Packing up the covered wagon. Steel covered wagon with bucket seats and a black plastic roof box. Time to introduce the young ones to the longest country. Might get spottier on the access to modems front but I will press on. Fashioning an ethernet connection from a sprig of alder and a tent peg will be tricky. Screaming my point to point protocol down a bungy cord attached to a space saver tire using a captured mockingbird to mimic the squirrelly whine of the machine language will prove difficult. It can be done.
Home. Looks like a tornado left everything it had picked up in another town. The inside of my head feels the same. Once again I have a reason to carry a keychain. I feel valued and without appropriate values. Craigy Pop but no self mutilation. Time to get my ducks in a row. Ducks in rows make easier targets. Time to have the ducks scatter. That feels better. Safe in confusion again.
Heat and light. Midday running along Phoenix sidewalks. There is always something in bloom. The dryness makes things easier. Any measure of humidity begins to pull energy out to meet the moisture. Phoenix can feel like its giving you power merely by being so dry and bright. The added arrogance of irrigation provides the illusion that explosions of life are constant in the desert. Running past Golf courses. Decadence. Lush organic carpets glued to the natural hardpan & dust underneath. The dirt, ironweed and scrub that would return the minute that money and manicuring turn their backs. Past Frank Lloyd Wright’s beautiful Biltmore Hotel smelling of such expensive cologne so tastefully applied. Spinach salad with warm Portabello mushrooms and marinated tomato. Iced tea and a game of croquet. White is not a colour. Looking ahead along the inside edge of the sidewalk I see the severed wing of a small pidgeon. No blood, beautiful and perfect. I run while playing out the bird’s final scenario in my head. My mind moves back to basic monitoring of my body’s systems under the circumstances of exercise and heat. Maybe three miles more and running on a parallel block, in the opposite direction, a small pidgeon with one wing lies face down at the sidewalk’s edge. No blood. Hardly dishevelled. No scenario reveals itself to me immediately. How did the wing get so far away and in such a similar feeling place? Cats at play? Different wing same species? How far can a pidgeon walk after losing a wing in a freak accident or attack? A long way. Pidgeons are a bird that does a lot of walking. When pidgeons die they die in weird ways. I’ve seen them splayed out in outlet fans for building ventilation and frozen headfirst in the ice in the Red River. They fall into the sleep that comes at 40 degrees below zero and rocket downward into the ice from the griders of the bridge under which they take refuge. Maybe evolution will lead them back to migration as a sensible solution. Maybe I should have gone back for the wing and placed it near the rest of the bird. The early Egyptians would probably think this would help in the bird’s afterlife. Similar climate, similar philosophies?
Heat and light and the test of survival. All the animals come down to the golf course for the water. Coyotes, birds of prey, rhodents, deer. Urban wildlife gets help but goes soft. There is always an upside. The pidgeon’s story has no middle. Most stories don’t have an end.
The tour is over. Pretty emotional ending after a show filled with inside pranks and wandering soulfully from the script. A bit more sadness in all the comedy. These guys have always incorporated a dark undercurrent that sometimes can be felt as sadness. This was emphasized by the general mood. Performance is transitory. Mistakes disappear into the ether along with brilliance. You can try to immortalize the performance on film or tape but the only way to actually feel it is to live it. We built a great vehicle for performance over these close to 40 shows. It was always getting better in some way. Its hard to reconcile that it has to stop but this is also part of the beauty. The people who really wanted to see it, and went through the effort to be there for the moment, can also embellish and relive the shows strongest impressions for years to come. They have the sense memory of being there. I have the sense memory of all these cities, climates, smells, hotel lolligagging, singing, trying not to laugh when its funnier if you don’t laugh, hangovers and hanging out. Waiting. Talking. Watching. Missing people. Using the phone. Secret languages of friends. Dragging a suitcase. Losing your bus key, your shoes, sunglasses, that CD jewelbox. Catering. Coffee. Airplanes. Taxis. Sleeping in strange positions. Too hot. Too cold. The purr of a generator, vegetable oil smoke, check.. one... two, What’s my room number? What day is it? Sexual frustration, modem squawk, forgetting to eat and then eating too much. Receipts. Bonding. Rituals. Rituals that I’ve learned to love.
I feel sorry for horses. I’ve never really reconciled my feelings towards the beautiful beasts. They establish such a huge presence if ever you’re near them. Its not just the size alone that does this. Their interstellar shape and aloof attitude make them seem alien to some of this species...so weirdly gorgeous. They are the extreme end of that head shape. The giraffe and the deer seem to state themselves a little less. Today the cast and crew rode these creatures through the spectacular desert north of Scottsdale Arizona. During the early hours or morning they somnambulated along trails built for such a purpose . Old horses, sleepy horses and generally genteel horses carried the city slickers through the dusty painted and prickly scenery. We escaped the harshest heat by riding them single file so early in the day. Train I ride sixteen horses long. My horse was a twenty year old “big black” horse named Whiskey. I say “big black” because that is as close as I get to knowing his breed. After setting my six foot, one hundred and seventy pound frame on him I patted his neck and apologized. I think he liked that. Why have people convinced themselves that horses don’t mind being ridden? We talked a lot as we ambled along the path and he figured out pretty quickly who was in control. After a fashion he just did what he wanted to do and I loved him for it. He never did anything I didn’t like. He knew me so quickly. The guide was a classically weathered gent who had spent most of his time as an ex-CIA tracker. I feel he had a pretty good handle on matching the personality of the horse to the rider. He said, “you’re going to like ol’ Whiskey. Just keep your heals down in the stirrups and keep him back from the horse in front”. At first I felt this illustrated a skittish nature but I quickly learned it just meant Whiskey was going to do it his way and he needed a rider that liked that. I explained to Whiskey that I trusted him to get me back in one piece and to just do what I knew he’d done a million times. Whiskey and I definitely understood each other and I think all the other members of my posse had similar experiences. When I got off I felt like I wanted to spend more time with him...just looking at him and talking to him. I get the horse thing now but I feel like I’d rather watch them run around and occasionally ask them if they mind taking me for a spin. If they seem like they’re tired or mellow then we can just hang out instead. I feel sorry for the ones who’s caretakers don’t feel the way I feel.
Don’t know where I left off. The second night at the Warfield was the best show of the tour. On the night prior we had a two show affair that really tested the boundaries of the script. The troupe was so tired and punchy by the second show that new ideas appeared in a soft and psychedelic form. The final night seemed to take it all to the farthest place it could go. When “Romeo” went off the rails and into space (the third scene) everyone seemed to embrace the experimentation and we were off on a wild ride. I think the troupe agrees that it was a special night for all of them. All their talents came to bear as they challenged each other with new diversions and propositions. I was blown away that they had another gear left in their gearbox. They went into 6th and stayed there. We’ve all been high for two days just thinking about how great it was. I would have stayed out on the road for a two months just to see that show.
My friend Lance lives in San Francisco and we drove around in his convertible talking about life’s coming changes. The city and its ocean curves wound around us. This city has great viewpoints and even better names. Telegraph HIll, Knob Hill, Alcatraz, Castro, Tenderloin, Land’s End, Presidio, Haight Ashbury. Yellow lensed sun glasses are a great way to look at it all. Any alteration of your consciousness seems like the right thing to do. Hey be beautiful.
Went to see Elvis Costello in Saratoga at the Paul Masson Mountain Winery venue. Too much to tell about this day. I am totally blissed out about the whole affair. The setting was spectacular and the conversation and music were part of a blessing I feel was bestowed beyond the most ambitious projection. I’ll be living off the ether of that day for a little while.
Today in San Diego I once again drove around and talked with an old pal. Another friend drove in to see the show from LA. This tour has been a unique opportunity to bring in my far away satellites for inspection -- to set foot on planets that are part of my galaxy but usually receive just the dots and dashes of the telegraph.
The show was a relaxed and relatively smooth affair. I think we used the momentum of the last performance to carry us through this one.
This morning a baby was born. I can hardly wait to meet him. Just the truth no metaphor. This is another important child. Flashbulbs pop.
Just woke up in Phoenix and my pixels are coming slowly into phase. Symbolically this is a place where things start for me. Its funny that I’m just realizing this at this very moment. Tour ends here. This means something begins here. Don’t know where I left off but this is definitely a place to begin.
Its already begun before you know its beginning and its already ended long before you call it quits. All the time you try to be in the moment. The creative arc begins by taking you away to somewhere. The ramp up to your departure is paved with all the things that add to your creative fuel supply. A cathartic event galvanizes the images of your past and off you go. You think that the cathartic event is the beginning but the beginning was a long time ago. You repeat the idea of the created entity until you feel it lose its impact. In music this means you perform the song until you can’t feel what made it good in the first place. You think it ends there but it really ended a week before. Performance always goes “long” because people don’t want to let go of all the energy and love they put into making it work in the first place. Long before I ended up doing this tour there were tiny animals scurrying around making it all happen. I said something to someone that they repeated to someone else. Someone listened to a song and imagined the future. I slept on a couch in a far away place after talking 'til the wee hours about what was good in the world. These were the beginnings of the tour. The end of this phase probably came somewhere back when I realized those forces were at work all over again. Staring down into the truthful black mirror of my first coffee I felt that something was about to begin. This is probably the signal that something is ending because without death there is no birth. Yes...life is an additive and accumulative process but it is the opinion of many cultures I trust that no real change happens without the bad stuff. Bad stuff brings revelation and the catalysts of cataclysm. My friend George had the urge to downsize and put things in order the other day. While rifling through drawers (in an attempt to change his head space) he found a lost thousand dollars. Before you ask where he lives, and crews of spelunkers show up at his door, its best to note that this won’t happen for you. You can set out to do this but a lost thousand dollars finds its way home. It doesn’t want to be found by a stranger. I don’t think he realized it was lost. Not trying to find it was the only way he was going to get it back. In this way it was never lost. It was just waiting. The focus had shifted away from the money and then the little animals at work realized that George would need the money soon and the focus shifted back to that drawer in the study.
White, yellow, baby blue, green, pink, red, royal blue. Left to right. Test pattern. I’ve nodded off to it hundreds of times. Never realized that it was imprinted on my brain. Each time I see it I am a depleted man. 4:00am. I’ve either just finished a raft of hard work or I’ve tested my immune system against another long day and drowned it with liquid joy. Maybe the test pattern is to readjust your perception. If it can be used to recalibrate the colour balance of your TV then I’m sure it is recalibrating something inside the person who has to perceive what is happening on the TV. It presents the basic physical elements and your brain has a chance to refresh itself at the end of a stretch of getting lost in the long day’s journey into night. Those are the colours. I will use them when I wake up. The little animals scurry away knowing they have prepared my senses for all tomorrow’s parties.
The death of today’s programming signals the birth of something. Here is the bleak and stark disappointment you feel staring at a test pattern. You’ve run into the cul de sac. There are no houses to go into. There is no more of the street to walk down. Your energy has dissipated to the point where you can’t back out and move to a new place. Make the decision. Go to sleep? For those of us who are 8 years old inside... going to sleep still feels like defeat. A victory is coming. Not to be too mushy about it but. .. waking up the next day is a victory. Its already begun before you know its beginning and its already ended long before you end it.
sidebar:
Urban wildlife celebrities. Pier 39 in San Francisco is home to one of the greatest displays of urban wildlife. After the earthquake of ‘89 a group of 350 to 600 California sea lions decided to camp out on the floating docks of Pier 39 on San Francisco's Embarcadero. To the onlooker it looks like a sea lion reenactment of the movie Caligula. A Roman orgy of sea lions rolling on top of each other, biting, playing, humping and basking with full stomachs in the sun. All this is surrounded theatre style by human onlookers with Tilley hats and various types of cameras. They are there because by fluke. When they got there the people didn’t kill them or drive them away like our predecessors might have. It became comfortable. Raccoons or coyotes struggle in their relatively new urban environment but these sea lions are pampered celebrities. It cheapens their reality. You want to see them on majestic outcroppings of rock beside the foaming deep blue sea. When the sea lions realize this is a bad career move they will pack up and go back to a place more dignified.
diary notes: The two shows last night at the Warfield were among the loosest yet. Lossey goosey is juicy to me. The crowd was a lot of fun. Tres San Fransiscan. I played “Satisified” in the first show because it was big here and it has the Bay Area reference. I made a mistake in it and laughed. I always screw up that song.
Top down or bottom up. Its how you look at the city. Best to go top down with LA. Its all hanging out on the surface so set your signal for the heart of the earth and start to work down to the level that makes you feel comfortable. You have to step through the layers of other places and keep climbing to reach the surface. I'm comfortable with the path of least resistance though it takes me working like a bastard to get there. Tonight had a nice smooth undercoat.
Comin’ into Los Angeles. Sorry about the pseudo name dropping last night. I sometimes fall prey to my own excitement and then start to pull back the reigns. This can be embarrassing. The 8 year old boy in me gets reprimanded by the middle aged man in me but just a little too late to hide my immaturity. I’ve slowly learned to handle myself without much social embarrassment but usually my slip is showing. My parents were always sticklers for table manners and general comportment. Dad was an officer in the airforce. My constant battle with proper decorum has led to a bizarre hybrid. Now when I try to hold it together you can feel my boorish undertone. Nobody loves the ass joke more than me. Nothing is more of a relief than when the person you are holding it together for is the first to expose their looser interior. Everything gets better from there.
Universal City Outlook. It actually exists. It seems like a phrase used to describe the way all people carry themselves in an urban environment. It may be what cities do to form the personalities of their inhabitants. The universal city outlook includes road rage, ethnocentrism, faux sophistication, ambition and a high metabolic rate. The universal country outlook is grounded, earnest, guileless and mellow. If laboratory mice were used to test these theories they would be raised in these separate environments with a control group raised in the suburbs. The subjects would be known as the city mouse & the country mouse. Nature vs nurture. Their interactions would yield outstanding fables. The city mouse could visit the country mouse and both could learn the relative merits of each environment. The fable would teach cultural relativity and tolerance. How about that! I’m amazed that nobody has done it already. I’m definitely a city mouse but I go to visit the country mice on what people call holidays. I’m never able to go more than 5 days without feeling like I have to run back to turmoil and work. I know there are many people in the city who dream of the day when they will own a place in the country and spend the rest of their life with less “stress”. If there are two types of stress ( positive and negative) one can thrive on the positive stresses of the city. The suburbs have shaped my personality. When you live in the ‘burbs you view the city as the “real” place to be . That has always stayed with me.
In actuality the Universal City Outlook is a viewpoint on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles that overlooks Universal City in the San Fernando Valley. Its a little west of Runyon Canyon Park. Mulholland Drive travels east to west along the top of the Hollywood Hills. Its a good stretch to test any rental car’s steering capabilities and the sound pressure levels possible with the stereo system. I passed the Universal City Outlook last night and, even at high speed, the lights of the city down below were captured in one of those mental snapshots that lasts a little longer than most flash impressions. When I started writing tonight the phrase came to mind.
Oh yeah...Bruce McCulloch’s website should be up now.
brucio.com
Go there and check it out.
Validation. Do you really exist if your family and friends have never seen or approved of your best work? The hometown gig brings it all to bear. First you must ground your floating ego by doing as much yard work as you can. This brings you to a level where the comments of loved ones can have an effect. If you stay disconnected then it will be assured that you don’t actually exist. They had to put makeup on the backs of my hands for the pay per view special because they were covered with cuts received from cleaning out the eves troughs around my house. Perhaps this was done to make sure that nobody thought I was out having more barroom dustups the night before. Actually a few of the gashes were at the claws of my beloved Nigel. We had to take him (cat) into the vet and I was a little casual with my protocol as I grabbed him to put him in the car. Famous for producing the last two Odds records (winner of the West Coast Music Award in 1997 for best producer) Nigel the cat is also renowned for his clawsmanship and general surly demeanor.
Grounding your ego with the sandbag of manual labour is compounded by the other elements of the hometown gig. You may have to perform for your parents. To tighten the sphincter even further on the mixed metaphor it must be decided that TV cameras will be shoved up your snoot for the two days you are in town. Five out of the six performers in the show have done live television for years and years. Do you know who hasn’t? “Don’t fuck up” says the little bird with the red light on its head. If you forget that the little bird with the red light is there then you suffer the fate of those on reality TV shows: a) you look stupid in front of a million people b) you are caught being the backstabber on the island c) you are seen as the pathetic victim of back stabbing at the hands of the other tribe members d) you have to fight later to have your face pixilated. All the mics were “hot” all the time. This means that all the hotly contested issues regarding the TV taping protocol (on night one in Vancouver) are preserved somewhere to later appear in the darkened corners of entertainment biz gristmills. There may be character assassinations on the scale of the famous Buddy Rich tapes if my assessment of the modern media situation is correct . The popularity of the Osbournes completely supports my position.
In the end we had a pretty good show and the second night’s audience rose to the occasion and supported the each comic beat. Vancouver validation. My mom loved it. I exist. Wait a minute. Haven’t I done much better doing things that mothers don’t like?
Underneath your clothes there is an endless story? No Shakira. Underneath your clothes is a woman like every other woman with kazillions of dollars in marketing and an average to annoying voice. Lets not hold it against you.
A three part entry. Seattle was another of the unexpectedly transcendent performances. Just before we hit the stage Dave showed me a note from a person that I have learned and stolen from since his early albums. Perhaps one of the greatest musical forces of the last 30 years. It explained that his party would be in the audience and that they would see us all later. For a little while I froze solid and then I began to thaw. In the end I was able to conjur up the best parts of who I was. I think one’s first instinct is to change to suit what you feel the other person would want to see or hear. After many years I have learned that this makes you look instantly ridiculous. My recovery time is now about ten minutes. After ten minutes of assessment I understand that my best option is to go out as the best me that I can be. This is different than the self deprecating and downward gazing me.This is the me that looks in the mirror and laughs and says, “Oh its you. Haven’t you done this kind of thing before?”. The funny conclusion is that with every note I sang I realized how much I was influenced by this person . As I sang I felt more positive about this fact. Rather than being embarrassed by it I unabashedly embraced it. I gained strength. After the show this person(s) came backstage and complimented me and thus... validated me. I had so many things to say but of course I said, “thank you” (and about 20 other words I can’t remember). My pal Paul Myers will read this and know who I am talking about but I leave the rest up to your imaginations. All I can say is...shoot high and then go a notch higher than that. Think of who I’ve been compared to...a junior __________. Who would a nerd in my social situation gravitate towards?
The Seattle people knew how to respond. The show stretched out as the troupe got caught in the undertow. The laughs stretched out and the show got taken to a different place. I thought it was a really unique vibe. The Paramount has been completely renovated and restored and the venue really adds something to the proceedings. Nice to hang a bit with Young Fresh Fellows and bask in the growing glory of Vancouver’s sister to the south.
My continuing admiration goes to my brothers and sisters in the crew. Having been a guitar tech in one of my past lives, and having spent many an evening humping gear for $20 I feel a small part od what they feel. They are amazing. Nary an audible complaint and plenty of fodder for complaining. I hope they get to have a good booze up on this long drive to LA. They deserve it. The Pay per view nonsense must have taken a big chunk out of them. Time to shake it all loose.
Down through the mountains. Bussing it to the coast from Edmonton. So far we’ve had a picnic near Jasper and seen a Moose, a bear cub, and a herd of big horn sheep. Mark was the field trip guide from Texas to Winnipeg and it seems Scott has taken over. Scott has instigated the picnic.
Last night turned into the comedy equivalent of one of Prince’s legendary marathons. Our show at the Northlands Agricom (not a very romantic name) was pretty unique for the tour. Firstly it was a big hockey arena. This added a certain rock element to the proceedings. The troupe was loose and played it a little bigger to reach the people at the back. Last night was the first time that every note of music was original. I’d spent my two days in Vancouver composing and recording songs and snippets to replace all the found recordings used in the show. In the process I think I found some things that I can expand on later when making another record. I was excited to have been forced to cram a lot of inspiration and perspiration into a couple of days. The road cycle of pure performance and recovery was interrupted to good effect. It felt great to bring something big back to the show.
After the show we ran over to the Sidetrack (Club) and busted in on the band to do a bit of an impromptu performance. Bruce billed it as “the Craig Northey Experience”. Flattering unless we bombed. Here’s what we did:
Extended Blues Guy -- me & Mark
Write it in Lightning -- me
Guitar Strings -- Dave
the Fourth Susan -- Kevin & me
Someone Who’s Cool -- me
I Read the Bible -- me & Bruce
I Am Bob Seger -- me & Bruce
Mercy to Go -- me
Scott watched because we hadn’t had time to work anything up. It was probably the closest I will come to feeling what it was like in the Rivoli days of the troupe. They were simply brilliant as they riffed on the material. Kevin played acoustic & I played electric on his song. He’s like Jonathan Richmond only way way funnier. Mark expanded the Mississippi Gary sketch to about triple its length. Dave actually smashed the guitar at the end of his guitar string breaking sketch. The pieces of the guitar were quickly snatched up by the audience to be signed later. It was later discovered that the instrument was a rental for the “Country Doctor” sketch. Oops.
Thanks to Andrew White for arranging our little performance.
Been home two days and not for R&R. We’re doing a Pay Per View taping of the show when we get to Vancouver so I came home on the two days off between Winnipeg & Edmonton to rerecord a bunch of the musical bits that we can’t use in the show. Had about 9 hours of sleep over the last three days and things are taking on new shapes and sounds. When people talk it seems like they are underwater and sunlight gives all living things a glowing pink aura. The edges of my eyes can feel the air in a way that they couldn’t before and I am using my throat as an involuntary percussion instrument. At times my hair is a sculpture. I have slept so intensely in the few hours I have crashed that afterward my hair rises on one side like the Greek Island of Santorini. The remnants of an extinct vocanic crater jutting sharply up on one side from the flat blue sea of my blank face. When loved ones spot me for the first time they usually say, “my God man would you like some more coffee”. I’ve been away long enough that each journey inside the house to go to the bathroom or grab a snack I know will be followed by a torturous goodbye when I have to go back to the studio. Fifteen goodbyes a day. Building healthy separation complexes for the future. Back to work.
I guess I should never call it work because its what I love. I think the word work does not exclude the concept of enjoyment but it has taken on that tone for some people. I must play upon my strengths and remind myself each minute that I am extremely fortunate to have put myself in a position to experience both sides of the word. The day jobs I had in the past may one day return. The list I remember: green chain in a sawmill, shipping and receiving, gas jockey, customer service, tilt hoist operator, loading boxcars, construction labourer. There is a good “image life” and solid grounding in physical strain that I can use to remind me how free I’ve been for the last 15 years. When somebody tells me I’m late I actually have the option to tell them to fuck off. I fear that one day this will be my reaction if I’m ever placed back into the general employment cycle. Solution? Never be late.
Now its 6:00am and I’m done. I don’t mean I’m completely finished I mean...I’m done like dinner.
Now its 9:30am and I’m calling a cab to the airport.
Now its noon and I’m typing on the plane while we wait at the jetway to taxi to the runway. Did it actually snow while I was home? Yes it did. Trouble in the middle east? Stanley Cup playoffs?
I had too much gear for a taxi so I had to take this vintage 80’s white limo to the hotel. It says "Prestige Limousine" in italics on the glass of the back window. I feel like its grad night all over again. I think I still have that bad suit somewhere. Wish I could arrive at the hotel in it. Once got in hell at my day job because of that suit. I was transferred into menswear at the Bay and I wore that same suit constantly. I figured I hated suits and I wouldn’t buy another one. My parents paid for the grad suit and that was going to be the last. Wish I was hip to sharkskin at the time.
Now I'm in the Edmonton hotel room working some more on the pieces of music I recorded for the show.
Now I'm waking up 14 hours later.
Whoa look at my hair sculpture.
The fog is lifting. The cloak that has wrapped my brain in half sleep since 5:30 am is partially removed. I had to fly back to Vancouver this morning and Kevin and I were picked up absurdly early for our flights. There is something that happens to me when it is revealed that I must start a day in such a way. I can’t get to sleep the night before. Why just endure a slight shock to the system when you can double its effect? It seems insomnia sets in only when sleep is really necessary. I can deprive myself of sleep for weeks when working on something and still survive...but...there comes a day when it all catches up to you. Lets call that day “the Day the Dutch Boy Gives Up”. For those of you unfamiliar with the fable it concerns a little Dutch boy who is plugging a leak in the dike that protects his village from the rising river. He does so with his finger. It seems that when the river of sleep deprivation finally reaches a certain height my internal dutch boy pulls his finger out of the dike and I start to spring terminal leaks. My sleep trigger goes haywire. It won’t go off when I want it to and it goes off when I don’t want it to go off. The dutch boy is stricken by demon possession. I was holding fast on my layover in Calgary and then...as sure as I was staring blearily at the freakish May snowfall... I passed out. I woke up to that horrible site -- although perhaps I WAS a horrible site. Nobody was left at my boarding gate and the flight information was now blank. Shit. The clerk at the next desk said, “Oh its OK. Look behind you. They’re just finishing boarding that flight at a new gate over there”. I hope to ride the wild dutch boy for the rest of the day without incident. I’m on my game and I’m on the caffeine.
The Winnipeg shows were a Jekyl & Hyde affair in reverse. Hyde the first night and Jekyl the second. The audience was tremendous and I applaud those in the upper balcony of the Walker theatre for having overcome the vertigo that must have resulted from staring down at such a near vertical angle. The cast had to remember to look up or noone up there would ever see their faces. I’d hate to have paid money to see the top of the heads of the Kids in the Hall for nearly two hours. There were plenty of technical snags and brain farts on day one but day two was quite smooth and inspired. I must say that Mark McKinney has really been “on” for the last little while. He seems to be locking into something good. The weather on the first day in Winnipeg was biblical as usual. Winnipeg always has some spectacular new meteorological show for me each time I arrive. This time it was dust storms that were rolling in from the outskirts of town. It appeared as if a brown fog was creeping up the corridors between buildings on its way to the centre of town. My hair was a matted with a combination of dirt and whatever salon goop I’d rubbed through it in the morning. The Albert Einstein look was quite interesting.
I’m in a cab in Vancouver now. The can see the sun is trying valiantly to fend off the mottled clouds sitting right over my house up there on yonder hill. Hopefully the fog is actually lifting.
Twin Cities backsliding. Its a snowball effect. I take a day off the journal and sometimes it fuels my laziness. I’m not lazy but sometimes I indulge myself in the decadence. Mostly I just love the word backsliding. When I learned it was a popular term with evangelists (and a certified sin) it made it so much better. If nobody minds I will consider it for the next CD title.
Had some adventures in Minneapolis. There is a great run from downtown over to St. Paul across the Stone Arch Bridge. You can stop to look at these descriptions of the city's history and enjoy the paths along the river. I put my hands in the river each time. You have to don’t you? Its the Mississippi after all. Maybe I’m thinking that my blues chops will instantly improve? Maybe I’m thinking I can never get clean enough? Maybe I just do things and don’t really think too much about them at the time?
Everyone here is so sincere, earnest and friendly. You’ll get stopped on the street and engage in a conversation all the time thinking that soon they will ask about the show. Eventually you realize they have no idea you are involved in any “show” and that a stranger has just decided you look like someone interesting to talk to. It is unerving at first but you quickly embrace this phenomenon. Don’t try this in New York because people will either ignore you or drop change in your hand.
The shows were two of the best. The audience knew exactly when to respond and the troupe picked this up and played the waves perfectly. On the second night we’d all perfected the rhythm of the crowd and, I think...and I’ll say this with some confidence... that it was our best show so far. Last night we went out to see “Spiritualized” at the 1st Avenue. I had great memories of the Odds shows there over the years (once with Warren Zevon, once with Voice of the Beehive and once on our own). I think its one of the best places to see music in America and the booking policy remains hip. “Spiritualized” were hypnotic and everyone really tuned into them. On to Winnipeg. Watching “Road Warrior” on the drive with Mark, Scott, Dave & Bjorn (tour manager). Irony.
Mark says: I ran into Craig in the Au Bon Pain. Tired looking. A little freaked out, a little breathy. Something had happened overnight. A perfect tear was rolling down his gaunt cheek.
...Mark has just noticed that he’s started snorting when he laughs. He wonders if this is a new thing.
Happy anniversary 7777777777