March 22, 2005

6:23 p.m.

Texas in Winter

Sunday, March 16th

We've finished the first weekend of our Texas tour. It's been pretty spectacular so far. We flew in Thursday to the huge Houston airport -- the baggage claim was so far away we thought it must be in San Antonio -- and Chris went to fetch the rental car. They insisted he'd ordered a two-door, which is ridiculous, and then tried to tell him he'd have to upgrade if he wanted four doors. He was in quite a combative state when he finally pulled up to the passenger pickup, where Carol and I had shuttled all our gear and instruments. Chris somehow, once again, got everything into the trunk which we originally thought too small, and off we went.

Our first stop was lodging at a couple's home. This was related to Saturday's gig, but they offered to house us Thursday as well. In fact we hardly saw them, as we arrived late, and they left early in the morning for work. We just came down in the morning and all the breakfast items were on the counter waiting for us. I slept in one of the kids' old rooms, on a twin bed, surrounded by stuffed animals and every comic book compilation known to man. In the morning I had a doggie wakeup call; the two cute pooches snuck in and wanted to get up on the bed with me. It was a tight fit and I had to sweep off a lot of hair afterwards so I wouldn't have a sneezing fit later, but it was worth it.

Thursday we had a live appearance at KEOS in College Station, which was fun and, we hope, improved attendance at some of the venues. College Station is a little remote, but they said people travel from there to be entertained. After that we headed directly to our gig in Crockett.

Crockett! Named after Davy, who never lived there but passed through once, it has three reasonable restaurants, a furniture store, an appliance shop, a gift store and at least two entire blocks of boarded up businesses. It's practically a ghost town.

Oh, except for the Camp Street Cafe and Store. That's a fairly hoppin' venue, and it's run by two brothers who moved back to Texas to run the family ranch, after many years of touring as musicians themselves. They wore big cowboy hats and had innumerable stories to tell about the history of the town and the music that was made there. The gig was surprisingly good -- enthusiastic crowd and lots of new converts. Nobody was from Crockett.

We stayed at the brothers' compound, in a sort of cabin in a cluster of buildings. It was FREEZING when we got there -- after being balmy since the moment we set foot in the state. Gas and electric heaters were fired up, blankets were piled onto beds -- I kept thinking how I was one flannel sheet away from the most decrepit mattress I'd ever seen -- and we slept in the dust and the cobwebs. I was horribly allergic but finally did fall asleep. By morning it was warming up outside and still cold in the cabin. The wasps woke up and were everywhere, inside and out. BIG Texas wasps, red and black varieties. We met the bro's in the Cook Shack for breakfast and heard some more stories, drank coffee from a giant, white ceramic coffee pot in which the grounds had been boiled, and took a photo with cowboy hats on. Chris asked them how many acres they have, and was told, "Out here, that's just like asking somebody how much money they make." We figured it's in the thousands. Now they tour a little less, having cattle to raise, but they sing the songs they grew up with at Cowboy Poetry festivals, and feel like they're living the life.

I had a moment of homesickness, and of missing Steve, but suddenly I had a flash about how we go out and visit all these other worlds and then come back to our own, and how cool that is. I felt my sense of my own world was clearer now that Steve is in it, and that made me feel better.

Steve, by the way, has officially finished his novel, and will soon start marketing it. He was surprised at how good it was, in the end. I can't wait to read it.

On the way out of town we stopped in "downtown" Crockett to take some films of the dead streets. All that was missing were tumbleweeds. Then back here to our lodging, where we napped before the show last night. It was at a local UU church and, again, we had a lovely show with great sound, nice audience, and good vibes.

We got to sleep in this morning. Today, San Antonio.

********

6:33pm

And, voila. What a strange and interesting house this is. I'm not sure I could even describe it. It's big, sprawling even, and it smells funny. It's a combination of old house humidity, dog, and probably chlorine from the jacuzzi in the living room. We're not playing until tomorrow, and our hostess is busy getting things for the party and so forth, so after getting oriented we're on our own to rest a while.

My room is a wonderful, eclectic collection of southwestern, south american and religious art and iconography. There's a carved chair upholstered in red velour that looks very antique and expensive, and a stunningly woven tunic from Guatemala. A cross on the wall made of tiny red-dyed pinecones and lichen, if you can imagine that, and other madonnas, angels and ship figureheads scattered about. A small book on Frida Kahlo is featured on the built-in shelves. I'm sleeping on a futon.

Our hostess owns a mean-looking german shepherd whom we have not met personally. He has no collar so I'm guessing he lives mostly outdoors. At the moment he is living in the front yard, barking his head off at all the other mean-looking dogs that are gated in nearby.

Allergies have been rampant this trip. There doesn't seem to be a place that I'm not terribly allergic to. Don't people EVER dust??? Ever?? I can practically smell it when I walk in the door. I can only take so much Clarinex.

I tried to nap in the car today, an impossibility really, but sometimes I can drift off for a bit. I was having the most intense food-obsessed dreams. I don't know why, but I've become anxiety-attached to sugar. I crave a lot more of it than I actually eat, but I still probably eat too much of it. My life should feel better now. Someone loves me; I'm working; I'm not living on the street. Still, I'm anxious as hell about money (and its tendency to dwindle) and the future. I don't get it. I don't think I'm anxious about Steve; he's not going anywhere. So what's the problem??

********

Monday morning, 10:51

I thought I was in for a good night's sleep, but it was restless, and my dreams were peopled with odd characters who meant me no good. Oh well. We had a great breakfast of local eggs with multicolored shells, really crispy bacon, and more or less whole grain toast -- the best one can do, breadwise, from a supermarket. C&C have gone for a walk. I'll go in a while, when my hair is really dry. This huge, old house isn't used very much any more, as the owner lives now mostly on her 130-acre sheep ranch, so it's been allowed to fall into some disrepair. The wiring is old too, and there isn't an outlet to be found either in the bathroom OR along the kitchen counter. So I had to dry my hair in the bedroom with a mirror about the size of my palm, running back and forth to the bathroom to wash the gel off my hands. (As my favorite fridge magnet says, "It's so involved being me.") But it's a little windy outside, so I'd rather walk when my hair is less likely to go back to its former bed hair state.

Ah - CHOOO. Excuse me. Still allergic.

The doves are very noisy outside, frantically cooing, probably trying to attract dove babes for a little Spring action. Oh, speaking of animals, I heard the funniest knock-knock joke yesterday. You may know it, of course; I'm sure it's old. It goes like this:

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow."

"Interrupting co --"

"MOOOOOOOO!"

********

There's a little book here about Frida Kahlo, I may have mentioned. I read it last night; it's actually an accompaniment to a box of note cards, so it has a very condensed version of her life story in it, along with many pictures of her and her self portraits. I remember that in Austin she's very well remembered, on tiles and light-switch covers and in books. She had an incredibly troubled life, and according to this writer, channeled her emotional turmoil into her painting and her diary so that her life could go on more or less normally. She also had a withered leg from childhood, part of which later had to be amputated, and she was in a terrible bus accident when still fairly young that required many operations and gave her pain the rest of her life. She married a mural artist named Diego who was frequently unfaithful, including with Frida's favorite sister. She would typically paint herself surrounded by vines and foliage, as if suffocated by their oppression. She was friends with Picasso, who gave her a pair of earrings in the shape of little hands, which she wears in two self portraits.

Anyway it inspired me rather. I used to draw a lot, when I was in my 20s. I wondered if it were approaching time to take it up again.

****

A few hours later -- we sent CDs ahead as we always do when we fly to a tour, and there was so much breakage we had to go to four or five places looking for replacement jewel cases for them. While at Circuit City, who finally had the kind of case we needed, we were also able to check email. That saved us another hour, at least, hunting for a library and checking it there.

Our hostess has never done a house concert before, and she told us right away that we should tell her what to do, as far as taking care of us or organizing things. She's trying so hard to please us -- dishes of Andes mints in the rooms, for example -- plates of cookies, bowls of grapes -- and Carol told me she and Chris had such a terrible night's sleep last night, possibly owing to her kind enthusiasm. When we arrived we were shown the two rooms we'd use; one had a double bed, and one a fold-out futon. I took the futon, though secretly envious of the room with the "nicer" bed in it. It turns out that the sheets on the double bed are polyester satin, as is the coverlet, and they were so slippery, C&C couldn't keep track of them all night. They kept slipping off, and creating lots of static electricity, so they tossed and turned and shifted and swiped covers back and forth until they were exhausted. Chris was going to ask this morning if there might be some regular sheets they could use, but they noticed that the satin ones looked brand new, still creased from the package, and they thought our hostess might have bought them especially for our visit (since no one actually lives here or sleeps in these rooms any more). So they didn't want to sound insulting or ungrateful.

As a result, they're both a little testy today. Especially Chris. After all our errands, he went back out by himself for a while. I don't think he's come back yet and that was an hour and a half ago. Whoops -- he knocked just after I wrote that, and took the cases we bought.

It's hard to imagine that in four and a half hours we'll be playing a gig. We're on our own here, pretty much -- killing time, resting, thinking.

********

Saturday the 19th, 11:37pm

Well, I let a week go by. We were busy in Austin and had so much fun with our friends there. It's the SXSW (South by Southwest) festival this week, which is a huge music and film (and other stuff) extravaganza, so the streets were crowded and we heard live music even several blocks away. Our traditional concert at Neverlandia was amazing, as always -- it's our favorite gig here and we feel utterly loved, not to mention compensated. Our host, Calvin, worked up a few of our tunes on bass and he played with us, which was great fun. He's gotten some of his sculpture and beadwork into a gallery in Santa Fe, and he's grown his beard and hair out. He said he wasn't cutting it off until he sold something. Jonnie did trim the beard, but there is no shaving going on. We love them so much... we spent our time at home dressing up in costumes and filming ourselves in extreme tomfoolery, or playing Boggle. It gets hard to leave after a few days.

Last night we played a different kind of house concert. Our host is a recording engineer and a music writer for Disney. He started this series after seeing us last October. The first set is played in his "screening room," a room with tiered seating consisting of black leather recliners, and a baby grand piano. Then there's a food break, and the second set is played across the yard at his recording studio, where eight people at a time are able to sit in the recording room with the band, and listen through headphones as the set is recorded, and the rest of the audience sits on the other side of the glass in the control room with our host, who explains the recording process. For someone who has never set foot in a studio, it's quite exciting and novel. Truthfully, of course, it wasn't like a recording session at all -- we didn't repeat things and only made one pass at punching a bass note that I didn't get the first time. Sitting in on one of our recording sessions at home would be tedious and tiresome, I'd imagine. But the point is made, and I don't know anyone else who puts on a show like this.

Tonight we played near Houston, another house concert. It rained, so we did not get to play on the big stage in their back yard. I think the living room was fine, though. They didn't get as many people as usual, maybe because of the weather, and there were times I wondered how well we were connecting. There was a certain amount of distraction from numerous small children, until finally the respective parents took them into another room. That's always hard to deal with. Anyway I think we were tired, and I know I'm ready to go home on Monday.

But first, we have a UU service to play tomorrow morning. Way too early. Six songs. I play two on guitar, one on bass. Easy gig. I hope we sell a lot of CDs so we don't have to mail them back (and break them again).

Everybody in Texas has terrible allergies. I had a severe, recurring sinus headache for much of the last week. I don't know that I'm allergic to pollens; part of it was my period, but it really feels like a sinus related thing. After trying every remedy I had brought with me, including caffeine which I don't normally have any more, and having it keep coming back, I finally started my last-resort three-day Prednisone attack. My sister is in Africa so she's not available to ask, but I remember she suggested it once before when the sinus pressure wouldn't abate. When I arrived here tonight I was a little dizzy, like there was something going on in my ears. Who knows, maybe it is pollen. They make those buggers bigger here in Texas, I'm told. They also make incredible Mountain Laurel bushes that are nothing like the Mountain Laurel we have in new England. I've probably talked about that before. They look like wysteria and smell like grape kool aid. It's wonderful to see flowers bursting out at this time of year.

And Monday, it'll be back to snow. For a little while.

********

I told Steve I loved him on the phone the other night. I didn't want to say it until I knew it was true and, happily, it is.

********

Sunday night, late

Our last gig was pretty much fun -- another appreciative UU crowd, and then they had a soup & salad luncheon. We were about 45 minutes away from our lodging, and we'd been invited to have dinner with our hosts at a restaurant called Cosmos, where a band they knew was playing Gypsy music. Since it was in the same area as the church, and we didn't feel like going back and forth twice, we spent the afternoon at a cinema seeing two movies. Be Cool was the first one -- silly, but some laughs, and John Travolta is always good -- and then Hitch, which was sweet and also funny. I love Adam Arkin, too -- remember him as Adam on Northern Exposure? After four and a half hours of moviegoing, we got directions to the restaurant and met our hosts with their little baby and their friend from somewhere else who seems to be babysitting for a few weeks. He was going to do sound for us last night except that we moved the concert indoors. He's a rather shy, long haired musician who seems never to have gotten jump started in life. Anyway -- about this Gypsy band:

Our host (let's call him Andy) told us a story about the guitarist, whom we met before dinner. (Let's call him Don, because I totally don't remember his name.) He's an odd looking fellow, rather plump, and had a very iffy handshake, like he didn't really want to touch anyone. Andy has known him for many years, and told us later that Don is obsessive compulsive. But he's sort of a savant on the guitar, and we watched him effortlessly playing these impossible runs and frills. Years ago, Andy put a band together which consisted of three young men who were trying to make their living playing Beatles tunes, but who also wrote very good original music, and Andy, Don as their lead guitarist. The band really took off, and they shortly had a major record deal. They were playing out and doing very well. But Don has this disorder, and he needs a caretaker -- he can't drive, so someone had to pick him up and take him home, and make sure he didn't drink. So he had this caretaker who'd pick him up, while Don checked and rechecked that the gas was off and the doors were locked and the lights were out, and he'd make sure Don behaved himself at the gigs, and then take him home.

Well, there came a night when, for some reason, the caretaker couldn't bring Don home after the gig. He told the other guys that Don shouldn't get drunk, and arranged for transportation back, but something got out of hand. I'm not sure what happened but Don got drunk and unruly and upset the place in some way, and their manager fired him.

Andy told the manager that if he fired Don, he would himself quit, and that's what happened. No more record deal, no more band.

So then there was this Gypsy band that came along, and Don joined that. Then the caretaker died, so the accordion player in the band took on the job of carting him to gigs and so forth. Andy helped them through all that, and then didn't see Don for five years, until tonight.

I guess he's doing all right.

They were fun to listen to, but the music was loud and I was tired. Didn't get enough sleep last night, and won't get enough tonight. We have to leave at 6:30 for the airport, that's a.m., and it'll be a long ass day with the usual inability to sleep on the plane. Sigh.

But our Texas tour is over! It was good, and it'll be even better to get home.

My headache's a lot better; thanks, Prednisone. It'll keep me from sleeping for very long at a time, but at least the pain is almost all gone. I hope the flight doesn't aggravate it. Sometimes I think I'm singlehandedly keeping the Ibuprofen manufacturers in business.

And my sister comes home from Africa on Friday! She's been there with the Ghana Health Mission again, and from all the brief reports I've heard, she's having a blast. I can't wait to see her, and then her birthday is a week from tomorrow.

And it's Spring.

Tuesday, 3/22, Home

I had such fun making little documentary movies on my camera for Steve, so he could feel like he came along on tour. I might get to see him tomorrow, depending on whether he can get a dogsitter. The rest of the month is going to be pretty exciting, but we'll save that for later, as this is already an epic.

Cheers, all.