March 21, 2004

2:19 p.m.

Life on the Tardis

It's surprising, how good I feel, in spite of everything.

That is to say, getting to bed after 3am this morning, after performing with a rather hacking cold and driving two hours home, oh -- and helping out at a car breakdown on I-84 in the rain.

A little digression will help put off the data entry I have to do from this weekend.

I used to live in Mansfield, MA, before I moved here a year and a half ago. There's a coffeehouse venue a few blocks from my old apartment, where I more or less got my re-start in music after the break in '97-'98. I had entered the annual songwriting competition there, and was one of three finalists. We each played our two songs that night, in lieu of an opener for David Mallett (fabulous old folkie, Rounder Records, most known for his Garden Song, "Inch by Inch, Row by Row"). It was my first time meeting and hearing him, and that started a nice association in itself - I ended up opening for him numerous times in the next few years, and really enjoyed touring around with him and hearing his jaded, curmudgeonly stories of life on the road. I actually came in second in the competition. I eventually got another opener there myself, and then it was all about the band. Last night was our first gig there as a trio.

We ate at just about the only restaurant in town, a really decent Chinese place on Main Street. Then we went to the room and they were all ready for us to set up. We have a complicated sound arrangement because of so many instruments, but they'd looked at the stage plot and were already wired for us.

It's a lovely room, in a church as many of these things are, and we ended up with a respectable crowd though it wasn't full. They're in their fifteenth year now, and up til the last year had a built in crowd of about 80 no matter who was playing. Now, they said, people are getting more selective, so we didn't know what to expect. We're not known in the area, really. But a number of people came who'd seen us in various other places before, so we did have some fans, and maybe 60 people in all. The sound was sweet, our new guitars were gorgeous, and it wasn't entirely apparent that we all had colds, aside from the occasional voice crack.

And afterwards, they had the best cheesecake I've had in years.

There were also presenters there from five other venues, so we have an opportunity for some followup.

I recognized a number of people from the couple of times I volunteered at this c/h, though I couldn't remember most of their names. As we were breaking down, one guy asked me if I still had my beautiful koa double-O guitar? Now this was from years ago, and I was impressed that someone remembered my favorite guitar, all this time later. I told him I still have it, and then I noticed he was cute and immediately wondered if he liked me. Wondered if I should try to engage him in conversation. Wondered if he had a girlfriend or was married. Wondered who the hell he was, since I didn't remember him at all. Finally I asked him what his name was again, and he said it was Pete, and then I couldn't think of anything else to say so I just stared at him for a few seconds. Then I promised to ask him again next year when I'd forgotten it again, laughed lamely, and went to get some cheesecake. It was my own little Charlie Chaplin moment.

There's a traditional gathering after the show at a local couple's house, so we trekked out there despite the hour because it seemed a good thing to do. I'm not a big meat eater but they make a mean kielbasa, so I had some, and Chris discovered they had one of those little tiny basses with fat nylon strings -- it's not even 2 feet long, and it actually sounds pretty good. The high frets are so narrow, though, that you have to be careful with intonation because it's fretless and if your fingers are large there's no way you'd manage with it. I played that a bit and went back out to the living room and reclaimed my seat by the kielbasa. We had to sing a funny song I wrote about my noisy neighbor from Mansfield, the night I had to call the police. Then I noticed Pete was across the room, and I was actually listening to someone talk who was right in front of him so I could tell his face was turned towards me but was he looking at me? I wanted to look and see but Charlie was still waddling down the road so I didn't.

After a while we had to leave -- it was 12:30 already and we had a drive ahead. We said our goodbyes and gave our hugs. (Pete waved from across the room.) It was raining so I was in the lead and not going too fast. Chris decided he needed to drive faster so he pulled ahead, and we said goodbye on the walkie talkies and went our own speeds.

Over an hour later, I was getting fairly close to home when I saw a car pulled onto the shoulder and a very young woman frantically waving her arms for someone to stop. There was no one right near me, so I figured I was the designated stopper, and pulled over. It took me a while to back up to her; I could hardly see with the rain on the back windshield and if her lights hadn't been on, I wouldn't have managed. I had one shoe off, so it took me a few seconds to get it back on. By then she was at my window, asking for a jump.

She already had cables hooked up. I got my car turned around and pulled up to hers. The jump didn't work, though the starter was trying to turn. She didn't have AAA, and I considered calling on my card but thought they wouldn't help her if she wasn't a member. So I called Dar.

Bless him, he never minds when I call him after a gig and wake him up.

He suggested letting the cars sit, connected, for a few minutes, and trying it again. It still didn't work. So I offered to drive her home -- it turns out she lives not far from me.

Now, my car is a little Honda Civic, and when I tour it's PACKED to the gills. Full trunk, absolutely full back seat, and a lot of crap in the passenger seat. I managed to clear that much out, thinking she'd just sit in the front with me. As I was putting some things into the trunk, I called out to her to just get in on the passenger side.

So I got back into my own seat, looked over, and saw that there were TWO of them! There had been a sister in the car the whole time. They were stacked in my tiny side seat, like pretzels. I laughed and apologized for the lack of space. They weren't very articulate, but giggled in an exhausted way (it was 2am by now) and said it was okay, and thanked me profusely for helping them out.

On the way back, in between silences in which I was so aware of smelling them in the car (I almost never have a passenger, and they looked sort of half-black and had that musky scent, in addition to the fact that we were all rather wet), I told them about the time my old trio was on a gig trip to NJ and we broke down when the transmission fluid and the differential fluid mixed through a worn gasket, and we had to get a ride back to upstate NY that night. My car stayed in NJ to get the transmission replaced (ouch!!), and the following week when I got a ride down to pick it up, my ride then went on ahead home, and five miles later my timing belt broke and I was stranded AGAIN.

So things could always be worse.

I dropped them off at their house, called Dar to let him know everything was all right, and found my weary way home.

Today I seem to be more or less breathing through my nose for the first time unassisted, so once again I thwart the interloping virus. Rose has invited me to dinner, so I'll go tonight and try to help her rename her cat. She named him William but, as she wrote, the name doesn't seem to stick to him. We must come up with something else.

Speaking of names, by the way, I first leased my little Honda in 1998. It was the first new car I'd ever had. When the lease ran out I bought it. It now has about 83,000 miles on it, most of those music-related. Who remembers the old British series, "Dr. Who?" I loved Tom Baker, with his mop of hair and his silly jelly babies. His time machine was called the Tardis. When I got the Honda I named it Tardis; partly because it was green and sounded like Tortoise, and partly because I knew, though I wasn't playing music at the time, that it would take me into my future.