September 26, 2005

1:25 p.m.

That's Missoura to You, Young Man

The whole thing took 47 hours from the time I awoke early Saturday morning to the time I hit the sack in the wee hours of this morning. Our flight to St. Louis was uneventful save for a few minutes of heavy turbulence. It was a puddle jumper, with one column of two seats per row and one column of one seat per row. We had to gate-check some of our carryon luggage, because the bins were so shallow. But we arrived intact, picked up the minivan they'd rented for us, and made the 2 hour drive to Waynesville.

Once there we checked into our hotel, where the presenter met us with his wife. They run a little theatre company in town, and this was the first concert they'd ever had there. They saw us at a venue in NY state a couple of years ago, opening for someone, and decided we were worth starting a concert series over. They knew someone who worked at this hotel, and we got two splendid suites complete with the kitchenette that we didn't have time to use, two televisions each (on which we got updates of Rita), and all the comforts of home.

Then we dropped off our gear at the theatre, and were somewhat obligated to go out to the Paw Paw Festival, which was not where we were playing, but the idea was that we'd sing something in between some other events and try to drum up some more business for the evening. We went on after the kids' ballet and modern dance recitals. They were so cute, and I had to try very hard not to get all verklempt watching them. I don't know what it is, but I'm helpless watching kids do stuff, even if they're beginners. I dabbed at my tired eyes with my t-shirt sleeve until it was time for us to sing. After sitting around waiting for 45 minutes, we did an a cappella number on one mic with a shitty sound system and I don't know if it persuaded anyone to attend the concert, but our job was done and we were then able to go back to the hotel and take a nap.

Three hours later we were on our way to the theatre to sound check. It was a sound check from hell, owing to the fact that they didn't quite have all the equipment we needed, and Mike didn't quite know how to run the board for our setup. Chris knows sound and he's always the savior in these times, but it drives him crazy because it takes forever and the dinner hour goes by and we haven't changed clothes and the show approacheth. Finally it was all done; the volunteer crew (and these are all people who work in this theatre) had secured a menu and had someone stationed at the restaurant to order for us, and bring food back. We zipped to the hotel to change and came back; the food arrived; the opening act went on as we ate; and then

we had one of the loveliest, gut-busting funniest shows we've ever done.

It's so often this way, when the pre-show preparation is stressful and maddening. They were so psyched for us, and some of them had been listening to our CD already for a while and sang along. We made lots of spontaneous jokes and even pulled a few running gags throughout the evening. The sound was adequate in the end, we could hear everything, and they were obviously getting the words.

We were jazzed enough to go out to Cracker Barrel with the gang afterwards, which stayed open for us. It's a tightly knit community with a lot of talents, and they obviously have worked together on a lot of shows and are a real team. One older guy, a short, stocky, gruff, balding fellow, had played a woman in some show or other, and they showed us a picture of him in costume and makeup, which was astonishing. Then they said he'd had to go to Sears to get the photos done. There was another fellow who had been in the military, and he was very strange -- we often didn't know what he was talking about, and he tended to get suddenly exuberant and explosive over something, talking quickly and laughing suddenly loud. He was a little off-putting, but I noticed that everyone seemed to know him well, accepting him as he was and not the least bit ruffled by his behavior.

We sold plenty of CDs for it being a modest audience, so that helped a bit, as we'd spent our entire fee on airfare. They need to work out a few kinks but we'd all like to do it again if we can make a successful tour out of it. Originally we were going to be doing a conference in Nashville in conjunction with this, so we'd have driven, but the conference fell through and it ended up a standalone gig. That's why we flew. In spite of the finances it was a great and gratifying weekend.

The vestiges of Rita gave us bad weather on the way home, and both connecting flights were delayed. While waiting on the first plane to depart (and we had to taxi to a different runway which I swear was five miles away), Chris and I made up limericks. Now when we start inventing poetry it gets bawdy very quickly. The last one has to do with a restaurant sign we saw on the highway which said, "Cooked from Scratch!" and of course that led us to all kinds of unsavory speculations.

An Englishman boarded a plane
'Cause he wanted to fly out to Spain.
He spent the whole night
Getting on the wrong flight
Thus returning again and again.


This God-awful pain in my ear
Reoccurs every time you are near.
I'll give you my hat;
You can stick it in that
Just wash up when you're finished, ya queer!


And, finally (and this is all Chris's):


While searching my pants for a match
I noticed an itch in my thatch.
Kneading dough in my kitchen
Makes loaves that taste bitchin' --
I owe it to Cooking from Scratch!



We arrived at their house just before 2am; I spent a few minutes rearranging my electronics, and proceeded home, arriving just before 3:00. I was in bed by 3:10 and slept til 11:00. I feel pretty good.

The only other news is that I'm about halfway through Jack Kerouack's On the Road, and it's stunning. More impressions of that later. My word of the day is from this book, and it's not in the dictionary. It was used from the 20s to the 50s, and its origins are unknown.