March 27, 2022

I am writing this week’s journal in retrospect from the comfort of the home office/recording studio. Conditions for writing on the road this week did not coincide with my willingness to write at the time in which opportunity presented itself. 

This week’s work trip was fairly hit or miss on notable things to point out about travel with the job. If I documented it hour by hour it would get boring very quickly. Plus, I am fairly certain that you are getting the gist of what a typical work weekend involves for me by now. Typical was very much what this week delivered with a few notable exceptions.

At the gig on Friday Wes Peters informed me that he had a cigar for me and that we would retire the early evening gig by enjoying a smoke and the evening weather. Who am I to decline such an offer from a good friend?

When we got to the hotel we dropped our things into the room, grabbed the proper weather attire, and headed to courtyard to prepare for our evening festivities. We found our way to a concrete picnic table next to a closed but illuminated swimming pool. Behind the picnic table was a tall-back beach chair in blue with a blue outdoor pillow and a grey-striped cat. Someone had set up that chair for him and it was clearly his chair. He, and yes it was most assuredly a boy cat, didn’t seem to be bothered by us and we were not bothered by him. Everything was copacetic. 

As Peters and I were lighting our cigars and getting situated in our temporary cigar lounge we received the same text from Goode about Taylor Hawkins dying. Such sad news at the beginning of what was supposed to be a relaxing end to the day. I sent the message to a few musician friends. As the messages and responses came pouring in I hear Peters chuckle at me. What was he finding funny?

I look over to my left and there sits the cat looking up at me with his big cat eyes announcing that he would now like for me to and allow me to pet him. Peters snapped a pic of the event. 

I was texting with Anthony Rankin about the sad news and mentioned that a bit of good news also happened at the same time. A cat had decided to join our party and Peters and I agreed that the cat needed a name so we decided on Taylor Hawkins Clarion in honor of the situation. Anthony replied with “you mean Taylor CLAWkins”. That was settled The cat’s name is Taylor Clawkins.

For the next little while Wes Peters, Taylor Clawkins, and I solved world problems, debated important issues like How Smart Are Orcas, Right?!?!? We discussed gorillas holding small children in Cincinnati Zoos.  We even got to the most important and most frequently debated question among the band, will Selma Hayek show up at our gig someday and which one of us will she decide to marry? 

Taylor Clawkins hopped between us allowing each of us even amounts of time rubbing his ear and scratching behind his head. He was pleased with our efforts. There was a cat locked inside a room with its owners, I hope it was anyway, watching us through the plate glass window looking sad he couldn’t join. I swear that Taylor Clawkins was taunting that poor cat in their feline alien language somehow. 

The night air turned to a hard chill and we called it a night. Our buddy, Taylor, had found is way back to the blue chair to retire for the evening. I learned that he was through with the touching because as I walked past him to say goodnight by petting his head he scared the crap out of me and Peters by letting out a loud “ROWRRRRRRRRRRAHHHHH!” while jumping three feet into the air and took off running like he was shot out of a cannon. He was having NONE of my touching and he made that very clear. That was the most “cat” thing ever. 

New day and a new beginning that started and continued as usual. Nothing spectacular happened on Saturday. Nothing spectacular happened on the journey back today. I suppose if Frodo had to go to Mordor every weekend he would’ve never documented that trip. If he did it might go like this:

“Finally realized we could just fly on the big-ass eagle(s) there and back in a single day. Why did we ever walk in the first place? Sam Wise has learned to pack lighter too. No more stale bread in his pockets stinking up the trip. He thinks it was Gollum and not the bread smell that brought around that giant spider. He is, as usual, wrong. An Eagle pooped on Treebeard today as we flew over the forest. We laughed. Tree B didn’t find it as funny as we did. We have a standing bet going on whether or not he throws acorns at us again when we fly back over. Let me assure you, T.B. can sling those little nuts hard. Merry can’t stop laughing at me saying ‘sling those little nuts’. Mordor kinda sucks. Not sure why we keep having to go back? Anyway, that’s all for now…” 

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

Good evening.