Target not accessed. Call back later. These machines understand their own futility. I question mine, on long drives like this.

But then I arrive at the Wisotsky’s, and all that changes.

:: mike 9:32 AM [+] ::

Strange, sad, and arty...
:: mike 2:50 PM [+] ::

9/25 – Quincy U.

5 hour drive, after a four hour sleep, and a gig at the end of it…but there’s more. My friend Ethan’s parents live in Quincy and wanted to take me out, so instead of pulling into the Comfort Inn and crashing for an hour, I went straight to the Abbey, a small dark restaurant/bar, and ordered a beer. This night would be fueled by incredibly loud emo in the car, adrenaline, and cocktails of beer and mountain dew.

Ethan’s dad looks frighteningly like Ethan. I felt like I was talking to Ethan in the future. I wanted to reminisce with him about the times we’ve had in New York City bars, but of course that would have been a blatant confusion of reality. Of course, his dad wasn’t helping to keep things straight for me. He had the same gestures as Ethan, and an eerily similar, deep laugh. “So, are we getting appetizers? Yes? Great. Waitress, let’s get a Bloomin’ Onion for the table.” Wow. Genetics are uncanny. Ethan would have ordered one, for sure. In fact, I’m sure he’s ordered one here at the Abbey, in his hometown of Quincy, Illinois. Perhaps, in some space/time echo, he is. I was already delirious from the drive, the drinking last night, the tour in general, the sense of isolation in this rolling gray box with a sunroof; now, in Quincy, the fourth dimension was beginning to bend. At a dinner table. With my friend’s parents. Over a Bloomin’ Onion.

“We knew it was you, Mike, from the red pants you’re wearing.” Ethan’s mom is very funny, and very deadpan, enjoying taking the piss out of me with a sly Midwestern sense of humor that took me a couple of moments to catch up to. The time I was taking between my sentences might have looked to her like a speech impediment, or a side effect of a mood altering drug, but instead of apologizing, I just smiled and tried to keep up. In his house, I’ll be forever known as Ethan’s dumb friend who had trouble stringing sentences together over a Bloomin’ Onion at the Abbey that time. I looked down at my pants. I forget when I last washed them. There are clearly visible sweat stains on them. There’s no time to wash anything, and I’ve started buying socks and t-shirts just to save time. The dirty stuff is in the car, draped over my equipment, stuffed under the back seat. I haven’t bought pants, yet, because I’m too tired or lazy to take them off in the fitting rooms of Sears. I wasn’t making Ethan look great for his proud parents. But in my defense, I was trying.

The Blooming Onion arrived. I’ve never eaten one. I felt like I was in Raiders of the Lost Ark, waiting for my host family to teach me which parts of the monkey’s head to eat. Ethan’s dad, of course, tore at it with fork and fingers, just like Ethan would have. I shook my head to try to keep it clear, but nothing was working. “Ethan tells me you’re rich and famous.” Fucking Ethan. That’s his idea of a joke. Now I had to keep that plate spinning, too. “Um, yeah. That’s me.”

I wasn’t expecting much from the gig at Quincy, but from out of nowhere, the gig was totally great. I played in a small student’s center for a full room, and played a bunch of new material, along with an encore/ request for “Stacy”. From Ethan’s mom. There is no way to predict tour. All I know for sure is that somewhere in the Midwest, nestled in a form-fitted foam case, is a vocal microphone that smells like a Bloomin’ Onion. I pity the next singer who shows up here.

:: mike 2:42 PM [+] ::

9/24 – Boulevard Café, Chicago, IL

OK. This one kinda sucked, even though people showed up and I played well. It’s the venue’s fault. The Boulevard is trying too hard to be too many things. It’s a neighborhood drinking bar. But it’s got a phenomenal kitchen. And it wants to be a listening room, too. On top of that, it books jamband-type stuff. None of these details really work together. But they were kind people, and bought my dinner.

I hung out with Kristen, who shot evil glances all gig long at two loud drunk chicks, one of whom explained that she wanted to be a stand up comic, and then pulled her blouse open and showed me her breasts. My first of tour. Breasts are an amazing thing. They really are. I think I’ll just leave it at that. More likely than not, you know what I mean.

Jason came to the show and handed me a new DVD, with completely beautiful packaging, from the DeKalb show. He photoshopped the DeKalb logo on my guitar (photo by Alyssa Scheinson) . It’s one of my favorite logos, ever, that ear of corn with wings. Putting wings on stuff just makes everything cooler. The Detroit Red Wings simply put wings on a damn tire. And suddenly, it’s the coolest tire ever.

People came wearing shirts that had New York logos on them, subway lines, and Mets jerseys, etc. As I finished up and said good night, my friend Blake Smith walked in. Blake has been in a band called Fig Dish, and another called Caviar, which recently had a minor hit with a song called “Tangerine Speedo”. We drank shots and laughed a lot. I told him, using logic and math, how the record industry is no place for musicians, and outlined fantastic DiFranco-inspired business model alternatives. It was nice to drink. I don’t get to drink too much on account of all the damn driving. Tonight it was all sweet Chicago air bed at Kristen’s. Hallelujah.

:: mike 2:41 PM [+] ::

9/24 – Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL

This is the first college I’ve ever played for a second time. I can’t believe it.

As afraid as I was, as crappy as the sound system was, and despite the fact that there was no sound man, there was a crowd. There was a crowd of FANS. They came, singing the songs, making requests, laughing at the stories, and listening deeply to the words. They reminisced about last time I was here, and wished me the best for the next time.

Holy shit. All this garbage is actually working. Tour is actually creating results. I can’t believe it.

:: mike 2:40 PM [+] ::

9/23 – Lawrence U., Appleton, WI

I ascended into cheese country, pulling over at a roadside store called Cheez Haus for some port wine cheddar and breadsticks. Free lunch.

I met up with Jason LeVasseur, and together we played a thoroughly forgettable set for a small crowd of incoming freshmen who were too overcome with their own hormonal imbalances to pay attention to anything but each others genitals. And the free onion rings, of course, which were provided by the Student Activities Committee. Onions and genitals usually work against each other, so I thought it was strange that they were both provided here in such abundance. Perhaps this is to prepare the student body for the eventual contradictions that life will constantly bombard them with. Better to get them started on some kind of cost/benefit analysis model right from orientation. Bravo, Lawrence U.

The student center had two floors, and on the upper level was Crash, a Dave Matthews cover band. They were great guys and great musicians who’d come up with a good idea for making money. The logic was impeccable: The kids like Dave. Dave can’t be everywhere. Give the kids Dave, because they are like laboratory monkeys who constantly hit the feed bar until they are so bloated with note for note versions of “Satellite” that they barf onion rings all over each other while having sex in the computer center.

The band was jaded about the idea, themselves. “Yeah, when I started, man, I kinda hated Dave,” admitted the bassist and spokesman of the band. “We’re working on our own stuff, and we sneak it in now and then. But this pays the bills. Real well, actually. And now we love his music.” I totally understood their survival instinct, and respected the idea, but I felt a little for them. They’re in dangerous territory without even realizing it. They’re a jukebox, and they’re playing other people’s stuff for money. This is the musical mentality that culminates in positions in regional wedding bands, in weekends playing bass on “The Macarena” while toothless aunts and uncles soil themselves on the parquet dance floors of the Elks Lodge. This culminates in rented tuxedos that smell of cake and Sterno.

Comes a time, these guys are going to have to make a choice. Money’s good, but if you abuse your instrument, sometimes it dies in your hands. You lose your love for it. You play without improving. You play without developing your own idiosyncratic voice. You hold that instrument and eventually it talks back to you, yells at you, reminding you that you played “Crash” 700 times for the cash instead of standing up and speaking your mind for whatever chump change you could scratch together. Instruments get angry when they get bought by hobbyists and imitators. I hope the guys cut bait, stop sucking the Dave teat, and find their own voices.

But, yeah, they sounded a lot like Dave.

:: mike 2:38 PM [+] ::

9/22 – U. Wisconsin, Madison

A total blur, although it’s a beautiful town, and no matter how crappy the hotel, you can’t help but get a view of the river.

The whole town was dressed in red, and parading around, young and old. Trombonists drove mopeds through the streets with red “W”’s painted on their cheeks. Eventually I figured out that it was game day, and the Badgers had, fortunately, won. Every team, in every town I’ve been to, has won. It’s weird.

The night was rowdy and the bar was packed with students and alums on the tail end of their drunks. One guy stumbled up to the stage and asked if any girls had “broken my dong”. I asked him to repeat himself, but he said the same thing. He had mardi gras beads around his neck and a huge smile on his face. He was harmless. In a few hours neither of us would remember the transaction. So I let it go.

I had had two days off, so I was fresh, and hit it with a total vengeance. Probably the best show of tour so far.


:: mike 2:37 PM [+] ::

signs outside a church:

never give the devil a ride. he'll always want to drive
heaven is not a reward for the good. it is a gift for the bad.

Sept. 21 – Drive to Chicago

Kristen, as you know, is the contributor of erotica to Tallboy. She despises that I say that about her, because she’s not that, at all. She’s just a great writer and friend. She has put together a new magazine, called mouth to mouth, about the Chicago art scene, and her launch party was on this night at a fancy art gallery underneath the elevated trains in some cool section of town. I had absolutely no nice clothes, but buttoned my shirt up and tried to fix my hair and make it out like I was the “slightly smelly touring musician from New York City”. Which wasn’t a big stretch, but in this context, wasn’t the worst thing to be. In the artist community, ‘smelly’ can be thought of as ‘natural’, and one could even argue that it's a political statement about the rampant brainwashing of American consumerism. I know. I don’t buy it, either.

I tried to cut cheese for the party, but was downgraded to errand runner and hauler of ice bags. I think it was for the best, and I was closer to the fridge in the back of the gallery, which was stocked with Heineken cans and black olives.

I stepped out for a while, and met some fantastic artists who have made art that I actually have seen in shows, before. Like, famous artists. I was so happy for Kristen. This magazine was really up and running. Cool. I had a long talk with MW Burns, a famous artist whose work I loved at the Whitney Biennial in 2000.



I have a fear of speakers, from being deafened by them many times. He laughed.

We talked about computers, and the scam that they are. They plan incompatibilities into each new version of software, and have stalled culture, because now we have to spend all our time trying to learn the tools with which to make stuff, and in the end, we are making the same stuff we could have made without that tool. BUT WE KEEP MAKING THE SAME STUFF! The tool, therefore, is evolving, but the culture is not, simply because we are constantly made to relearn the tool. I agreed and gave the analogy that cars are constantly improving, but we always know how to work them. Can you imagine if the Chrysler PT Cruiser version 2.0 operated completely differently than the one you already owned? What if they decided to put the steering wheels in different spots, or rearrange the pedals on the floor? It’s completely insane, but that is exactly what Microsoft does every time it comes out with different windows platforms or versions of critical programs.

He also mentioned how, if you continue upgrading this quickly evolving tool, you end up following patterns that the wankers in the programming department have thought up for you. All the little buttons and bells that they push you towards, especially in music software, instantly date and degrade your work, because next month, they’re going to upgrade the fucking garbage they had you buy last month. He and I agreed that the best innovations come from abusing existing equipment and using things in ways that they were not meant to be used. For instance, the first Frisbees were pie plates that someone turned upside down and threw in the air. The internet was a stodgy information sharing program for government and professors…now look at it. I wished I’d had my guitar at that moment. I feel like I’ve been doing that since day one.

I felt like I couldn’t absorb it all, it was all so intensely true. And plus, I spend so much time in the car. I don’t have lots of people to talk to.

:: mike 2:16 PM [+] ::

I've been a jerk, writing but not able to post...plenty coming, hopefully in the next few days. It all got real hectic, schedule wise and I have to catch up. A lot. Working on it.


:: mike 6:48 AM [+] ::

Maxim magazinge sent me a book, so I reviewed it. It was pretty good...


:: mike 8:17 PM [+] ::

Sept. 20 – Drive to Bloomington – Day off

In the morning I didn’t want to leave Columbia, so I hung around in a music store, made friends and bought tons of new music. I can’t even remember what I bought (my eyes roll back like a shark’s in CD stores), but so far I’ve heard:

Bjork: Homogenic
Cursive: (can’t remember, it was recommended by them, very Rival Schools-ish, great)
Badly Drawn Boy:
Even Johanssen:
Stone Temple Pilots: no. 4
Death Cab for Cutie:
Incubus: Morning View
Stratford 4: Revenge against tired noises
Some free samplers that were lying around
Jack Johnson: Brushfire Fairytales

And others. I sat around and shot the shit with them for hours. Finally, I ended up driving as far as Bloomington, IL, where I drank Blue Moon pints at a cavernous Line Dancing bar while watching college football on the overhead TV. The place could have fit 1500 people, easily, but unfortunately Line Dancing wasn’t happening. Instead, it was Karaoke night, and the place had about 11 people in it, two of whom couldn’t get up there fast enough or often enough. Selections were along the lines of “You Don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’…” by David Allan Coe, or that Linkin Park song that goes, “I tried so hard, and got so far/but in the end, it doesn’t even matter/I had to fall/to lose it all/but in the end, it doesn’t even matter…” With a tone deaf cowboy singing those words, the song finally made sense to me.

:: mike 7:58 AM [+] ::

Sept. 19 – Columbia College, Columbia, MO

Everyone here smiles. I have no idea why. It’s just a happy Midwestern college town, with happy people reading books and learning stuff.

From traveling like this, I’ve realized that there are happy schools, and there are schools with strange clouds hanging over them. Buildings have this same problem, where weird molds begin growing in the venting systems, and there is nothing they can do about it. They call it “sick building syndrome”, I think, but I think it applies to groups of people, as well. I don’t know how that kind of creeping sickness starts, or how it leaves, although the student body turns around often enough that it’s probably a problem that ebbs and flows. All I know is that Columbia is healthy: I had a great Thai dinner, played in a beautiful auditorium with a great sound system, totally responsive people…heaven.

Boy. If every night was like this…

:: mike 7:57 AM [+] ::

Sept. 18 – Rockhurst U., Rockhurst MO

Rockhurst is a fairly sober Jesuit school nestled in the middle of a Kansas City ghetto. A huge white spire juts up from the center of the main quad and pumps out a chorus of pre-recorded church bells on the quarter hour.

I met my contact, and received a key to my room for the evening. “You’ll be staying in the women’s dorm,” she said, scanning my face suspiciously. It was blank. She handed me the card key. I tried to stay cool.

I walked up to the tan-brick women’s dorm, swiped the card key, and watched for a moment as the lock blinked green. The women’s dorm. Why would a Jesuit school do this? Is this some kind of Biblical temptation/torture, a test to see if I am worthy to receive my check for the evening’s performance? I pulled the heavy metal door open and stood in the doorway. Before me lay a soft pink-walled paradise, a miracle of modern interior design, each detail an homage to a different episode of “Trading Spaces”. There was giggling everywhere, pillow fighting and feathers floating harmlessly to the ground. There were twins, in matching day-of-the-week panties, scampering past me like wild woodland creatures. An RA stalked the halls in black knee-high boots and a tight black corset. She clutched a disapproving clipboard to her breast, and spanked misbehaving girls at random. Cold beer was dispensed from the soda machines. Shower doors were removed from the stalls, and girls walked back and forth between them, sharing shampoo bottles and warming their chilled bodies under each other’s shower heads. Everywhere was laughter and pointing my direction. I dropped my guitars. The girls raised their eyebrows. And pounced. Oh, sweet death, come to me this selfsame way! I have failed the fleshly test of the Women’s Dorm, now let me burn right here! Let flame purge me of my wrongdoing! Let the tongue lashing begin! Apply the clipboard to my sinner’s buttocks! Again! Again!

OK. That’s an exaggeration. In fact, I was put up in the girls’ dorm, and accosted regularly by whiny students asking, “Where is your escort? You need to have an escort if you are in here. You absolutely must have an escort. What are you doing in here?” I was afraid to leave my room. I was imprisoned, surrounded by women in sweatpants and slippers who bitched about accounting midterms. There was a slight smell of mold and burning in the air. The bed in my “residence suite” was broken. The lamp was also broken, and the phone didn’t work. “Daylight” was bound to be a hit around here.

But in fact, not many ever heard that rock tale of love gone horribly wrong, because there was a Revival going on at the Chapel across the quad, and the students flocked to it. So, instead, I played to a small crowd of atheists in their theater, sweating my ass off, trying to find the thing, the joke, the idea that would crack their impenetrable stone faces. I never quite did. That’s rare, and incredibly deflating. I couldn’t pack up quickly enough.

After the show, I walked, soaking wet, across the quad and looked through the wavy golden stained glass windows of the chapel. Hundreds of students stood in a candlelit circle, arms stretched high, eyes closed, calling out a muffled prayer. “Amen” was the only word I could clearly make out. They sang, and laughed, and sat, and stood, and called out in lockstep with each other. And here I was, once again, in a pool of my own sweat, my low-top Pony’s squishing as I walked the perimeter of the chapel in silence. On the outside, again. On the outside of everything, it seems. These are the small, endless payments made for independence. I have chosen this path, and God knows why, and God’s not telling, ‘cause can’t you see? He’s got a gig tonight, too.

I started wandering back to the girls’ dorm, when I felt a sharp sting on the side of my neck, and slapped at it. A bizarre black insect, about the size of a dime, tumbled into my hand, intestines oozing from its cracked shell. I shook it away from me, terrified, suddenly dancing around in the middle of the quad like a sweating lunatic. I think I yelped. After a few moments of damage assessment and adrenaline downshift, I composed myself, and looked up. A group of girls were sitting outside the dorm, smoking and whispering into their cell phones, eyes on me. Finally, an audience.

I dragged my soaking wet carcass up the dormitory stairs, Pony’s squishing underneath me. I swiped my card and walked through the fluorescent, linoleum tiled hall, waving to the security guard, who, after five near arrests, finally figured out that I belonged here. I shut my door behind me. I stripped out of my clothes and hung them on chairs to dry. I hit the button on the TV. Broken. I showered, and lay down in bed. From an overhead PA system, from speakers strung in buildings and trees along campus, a deep woman’s voice boomed, “Attention. It is now four minutes to twelve o’clock. Please escort all of your male visitors out of the buildings at this time, or you will be written up. Thank you.” Cars started up and drove out of the dorm parking lot. The headlights felt like spotlights sweeping across the campus, prison-style, checking for males, displaced or unnacounted for. God was watching.


:: mike 8:37 AM [+] ::

BACK ON TRACK, BACK ON THE ROAD



Sept. 16 – LaGuardia airport, en route to Kansas City and the final leg of tour.
Days of tour left: 15

Wow. That was supposed to be a vacation? I worked harder at home than I do on the road. Insomnia mixes badly with all the toil, and a weird new domestic wrinkle: my apartment is now infested with some weird kind of tiny flying beetle. They bump into my monitor as I’m typing, and buzz around over the kitchen sink. I’m just never at home, and my place is turning into some kind of above-ground crypt. Vermin have been seeping in the door jambs and up the dried out shower drain. They’re chewing on my cables, mating and nesting in the warmth of my answering machine, dancing on my desk in the green glow of the LED light that blinks “0 messages”. My apartment has turned into an unoccupied coffin. There’s really nothing I can do about it, now, except to turn around and fly back out to Kansas City. Let them have their way. One problem at a time.

The car, sitting at Long term parking, was draped with some weird kind of webbing. Spiders? Moths? Or is that just what happens to things that stop moving for a period of time. Do we just move to keep a step ahead of the insects? Sadly, we all know, in the back of our minds, that we can’t move forever. They will win. We will all be caught, some time. But not today. I fired the car up, and the webbing fell reluctantly away.

Holiday Inn Express – I’m actually racking up points with these guys. Can I eventually retire on Holiday Inn points, travel on frequent flyer miles, transact with Camel cash? Or will these bastards just revoke these points like they’re talking about with Social Security? Why do so many of my sentences end in question marks? Hey, there’s another one…

Social Security. Homeland Security. There is no security. There is nothing, now, nothing but my black binder, and 15 more days that I’m going to hit with real fire. And then back home to work on…this thing I’ve been working on. Which rocks.

The set list is agonizingly constant, even with new songs, but I’m flat out, and have to remember that I wrote an entire score for a play just a couple months ago. And wrote material for my sister’s disc. It’s been the most productive year ever.

At the Denny’s by the airstrip, three commercial airline pilots are huddled around each other, also talking about security; this time, it’s job security. They’re huddled conspiratorially, and speaking in concerned tones.

“Well, a lot of this depends on what happens in Iraq, which looks like it won’t happen for a while, but still…”
“It’s hard to know.”
“Damn hard. And I could’ve gotten a couple upgrades, and I decided against it twice, and I kick myself sometimes. It would have meant more time. You know? Time.”
“You gotta make choices.”
“Sure. And it’s different when you have kids. But sometimes it comes down to career choices versus family choices.”
“Live to work? Work to live?”
“Clem, you are so right. I’ve had to make those choices. There are some guys who live for career and some who live for family. I’ve chosen to live for family.”
“Exactly. Look, this is how I see it: you’re born, and you die. What you do in between, that’s up to you.”
“Because it’s about memories.”
“It’s about memories. That’s what it’s about. You can’t get those back. Life choices. You can’t…insinuate yourself into the old Christmas morning pictures, right?”

There was a pause as the pilots considered this impossibility.

“You know? That’s some great energy, right there. Thank you for that great energy.”
“Well, that’s just how I am.”
“Yes. You are just like that.” Smiles all around, as the cups were refilled with coffee.
“I hate to be a Polyanna, but I think it’s always darkest before the dawn.”
“And don’t get me wrong. I’m not cynical. I’m a realist.”
“I say that to my wife, and she says back, ‘You’re cynical.’”
They all laughed at once.

The waitress came over, attracted by the men’s laughter. “You boys behavin’ over here?”
“Oh, we’re fine. Got the check. We’ll be right out of your hair.”
“You boys do what you wanna. Fine by me.”
“We’re just…”
“We’re ‘coffee klatching’ right now!”
“Coffee klatching!”
“Is that ‘Po-litically incorrect’?”
“Hell if I know!”

They burst into a new, fresh round of laughter. Overhead came an orchestral Muzak version of Green Day’s “Time of your life”. A piano plinked out the grade school melody.

Security.



:: mike 2:59 PM [+] ::

back on it, and realizing that a few gigs have been left out... here they are:

Sept. 2 – Fly back into Chicago

I met back up with Steve and Jenny Moss, and their beautiful daughter Eliza, who drew a picture of me, and let me keep it. She portrayed me as a man standing disarmingly out of proportion, with crazed black crayoned hair and fingers that splayed out from the stump of a wrist. It is the most accurate portrayal of me I’ve ever seen. Rembrandt could not have penetrated my true nature any more deftly. I will hang it in my room, somewhere.

Steve, a native of Sheboygan (which I probably just misspelled) cooked us up some of the most incredible bratwurst I’ve ever eaten. Jenny, not to be outdone, countered with the sweetest, thickest corn on the cob I may have ever eaten. Yes, somehow the corn was thick. I don’t know how she managed to make the corn thick. I don’t know how these people do their magic. I don’t ask. I’m just glad to know them, and to know that wizards walk among us.

Steve told me about his various jobs fixing harps and pianos, and we talked about his newsletter, Tunesmith Monthly, which is a publication that deals with the nuts and bolts of songwriting. We listened to his fish bang its head against the water filter in the tank until late in the evening.

Totally blissed out and exhausted, sweating a fine glaze of bratwurst, I climbed back in the car for a 7-hour drive to Omaha. I got as far as I-80, near the eastern edge of Iowa, and packed it in for the night. Iowa. At last. The state that gave us Slipknot.


Sept. 3 – Creighton U., Omaha, NE

Early to rise and glide across the great state of Iowa. I-80 cuts straight across the state, and I wonder what that must do to the psyche of the people who live there. They lack any pediment to a perfectly straight road. Not a hill, a river, nothing. Still, I’m fascinated. I can’t get a gig in this state. They seem Errico-proof. I wonder…why? What have I done to them? Or are they all just Slipknot fans with no interest in people who don’t wear bags over their heads when they play? Is that the key? Must I wear a bag?

I pulled into the Omaha, Nebraska Holiday Inn Express. “Mike! Great to see you again!” the woman behind the counter announced. She remembered me from last time. That’s SO cool. We talked for a bit, and I got a good, quiet room as a result. I am a true player. For real.

Creighton’s Java Joint was good to me last time, and I was psyched for this show. The room was packed, and I let a good one rip. Nothing like a couple days off to charge the batteries back up. Midway through the set, I heard “Play Stacy!” I couldn’t believe it. A request. An honest to goodness request in Omaha, Nebraska, and another superfan, Pat, who announced himself to me. They’re cropping up here and there. I was so psyched.

I hung out with some folks late night, chilled, and made a date with Pat and his friend to get some real Omaha steak the next day for lunch.

Sept 4 – Omaha, NE – Ranch Bowl Entertainment Center.

Oh, my God. I figured “bowl” was as in “Hollywood Bowl”, but it wasn’t. It’s “bowl” as in “bowling”. The Ranch Bowl is a bowling alley, with a club attached. Not only that, it’s a bowling alley with a PUNK club attached. People in the club were decked out in a weird mix of goth and punk, with dark circles painted around their eyes but also torn up, safety-pinned Misfits t-shirts and army surplus shorts, like the guys in Good Charlotte. Meanwhile, in the next room, Nebraskan bowlers were drying their hands on the little hand-blower, and then ripping the pins as if they were a race of immortals, built solely for this purpose. The guy who sprays the rental shoes would grab the microphone every couple of minutes and announce the bowlers’ preposterously amazing scores. “Check one, two…OK, Edna Rose of Blair has just bowled a 287. Congratulations, Edna.” “Check one…Jim Collins of Point Bluff just bowled a 258. Way to go.” People wouldn’t react. They’ve heard these numbers a million times.

Over the bar, a small group of punks and bowlers gazed up at the “American Idol” finals. Occasionally, a punk would mumble at the screen something like, “I want to shoot that guy in the face,” and a bowler would turn to him and nod. Consensus was total, and crossed age, social and cultural boundaries. Punks and bowlers are alike in a lot of significant ways. The alienation I constantly feel by watching TV was supplanted by a sense of communion with like minded Americans. I love it when different subcultures occupy the same space. It reminds me of the community of humanity. We’re only separated by our signifiers, which is to say, not at all.

We took bets on which of the runners up would be approached by Penthouse. It was pretty obvious who was a prime candidate, if you were watching. She had a scarf over her boobs, tight blue jeans, raven-black hair, and the incredible talent of spreading her legs in a crouch position as she brought the microphone to her lips. She couldn’t sing a lick, God bless her, but we figured she’d look great naked. Bowlers and punks alike were in complete agreement.

My name was up on the marquee, but I was just embarrassed. Who the hell knows who I am in Omaha? Come on.

The opening band, Poppleton, was really good. They have good songs, and I’m kind of pulling for them. Really nice guys, too. They had a friend come and run the smoke machine, and he fogged the place to the point where the bassist was waving his hand in the air so he could see his instrument. It was classic, poignant, a Spinal Tap moment, the same moment that was no doubt occurring in thousands of clubs across the country at the same time. A bunch of dudes, songs about chicks, glory, anguish, whatever, all clawing their way through crappy sound systems, fans that never showed up, a hyperactive friend operating the smoke machine, the fact that they’ll split $30 for the night. God bless us all.



:: mike 6:45 AM [+] ::

Kristen, straight freaking again, also threatening to come to Boulevard Cafe gig in Chicago. Her magazine has just launched. Rock.

:: mike 5:59 PM [+] ::

INTERMISSION- a little time back at home, I'll be on a plane by tomorrow, and this will all kick back up again.


:: mike 7:10 AM [+] ::

Continued checking e-mail. If you don't know, every year I have a holiday show where hundreds of "omens" show up. You reach into a bag and the omen chooses you, and you must decide why it has happened this way. Many are dumbfounded, some scream in recoginition. Some just wait until it reveals itself. Like this:

Mike,
I was going to tell you this after the Bowery Ballroom show the other night but I had to leave before you came downstairs.

At the Holiday show I reached my hand in the bag an the Omen chose me and I pulled out a little combination alarm clock / picture frame. And although it took a little while, the Omen finally revealed itself to me recently.

One night we had a big storm that ripped up everything, and I lost power in my house. I was one of those people that didn't have power all weekend long that everybody was reading about say things like "Boy, that sucks." It did. But on that Saturday morning my wife, who plays classical guitar, had to play at a memorial service for her duet partner who passed away a few years ago.

Trying to figure out how we were gonna wake up on time, Sarah says "How bout that clock you got at Mike's show?" So we ended up using it, along with wake up calls and I realized that my cell phone had an alarm as well, but it was the first thing that we thought of using. So for that, I say "Thank You."

Sean

:: mike 9:02 AM [+] ::

I am home, now, for about a week. I've been in the studio, mostly, working on...something.

I check my e-mail. Kristen, contributor of erotica to Tallboy in the past, sent me this link. She rocks.

I continue checking my e-mail. Someone has sent a detailed recipe for magic brownies. Here you go:

m- I've added some cooking instructions:
>
> Preheat oven to 350 degrees
>
> 5 squares baking chocolate
> 1 cup butter
> 1 1/3 cups flour
> 1 tsp. baking powder
> 1 cup chopped nuts
> 1/2 teaspoon salt
> 4 eggs
> 2 cups sugar
> 2 tsp. vanilla
> 1/2 cup herbs
>
> Lightly sautee the herbs in the butter. Then mix all the wet ingredients
> and the dry ingredients separately, except for the nuts. Gradually add the
> dry ingredients to the wet ones, stirring constantly. Mix as little as
> possible, or the gluten develops and it becomes bready. Quickly stir in
the nuts. Bake at 350 degrees until you can stick a toothpick in and it comes
> out clean.
>
> Note: it's much easier to use a box of Betty Crocker or the like; just
make
> sure you sautee the herbs. Potency is always an issue, so be conservative, at first. Remember to
> wait 1/2 hour before eating more, maybe longer on a full stomach. In the words of a friend who ate too many too fast: "More bad..."
:: mike 8:57 AM [+] ::

...a moment's peace...
:: mike 4:37 PM [+] ::

Aug 30 - fly to NYC - Labor Day weekend off

I left the House at about 1 am. Drove for an hour. Found a Holiday Inn. Paid for a half day. Showered. Fell asleep at 2:30a. Up at 5:30a. Drove into Chicago to drop my guitars off at my friends’ house, local folksingers steve and jenny moss. They’re awesome.

Put the car in long term parking. Flew back home to NYC. People often tell me I live far outside my capabilities. They say this, and yet do not know:
a) my capabilities,
b) their fucking own capabilities

I made it home for fun times in New York City. Frosty Vodka martinis. Overpriced salmon. Tickets to the US Open to see Lleyton Hewitt beat James Blake in 5 sets. My disgusting, dirty bed. Home.
:: mike 12:01 PM [+] ::

Aug. 29 – The House, DeKalb, IL

This could be a good place. However, I played on the night of NIU’s first college football game against rival Wake Forest, a game which went into OT, and was the talk of the entire town. Never compete with football.

However, people from the NIU show did show up, and two fantastic superfans drove from Chicago and rounded out an incredibly…intimate room. I believe the show was taped, which is pretty cool, as I think some of the stuff was really good. I knew they’d driven an hour to see the show, and I was really inspired by that. I can’t explain my gratitude, at times. I’m just so used to playing places for the first or second time, that it’s incredible to see friendly faces. I have to remember that, with the exception of rare moments with bigger bands, this is the first real time I’ve been hardcore touring.

I played an acoustic version of “Seven Bottles of Bristol Cream” as a request. I wish I could have done “On This Train”, but I didn’t have the right harmonica, and besides, that song’s a little more complicated on the guitar than it sounds. I’d need advance notice. I don’t play that song for college students, generally, because they don’t relate so well to the emotions within it. They’ve never really felt the anguish of a dead end job with no school years to bookend it. They’re still unaware of the horizonless vista of a desk, a stapler, a monitor, photos of someone else’s children adorning the cubicle you’ve been assigned to for “open ended” time periods. College students still have escape valves; they have junior year, maybe even junior year abroad, soccer teams, art history lectures, fat hardcovers that they’ll never read, giant Victorian cafeterias full of puddings in glass display cases and Jell-O that quivers slightly in the hum of a malfunctioning refrigerator. They don’t really fathom the death rattle that accompanies an office coffee maker which lovelessly grinds out cup after fetid cup of mislabeled “Sumatra”. They don’t know the smell of fluorescence and the aching sense that, unless one makes drastic and courageous choices, this is conceivably an end point, a lifestyle choice, a destiny, a road oft taken, a soul deadening, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to wear hard soled shoes and flatten a thin corridor of industrial carpeting that extends for miles.



Most college students have no idea about this, and should be shielded as much as possible. Truth unfolds on a time schedule fraught with pity and sadness. People are made aware of certain truths only when they are adequately equipped to deal with them. That’s why I don’t play “On This Train” to college students. They cock their heads quizzically at the stage like cocker spaniels. They stare. That song is an answer that has come before the question has arrived.

All the same, blessings upon Ken G. and Jason C. Blessings from the very depths of me. The House would have been a house of sadness and futility without them.

Even though the chili was pretty fucking great.

:: mike 12:01 PM [+] ::

Aug. 28 – St. Francis, Joliet, IL

THE SAINT FRANCIS INCIDENT

I pulled into the St. Francis Convent by mistake, and banged on the door. There was a long silence. I knocked again. A woman in full nun’s habit cracked the door open and peered from underneath the chain lock, which she kept fastened. It was like Halloween in reverse.

“Hi. I’m looking for St. Francis college?”
“Make a right,” she whispered, smiling weakly, using every skill to disarm me. I never felt more like a perp in my entire life.

St. Francis is a small college of about 1000. Everything was going according to plan. The sound system was set up, looked good, the soundman was cool and on the case, I was on time, sound check was great, the room sounded fine, and I went off with a rep to dinner at Lone Star Steakhouse. We got the grilled chicken. We started with a salad. I got the iced tea, she got a coke. Nothing unusual about that at all.

I got on stage, warmed up, ready to hit it. My voice has been feeling good, and the guitar sounded nice. Excellent. Maybe tonight would be the night I pull out some new things, start working with them. Suddenly, midway through “Strawberry Song”, my stomach turned over. I felt like an alien had awakened, set itself on fire, and was now kicking over furniture to find its way out. I went pale, and the sweat began pouring. I had to take a poop. Bad.

I thought of my contract. I needed to complete a 75 minute set. I was about 4 minutes in, and this was a code red poop emergency. I’ve never had this happen to me. Ever. I’ve never left the stage for any reason. I figured, “Well, these things come in waves. It’s not going to be this bad for the remaining 71 minutes. You know how this is. Just wait it out, sing a bit, maybe don’t move as much – and for God’s sake, don’t jump – and it will subside and hurt and subside for the set, and you’ll be fine. No one will know. You’re a pro. Pro’s don’t poop.

I went straight into a new version of “Skimming”, and every high note was an exercise in restraint. I play guitar, harmonica, a sample pedal, sing, remember the lyrics, and now had to parcel my brain power out to another task of corking my butt. This was awful. I’d think “butt” and forget a lyric. Then I’d concentrate on the lyric and “butt” and I’d mess up a guitar chord. The sweat was pouring. The alien was alive, and growing, and mutating, spawning an army of itself and seeking exit from any direction. I was dying, and the crowd sensed it. They sensed I was preoccupied, somehow, and became a little restless. They had no idea the number of plates I was spinning. They just saw little things messing up and an incredibly pale, sweaty man singing about rolling on the kitchen floor.

This was disaster. 70 minutes were left on the clock, which had now slowed agonizingly. I tried to smile, thinking of my situation, but thinking that THEY would be thinking that I was actually having a good time. I was dying. I drank water, but the bending down motion only angered the alien in me. What was it? The grilled chicken? The iced tea? Was it West Nile virus? There have been a lot of butterflies hitting my windshield, lately. Maybe one had West Nile virus, and blew through the air vents? What are the symptoms? Alien birth? Violent gas pangs? To my advantage, I figured that this would be the one place that one could fart freely in public and know that no one was really close enough to detect the author. It would be important that the microphone not pick anything up. I was disgusting myself.

Every song became an ironic comment on my tortures. After a ridiculous “Be Your Man” (“Can I? Yes I can. Yes I can. Yes I can….”), I decided to play “Good Things”, with its chorus, “Good things are coming our way…” I wished that were true. Immediately. I felt like a water balloon attached to a garden hose on full blast. This was not going to go away. Worse, this was going to get horrific, and would come to a head before 75 minutes had elapsed. I picked “Springtime”, because I’d sit down for it. This was much, much worse, and the alien announced its displeasure to me. I was wincing. At “…Drifting over you...” I almost…well…lost it. I was going to have to come up with something. I finished the song as quickly as possible, and put the guitar down. “Excuse me. Could you all do me a favor? I usually have a habit of drinking water before shows, and generally make sure I relieve myself before I get on stage…” the alien groaned in victory. “Somehow, that slipped my mind tonight. If you could just hang on for a second, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll be right back.” I jumped off stage, practically unbuckling my pants as I hit the floor. The audience seemed perplexed, some guys started goofing a little, but I knew that the heckling would have been significantly worse had I gone down in school history as “The guy who crapped his pants on stage at St. Francis College.”

The following episode is something you need not read, except to say that I know you all have horrific poop stories in your lives. It is impossible not to. I told a friend my St. Francis story, and she countered me with tales of dysentery while on a boat off the coast of Africa, where travelers would sit on a plank with a hole in the middle, and be dangled overboard. They’d wait for a passing wave, and be done with it. The soundman later told me he got drunk on stage and ran off to relieve himself, once. He was with a band, though. They vamped until he returned. I’ve heard another, about a friend going to a college interview at the interviewer’s home, and clogging his toilet to overflowing. Meanwhile, I know we’ve all envied the dog who has no compunction, while running around, catching a Frisbee, or mating, about stopping to poop on the nearest patch of lawn, carpet or concrete. What this must do for the psyche! What freedom it allows! But we are not so fortunate, and so these terribly human experiences bond us, and thankfully allowed the understanding St. Francis audience a brief moment to let me go and have my relief in private.

“Different world, every day…” went the next song. The alien had been exorcised. I apologized quickly, just to be respectful, but not to tip my hand that this was out of the ordinary. I made it look like hey, this stuff happens. It does. I moved on, relaxed, relieved, and re-focused on the task at hand.

Whew.




:: mike 1:39 PM [+] ::

Aug. 27 – MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL

Breakfast in a place called Peppin’s, with the most incredible biscuit I’ve ever eaten. It was like eating a cloud. After eating at “Grandma’s”, it was a blessing.

I got to Mac Murray early, found a spot on the school bleachers, and watched the girl’s soccer team lose 3-0. No, I wasn’t drooling like some molester. I was just sitting in the shade, watching them run back and forth. Kick, change direction. Kick, change direction. Soccer’s such a simple game. I don’t understand why sports commentators pick on it so much. I guess just cuz it’s Foreign, and Foreigners play it, and we’re wary of Foreigners. Forget that we were Foreigners, too, some of us fairly recently. But with a baseball strike looming, it might be one of the few diversions worth getting into. If you’re not into backyard wrestling.

The MacMurray stage was kind of makeshift, but experience has taught me how to make due with anything. Give me a pencil and a bag of dirt, and I can entertain myself for hours. I feel I’ve improvised an entire life for myself, so a dicey stage set up doesn’t throw me. The point is to communicate, not to luxuriate in expensive audio equipment, although now and again it is nice to hear oneself while one is playing. Some other night, maybe.

I taught a college student how to run a soundboard, here. She was embarrassed when I asked for low end on the guitar, and blushed from behind the board. She had no sonic knowledge. She was filling in for a friend. I had the fruit, and fed it to her.
“See this knob here?”
“That’s high end.”
“No, that’s actually low end.”
“No, that’s high end. It’s higher up on the board than those other knobs.”
“That’s a good point, but no, that would be low end.”
She stared at me. I smiled. I needed her to know this more than she would ever need to know it. I understood this. We were just different people, on different paths. I’ll be twiddling low end knobs for years, and she…who knows where she’ll end up. Somewhere great, I hope. Somewhere with a beautiful green lawn and people who love her packed into her cell phone’s call log. Maybe some will be college friends, and they’ll say things like, ‘Oh, Cheryl? We know each other from way back in college,’ and laugh about bringing in crazy performers from around the country to edify and entertain the student population. Maybe they’ll be proud of that fact. They’ll consider it a cultural beacon in a school better known for fielding a mediocre girl’s soccer team.

I continued. “See right next to the knob, where it says ‘Lo’? That’s short for ‘Low end’.”
“I brought a Kid Rock CD to test the speakers with.”
“Oh. Great. That’s great.”
“That’s like, all we’ve listened to all week.”
“OK. Now, back to the low end…”
“My roommate likes Rob Zombie.”
“Really. ‘Dragula’ is a great song.”
“Yeah.” She paused. “He’s OK, I guess.”
“Here. Let me turn the low end knob, and we’ll see if we have enough.”
She sighed. “All righty, then. But what if it’s loud?”
“We’ll just turn it down. That’s a job for the ‘volume’ knob. We’ll get to that one in a second.”
“Do you play any Kid Rock in your show?”

I didn’t. But I did manage to convert them to something else, and sold a record number of CDs for this tour. It’s bittersweet to watch those copies trot off to dorm rooms all over the country. My kids are all grown up. Going off to college. Sniff.

SONG ON THE OVERHEAD SPEAKERS: “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”. I wondered if that’s true. I hope so. It gives us all faith.

:: mike 1:38 PM [+] ::

Aug. 26 – St. Joe’s

Today’s top story: A man swerved in his car, almost hit a semi, and crashed into a cornfield. Police suspect that alcohol was involved.

St. Joe’s was small, but a good show. It was such an intimate little room, that I dropped the sweating and screaming bit, and just talked a lot, told a lot of stories, which, in my mind, are starting to make less and less sense. I go off on weird tangents, but instead of stopping myself, I just go for it. They lead to strange places. I know some people get lost occasionally, but they actually all make sense. No, seriously. They do.

I have all this new material, and I’m afraid to play it, because the other stuff works really well, every time. But one must push forward. Don’t be such a damn chicken.


:: mike 1:38 PM [+] ::

Aug. 25 – DAY OFF

Last night’s DePauw show was AWESOME. Incredibly well attended, fantastic crowd, great room, new songs, lots of selling of CDs, great stories, beautiful people…I came home and drank Corona and rolled in the happiness of doing what I do. It’s not always that these college shows are promoted, but when they are, they shine. This was an awesome way to slide into a day off.

:: mike 1:37 PM [+] ::

Aug. 24 – Greencastle, IN – DePauw U.

At Denny’s this morning, they sat me in non-smoking, in the path between the service station and the kitchen. Old ladies buzzed by me atomizing their aromas of Jean Nate, Charlie, White Diamonds, and ointments by Jontue, Prince Matchabelli. All older women are ghosts of my grandma. I restrain the urge to hug them.

I’m also at a table which is smack in between the muzak system and the kitchen radio that the dishwashers are rocking to. My left ear has “We’re in This Love Together” and my right ear has No Doubt’s “Hella Good”. Separately, they’re both crap. Mixed like this, they are a fantastic quilt of accidents.

:: mike 9:27 PM [+] ::

Got this e-mail:

> Mike,
> Howdy.
> I am putting together an article which will appear in The Brattleboro Reformer newspaper, and possibly a number of other sites as well (in print and on-line) about NYC-based Musician's reactions to the tragic events of September 11th and hoped you'd contribute via email...
> I have 3 areas of interest-feel free to ignore any, or add in any direction you'd like.
> 1-your initial reaction (where were you, your thoughts, stories, etc)
> 2-how it affected your music, approach to career, songwriting, and/or touring...
> 3-as we near the one year anniversary, how have your emotions/perspectives about the city, its people and their reactions -changed?

> thanks for participating and best wishes

I returned it:

Um, OK. It's a really vast topic, but here it goes:

I'm from NYC, born and bred, and felt this incredible surge of loyalty to my city. I didn't want to leave, because if anything else happened, I wanted to be here to defend it.

Creatively, I watched all of my songs shift in meaning. My "lighter" songs suddenly felt less relevant, and my deeper songs took on a level of depth that was shocking, and incredibly cathartic, to audiences.

I couldn't play enough benefit shows, if only to try to do what I could to help. I felt like an undercover grief counselor, at times, for myself as
well as for them. It was an incredible bonding experience that the "tough" city of New York rarely admits to.

I had already planned to record a live disc ("Tonight I Drink You All") for September at Mercury Lounge, less than a mile from Ground Zero, and we decided to go forward with it. Our first night of recording was September 21st. The air was still thick with ash, as the buildings were still on fire. At the beginning of shows, I would thank the crowd for having the bravery to congregate in a public place that potentially could be a target for the same terrorist activities that have been occurring regularly in Israel. I thought of continuing with life as an act of defiance, and I was proud to be one of them.

These were magical nights. There was so much bonding happening in the crowd. Marriage proposals. People quitting jobs to do what they REALLY wanted to be doing. We all needed the release and found it together, for a while.

New Yorkers live with a low-level anxiety that something else might happen, and the present concept of moving into Iraq does nothing to help out. But like I said, I'm from here. I've lived here my whole life. I'm not going anywhere.

mike
:: mike 9:23 PM [+] ::

Aug. 23 - Merrionette Park, IL - show cancelled

I was supposed to open for local heroes Hello Dave, and somehow the club double booked the night, and well, that was that. First cancellation of the tour.

I went to a super-ghetto Laundromat, then worked out in the most busted up Ramada Inn gym I've ever seen in my life.

After that, I wandered through B.Dalton books. I've been thinking a lot about "Valparaiso", the Don Delillo play I scored over the summer, and really want to do something with the music…not sure what, yet. I bought a few "spoken word" CDs, by Hunter S. Thompson and William Burroughs. I already have Bill Hicks, who's more of a comedian, and an issue of McSweeney's, where They Might Be Giants wrote stuff to supplement short stories…this is a fertile little patch of territory for me, I think. I have the music for it, and have the stories, I suppose…

One disc at a time, of course. But still. Just thinking out loud. Days off are very big for that kind of thing.

:: mike 6:07 PM [+] ::

Aug. 22 - U. of Indianapolis w. Jason Levasseur

Jason is in a band called Life in General which has been out here doing it for years. He's got a long dark ponytail and a Dodge Ram 350 with a bed in the back. When he can't make it to a destination, he pulls into a hotel parking lot and crashes. If he has an early morning flight, he pulls into Long Term Parking and crashes. This man is a road dog, an inspiration, and a great guy. We'll be playing a few shows together, and we planned to share a hotel room after the show.

I was hoping we could play some songs together, just for fun (it gets lonely on stage), but planning was very chaotic, and we didn't get the opportunity to get anything together. Afterwards, he decided not to stay at the hotel, but just to shower and get back on the road for O'Hare airport's long term parking before an early morning flight.

Sleeping in cars and vans is weird. In the winters, the windows fog, and the sound of your own breathing can keep you awake. If you're parked along the side of the road, 18-wheelers rumble by and rock the whole vehicle, although sometimes that's a very comforting, maternal feeling. I suppose, in long term parking, car headlights sweeping across the van's interior could fill you with a weird kind of loneliness, maybe some strange sense of one's smallness in the world, which always seems to come as news to me. Why is that always news? This just in: you are infinitesimal in the scheme of the universe. You are the cockroach that was kicked off stage last night. You are a single skin cell, shed for a greater good you could not possibly fathom.

Asleep in a van in long term parking. Asleep in a first-floor hotel room with cigarette burns along the tub and large glass panels that look out onto your car until you draw the leaden curtains and peel back the dirty bedspread. One could feel incredibly small in moments like these.

Or you could take it as vastly exciting. Freedom! I am so small that I am free to do anything my puny mind can conjure! I could be anywhere, and no one would know! Finally! All that repression of my past lives, shed momentarily! I am alive, independent, gorgeous, a gorgeous flicker of life on this lush planet of possibility! I am out here, and there, and all the places I've never been and am yet to get to! There are so many people out here, so much to see. It's…infinite! And I am infinitesimal! Perfection! Smooth perfection!

But of course, you know all this.

:: mike 6:06 PM [+] ::

...cannot...find...internet...access out here. Must...find...a...puter...w...mic r o s oft w..ord...

...so...sleepy...must...drive more.

uhhhh
:: mike 11:06 AM [+] ::

Aug. 21 – to Bloomington, IN – The Bluebird w/Run of the Mill

Well, what can I say? One man cannot compete when the bar is running a 15-cent drafts all night special. A band cannot compete with that, either. Hell, Pam Anderson firing roman candles out of her butt cannot compete with that.

And so it was.

Tough night. Run of the Mill is a good local band of great guys. The Bluebird is a great venue. The only weird thing is that I had to stop “Sooner or Later” because I saw a cockroach crawling across the stage, and noticed that my harmonica was on the floor near it. That was not going to do. I didn’t want to crush it on stage, so I kicked it off and onto the dance floor. A guy with a tie-dye shirt and bandana jumped up from his table and squashed it dramatically under his Teva’s. 15-cent drafts, and a murder. Coincidence?

But again, two friends from Indy showed up with a brilliant cheesecake, and we celebrated seeing each other again. It is hard to remember that I’ve never been to these places, and that anyone at all knows me here is incredible. Really incredible.

SIGNS SEEN OUTSIDE CHURCHES:
“Life gives many choices
Eternity gives two
Pick one.”

“WalMart is not the only “Savings Place””


:: mike 9:18 AM [+] ::

Aug 20 – pt. 2 - Day off- back to the Hall of Fame

I’m not one to let a sleeping dog lie. I came, armed to the teeth with stickers this time (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, READ THIS). It was so great to see that stickers were all over the damn bus. You guys rock. A wrong has been righted. I mean, I saw the photos you’ve sent, but to see the work done first hand, I almost choked up. I pulled my camera out, took a couple shots, and then got screamed at by the security guards. Awesome. Getting screamed at is…great.

I’d seen most of this a couple months ago, but wanted to double check some stuff, make sure I’d seen all the punk stuff, the soul stuff, and the John Lennon stuff. Ascending the escalator to the Lennon section, I saw a new kiosk for Jeff Buckley. I’d met Jeff once, at a Brooklyn loft party a friend of mine and I later dubbed “The End of Alternative Music Party”. A bunch of bands were there, and guitars were laying around for people to “jam on”. Dude. Let’s jam.

A busted up TV was playing some kind of ‘arty’ video, which was crap. Most all of it was crap. So much alternative music was about bands who couldn’t play, posing as geniuses who didn’t have time to practice…I could hear my own heroes whispering, “This, too, will pass. And a great ice age will descend on the cultural landscape. Groups of boys with headsets executing military-inspired dance moves while suspended by wires will rule for many years. There will seem that there is no escape from them. But yes, this too will pass.” Crap.

Jeff, however, was not crap. Or, the few recordings of him aren’t. Who knows what would have been. That’s his myth. That’s the good and the bad part of it. I sat there in front of the small display case, and read everything, the notes, the set lists, the bios, the little flyers about him playing my neighborhood bars, stories about his dad. Over my shoulder, a couple of people gathered.
“Who?”
“Jeff Buckley?”
“Do you know him? I never heard of him.”
“It says he’s kinda recent, too. I don’t know.”
“You know any songs of his?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It says he died swimming.”
“Musta been hammered. That’s like the musician’s kiss of death. Drugs and swimming.”
“And small planes.”
“Yeah…he he…”

I looked up at the two of them. The man was in his late 20s, maybe, with a crew cut and an OSU sweatshirt. His girlfriend was a short brunette with a heart necklace draped over a dark blue knit sweater. She looked at me.

“You heard of this guy?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“When was he popular?”
“Um…now?”
“Hm. Never heard of him. And I think I’m up on things…”

Her boyfriend, who’d strayed from the kiosk, called her over. “Hey, honey. They got shots of the charter plane Otis Redding went down in…”



I continued to the Lennon section, and ended up watching the entire screening of Imagine. I feel bad saying this, but you know what? Yoko is an ass. I’ve tried to defend her many times, and believe that her art is really relevant and great, but you know? I’ve got lots of friends who do much cooler stuff than Yoko ever did. You probably do, too. And she sits there while the Beatles are playing, perched on Lennon’s shoulder, and is a nuisance. She annoyed me for almost the entire film. I was amazed, because it would be a cooler story if she were brilliant in her own right. But damn. What an anus.

I called my friend Blake, and told him about the telephone with no buttons that sits by an evidence bag containing John’s blood stained clothes and glasses on the 3rd floor. Yoko occasionally calls it, and you can pick up and talk to her about John, life, whatever. Blake just said, “Dude. You know she calls that phone at 4am.” I shivered to think about it. 4am, the lights out, the silent building, and a widow’s phone call to a hall of artifacts. She, in the Dakota, in New York City, smoking a cigarette in a big empty bed, flipping channels, with that smooth, expressionless face… just letting it ring. And ring.

I suddenly felt for her, again.

:: mike 9:11 AM [+] ::

8/19 – Rivendell, OH

I went to sleep to the sound of crickets, and woke to the sound of Shadow, a big black lab, drinking from the toilet. If that ain’t country, I’ll kiss your ass. After a morning walk to the lake (clothed), several hundred tosses of a tennis ball to Chula, the younger black lab in the family, and a big hug goodbye to Rory, I started my day off.

First stop was the Akron Art Museum, and an exhibit on Egg Tempera American painting from the 20th century. Pretty cool. It’s an ancient technique of painting that uses the yolk of eggs as the binding agent for the colored pigments. It was all the rage in Renaissance Italy, and a guy named Cennino Cennini wrote it all down in Libro Dell’Arte, which was picked back up in America in the 30s and 40s (I think), as a return to more disciplined styles in light of the instability in the world at that time. I wonder if people are returning to it again, now. There’s certainly enough instability to warrant it. There’s practically enough instability to warrant a return to butter churning. And shoeing horses.

First Cracker Barrel – got the usual. Eggs. Sort of an homage to the 20th century Egg Tempera movement. With coffee, which had nothing to do with anything.

I decided to conduct an experiment, and adopt it throughout the tour.

Resolved: I’ve come to the point where I cannot contain my disgust with many things I see, so instead of allowing it all to poison me, I simply express myself in completely positive terms. I call it the New Optimism. It has lowered my blood pressure. For instance:

Radio? Radio is great. Driving hundreds of hours a week and having country and pop radio to listen to is great. Like Vanessa Carlton. She’s awesome. She is the ultimate expression of music as an agent of…change. And that voice. Wow. What a great, timeless quality she has to her voice. Not since, oh, Nelly Furtado have we all been graced with such an instrument. An instrument to cherish. A voice of the Times. It’s just great.

And I just jammed my toe into the industrial-strength hotel bed frame. Great. It’s great. Pain is great. Pain is awesome. It’s great. Listening to Vanessa Carlton with my toe throbbing is great. Totally, just so…great.

And so on…I talk to myself like this for hours. It calms me. It’s…great.


:: mike 9:09 AM [+] ::

8/19 – Cape Girardeau to Cleveland

A guy picked me up at 6:30am.

I crawled back on to the crop duster, to get back to St. Louis. I was terrified once again. We got on, and then were told to get off. The flight had been grounded because of weather. At least we weren’t in the air to decide this. I stared at a fluorescent bulb in the lobby for an hour, listening to the security guard chat with one of the passengers and a baggage handler, all of whom had gone to high school together. They’d all been to Jack’s, a local bar, the night before. The baggage handler scolded the guard, saying that he stood too close to the metal detector, and was setting it off and making her have to pull all the passengers aside and wand them. She wrinkled her nose up as she said this, to communicate her displeasure at the intimacy she was forced to initiate on a daily basis; as if to say, “Airport security is icky.” The security guard sniffed. “Ain’t me. This is a Glock. Glock’s are plastic. It’s a Glock.” He paused, and then added. “I got me a Glock.” He was also wearing about 25 pounds of metal, including handcuffs, a walkie talkie, full utility belt, and, of course, his badge. I decided not to interrupt, lest I be suspected as Al Qaeda. An hour later, we were wanded and corralled back on the flight, and by 4pm, I’d gotten back to St. Louis, and then to Aunt Sandy’s in Cleveland.

Breathe.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The Days of Hell are over.



Everyone has holy places they remember from their lives. In a magical expanse between Cleveland and Akron is a farm called Rivendell, run by friends of mine. This is one of my holy places. I called them up, and they bid me to return. I drove.

We sat at the ornate oaken table with bottles of wine and large hunks of perfect, exotic meat. Labradors panted at our feet, and Rory and Dedee, along with Mr. Neidert, drank and talked into the night. We discussed Photo Realism and the Egg Tempera movement of the Renaissance, along with its modern American Revival in the early 20th Century. We discussed where the Others are, what they are doing, whether or not they’ve been caught, jailed, published, married…an Amish wagon, carrying a family of four, trotted by the open dining room window.

I wandered out onto their farmlands late at night, stripped naked and walked around the giant lake. I rolled in the grass, with the night breeze bracing me. I was Walt Whitman, without the tools. Thoreau without the sandwiches from mom. I spoke to the lake, and it spoke back. This is the water. When I say, “Fall through the water”…THIS is that water. Into the cool green. Of a brand new dream.

In the beautiful dark of Rivendell, I realized that I have made good on my promises. And back here, once again, I made more promises to myself.


:: mike 8:46 AM [+] ::

Aug. 18 – Cape Girardeau, MO

So begins the Days of Hell. I pulled into Sandy’s house from the Grog Shop at 2am, knowing that I had to be awake at 5am to get to Cleveland Airport to catch two planes, one of them a twin prop/crop duster from St. Louis to Cape Girardeau, MO, for a show that afternoon. Sandy was up with me, and drove me, still smelling of smoke, to the airport. This isn’t how to make a great impression.

Flight one to St. Louis was cool, I suppose – I was dead asleep for the entire thing. During my layover in the airport, I stupidly ate an Egg McMuffin, knowing that there is precious little egg in it.



It’s mostly some bizarre egg-like polymer that is professionally referred to as Liquid Egg. But I’ve told this story before. I just felt dumb for not listening to myself, for not caring about the white-suited men huddled in a smoke-belching unmarked, high-security laboratory along the New Jersey Turnpike, sifting through chicken DNA for whatever particles react pleasantly on our tongues and attempting to replicate them without the bother of feeding and plucking and dealing with actual chickens.



Never mind that these men and women come to work, scratch their asses and joke with each other about reality TV shows as they attempt to extract whatever might cause us psycho-biologically to shy away from the Eventual Product (targets: inconsistency, strangenesses found in nature and in other quaint food products bearing the classification “home made”). Never mind that they, photo laminates clipped to their breast pockets, are also chemically adding brilliant swatches of color to fool the rest of our senses. They fashion albumen that gleams like morning snow in our childhood memories. A yolk that radiates like a Van Gogh sunrise, should the curious peel away the English Muffin (English?) to gaze, add salt, or simply to relieve their McMuffin of the circular slice of ham, having rejected it as a suitable replica. They have no idea how much research went into making that ham look like ham. The dark glazing around the edges alone, slightly tougher in consistency, more resistant to our bite, represents a 15-year program conducted by a team of PhDs with unlisted addresses and phone numbers.



These fickle consumers, like me, don’t care about the processes that culminate in the Eventual Product. They, like me, are being watched.

Perhaps, on a given Wednesday, these joking men and women will need to navigate the addition of Federally-mandated ingredients that are deemed “nutritional” but will take advantage of the mandate by masking other compounds that may or may not be addictive. Never mind that those addiction studies are inconclusive. Never mind that they perform those same studies at this same lab. Never mind that I firmly believe that I ate this McMuffin voluntarily, while suspecting all of this. Never mind that all of this would not hold up in any court, and could be construed as libelous, should anything health-related ever occur to me ever, in all perpetuity, from here to the known and unknown galaxies. I ate this McMuffin, firmly knowing that, in doing so, and in making this writing publicly available, I have just jeopardized my case.



Flight two was on a twin prop plane. After a harrowing 10 minutes in the air, the cockpit dashboard, which I could clearly see from the back of the 15-seater, lit up with red blinking lights. The plane banked against the winds and the pilot announced that we had some electrical problems, and had to turn back to St. Louis. We touched down, and deplaned. The pilot called out to the ground crew. “Yeah, we got some major electrical malfunction…” We stared at each other in disbelief.

Flight 2a was on a different twin prop plane. Everybody got in the same 15 seats. The sky began to darken, as storms started rolling across the Midwest. We ascended, and flew straight into an oncoming storm. We pitched in every direction. Laptops flew. A woman was screaming. There was crying. I was trying to remember gospel songs. I don’t know any. All I thought of was R. Kelly’s “I Believe I can Fly”, which has been adopted by churches, but retracted since his pedophilic films were unearthed. I thought it was over. Aaliyah. Stevie Ray Vaughan. Lynyrd Skynyrd. Buddy Holly. Richie Valens. And these are just the ones we’ve heard of. I believed I’d never see my family. I was sad that only half of my new CD was recorded, and even so, with scratch vocals that I was planning to record final versions of when I got home. The guitars would rock: the vocals would suck.

Pitching around in that little metal tube, I flashed back to my childhood room. When I was a kid, I used to build model airplanes, WW II fighters, mostly, with prop engines and gun turrets and decals of bullet holes that you could place anywhere on the fuselage. It was a hobby I had for about 4 months, a result of never feeling I was boyish enough. I wasn’t sure what “boy” meant, so I tried to do these kinds of things to feel more like a Norman Rockwell depiction of “boy”. I don’t know why Norman Rockwell ever came up, maybe because his canvases seemed so whole, complete, and calming, and I was such a wreck. They were a form of anesthesia. It looked like it was OK, and even fun, to be a boy in Rockwell paintings. Girls were fascinations, but not yet sexualized, and sports and morality were defined in crystalline terms. And I didn’t know any better. I wanted a slingshot. A BB gun. A baseball mitt. A scrappy dog that always got into mischief concerning my dad’s slippers, or his pipe (even though dad doesn’t smoke).

I just wanted to feel kind of normal. Normal seemed to be a resting state, and I always felt so nervous, full of something unexplainably disquieting. Like an ass, I did everything possible to squash these feelings (later diagnosed as “inspiration”) by doing “boy” things, including making lame, misshapen model airplanes. I would hang them with invisible threads from the ceiling, and pretend I was dreaming of boy things, like being an astronaut, or an engineer. I was not dreaming. I was hoping the anxiety would subside. These planes were totems and virgin sacrifices to the constant, insane burning in my body.

Realizing that the planes had not quelled that anxiety, I would move quickly to the next boy thing: playing football in my room. I’d decide I was under a huge pass attack and throw the ball into my pillow pretending it was the receiver. I’d pressure myself to release it quickly, lead the pillow properly, evade the dresser drawer, etc. And of course, with all the chaos in my head within this wholly inanimate environment, I would occasionally hit the model planes with the football, sending pieces flying, while the remainder of the craft careened wildly on the invisible threads, one or two of which would break, leaving the plane dangling pathetically in mid-air.

This was the plane I was on to Cape Girardeau, Missouri. And yes, it was me crying in the plane. Seat 6A.

The school Activities commissioner, a severe, blond guy with piercing eyes and a bulky black wristwatch he kept checking, picked me up at the tiny Cape Girardeau Airport. I was green. I was on in one hour. We didn’t really speak much, except to say that Jill Sobule was going to be here next week. We passed two Methodist churches with signs in the yards that read: “Stop Drop and Roll won’t work in Hell”, and “Teach your kids the facts of life…after DEATH.”

This was supposed to be an outdoor festival show, but the weather had jeopardized the plan all day. The storm had passed through, and the grass was wet. A painted van along the highway announced that a nearby air show had been cancelled. I laughed. The crowd, who had already consumed all the food and played all the games available, had been dispersing all day, and by the time I got to the small outdoor stage, very few people were still around. It was tropically humid. I was exhausted, and had looked death in the face. I warmed up my voice, and played to an empty lawn.

But, somehow, something always happens, and this time, some people strolled over to me, signed the mailing list, bought some discs, took some stickers. A woman skipped right up on stage and placed a handful of lollipops on my chair. The lollipop fairy, I called her. She bought discs, too. What is the conclusion? Just keep on doing what you do. No matter who you are or what it is.

The first thing the promoter said when I finished: “So, when does your plane leave?” I guess I won’t be coming back to Cape Girardeau.

:: mike 8:38 AM [+] ::

Aug. 17, pt. 2 – to Cleveland. – Grog Shop with the Twinemen

I pulled into my friend’s Aunt Sandy’s house. Sandy will be housing my car while I fly to Missouri for the following two days. With just enough time to drop off some stuff, I got down to the Grog Shop to set up.

The Grog Shop is small, dark, and incredibly well-stickered. It looked like a reduction of CBGB’s in New York, with a short bar to the left, and SportsCenter playing on two overhead TV’s. My feet stuck to the floor as I unloaded, and read the stickers. There was a Lit sticker on a garbage can. I couldn’t believe it. Lit stickers are everywhere, all over every single bar in this world. I can’t imagine how many were made. I always see them, still. I guess eventually, other band stickers will be applied over them, and the wall will thicken with the history of rock and roll. I doubt there will be any archaeologist out here, investigating the walls of the Grog Shop, using Xray to determine that there’s a Lit sticker, and under that a Mephiskapheles sticker, and under that a Replacements sticker, and so on through the history of this particular, insane world. Of course, I whipped out my stickers. I need to contribute. Tag this place.

The Twinemen consist of the ex members of Morphine, a band I loved, with a front man, Mark Sandman, that I worshipped. He died on stage of a heart attack, I think, and the band struggled with ways to continue. The Twinemen are a new version that incorporates the dark, moody, sexy quality of Morphine, but brings it forward. They’ve recorded their own CD, and I’m continually amazed that anyone would bother signing a record deal anymore.

When they pulled in, I kind of gushed like a fool, but hey, they deserve it. They’re rockstars to me. They were flattered, and I knew I wanted to play hard to live up to them.

I was amazed at the crowd that came to see me out here. Last time I was here was…I don’t know… 2 years ago, with Mike Glabicki at the Odeon? I think that’s right. Incredible, then, that some remembered. Jen, the woman who stickered the Wetlands bus at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was there, as was Nikki and some friends, and a woman who goes to school with my little sister. They knew the words, called out the songs, and I played as hard as I could. The bari sax player from the Twinemen sat on the side of the stage and nodded. They were into it, and let me know. Fuck in A. It was a great show in a far away city. I was so happy.

:: mike 8:16 AM [+] ::

August 17 – Cleveland, OH- The Grog Shop

I woke up in a roadside motel room. I decided I’m going to keep all the hotel card keys. Maybe I’ll make them a prize for some kind of contest at the end of the tour. Some prize. Hotel card keys. Well, we’ll see… I’ll just collect ‘em for now.

I called Liz Berlin's husband Mike and took a tour of Mr. Small's Funhouse.

Wow.

Mike is as intense and visionary a guy as I’ve met in a hell of a long time. He has cooked up a situation that seems to have sprung straight from his dreams as a sound engineer and ex-skateboarder. He and his team are deep into converting an old church into a 500 capacity music venue. There were giant sheets of wood being hammered in, and old church doors hung at angles from the wall to act as sconces. Adjoining the venue will be lodging for traveling bands, and studio spaces for people to live and work in. I walked into one, and it was basically a PA system, drum kit and all, and a futon. The blackboards were still up on the wall from the days when these were parochial school classrooms. A setlist was scrawled on one of them.

Connected to the venue is a full-on recording studio, with three rooms. This stuff was still being constructed, and dust was everywhere, but you could see the situation developing. It amazed me how much he accommodated the artists, with large kitchens instead of something smaller, and more cost efficient. But that’s the motto of Mr. Smalls: Create*Life*Support. The words act independently, as he explained. There are places to create. There is a place to give life. There is a need to support these impulses. It was the kind of thing that brings tears to a touring musicians’ eyes. An oasis that they’re developing. Mike showed me where the tour buses will be able to go and power up, get fresh water, stay for the night if they need to. He smiles in the calm way that shows the confidence in his dream, the total knowledge that a great thing is being developed, and that it will work. I wondered about the neighbors, and noise complaints, and he smiled. “They’ve been great. It all depends on how we approach them. They’ve been completely cool. Basically, the game is ours to lose.” I knew that meant that they’ll be giving back to the community, and fostering relationships with the city that will serve everyone. In this climate of corporate greed, his concept was damn near revolutionary.

“We’re not looking to woo national acts, or do any of that. We’re just going to open our doors and do things right. Word’ll spread, and we’ll keep doing things right.” I’m sure he’s a hell of a lot more ambitious than that, just based on scale of this project alone, but by keeping himself and his mission so modest, it assured that the place will retain that generous, nu-hippy feel. “Wanna stay for lunch? We’re going down to the skate park. Got a great vegetarian chef cooking.” I had to get to Cleveland, unfortunately, but I did want to go down to the park, another piece of the Mr. Smalls complex.

Adjacent to the Allegheny river, along the railroad tracks that bring coal one way, sheetrock the other, every day, Mike built a skate park, with a half pipe. It was two and a half weeks old, and kids were already crawling all over it in rollerblades, helmets, carrying skateboards and pushing bikes around. I was sad to leave, but Cleveland called. This was a high point of the past couple of months. He is amazingly inspiring, and seemingly calm for someone pulling off a monumentous feat. Just the money invested would be enough to have me twitching. I drove to Cleveland, inspired. Everything is possible. There's proof of that everywhere. Thank you, Mike.

:: mike 8:14 AM [+] ::

Aug. 16 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Café

…and we’re off. 6 hours in the car, and it’s like I never left. Maybe I didn’t.

Every once in a while, you find a club that really cares about artists, and knows what they go through. They understand tour, and when they see some freak walk in with guitars, they react like they’re old tyme roadside innkeepers providing shelter from highwaymen and rapscallions. The stage was clean. The microphones had been washed with Listerine and smelled of dentistry. The soundman, who looked like Kim Thayil from Soundgarden was smart, friendly, and great at what he does. Dinner was waiting for me. In a green room. With internet access. Did I die?

Timing, however, was a problem for the gig. Not only were the Pirates playing a night game, but the Allman Brothers were in town, with Galactic opening. My friends in Rusted Root were also on the road, though Liz Berlin told me to look up her husband and take a tour of their new compound, Mr. Smalls Funhouse. Jim DiSpirito, the now ex-percussionist, was taking his wife to the mountains, and sent regrets. Oh, well. The crowd was small, but so was the room, and I played my friggin’ ass off. I’ve been tweaking some songs, and the set is more upbeat, less angry, less “girlfriend-bitter”, more…open. That room sounds great. “Underwater” was one of those all-time versions I won’t forget. It just worked perfectly. I love when that happens, especially with that one, ‘cause it’s a tough one.

Turns out, the bouncer is also a stand-up comic, named Tim. He gave me some musician jokes that he wanted me to pass on to you:

How many bass players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One. Four. Five. One. Five…do we need a seventh?

How many folksingers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Ten. One to screw it in, and nine to complain that it’s electric.

Even if you’re a musician they’re kinda weak, but the way he told them was funny… I forgot the rest of them….sorry Tim.

:: mike 1:58 PM [+] ::