“I’m not a real person yet.” It’s a funny sentence. A couple of my friends have uttered it or something similar to me. I think what we mean is we’re not grown-ups yet. I was grown-up for a little while… I went to my job every day and I worried about my gutters… but I wasn’t a very GOOD grown-up since I actually ALMOST went to my job every day and I never really DID anything about my gutters.
Ah Bill, there haven’t been enough pictures of you in the Journal recently. It was good to see you at the Jozart open mic in California, PA. 
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
At the moment we’re staying with a friend of mine from high school – she’s working on her PhD in physics and is able to say things like “oh, yeah, today I was cooling atoms with lasers” and mean it. She keeps apologizing for the state of her apartment, but I’m adoring the conversation and she’s stoned on coffee and buzzed on exhaustion and we end up telling stories till late, late, late. It’s a good night.
The morning brings slow consciousness in the form of sunbeams and the movement of Rowan. So far he’s always the first to rise and I generally wake up to the tapping of his keyboard or the sound of his folding something. It’s really, really good to have him along.
Last night we played the open mic at the Victorian Midnight Cafe in Columbus, OH. It’s a beautiful bar but I’m a little worried about getting a response. Though we got more attention than anyone else and a lot of people at the open mic SAID they’d return the next night for our show, they were the promises of bar-goers and not neccessarily to be trusted.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Afterwards we went to a pirate party and made much sacrifice and burnt offering. Mostly of hot dogs and pasta. Which we ate. Hot dogs for the pirate gods and pasta for the Great FSM.
We got in to the place at around 6 in the afternoon after a slow, leisurely departure from California – driving all day in the slowly setting sun as the mountains of Pennsylvania calm into the hills of West Virginia and unravel into the gentle plains of Ohio. Just in time to see a band setting up prior to the open mic proper… I enjoyed listening to their old rock covers – they ha a night devoted to Johnny Cash and a lead guitarist who could really handle that rockabilly lead sensibility, but after a couple of hours of them I was more than ready to get ourselves up on the stage.
It was a kind of rough night – very little structure. No clear host to ask about the sound system, pretty much just plug and play and call off the next name on the list after you’re done. We still grabbed attention – one woman was holding up her cell phone to share us with a friend – but the whole place seemed a bit shy about outward signs of appreciation like applause or CD sales. The latter didn’t surprise me too much (and I’m holding hope that we do well tonight) but the former was just kind of creepy. Most of them just sat and stared.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA At the Victorian Midnight Cafe open mic in Columbus, Ohio – this guy inspired me as a guitarist, feeling his way through an empassioned version / vision of Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix. I’ve heard plenty of versions, but I really adored his – it was NOT a note for note reproduction and had some really beautiful contrasts in it. *swoon*
| Well, with Rowan waking us up earlier in the day, we’ve got more day to deal with. I guess we’ll have to find some way to amuse ourselves before heading back over to the Midnight Cafe (next to the UFO bar!) and giving it our all. |
I just hope it’s a little bit cooler – I don’t know if I’ve EVER been as dirty as I was coming back from last night. SOMETIMES if it’s been a rough day I’ll drag my fingernails through the sweat on my forehead and there will be grit underneath them…. I don’t know that I’ve EVER had that happen with other parts of my body until last night.
So, these guys left their drinks AND left our cards. They were enthusiastic, excited, complimentary. And gone. I like waking up to Rowan playing guitar in the morning sun. Afternoon. Fuck off. You know… it’s not THAT much after noon. Sheesh. We were up till 4!!!
I was FOUL. The shower last night was heaven. Absolute heaven.
Oh – speaking of heaven… some advancement on my theory that God is not an entity but rather inherent in the warp and woof of the universe in the form of the crystalline perfection of math and the movement of molecules? Our host was describing a frustrating day where everything went wrong and nothing went right and she was ready to lay herself in front of a bus… and she looked at her experiment gone horribly wrong and the atoms slowly broke from their confinement and formed the shape of a heart. She said “They don’t usually do that.” See? The universe DOES care!!!
