Friday Feb 25, 2022

Today was a long day. Lots of driving followed by equal amounts of riding. Six and a half hours over all of vehicle time. The only interruptions were the fuel stop and a vehicle change.  

Conversation isn’t always on the menu while traveling with a band. Everyone is lost in their own world. All are busy bringing weekly home life to a close and getting mentally prepared for the work weekend. The silence of thought may get a brief respite with a “Hey, did y’all happen to notice..?” type question, but silence returns quickly and you stare out of the window and return to your dreams of spending money you don’t have on things you don’t really need. 

We got to our destination on time and began the load in. Load in for this band can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to three hours, including sound check. There was a bit of confusion about the stage and a rather lengthy set up due to Jeff changing a few things for the better making upgrades on his equipment. Not too bad though. Time to get this show going! Well, not quite. We still have two and a half hours to wait. 

After a very Spinal Tap half hour of figuring out where to get changed we found our changing room and spent the next two hours waiting, changing. We sat in steel chairs with thin canvas padded seat cushions while we stared into the mirror covered walls awaiting our start time. Thirty minutes before time to play we were invited to eat. Our meal for the evening was catered food, fried chicken tenders and fried fish pieces. There were also French fries, deviled eggs, lots of mayonnaise based sauces and a tomato sauce. You may not know this but fried foods and singing don’t really mix. You know what else doesn’t mix? Being a broke musician and turning down free food. Catering wins again.

Start time and we did our thang. For one hour and forty-five minutes. That was then followed by a twenty minute break and then another hour and forty-five set. Immediately after the show we began packing up. Just under two hours and about eight thousand pounds of equipment later we are loaded up and ready for the thirty minute drive to the hotel.

Checked in. Everyone made it safely into their rooms. Time for bed, finally. 

I began my day at 8:30am EST and laid down at 3:45am CST. Long day. Can’t sleep. I lay on my back and stare into the shadows on the ceiling made by the light cast from the street lamps outside. I learned in sixth grade that light can not bend. I learned in college six years later that light actually can bend. This process its called diffraction and the amount that light bends is relative to the size of the wavelength and the size of the opening. The brighter the source of light and the more open the path means longer wavelengths and greater bending. Well, this hotel window seems to border the sun and the distance from the curtain edge to the wall is roughly the size of Snake Canyon. There is more light in the room than darkness. I look for darkness on the ceiling and try to trick myself into believing it is dark and time to sleep. 

The ringing in my ears is still as loud as it was on stage. I am too tired for advantageous thought so I just ponder my existence and wonder what I will tell you about the day and what will I buy with all of that money that I do not have in the bank.

Saturday morning greats me with cat poop flavored drool on the pillow and in my beard. My ears are still ringing. I didn’t really sleep as much as I rolled, tossed, turned, and snored while being partially awake. It is 8:30am CST. I very clumsily hop out of the bed and into the shower. That’s not entirely true. I did actually hit my knee on a table in the room and I pulled hard on a push door. Then I made it into the bathroom. I get cleaned and brush my teeth with just enough time to make “bus call”. It’s a four door truck this week but it is still bus call. 

For the next six and a half hours I repeated the pattern of the previous day but in the opposite direction. The journey was uneventful except getting “the bird” from a passenger in a car that damn near clipped my front end merging into my lane with no signal. I suppose I forget to read the mind of the driver and just know that she wanted over. I mean, why use a turn signal when other drivers are clairvoyant?

So that is the story for this week. I put in 24 hours of work and driving into a 30 hour work weekend. Pretty normal for a traveling musician. It always looks easy and fun from the crowd, and it is, but it is a lot of other things that can not be described as “fun”. That is not a complaint. It is a statement of honesty. I still enjoy what I do and I know I am blessed to have such a vocation.

That is all for now. I hope that you have a wonderfully fabulous week and that you find happiness, even if in small bits, everyday.

Goodnight.