The Trip Home & The Naples Hotel

I am now home, sitting in my studio, the place where much of the music from my album was written and a good chunk of it recorded.

Up on my wall there is a single wire brush—you know, the kind drummers use: “Shush-cha-cha shush-cha-cha…” Its mate lies in pieces in the corner underneath an large upright piano and between the floor boards of the Naples Hotel in Naples, New York,.

In 1986 I was attending Finger Lakes Community College. My good friend Jim was attending SUNY Geneseo and playing guitar in the string band. Also pickin’ in the string band was a talented lefty guitarist named Bobby Henrie.

Bobby had been home-schooled up until college. Geneseo was the first formal institution of learning he had known. He wasn’t home-schooled for religious reasons, he and his brothers, “The Henrie Brothers Band” traveled so often, attending public school wasn’t practical.

The family band, a blue grass string band would show up at fiddle competitions in West Virginia or Georgia and assume southern accents. They would forget to mention they were from New York, even the very rural Middlesex, New York. They won more competitions that way.

Bobby attended college to study something that life on the road couldn’t teach him: electric jazz guitar.

Bobby’s junior year guitar recital was coming up and he needed a band. My friend Jim volunteered to play drums and gave me the call to play bass. Though I played upright (acoustic) bass, I didn’t own one so Bobby brought along his brother’s bass when he and Jim came to my place to rehearse.

After we were done playing Bobby jokingly said. “Hey, it’s a Thursday, we should go down to the open mic at the Naples Hotel and blow their minds with some straight jazz.”

“Okay, let’s go!” Jim and I chorused.

“Really?” Bobby said.

 The Naples Hotel

The next thing I knew we had driven almost thirty miles to Naples and were walking into the Naples Hotel. There were a large number of motorcycles parked out front.

“Playing for bikers wearing colors: When they hate you it’s bad, when they love you, it’s worse."
                                                                                                                                         -Me

The open mic had already started and a lone woman was on the stage singing Janice Joplin’s “Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz” a Capella, complete with a hammed-up southern accent.

The bar at the Naples Hotel from the 'stage' looking towards 
the handsomely appointed parlor in the front

“Lord, won’t you get me the heck outta here” I thought. Maybe this was a mistake.

A few of people seemed to know Bobby. That and his fearless confidence tempered my fears a little bit. There was a blue grass band on the stage while Jim set up his drums in the front parlor off the bar. It felt more like I was in someone’s living room than a bar. Regulars sat around in antique chairs chatting and sometimes just sitting and listening to the music from the band in the bar wafting gently in the room. I saw Jim Miller, a old neighbor and camp counselor from my youth.

Maybe this urban assault of jazz on this rootsy crowd wouldn’t lead to bloodshed after all.

When it was our turn to play it became clear the venue was not set up for bands with drummers, there was no room on the stage area for Jim’s modest three-piece drum kit between a piano and a pinball machine. He would have to make due with a snare drum and one cymbal and he very nicely did just that.

Unbeknownst to Jim at the time, he was not finished paring down his kit to a minimalist wind-blown ghost town of percussion.

At some point during our first song, one of the brushes Jim was holding decided it was done being a drum brush and released all its bristles at once. The thin steel wires flew everywhere.

Bobby just kept right on playing. Jim managed to keep a good solid groove going with one brush on one drum.

Bobby, who is a consummate showman and who these days has a rockabilly trio called “Bobby Henrie and the Goners” and a Django Reinhat tribute band called the "Djangoners", had the bikers and lovers of old timey music eating out of his hand and cheering on his straight jazz. He ended our set with some rockabilly tunes that I didn't know. She shouted out the changes and I somehow kept up.

The Djangoners, playing in the style of Django Reinhardt. 

Bobby Henrie is on the far left

During part of our recent visit home, we stayed with my sister only a few blocks from the good ole Naples Hotel. It’s still brimming with bikers.

At my parents’ 50^th Anniversary party Jim and I were honored to meet Bobby’s Father.  He said the Goners are still going… going... strong.

Our last leg of our road journey home from New York to LA was uneventful compared to the storm the night before. It was extremely beautiful though.

 Devil's backbone, Utah

I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, Colorado

Westbound lanes on top, Eastbound below 

There are Sante Fe Railroad tracks across the river

We crossed the Rockies and the Utah desert in the daylight and passed through the sea of light that is Las Vegas at night.

Win, win.

Las Vegas at night

Not a half mile inside the California state line, we saw a strange site ahead of us: lights waving up and down and side to side. Soon wee could see three people in the middle of the fast lane waving their cel phones and a flashlight so that people wouldn’t hit the car lying on its side just behind them. I was too busy avoiding jagged pieces of debris to notice if there was anyone in the car, I was told by Audra there wasn’t. It looked as though it had kissed the pavement from every conceivable angle before coming to rest perpendicular to the lanes.

It was a sobering site. I drove on balancing my urge to floor it all the way just to get home with my need to safely get there in one piece. I also noticed after Las Vegas that the courteous drivers we had seen all across the country had been replaced by aggressive non-signaling race competitors.

Would that same car accident have happened in Arkansas?

It was just after midnight when we arrived at Audra’s parents’ house in Highland, the place where the majority of my album was recorded. The next day, home in Hollywood proper.

A chapter has closed in my life. I have now released an album of my own creation and fronted a band playing music I wrote in a public venue.

Fantastic!

I think I’ll turn the page and continue.

It’s been good to be back at work and yet, I walk around now knowing more profoundly than ever that I am out of my element, a musician trying to make a living in the real world, where people pay more for peanut butter in a year than we do for music –myself included.

Ah, but for a couple of weeks there I was a musician and just a musician, toolin’ across the country with my gear in the back of the car. It felt freakin’ great!

I don’t need that single remain drum brush on my wall that Jim presented me with before I moved to LA to remind me of that night at the Naples Hotel. It’s not necessary to look at it to remember why it is that I moved here, to become a musician, a recording artist…

But it helps.

Stormy Monday

I wasn't planning on doing any blogging during our three-and-a-half-day burn back to LA but that was before today happened.

On Sunday we Left my folk's house around three in the afternoon after difficult goodbyes. By  One AM we checked into a motel not too far from the Indiana/Illinois border.

The next day Illinois was one continual speed trap. We saw more pork during that three hour crossing than the rest of the trip combined. Fortunately between keeping my speed within five miles of the limit and using Jedi mind tricks we were able to avoid being one of the many victims of the Land of Lincoln's attempts to pad the ailing state coffers. 

"~These are not the out-of-state-speeders you are looking for, move along.~"

Missouri was uneventful as it tends to be. In Kansas I let the tank get a little to low and the gas light came on with no gas stations for thirty miles on I-70 according to the iPhone. We had to make tense a nine-mile detour North to Manhattan, KS to fill the tank. I could see on the map that the quickest way back to I-70 was not the way we'd come. I quickly reviewed the map and we followed route 18, or so we thought. Soon we came to what looked like toll booths. I pulled up to one. A serious looking dude in regular-looking clothes looked at us strangely and said, "Can I help you?"

"Is this a toll road" I said stupidly.
"This is Fort Riley, a military installation."

As I recovered from my WTF moment, the dude said we could get to I-70 by going through the base, he just needed to check both our IDs.

"Californians," he said to himself, "every time."

We made our way through the other-worldliness of the base and we were on our way.

I was not looking forward to the sun setting in my eyes while driving West. I was relieved when it hid behind a solid bank of dark clouds filling much of the Western sky. The clouds became more ominous looking by the hour.

We stopped at a rest stop an hour East of Hays, Kansas. A speaker in front of the rest rooms was blurting a severe weather warning.

Have I ever mentioned that I love severe weather? As long as I'm on solid ground, I totally dig a good storm. According to recorded warning, the clouds and the map on the side of the building, we were headed straight into a doozy.

Back on the highway the clouds formed shapes I'd never witnessed before. The storm couldn't have been any more dead center in our path. I scanned the radio for a local station giving news of the weather and found one easily.

"Move to the center part of your house and stay away from windows..." He also mentioned "Winds of sixty miles-an hour," "Quarter-size hail" and "deadly lightning." Is there another kind lightning besides deadly? The variety that just kinda tickles instead of setting your hair on fire and melting your shoes... and you in them?

It seemed like we drove towards those psycho clouds forever before anything happened. Our anticipation, and anxiety grew.

Eventually a light rain dampened the windshield of our trusty rent-a-car "Fletch". A while later I could see a bank of fog on the highway.

It wasn't fog, it was the spray from a wall of heavy rain pounding the pavement.

I slowed to 55 and turned the wipers to full gale mode. I could still see road edge reflectors and the lines on the road. The rain turned from heavy to torrential. I struggled just to make out the lines on the road, often finding myself inadvertently straddling the dotted line. I slowed to 45... 40... hazards on. 35...

I saw some cars pulled off the highway under a bridge. Good idea, but there was no room at the Inn. I'll get the next bridge.

The wind slammed into the car accented by a whip of the dense gray rain. My view out of the windshield went from completely distorted to briefly slightly less distorted with each frantic slam of the wipers.

Finally I saw blinkers; cars parked under the next bridge. There was no room there either but I could not see well enough to continue, we had to stop.

I pulled in behind a pickup truck with it's hazards flashing. Our car was still exposed to the elements but it was better than nothing. At least with the bridge nearby, lightning strikes would likely connect it's circuit elsewhere.

Gusts of wind rocked our SUV with a force that made my reassurances to my traveling companion lack conviction. Can sixty-mile-an-hour winds topples an SUV? Noooo... I think. Even the cars sheltered under the bridge were getting pelted with the sideways rain. Lighting strikes got closer and closer and the thunder more deafening.

"Thee mississippi... "Two-mississippi...  One-missi..."

 If you can catch a picture of a lightning bolt, you know there were tons of them.

The air around us flashed bright white again and again in rapid-fire succession like God's paparazzi had caught him coming out of a deli.

After about twenty minutes of this incredible show. The deluge of rain suddenly reverted to a mere hard rain. We gave it a few more minutes before pressing on.

Rain and lightning continued for the next hour as we drove West. The rain varied from heavy to nothing at all and back again. We switched the radio to AM and tuned to an unused frequency to listen to the lonely sound of lighting static in sync with the distant flashes on the horizon.

Around ten PM we decided it was time to eat but there was nothing open in Western Kansas. A lady at a convenience store told me the nearest 24-hour restaurant was 150 miles away and in a different state.

The only decent selection of hotels was at the same exit: Limon, CO.

Two hours later we were on dry roads and well into Colorado. By that time I was using every trick in the book to stay awake. My favorite is yanking a tuft of hair from behind my knee.

We stopped at the only scariest Denny's I have ever seen. A gaggle of Colorado's finest were chatting outside before going out to hunt drunk drivers. The menu wasn't just sticky, it looked like it had been used as a plate to serve food and never washed. Our server was sweet but had a Igor-like limp and was missing more teeth that a hockey player. It was the only Denny's for three hundred miles. My brain was so fried from the day's events my caffeine crash and lack of sleep, I had trouble ordering food.

The food pepped me up just enough to write this blog in our hotel room. I had to get this down while it was still fresh.

Now I sleep!

Leaving Home, Going Home

I am sitting at my sister’s kitchen table in Naples, NY—the place I always planned on running away to when I was a kid. I am the only one up. There is a steady rain outside and wind chimes on the front porch occasionally sing a verse of a song written by the wind.

There are thirty-three hundred more miles on “Fletch” our rented Kia Sorento than there was before we first turned the key. There are at least twenty-six hundred to go.

I have been ‘home’ for eight days. Now it’s time to go ‘home’. I had a fairy tale wonderful time here this week. I decided not to spend any of it blogging till now.

As I already blogged, I played my first solo show ever at the Record Archive in Rochester and left a stock of CDs there for sale. My local band, Jim Shreck and Andy Smash rehearsed that same night and I went home completely exhausted.

Monday was one of those idyllic days where my parents, Audra and I did nothing all day but tote a few things out to the gazebo for a long lazy lunch. We saw a pair a figures making their way out to the gazebo. When they got close we recognized a couple neighbors that had moved away nearly forty years ago.

Tuesday I did some gardening in my parents’ vast gardens and sat on a lawn mower for the first time in nearly fifteen years. I mowed about a quarter of the yard and Quiet Meadows paths including their labyrinth. It was one of those zero radius articulating lawn tractors one steers with levers like a bulldozer. It took some getting used to and some close calls with small trees before I was done.

I also trimmed the branches of our old tree house tree (the tree house is long gone). It seemed like it would be a simple task but tree trimming is a slippery slope; the more low branches you remove the more you can see needs to be removed! A chainsaw and two trips in my Dad’s lawn tractor/trailer later the tree was looking spiffy. I decided I was a kid again and rode in the trailer on the way back up the hill. I got a sunburn in the New York sun—grounds for loosing my California card

Wednesday Audra and my dad, the photographers went to the Zoo in Rochester to take pictures. My mom and I had lunch and took a nice stroll on the Lakefront. We sat on a bench and watched the tourist paddle boat “The Canandaigua Lady” slowly leave it’s dock, get turned lakeward, then announce over the PA that they had forgotten the money bag for the bar and had to go back. They slowly turned and maneuvered close enough to the dock so the money bag could get tossed to a woman on the end of the forward facing gang plank. She missed and the money bag which landed at the very edge of the plank. The “CL” slowly turned again and was on its way, now with the ability to get its passengers drunk while touring the beautiful lake.

I have been away for too long, at least during the summer because after a whole week I still can get over how green everything is.

When the four of us reunited that evening we watched a movie and reviewed the zoo pictures.

Thursday was a big day. We moved to my sister’s house to make room for my brother’s family at my parents’ house and I drove to Rochester for a second rehearsal with Jim and Andy. My trek home to my sisters involved four different construction detours and running over a raccoon (I sure hope it was a raccoon). To add to that when my worried wife called to ask what the heck was taking me so long my phone crashed and didn’t reboot until I was in the driveway.

Friday was a big day too between prep for the party and prep for my gig and spending time with my brother and my nephews who are growing so fast that you can see it if you squint just right.

[Enzo pic]

The gig was amazing. I saw so many people that I hadn’t seen for years and met some people for the first time. There were also several people that came back to from the Record Archive gig.

As before Jim Schreck started off the evening. It was great to hear him play at a more substantial volume. I played next. I was a little nervous at first but when I heard the first round of applause the front man deep inside me came alive. I tried some crazy impromptu stuff for the first time like a sort-of drum solo on the fret board of my bass.

I sold a bunch of CDs that night too.

“Andy Smash and the Rust Belt Hot Rods” headlined the evening. They sounded great and kept everyone bopping to their high energy. At the end of the night I sent my new bass amp home with Amie

I was pretty tired when I got home but Saturday was an even bigger day.

I’ll cover my parents’ wonderful 50^th Anniversary celebration in next week’s blog.

In the present, we are almost packed and ready to head back to LA. I am so sad to leave but at the same time I’m eager to see our kitties and get back into our groove.

It have stopped raining for the most part making it easier to load the car.

Thanks to everyone who made this stay a memorable one. Thanks to everyone who saw my shows and bought CDs. It was so wonderful to see old friends and meet new.

In the words of the ‘Governator’: I will be back…

and not after three years this time.

Day 5, Gig 1

In my set-up I use both a bass amp and blues guitar amp to get the sound I want. To save on weight and space in he car, I left my bass amp in LA so it was necessary to find one to use here in Rochester.

With time so short--a cascade effect of our rental car debacle that had us leaving a day late--I ended up simply buying an amp literally on my way to the gig at the record archive.

I was feeling a little jittery since I was using an brand new amp that I had never even tried out in the store and several aspects of my setup had not been properly worked through.

Then Jim Schreck took the stage.

Jim Schreck is one of my favorite people on Planet Earth, but lets forget about that for a moment and talk about the fact that he is the also most amazing musician I have ever known, bar known, period, end of sentence, Bob's-your-uncle and that's all she wrote.

Listening to him play set me in a wonderful mood and ready to take the stage.

I had to fiddle with a few technical details before I got started but I didn't let that stop me from having a good time.

I took to the stage and started playing. I felt like my sound was completely wrong but I knew I was the only one bothered by it so I decided not to be; I simply had fun.

It was great to see so many friends in the audience. As I suspected, it was as much a reunion as a performance. Even a cousin I haven't seen for years was visiting my parents and came to the show with his wife. I saw dear, dear friends I hadn't seen in five, fifteen... Twenty years!

I also got to meet a few people I had never met in person before.

For a first performance it went pretty well. I had some hiccups but it served as a good dress rehearsal and learning experience for next Friday's show, which will be with a full band (in this case, that's three). It's been a long journey taking the three or four steps from upstage next to the drummer where I have been residing and playing all these years, to front and center.

I took a huge step tonight.

 Joined onstage by my good friend Jim Schreck

 Leathman, is there anything it can't do?

If you want to purchase one of my disks in Rochester and you aren't going to see me, they are now available at the Record Archive in Rochester. If you haven't been I highly recommend checking it out. It's one of the coolest record stores in the Northeast...  and vinyl? "fahgetaboutit!

At one point during my show, I looked out in the audience and saw the owner of the store, the guy who does all the crazy 'Record Archive' commercials. Even though it was a rather serious moment in my song, all I could think was: "Hey, it's the dude from the Record Archive commercials, and he seems to be digging what he's hearing, or at least not walking up and unplugging me.

We decided to to have a full band rehearsal the same evening. It was the first band rehearsal with me being the singer.

Surreal!

By the time I got home I was quite tired. Tomorrow, I am going to simply rest... sweet, sweet rest.

Day 4 -West Virginia to Home!

The Hotel we checked into last night, a Super 8 in Grayson Kentucky, was the nicest and cleanest on our trip and only $55 bucks!  Sadly, we spent the least time amount of time there.

My alarm jarred me awake after only a few hours of sleep. It was painful to get up and I racked my brain for an excuse to stay in the hotel bed for just a little while longer. No, this was too important a day and I didn't want to delay my arrival any more than all the circumstances and drama already had.

Before long we were back on the Bluegrass Parkway headed into West Virginia, only a few miles down the highway. I was glad we got up early when I saw how incredibly beautiful the morning was. Mist was still rising from the forest surrounding the highway. The morning sun was a deep orange through he overcast and the light had a mystical quality to it, like the magic forest creatures of the night had not yet hidden in the trees to sleep for the day.

I'm so glad we reverted to our scenic route. It was well worth the extra time. it would have been nice to have the luxury of stopping more... or at all but we can't have it all.

At Charleston we headed North on I-77. The views were beautiful up into Ohio about fifty miles where things began to look more plain and the drivers started becoming less polite.

That's okay, I'm from LA, I can play any way you want baby!

We entered New York State around 2PM. Instead of taking the New York State Thruway as I always have in the past, we went through the Southern Tier of the state on I-86 just North of the Pennsylvania state line.

What a treat. I was amazed how I had spent so much of my life so close by and didn't know how beautiful that area was. As I got closer to home I started to notice things that had changed. Wind farms had sprouted up near Cohocton. Even the trees on my parents road had grown notably since I was last there.

Driving up route 21 through Naples with post card-like views of the lake and surrounding hills, I was driving at a medium pace, taking it all in. Embracing the moment. I noticed that a small line of cars was starting to accumulate behind my out-of-state rental car.

Oh my God, I thought, I've become one of the tourists I used to get stuck behind.

Finally I reached home, the place I lived from day two to year twenty-one.

Hugs all 'round, it was so good to see my parents. As a bonus some additional family members were present to celebrate a family birthday. We had a wonderful evening.

Let's see... I guess that's about it, unless I'm forgetting anything...

Oh right, the CD. The CDs had indeed arrived safe and sound. I took the box out to the back yard where the family was hanging out and opened the box semi-ceremoniously.

Ta-day! There it was! What I had worked so long and hard on, finished. Still I wasn't sure how to feel. I was overwhelmed by being home and seeing everyone, my body was still shaking from the day's drive and from all that had happened on our journey. I guess it still hadn't hit me.

I was a bit bummed that the front cover of the disk had turned out much darker than I had anticipated.My name and the details of the photo are kind-of hard to see, especially thorugh the reflective shrink wrap. 

I was reminded of the scene int he movie Spinal Tap when their new album "Smell the Glove" is unvieled.

"How much more black could this be and the answer is 'none, none more black."

Oh well. I chalk it up to a learning experience. I have a much better idea of how what I see on the screen translates to print and what to avoid. I may have to have some stickers made up to put on the front of the shrink wrap.

I am just so happy to have the disks in my hot little hands.

 Tomorrow is my first show at the Record Archive in Rochester, 2PM. I am looking forward to seeing some old and new friends there. It's going to be a great show!

Now to get a good rest in my old room!

Day 3 -Little Rock Arkansas to Kentucky/West Virginia Border

iPhones are wonderful things but certainly not infallible. I need to remember that the next time I'm looking for a Radio Shack in Central Arkansas. We needed to replace the aux cable that connects our iPods/phones to the sound system in the rental car (which we named "Fletch" today). We naturally used our iPhone map app to find the closest Radio Shack. We followed the directions to a 'T'. I should have been suspicious when the directions had us turn off at "so-and-so lane" past a yard sale where the exact address was some dudes (or dudette's) house.

On our way back to the freeway, while scratching our heads and wonder if we should trust the iPhone to send us on another wild Shack chase, we happened to see the real Radio Shack in a shopping center a way back from the main road. We proceeded onward with our tunes sounding better than ever.

It just wouldn't be a day on the road without a little drama: I noticed this morning that I had not received a tracking number for my CDs so I called the manufacturer and learned they had not gone out yet. I reminded them--kindly and calmly--that I had the first case sent Overnight for the express purpose of having it available for my gig on Sunday. They apologized profusely and said they would put a Saturday delivery sticker on the package.

Ah, all is wonderful again...

Not quite. I just tried to track the package and the UPS site told me to "verify my information and check back later". Hmmmm. Wait wait, hold the iPhones...  Aha, that was the other package that is being shipped two-day. There was a second email with the important tracking number and that one looks good so far.

If I've learned anything the past two days it's 'assume nothing'.

We used our first and probably last blue highway today. Route 51 from Memphis to the Kentucky border. It was recommended by our Rand McNally Highway Atlas as a good scenic drive. It was pretty nice but nothing spectacular. The best part was getting lost in Dyersburg, TN and seeing some very quaint quiet little neighborhoods. We almost wanted to park the car, go up on one of the many porches with wicker rockers and 'set fer a spell'.

We also indulged in some corn dogs tater tots and cherry limeade at a Sonic in that same town.

I am glad we decided to take our scenic routes after all. It became a matter of knowing we would regret it if we didn't see these places when we had the chance.

Sorry I haven't had any pictures. My other half has been taking all of them with the real camera and they will have to be worked on a bit before we post them, but post them we shall. I have been busy driving and since we lost nearly 30 hours at the beginning of our trip stopping has been for fuel, food and rest stops only.

We made our way across Kentucky mostly in the dark and checked in to this hotel at 1AM. We will be embarking on our last leg in just a few short hours.

Tomorrow I will be in my hometown for the first time in almost three years and hopefully have a copy of my CD in my hands.

See you then!

Day 2 -Albuquerque, NM to Little Rock, AR

We broke our one-restaurant-a-day rule this AM and had a cheap breakfast at the Denny’s next to our Hotel.

As we drove out of Albuquerque we saw two hot air balloons in flight. In our brief time in that place, I could feel the city has a great vibe to it. It’s hard to describe, but I know it’s a place I could live.

I said in yesterday’s installment that today’s drive would be boring. I humbly take that back.

The Texas panhandle was actually pretty amazing. Hundreds and hundreds of small cotton-like clouds dotted the sky and extended to the horizon in every direction. These are the clouds that make great picture clouds. You know… I see a bunny… I see a puppy… I see the man on the grassy knoll…

We could make out all sorts of pictures that the other could plainly see. We saw a roast chicken, a fish with glasses, Mr Burn’s from “The Simpsons” (I swear, it looked just like him) and yes, we did see several bunnies and puppies. The generic clouds all seemed to look remarkably like roast chickens.

The vastness of the skies and the plains was profound and breathtaking, a sort-of open-face reality sandwich with cloud topping.

There was more bank drama today. We are starting to find this funny (though we’re still totally changing banks)

We were promised by our bank that all our deposits would be available by 7AM this morning. When we checked there was nothing available. I spent my time at this famous Texas landmark on the phone doing battle with the bank while the other half of our party was getting pictures of these…

This is just a phone pic, her real pics will be awesome

The bank apologized and said all would be fixed immediately. We checked. Yup all was good. At the next fuel stop the gas pump said “card denied” on the screen. It’s a kind-of scary feeling when you’re halfway across the country with a quarter tank of gas and a card that isn’t working.

Once again calls to Bangalor, transferred back to Chicago or someplace got me an offering a scripted apologies and more promises that everything will be okay.

So far so good.



Each time this happens it bums us out a little less. By now were shaking our heads and laughing… almost.

There’s good news too!

My CDs are finished and will make it to my parents’ house on-time!

The guy at the company manufacturing my CDs said they were ready to go and would ship today. I had him send a case of one hundred next-day air so I would be sure to have them available for Sunday’s show.

It’s strange to know my CDs are finished in a series of boxes somewhere. I’m not sure how to feel to be honest. I should be elated but I guess it hasn’t hit me yet; perhaps when I have one in my hand.

Oklahoma was beautiful in its own way with bright red clay soil and hundreds if miles of grassy fields spotted with smallish shade trees that made me want to park the car, go sit beneath one of them and think thoughts.

We spend long stretches through Texas and Oklahomalistening to the music of the road. No MP3s necessary. Later, while driving in the dark I scanned the AM dial for ambiance but found mostly static.

In a country convenience store I heard the drawl of the people speaking around me and had to remind myself that they weren't making a joke of pantomiming. That's actually how they talk.

I should mention that every person we’ve encountered has been thoroughly friendly, not in the creepy, ‘have you met Jesus?’ way but the thorough kindness that Jesus was all about in the first place.

We ate dinner at a Waffle House just inside Arkansas. We found ourselves eaves-dropping on a whole community that gathers there and knows each other. We had an ancient waitress that wore face glitter and flirted shamelessly with the remnants of a bachelor party. They were all way to young to be giving bachelor parties from one of their own.

Another waitress who had a funky cool hair cut and dye job finished her shift and sat at the counter and texted continuously. After her took off her uniform top her pink tank top showed an obvious thumb bruise on her upper arm.

Now we find ourselves near Little Rock, Arkansas. We made the decision to go back to our originally planned route through Memphis, Tennessee and up through to West Viginia. I felt at first after loosing a whole day that it would be impossible to take this route but after our progress so far, we think we’ll get to my parent’s on Saturday, no problem.

I’m not sure what Arkansas looks like. We’ve only seen it in the dark so far.

Reports call for light tomorrow sooo…

Day 1 Highland, CA to Albuquerque, NM

Finally, finally, finally!

We’re on our way.

There were even more problems with our car rental this morning that delayed us by about an hour but it all worked out eventually. I can’t tell you how good it felt to pull out of that driveway and head unabashedly East!

Our rental ended up being a Kia Sorrento. We are very pleased with it so far. Driving it alone, compared to our 2000 Ford Focus, is a vacation all in itself.

A Kia Sorrento might just be our next car

 The Kia was just the right size to get all the gear I needed packed in.

And cruise control! Yeah!

We were having a good ole time, talking, looking at everything, feeling the freedom of the road, listening to music and even stopping at a truck graveyard to take some pictures.

Around Flagstaff we had quite a scare. My credit card stopped working. After some intense phone calls to Bangalore we finally got things straightened out and were on our way.

Road construction in Flagstaff had us parked and crawling bumper-to-bumper for about 40 minutes. Flagstaff, even just from the freeway is a beautiful peaceful place. Staring at swaying pine trees on the median took some of the sting out of being stuck in traffic.

By the way, if you see Facebook posts I post from the road, don’t worry I’m not texting while driving, I hand over my phone and take dictation.

Now, we are in Albuquerque and ready to get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a pretty boring drive with the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and Arkansas to cross.

Now to slzzzzzz...

Day: big fat ZERO

Greetings from…

Highland, California!

Due to Snafu’s I won’t trouble you with, we are still in California.

Grrrr!

At one point it seemed as though we might be able not leave at all!

If you know me well in everyday life, you know that I have a hard time sitting still. My mind is always halfway into what’s next and I can’t do any one thing effectively for very long. The same wanderlust that landed me in LA and has me embarking on this journey.

You can imagine how I felt sitting here all day not going anywhere. For weeks I could see it vividly in my mind, us rolling down the highway our playlists going our eyes taking in the deserts California, Arizona and New Mexico.

At this point things have worked out –potentially. We can’t leave till tomorrow morning still and I can’t quite allow myself to believe it completely till we actually are rolling down the highway.

Our new route is in orange. The old one left is the dotted pink line.

I am going to have to change our route a bit. No more time for scenic drives, now it will have to be Interstates. Balls to the wall the whole way :(

Want to hear God laugh? Tell him about your plans.

The funny thing—that’s ‘funny “hmmm” not ‘funny’, “ha ha”—is that I have been pretty well organized for this trip. It’s seems unfathomable that it came unglued so easily, so early on .

Exactly ten years ago made this same trip for the same reason—my parents’ 40 anniversary. I left directly after work one day and drove for the next thirty or-so hours before spending a night in Iowa. 

I did very little planning. My old car, was a stick shift, had no AC, no cruise control, only a cassette player and its cooling system was dying gradually throughout the trip. On the way home, I stopped at every single rest stop in the state of Nebraska to add cool water to the radiator. Everything I needed I got along the way. I even got my hair cut in Waterloo, Iowa.

Yet, even with not a lot of money in my wallet, I was never impeded. When it was time go, I went.

I have been using the day of waiting to work on my road trip playlists.

I had created previously a master playlist with everything I wanted—over four-hundred songs/1.3 days worth of music according to iTunes. Today I broke those tunes up into 11 sub playlists. A general list for general all purpose travel music. Other playlists “Desert Day”, “City”, “Momentum” (for songs that have that an extra push… for the times when we need one), “Nighttime” and “Rain”.

There are three albums we are planning on listening to from start to finish. Iona, "Book of Kells", Jim Schreck, "Atmospheres" and a Dubb/Reggae version of "Dark Side of the Moon" called (of course) "Dubb Side of the Moon" By the Easy Star Allstars. I know, a Reggae version of The Pink Floyd classic sounds like it would be horrible but it's actually really, really cool!

Also a friend of mine handed me some disks the other day of stuff he had burned for our trip. I have no idea what's on those disks but I can't wait to give them a spin!

I’m in better spirits now but I was not so cheery last night and the first half of today let me tell ya. The emotional drain along with a nearly sleepless night, has me struggling to stay awake as I write this.

Fear not though. I am a very good long distance driver. I know my limits and when to stop.

We'll be driving hard but that doesn't mean I'll be driving at excessive speeds, just that we'll be driving very long days without much stopping. This new route is admittedly pretty boring and one I have taken several times before. If we get outta here successfully tomorrow morning, like a prisoner released, I will see even the most mundane sights with eager eyes.

Day T-minus 1

This could be day one really because we have already left the apartment. It is now a an empty quiet place where the refrigerator cycles on once in a while. If there’s something we’ve forgotten and left behind, behind it stays.

I don’t think so though. I’m pretty sure we have everything: bass guitar, acoustic guitar, mixer rack case, Audra’s camera bag, my camera bag(ette), the mic & cable bag, speaker stands, a large and small suitcase, a couple grocery bags of road food and our newly purchased cooler.

The amp rack, PA speakers & head, guitar amp, mic stands are in the pool house and will be added to the load when we get there. Ironically, the PA system is for my parent’s party and my own rehearsals, not the shows I am playing.

Audra's mom says she'll have homemade tacos waiting for us. Mmmm!

We planned well enough that there wasn't a whole lot to do when I got home from Jeopardy today.

We now (7:30ish) are currently on our way to pick up our rental car at the Ontario Airport. We will spend the night in the pool house at Audra’s folks house, the same room where I recorded the bulk of my album.

The darker red shows our first 70 miles from LA to Highland

We will arrive after dark and leave before the light, I had to explain to Audra’s eleven-year-old brother when he offered to do something for me.

I am reasonably sure the Ford Escape “(or similar)” we are renting will fit all we are taking. After all I am a champion packer of cars not to mention a number of 53 foot semi trailers. I have stuffed more gear than we are taking into a PT cruiser along with Audra (I though she might enjoy riding on the roof for a change). One way or another it will work!

Today I was able to finish my new website… let me rephrase that. I was able to get my new website up and running in a bare bones beta sort of way. “Finished” is a status websites only realize the day they die anyway.

Like people.

Check it out, bookmark it, just don’t expect too much at first. http://joeltj.com

Wish us a good sleep and pray for our protection on the road. We'll be doing our bit and driving safe and sane.

Goodnight!

Day T-minus 2, The Route

Most everything for the trip is ready. As always there are a hundred little details that crop up. How will we water the plants? What food should we put in our cooler? Will all my gear and our luggage and cooler all fit in the rental car?


For now, lets talk route:

I will show our progress every day using this map

We will head out of California on I-10 until Phoenix, Arizona. From there we will take a diagonal Northeast scenic route up to meet I-40. It is my hope that the scenic route will still being during daylight.

It may seem more logical just to take I-40 out of California, and it is. Audra, ever since she was little, has dreamed of heading East out of California on 'The 10', so head East on Ten 10 we shall.

We are deliberately not planning places to stop and stay the night. We will make that call on the fly, depending on how far we've traveled and how we are feeling. We might drive until midnight or we could peter out around ten.

It is my guess that our first night will be spent somewhere in the vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So we're crazy right? A southern route in the summer during a record heatwave?

Well perhaps we are crazy, but my thinking is this. It's hot everywhere. It's humid everywhere. We may have shaved a few degrees off on a Northern or middle route but I would rather take a route I haven't seen all of before.

In any case thank God for AC.

My father told of a road trip he took with a bunch of guys and a scout leader to a National Jamboree in what is now Irvine, CA.

-Ever heard of Jamboree Road in Irvine? Yup, that's why.

While crossing the desert, my father said it was so hot in the un-air-conditioned car that they had to drive with the windows up.

This always sounded like a tall tale to me until I drove through Nevada in one-hundred fifteen degree heat in a car with no AC. The air blasting in the window at 70 MPH felt like an open furnace. I leterally felt as though I was getting burned. 

So it was true!

I actually had to close the window. On top of that, the car engine was overheating. I had the heater going full bore out to help cool the engine. Even then, having the window open was too much. The best I could do was open the passenger window a few inches to let out some of the air from the heater. 

Sorry I ever doubted you Pappy.

Our second day may land us somewhere in Arkansas. Day Three will see us through Memphis, Tennessee and up along the Mississippi River for a while then we will paint a diagonal racing stripe across the horse country of Kentucky. Day Four we will wind our way up through the Ohio River Valley between Ohio and West Virginia. On this day we may be able to slow down a bit and take in the scenery. 

West Virgina in one of the three remaining states in the lower 48 that I have never been to. Audra and I are especially looking forward to seeing Parkersburg. Frankly it's a pretty run-down depressed place, but Steven Soderburg filmed the movie "Bubble" there.

Every other time I have driving home to Canandaigua from the West, I have taken I-90 through Buffalo. Not this time: I have a notion to hit my hometown from the South via I-17 / I-390 and drive up through picturesque Cohocton and Naples. That will probably be on Day Four unless we get antsy and want to go faster.

It's getting exciting but I hope we can sleep okay. We're going to need it!

If you didn't see yesterday's regular blog post check it out below ↓

It has funny things.

Day T-minus 3

This blog will be the first in a succession of daily blogs that carry you along on our cross-country journey with us. That’s right, a new blog every day, albeit brief, will feature pictures and details of our twenty-six hundred mile road trip to Canandaigua, NY as well as the final preparations over the next couple of days.

First, since my blogs may have become hum drum for some with all this album and travel stuff, here’s a little tale of a grocery store aisle that was nothing but trouble…

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It was bound to happen. A volatile environment ripe for conflict, and yet Ralphs Grocery Stores saw fit to place the breakfast cereals across the aisle from the teas and coffees; items that inspire fanatical devotion and careful consideration of exactly what to purchase. Someone at one of those meetings should have seen it as plain as day on the shelf layout drawings, stood up and said in a clear loud voice:

“MY GOD MAN, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

But there it was; a fifty foot corridor of death with boxes of glorious cereal on one side staring down tins of life-giving teas and coffees on the other.

And so there also was I, looking for that perfect breakfast cereal to fit my mood at that moment, among my all cereal brethren.

Many things must be considered: The big three brands versus the natural and organic start-up with the natural and organic sounding names, the stick and twig factor, is it on sale? Does one choose an old-school classic on the bottom shelf or a lesser-known variety that you’ve either never tried or haven’t eaten in years and are amazed that they still sell?

Does one give way to the rare indulgence in a colorful, sugary kid cereal or a feel-good-about-suffering-for your health bran? Perhaps the perfect balance is hiding on the top shelf near the end of the aisle in tiny boxes:

It’s a magic cereal; it’s sugary and fat-laden but with good-for-you fibery, seemingly natural ingredients that, in the eyes of God and everyone at the check-out, makes you look like a good, shiny, health-minded person:

Granola.

The plastic bagged generic brand need not even be considered unless you have kids in your cart, food stamps in your wallet and precious little else.

On the other side of the aisle were the coffee and tea folks giving their own meticulous consideration to what hot beverage to brew in their homes in equipment ranging from ten dollar French presses, to thousand dollar cappuccino machines. There was sniffing, looking, weighing, shaking, reading, sniffing again… and again.

There were Chai teas for after Tai Chi, lattes for before karate, Morning Thunder for after your ‘morning thunder’ not to mention eighty-one (you think I’m kidding) other Celestial Seasonings flavors, each picked up and considered or at least turned over to enjoy the full version of the idyllic Kincaid-like painting on the cover.

Coffee or tea, caffeine or ‘de’, ground or whole bean? Then there are the treatments: sugar or substitute, the pink or the yellow, fancy syrups, sweetened creamers…

The instant coffees, non-dairy creamers and iced tea mixes need not even be considered unless you have grand kids in your cart, a social security check in you wallet and precious little else.

Suffice to say that there was a lot more shopping going on both sides of the aisle than there was purchasing that day at Ralph’s.

Traffic was starting to accumulate.

Everyone was polite enough on the surface. I nicely asked a skinny woman with a French accent who was weighing the benefits/deficits of two bags of coffee beans, one in each hand, to move her cart from where she’d parked it, smack in front of the mid shelf Cheerio spin-offs, so that I could reach a box of Chocolate Cheerios (you know, just to check the sugar content).

I couldn’t help but notice her sneer of superiority when she eventually complied with my request.

“Yoo seely cereal-eating maggot, I seep my espresso in yoor jenaral dy-rection,” her narrow eyes seemed to say. “May yoor meelk curdle and yoor spoonz, zay all be dir-tee.”

I said nothing but took her description down in my mind for future reference; the part of my brain I reserve for listing Beemers that have cut me off.

A production assistant and her production assistant boyfriend were in the middle of the aisle debating on which green tea it was in-fact that they overheard Angelina Jolie’s personal assistant recommend to a friend. A woman wearing scrubs with teddy bears printed on them pried her way between them to compare a box of “Fiber Sugar Crunch” with “Crunchy Sugar with Fiber.”

The production assistants looked indignant. They referenced a “Pamela Anderson Incident” loud enough for the teddy bears to hear but not loud enough to reveal that they meant it to be loud enough for the teddy bears to hear.

Then it happened: A pare of gay tea drinkers were both steering their cart side-by-side and arguing about “imposter chai.” Across the aisle, a glutiously well-endowed woman was bending down, reaching low for a bottom-shelf-classic. The tea drinkers attempted to maneuver around a mid-aisle display of coffee filters. Ralph’s may as well have thrown a lit match into a gas tank. They bumped into the large woman's biggest bit enough to tip the scales and send her crashing into the corn flakes. The sound of those golden flakes being crushed into powder by the large woman was sickening. We cereal eaters stared in horror at the array of mangled boxes.  The legs of one of our own were sticking out from the middle of them… flailing.

There was a moment of silence when even the Doobies Brothers playing on the PA system seemed to pause to see what was going to happen next.

A tear of rage formed in my eye.

The French woman broke the silence with a snicker.

Oh, it was on!

A tired-looking mother of four calmly opened a bag of generic “Alphabits,” called “Binary Bytes,” and poured the little zeros and ones over the head of the French woman.

The gay men, still both at the helm, looked at each other and charged the mother at ramming speed.

They actually yelled “CHAAAAARGE”.

The mother counter-charged straight at them. After the "clang" of shopping cart armor, her children, like miniature pirates, swung over onto the enemy ship. They trod carelessly over quail's eggs, truffles and fancy cheeses wrapped in wax and leaped on the the co-captains. The men soon had small children climbing all over them. They staggered backwards as if overcome by a hive of killer bees. The sticky fingers alone were enough to give them nightmares.

At the other end of the aisle, a well-educated, unemployed welder had formed a small militia of Korean school girls and quickly trained them to rapid-fire coffee beans using tea bags as sling shots. The effect was devastating. I heard the beans whizzing past my head and felt the sting of a few but I did not falter.

A small boy to my left was not so lucky. He was using yellow marshmallows from Lucky Charms as miniature throwing stars. The soft yellow stars, however, were no match for the hard coffee beans. For every star he could pick from the box and throw they had hit him with a dozen beans. It was like a machine guns vs. a musket. His body convulsed as the beans bounced off him. He fell motionless behind the barricade of Wheaties he had built. The Welder laughed and continued to shout orders to his girls.

This injustice could not go unanswered.

I motioned to a former porn star in a pink tank top to avenge the boy. Thinking with cereal-like speed, she grabbed a box of “Kix” and rolled the corn-made ball bearings at the feet of the advancing Korean Schoolgirl Militia. They toppled like Keystone cops or bad guys in a Disney movie; flying in the air at disproportional hieghts, ankles high. The Welder himself went down like a sack of potatoes.

…a sack a potatoes that quotes Byron.

I had other fish to fry. I was fighting my way through the fray, slaying the brewers in my path with fistfuls of “Rice Krispies” to the eyes (you just can’t go wrong with a classic). Cereal and coffee grounds were flying through the air like some apocalyptic food fight. Innocent bystanders were running for cover in the safety of the freezer aisle.

I passed an old lady who was on the floor attempting to encase a CPA she had captured in a papier mache she formed from six cans of oatmeal, her six hundred coupons and a two-liter bottle of Jolt Cola she’d borrowed from the mother’s cart.

Frenchy was still picking digital cereal out of her hair and hurling heavily accented analogy insults. An older man was sneaking up on her, intent on force-feeding her a whole box of pop tarts.

“SHE’S MINE.” I shouted over the din. The old guy looked-up like a prairie dog and quickly planted the box “Pop Tarts” under the soy milk in her cart like an embarrassment bomb timed to go off at the check out and scurried away like a rat.

“YOOO” she bellowed at me in super slo-mo.

She grabbed a box of decaf white tea off the shelf and ran back towards me waving it like a rapier. I gave a Scotsman's war cry, she answered back with a banshee scream.

As we were about to collide in battle, I stepped in a greasy pile of “Cinnamon Toast Crunch.” My feet skidded out from underneath me and I skated forward at a forty-five degree angle. I felt a slight whiff. This was apparently my collision with the forty-pound French woman—who later wanted it to be made clear that she is in-fact Belgian. The French woman (now I’m just calling her that for spite) flew through the air, her stick-like limbs trying to flap like wings. She soared clear out the end of the aisle and landed in the fresh fish counter with a wet thud.

My vision was then cut off as I crashed into large cans of Folgers creating an avalanche of non-dairy creamer from the shelves above. Even though I could no longer see through the white-out, I could tell from the nature of Frenchy’s screams she was not the sort of vegetarian that ate fish.

Then as quickly and senselessly as it had begun, it was over.

There were only occasional moans and the slow crunching gravel of Grape Nuts as a security guard carefully made his way into the destruction. The beam of his flashlight barely pierced the white haze.

Muffled CPA sounds came from inside the rock-hard oatmeal papier mache.

Not all was awry though. The smell of coffee beans and Captain crunch smelled wonderful. It smelled familiar. It calmed our hearts. It was something we—except Frenchy—all loved.

Breakfast!

We’ve since all become great friends and have breakfast together once a month in that fated aisle where we all first met. All we need is lots of hot water and milk. Even Frenchy comes and brings something no one else will eat, for breakfast anyway.

Ralph’s is expected to settle our class action out of court.

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I hope you enjoyed that little tale.

…and I swear it’s aaaaall true!

Even though my CD is in the arms of the manufacturer (one please oh please be done on time) there is still much to be done in the album camp. I have a website but it’s so horribly out of date none of the pictures even work anymore.

I have a handful of journalists and DJ contacts I am going to, um… contact, but I don’t want to do so until I have a decent website up and running again. Other than the preparations for our trip East, redesigning and building the website is my main activity.

My head is currently a-wash with illogical Flash protocol.

Practice is another plate I’m spinning. It’s a little over a week till my first show. I can’t believe how time has crept up on me. In my mind I thought I’d have four to six days to practice at full volume with a PA system out at the poolhouse in Highland (at my in-laws‘). A bout a week ago I figured out that I only had, oh… about NONE!

Now that Jeopardy has started up I have been working seven days a week and thank goodness because we can sure use the money to get us through the travel and the next two weeks. As a free-lancer I get no paid vacation.

Overall, the feeling is of excitement. Audra and I both need this road trip and to see family and friends badly. It’s been almost three years since we were in Canandaigua and the Rochester Area. I’m even a little nervous as to the changes I might encounter in places and people too. I haven’t been away from somewhere so familiar for so long in my life.

More tomorrow…