Travel Journal Entry 3

March 3, 2022

Today’s gig was a Fraternity party in Opelika, AL. Opelika is a neighboring town to Auburn, AL and home to Auburn University. People rent out the turn of the century buildings in downtown Opelika for formal events, which this was. This part of the town is actually quaint and well kept. Alabama is full of these neat southern gothic towns. This one is lucky enough to be cared for. 

The situation for this show was to drive there, unload and set up, perform, break down and load up, then drive back home. We do not have a Friday gig this week. Just Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I figured that going home was better than a wasted day and an unnecessary hotel expense. As high as gas prices are this week they are still not as expensive as hotel rooms three nights in a row. A four hundred and twenty-three mile round trip and another long day.

 Normally in these situations we are hired to play for a four hour time span. This equals two ninety minute sets separated by a thirty minute break. Rarely do these functions begin on time and we often will start about thirty minutes late and then do two seventy minute sets separated by a twenty minute break. Not tonight. Tonight we started five minutes late and ended two minutes early, non-stop. Luckily we were only booked for three hours. But, hey, what’s a four hour drive, a two hour set up, a thirty minute break for whatever fast food is close, a two hour and fifty-three minute performance, a one hour load out, and a three and a half hour drive home, if not good for the soul?! Geez!

I chose the Gibson SG as my guitar for the night, thankfully. The SG is my lightest weight guitar at around seven pounds, but that is not the reason I opted to play it. I chose it because I love how it plays and the way it sounds. I’m happy with my decision because my shoulder and back are old and weary. Still, all in all, it was a good show and a fun crowd.

Memorable standout moment of the night:

I experienced a first for me as a performing musician of twenty-nine and a half years. That is a rare thing with so many hours of observing drunken stupidity over the years and living within my own stupidity and clumsiness. Not many things that can happen to you while on stage haven’t already happened to me more than a few times but it did at this gig. This really did happened.

Somewhere into the beginning of the second hour of playing the crowd was close to the front of the stage and having a good time. The show was high energy and non-stop. Two couples found their way in front of me. One of the girls directly in front of me preferred to stand with her back to the stage and looking and talking to her friends. This is odd to people born before 1990 but pretty normal for Millennials and Gen Z folks. I thought nothin of it. They were having fun and as long as she was engaged and enjoying herself I take no offense to her turning of her back to the band at the front of the stage. 

When I am not singing I stand away from the microphone by a few feet, especially in COVID times. No distance is too safe. When I sing though, I have to be right on the mic. As I walked up to sing some harmonies at this point I felt something that made my body revolt. I started to choke a little. It felt like a fly had flown into my mouth. However, I couldn’t feel anything in my mouth. I stopped singing and tried to find whatever it was with my hand thinking maybe it was on my lips. Fun fact, No! I didn’t find a fly or a gnat or a bug. I felt what it was as I was on the verge of gagging and I couldn’t really process what happened or how it happened.

I looked forward at the people in front of me and noticed the young lady in front of me, her back still turned. She had been head banging exaggeratedly with her friends and I suppose she was trying to fix her hair back by teasing it vigorously with her bare hands. She had lovely, long red hair. Lovely long hair that was leaving her scalp at a rapid pace and that is when I realized I, when taking a breath, had sucked one of those hairs into my mouth and down my throat!

I found the hair still hanging out of my mouth and pulled. This thing felt like it was ten feet long. It was all the way down my throat and still hanging out of my mouth. Oh yeah, I was gagging. Gagging from my gag reflex and gagging at the thought of someone’s hair down my throat.

I walked back to my amp and took a big gulp of my watered down melted ice and Coke Zero. That didn’t help. You know when you find a bug on you and you flick it off it still feels like it is there for the rest of the day? That’s how this felt except it was a hair, and not my own hair, and it felt stuck in my throat. 

Now, I’ve had long of my own when I was younger and I have had it get into my mouth many times, but I have never had a random stranger’s hair in my mouth and down my throat. That shit will mess up your evening with the quickness. I ran off stage and over to Caitlin, who was side stage, and told her what happened. She turned green and had eyes as big as saucers. Very sweetly and concerned she got me a bottle of water. I got back on stage and finished the song. For the next hour and a few minutes I kept playing and singing with that feeling in my mouth. Not fun, at all.

On the bright side, I had a new experience. Now I have a story to share with you that doesn’t involve the usual aspects of a gig.

March 5, 2022

9:00PM CST

The usual so far. Drive, unload and set up, sound check. Two hours to kill before the show. Caitlin, Tim, and I went to eat next to the venue. Mexican food. Still have an hour to kill. I laid in the bed of the pickup for a bit and let the early springtime wind wash over me. I’m typing this now so I don’t forget to tell you how much I love the wind.

3:03AM CST

Just got into the hotel room. I am alone tonight, no sharing a room. Only two of us are more than twenty to sixty minutes away from home here on Tuscaloosa, AL. I welcome the solitude and embrace to loneliness for the evening. it.

There are tired bones, sore joints, and ears ringing again tonight. However, the ringing tonight is a bit more extreme in my left ear. Long story short, let me condense the story by saying when using in-ear monitors do not allow random drunk and excited young high pitched people to scream into the microphone. This isn’t the best idea. I feel like someone fired a 9mm pistol off right beside my left ear while riding in a car with all of the windows rolled up. But, hey, ‘they were just having a good time”. I know, I know, if I hadn’t had a passport.

Remind me to tell you the “…if I hadn’t had a passport” story. Actually, all of my passport stories, with the exception of getting my passport the first time, have been bizarre and highly confusing and unlikely to ever happen to anyone else, ever.

Wind, yeah, wind. It is my favorite part about being alive. It is the only thing I have encountered that settles the darkness inside and soothes the tangled knots of my mind. It lifts my soul out of my body and sends it flying freely into the sky, through the trees, along the water, into the fields, and wherever else I wish to go to get free of the snare that is my deepest thoughts. 

Before the show and after I got show ready I sat on my tailgate and felt the cool breeze begin to caress my skin. I laid back and peeked at the few celestial bodies that the lit streets would allow to be seen. A portion of the sky was blocked out beautifully by large southern Oak trees. I could see the wind coming in to lift me high above those rustling leaves before I could actually feel it thanks to the swaying of the branches. I heard the rustle and closed my eyes awaiting my escape. When it took me, it took my by surprise with a mixture of soon to be summer warmth accompanied by the last vestige of the coldness of a hard winter and a hard few years. The wind floated me upon its promise of hope.

The ride was short lived and was ended too soon by the den of bar clatter and passers by hoping to discover that elusive parking spot that didn’t exist in the back lot where the employees park. That is when I got out the keyboard and wrote to you. I am happy I did or I might have prolonged telling you about the wind tonight.

It is now 3:30AM CST. I need to attempt sleep and I need to charge the iPad. Thanks for sticking around. See you tomorrow.

March 6, 2022

1:41PM CST

Sleep was intermittent last night from logging off until about 6:30 this morning when I got up to use the restroom. When I laid my head back down I closed my eyes for what seemed like a blink. Immediately my alarm was telling me that it was thirty minutes away from check out time. That went by way too fast.

Got up and got clean then headed towards the next gig destination. I got to Birmingham a few hours early of load in and had the great fortune of meeting my friends Megan and Chase for lunch. It was fantastic communing and breaking bread with friends. Good friends are a blessing and I am so fortunate to have Chase and Megan as friends. Good company is food for the soul and we always laugh together. I appreciate them making time to visit.

In this moment I sit alone in a local donut and coffee shop typing to you. It’s a warm-ish Sunday afternoon. There is a park across the street. People are out being people and the world seems almost normal again. That is if you dismiss the war, inflation, constant weather fluctuations, civil unrest created by everyone being offended by every thing, and the lack of desire to compromise on anything anymore. Otherwise, things feel pretty normal today. I am enjoying seeing families having picnics and seeing frisbees thrown and hearing innocent laughter of children who have yet to learn the actual world awaiting them in the coming years. All of this is embellished by the coffee shop radio playing the soundtrack to my middle school years. In this moment I remember that I still loving earning a living the way that I do and that I love traveling while I get to work. 

4:53PM CST

I really am a miserable old man. I mean, I would not wish to be around me at work. Why do I say this? Because it is true. I just got irrationally mad about food delivery apps. Really. In my defense they f’n suck and should be banned from society. I loathe them. Why would I want to pay $37 for a $7 Arby’s order? And why in hell would I want to wait forty-five minutes for it? The Arby’s is a half of a mile away? I cannot leave the gig so that is my option at the moment. Ya know what? This is a pointless rant. I have to get ready to play. Bye.

March 7, 2022

Well, I made it safely home after the gig last night. I should apologize for the rant about food apps but I am not going to do that because that is the reality of life on the road. It is manic. The ups and downs that can happen within any given day is a lot like reliving puberty over and over. You go from being totally alone and isolated craving company to being surrounded and craving isolation. This happens many times a day. You go from wanting to be noticed to wanting to be invisible. In some moments you feel seen but those occurrences are usually up-ended by reality reminding you to “dance, monkey, dance”. It can get you messed up very quickly, especially if you listen to your fans and critics or if you rely on their approval, which some mistakenly call “energy from the crowd”.

It is so hard somedays to be grounded in reality because you exist in this alternate world that lies somewhere between adult responsibility and childish freedom. Not knowing which realm to occupy is a crap shoot at best because it is totally dictated by the company you are in and the circumstance you find yourself in at that moment. Once again, it will get you messed up really quickly if you let it. 

I am very lucky in that I have a wonderful support system at home with my loved ones, my friends, and the dogs who don’t seem to care at all about me writing a good line in a song or playing an emotionally moving guitar solo. Nope, they just want to be fed and want to use my leg as a prop for their head so they can nap. Everyone needs that kind of reality to come home to. Even if you do not feel like you need it, you do need it.

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.

Good Day!