March 26th, 2009.

Baltimore’s already nothing but a brief glow behind us, catching the clouds on fire and blending into the taillights of those headed East-bound in the rearview.  Heather and I are listening to Gretel in the growing darkness of Western Maryland as we head out on our first leg of highway.  Wet pavement whines and 18-wheelers whir past us and song lyrics are forming up and marching themselves in and out of us.

Cops are Christmas lights on the side of the road and for once I’m not thinking about how someone was doing something stupid, but rather I’m just hoping everyone’s alright.

I’m looking forward to the shows coming up – I have deleted and rewritten this sentence several times because I keep thinking “especially THIS show” and I’m finally realizing that most every show coming up I’m expecting great things from.  Even the long bar show at the Shanti – always so brutal and frankly BAR-like will still be filled with familiar faces and the beauty of the place.  St Louis bars are still the most beautiful in the country – and even if there are parts of the night where I’m thinking no-one’s paying attention and they’re doing their best to drown us out I can just lean back and Love playing with Heather and read the walls.

Tuesday night I went out to an open mic in Ellicott City, MD.  I hadn’t been to the Judge’s Bench for perhaps 5-6 years – long enough ago that the owner looked at me like I was crazy when I asked about the amazing softshell crab sandwiches that Heather and I had eaten on our last visit.  It was one of those cover-heavy open mics that I think I might’ve found pretty depressing if we’d gone there on “business”, but luckily I can still do my job for fun and we’d turned the night into a gathering of talented friends. 

Initially it was Chris and Joylene (the Honest Mistakes) and myself… and then Chris asked if I thought Ash might like to come out… and Ash asked Teporah Bilezikian to come out… so we had a hefty block of Baltimore songwriter creatures to own the open mic with (and indeed, without us there would’ve been the host and two other performers).  I got to actually LISTEN to Chris and Joylene (rather than run sound for them) and Ash was wonderful and I got to play with Teporah… some blues and reggae and even some Latin tunes.  Good, hard work for me.  And a good gathering.  Very, very healthy.

Next time I’ll TELL Heather she’s GOT to come!  The more the motherfuckin’ merrier!