Ellis Paul accompanies us as we cross into Illinois for the what is probably going to be the last visit of the year. So soon? June. So soon. Having a home, a part-time job, all the open mics, it’s pinning us to the East Coast with a fierceness and I wonder how it’s killing our travels. Tonight we’ll play in Missouri and within 44 hours or so we’ll be back in Maryland. It’s going to be a painful amount of driving and though I’ve Loved the pace of the majority of this trip, taking time to get to know Columbus, especially – the pace of the last 72 hours is like to kill us.
I think when I was initially planning this Greg Klyma’s wanderings were fresh in my brain. Greg, in case you didn’t know, is one of the REAL roadwarriors that is on a tier far above our own. A fantastic singer/songwriter and a masterful mandolin player, he approaches touring with a level of discipline that dwarfs hours. With a minivan halfway through its third hundred thousand, he sets the cruise control for 55mph and is religious about things like tire rotations and not using his air conditioner. Whereas Heather and I look at a 600 mile drive that we can cut to just over 8 hours if we lock ourselves in at 74mph, he knows he can get another 5mpg by being cautious and has the spine (apparently perfectly molded to his driver’s seat) to take the additional 2+ hours.
Uhm. These are pointers. At this point, hanging out in front of the Focal Point in Saint Louis, MO, Heather and I were pretty concerned about turnout. It turned out that these fears were absolutely unfounded. Beautiful space, great sound, great people. Almost unnerving to have people listening so very carefully.
Greg dropped by for a crash n dash with us in Baltimore on his way back home to Boston from Kerrville, TX. He’d rolled in after driving straight from Nashville, TN and was so road-stoned that he visited himself upon my car several times while parallel parking. He got inside, refrigerated the chicken he’d bought in Austin, burbled happily about having spaghetti for lunch, the song circle he’d been in at the Kerrville Folk Festival, got that glazed look that most people get from watching The Squidbillies and went to bed. He was out of the house again about 8 hours later, destined to drive directly to New England.
And so with that memory burning in my mind, being back to host my open mic on Monday night after performing in Saint Louis on Saturday night doesn’t seem too unrealistic. It doesn’t seem TOO insane… but all-in-all I’d rather have landed a couple of more shows in the area to break up the time, and another date in Ohio or Indiana to break up the drive back. The reality though, is that Sunday and Monday night shows, especially with guarantees, are often hard for us to come by, and my Everyday Gourmet open mic is a) new and delicate, b) highly successful and c) relatively lucrative. I just kind of wish it was on a Wednesday.
Most of the driving will fall on Heather. She’s down with that and she’s up for it. But there are going to be moments over the next 48 hours when we both are cursing our stupidity. And 72 hours from now we’ll be snug in our homes thinking it wasn’t so bad… and in another couple of weeks I’ll be craving the road again. I think I’ve found the perfect balance of imbalance. I just wish it paid better… and that we had a Sunday night show in Ohio.
The last night in Saint Louis, MO was interrupted by one of the most extreme storms I’ve ever tried to sleep through. At 3am we were suddenly subjected to something that wasn’t too dissimilar to an artillery assault. The next drive, headed to Pittsburgh we passed through what may well have been the same storm – and then by the time we got up the next morning IN Pittsburgh, that bastard was lurking once again on the horizon, headed directly towards us…. and it looks as if we’ve arrived in Maryland just in time for it to visit upon us again….
Okay, enough out of me. I’m going to continue reading a vintage sci fi book picked up in Ohio titled “Amegeddon 2419AD”. Inititally published in the late 1920s it inspired the original Buck Rogers comic strips and bears absolutely no resemblance, beyond the name “Wilma Deering”, to the early 80s TV show that most people remember. It’s horribly dated, completely and utterly racist and yet absolutely wonderful.
