The roads are crowded this morning. Salt-encrusted roads, salt-covered cars, slate grey sky… it’s like the monochrome of Texas all over again. I-95 is in a flurry of pre-snow activity in preparation for the storm that may…. Or may not… hit us tonight. The news is calling for between 5 and 12” of snow. Either end of that spectrum is probably going to wipe tomorrow’s show off the calendar – but there’s also the undercurrent of meteorologists muttering “well, it might miss us”.
A friend reports that he’s been watching the birds, and based on his avian friends he’s adamant that we’re about to get smacked. Seeing how as weather forecasting seems to be a better than average chance of being completely wrong, methinks I’ll trust myself to mysterious animal senses and get prepared to hunker down.
We’ve been home for a couple of weeks now and my brain is slowly wrapping around being back in Maryland. Whenever we get out on the road, within 48 hours or so I’m sort of adjusted to the lifestyle. It all feels familiar. Whenever we come home it seems to take forever to realign myself into the “home” pattern. Setting myself up for regular morning alarms, having regular groceries and regular breakfasts… going to HMT a couple of days a week, running my open mics… and little overnight / weekend warrior gigs (like this past weekend in Gettysburg) reset my brain back to tour-mode and once again it seems strange to wake up in my own bed.
Since getting back to Maryland and Heather’s show : wow – it’s been three weeks! I’ve run four open mics, including the inaugural episode of a brand new one in Takoma Park. We’ve only played four shows, but one of them was the gig that was being hailed as a “violation of civil rights” by that person I’d mentioned a while back… the show was fine, beautiful space… and more wheelchair accessible than a LOT of bars we’ve played. It turns out that this same person has threatened lawsuits against various iterations of Institute of Musical Traditions, a lot of local music venues and a college. By all accounts she normally wins through sheer intimidation and has rarely actually filed a case… I’m sure if there’d been a wheelchair ramp she’d TOTALLY have come to our show… (I know that’s not really the point – apparently another artist offered to do a house concert at the woman’s house, but she told them that that would be like inviting Nazis into her home…)
Neither here nor there. My birthday has come and gone and I’m now well into my last year of my thirties. I’m trying not to think about that too much. My actual birthday party was a LOT of fun. About 20 of my closest friends gathered at my friends’ Brian and Ben’s new place the Board and Brew. (that’s hard to say) It’s not open yet, but we had a nice gathering in the unfinished space, a pot luck party with bring-your-own crockpot cooking and an amazing cake courtesy of Kristen. There was cherry stout and bourbon in the cake, but other than that, an amazing return to the days of being able to have a good time without alcohol due to the venue’s still-pending alcohol license. We played board games till about 2 in the morning and generally had an absolutely incredible time. I think I learned about four new games, and fell back on Magic for a bit after my brain had exploded trying to grasp “Small World”. I cut down trees, bred Frightened Lizardmen, defended my chickens, piloted boats, evade dragons, knocked Heather off the edge of the world, filled in the blanks, thwarted zombies and succumbed to Slivers and even bought and sold my way to a landowner victory by having a vast and verdant estate.
An incredible night indeed. I’m hoping a regular visit to the Board and Brew will be in my future once they’re open. I’m also hoping that Brian will bloody well remember Battletech this time.
The overnight trip to Gettysburg, PA was a beautiful drive and two fun shows. One bar gig / cancer
benefit called Gettysburg Rocks where we could to play loud and aggressively. We were an ultimate bar band, slinging covers and loud originals and generally having a great time rocking out. And then we ran over to Doug Brouder’s house concert series “Concerts at the Tavern” – named after the fact that his house was once a tavern about 150 years ago – and played one of my favourite-in-recent-memory shows for a crowded room in the depths of Pennsylvania winter. Lasagna and beef stew and ilyAIMY a’rockin’. Crashing there and hanging out with Doug and Julie and their friends… getting up and hanging out over breakfast, storytelling, ghost tales and drinking an awful lot of chocolate wine… a really marvelous weekend.
And racing back home to run my first open mic at Republic in Takoma Park. It was a great night, but there are bugs to work out – a huge part of it coming from just differing opinions on what an open mic is and who should actually be running it. I figure I’ll give it a couple more instances and see how it goes.
Sigh. I’m racing through this entry, trying to fit in an outline rather than details. I haven’t had a lot of time to write – or rather – I HAVE had a lot of time to write but I’ve been writing new songs (two new ones in the last couple of weeks!) and at the moment I’m doing a lot more DOING than WRITING about DOING. Not a bad thing, really.
Back to the store! Stay warm everyone.
Once Kristen and I were back from the Midwest, our first show all back together was at a little church new Frederick, MD. Beautiful venue. Lots of snow 
Heather sound checking at the Hill Chapel in New Market, MD on January 30th, 2014. 
Recording Kristen’s pans in the Rob Lair for a new 50 Man Machine song. 
The night before my birthday Heather and I were performing at Firestone’s Culinary Tavern in Frederick, MD. The snows are still pretty much in evidence and these wonderful abstract sculptures are the result of the businesses dumping ice out of their planters and trashcans. We play our little hearts out and Heather sings me happy birthday at midnight and I get pinched rather generously by attractive Frederickian women and punched rather heartily by drunk Frederickian men. All-in-all, not a bad way to start my 39th year. Er. I mean 29th year.
