A Letter From Sendai, Japan

It has been a strange week. Some policy changes at the place where I have the closest thing to full time work threatens to take away a lot of those hours. With a 12 week Jeopardy hiatus coming up that makes things pretty scary and just at a time when gas prices and a number of other corresponding commodities skyrocketing. The continued fallout from the Earthquakes/Tsunamis in Japan and now yet another NATO military action in the Middle East are all adding up to create a general uneasiness.

Sleep tight now.

I had a couple ideas for this weeks blog but they haven't worked out. I was considering what to do as a last ditch effort to get something up and found myself looking at a virtual trash can filled with crumpled up mediocre ideas. I started surfing to procrastinate and ran across this link to a blog that has a different and encouraging ground level view of the disasters in Japan. It made me feel a little bit better. Maybe you will find interesting as well:

http://www.odemagazine.com/blogs/readers_blog/24755/a_letter_from_sendai

Thanks to my friend Collette for providing this link.

My Little Redneck

“Want to go to Mississippi?” said my friend Micheal.

I don't necessarily fantasize about going to Mississippi in general, let alone in August. I was working in Television a lot and would actually have to take time off from a better paying job to fly to the deep south and work on a movie as a favor to my friend.

I was pretty much finished with film work in general. It seemed there was either no money or when there was, there was a proportional amount of politics and bullshit to go with it.

But I'd never been to Mississippi before, so what the hey.

If I was on the fence about quitting film before, this project dropped-kicked me over. I had always been a best boy or a key grip for the other films I had worked on. I arrived to discover that I was in-fact the lowest man on the totem pole.

Then there was the heat and the humidity. As soon as I hit the outdoors at the airport in Jackson, I felt like I was standing in a hot soup of thick air. If I were to have tripped, I'm sure I would descend to the ground in graceful slo-mo and not so much as scrape a knee. From the moment I stepped out of my air-conditioned cottage each day, my skin instantly had a sheen of perspiration and my clothes felt like a damp dishrag. Unlike the desert, this condition didn't relent at night.

The days were long and draining. It's one thing to stand around in that heat, quite another to labor hauling heavy stands, sand bags, lights and camera dolly track around.

Many of the support crew, read: production assistants etc, were locals who had never worked in film before. A standard piece of film equipment is the apple box which serves a surprising number of functions like having Tom Cruise stand on one to bring him up to a respectable 5'-6”. Apple boxes come in different sizes: full, half, quarter and “pancake”.

Apple boxes

The main crew was filming at a sharecropper's shack down next to the cotton fields while a few of us were setting up lighting at a plantation house on a hill. We heard over the radio that they needed a “half apple” on set. One of the local PAs came running up the hill, eager to make a good impression. He ran right past the cart where the apple boxes were stored.

“Where's the craft table?” he said out of breath.

“On the porch.”

He disappeared around the house and returned a moment later holding an apple that he had carefully cut in half.

We probably should have stopped him before he ran back down the hill, but we figured why should we be the only ones to enjoy the comedy.

That would have been selfish.

Besides the heat and humidity were the insects. I encountered my first fire ant while on that shoot. Maui Wowee, do they hurt! Feel the burn!

You can imagine what might happen if you were to fill a twelve foot by twelve foot white sheet of silk with twelve thousand watts of light on a hill in the middle of cotton fields in the deep south on a moonless night; every flying insect for five miles was on that front porch bouncing off the silk and the light. 

I had not made much of an impression with the rest of the crew until I volunteered to “drop a single” into that 12K light. Everyone else was too afraid to climb up to the light and with good reason. The bugs we attracted were not only overwhelming in their numbers but they were huge and nothing like anything I'd ever seen. It was as if our bright lights had opened some prehistoric worm hole and let out creatures the size of Volkswagons and with exotic saber-like appendages from which only evil and pain can flow.

As soon as I was a couple steps up on the six-step ladder my head entered a thick cloud of flying things. I held my breath and closed my eyes and gingerly felt my way around the large hot light so I could drop in the scrim. I could feel flying things bouncing off my head and arms. I tried not to think about it too much till I could get down off the ladder.

“Damn man!” said one of the guys, “I'm glad that was you and not me.”

The next morning one could not take a step anywhere on the front porch without making an audible crunch on the thousands of dead insects.

Mont Helena Plantation, The mansion we filmed at.

It is built on an artificial hill since it lies in the Mississippi flood plain. 

The share croppers had to climb a tree or something when the waters rose.

It took me several attempts over a couple of years to pinpoint this place on Google Earth. 

I was thrilled when I finally saw this picture.

The low point in the shoot came while we were in a swamp in the middle of the night. Even at night it was so unbearably hot that I had to take ice from the cooler and put it under my hat. I was completely soaked with sweat anyway, so a waterfall of melting ice rolling down my forehead hardly mattered.

The moment that someone noticed a snake a few feet away from me was the same moment I decided that my film career was officially over. Even if I were to one day ascend to director or DP I would find myself in some god-forsaken swamp at three AM and at the end of the day when everyone else was going home I'd get to go watch dailys for a couple more hours.

There was still two days left of shooting. I figured I could suffer through that, then walk away from the hot, dirty, dog-eat-dog world of film for good.

We stayed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, about an hour away from our plantation location. Our hotel, the Cedar Grove Mansion Inn, a series of cottages for us, was about an hour away from our location in Vicksburg, MI. The morning of our last day, I knocked on the key grip's door so I could watch for the van inside in comfort. There was a tiny orange and white kitten inside running around trying to hide.

“Where'd the kitten come from?” I asked.

“She was out front this morning.”

“You going to keep her?”

“Nah, can't.”

I didn't like the thought of leaving the kitten to fend for itself when I didn't know where it had come from. The immediate area was just the hotel and cottages. I only had a few minutes before the van showed up so even if there was an owner it wasn't like I could put up signs and a phone number. The van pulled up. The key grip grabbed the kitten and placed her outside. She ran to a culvert by the street and scurried into the drainage pipe.

I was about to get in the van. I turned back. I just couldn't leave her there. I grabbed her from the pipe and took her with me on the van. She was my responsibility now. I would have the hour ride to figure out what to do with her all day on a location set when I got there and another day till my flight home to figure out where to go from there.

I held the squirmy thing on my lap till we arrived at the plantation house. I placed her in the basement and promised her I'd be back as soon as I could. I hoped the owner of the place would not discover her. About an hour later I was able to take a moment to get a dish a water to my new friend. I called to her and she came running out from under a pile of lumber.

I knew right then that, somehow, this fuzzy little thing was coming home with me.

There was a young actress who was playing a character named “Delilah”. One day during the shoot she had brought her own cat to the set in a carrier. I knew my problems were solved when I saw she was working that day.

“Oh Whitney,” I said with one hand behind my back, guess what I have?”

Her face lit up when she saw the little orange fuzz ball in my hand.

Whitney took care of the kitten while I was working. When she was on the set, the hair and make-up people took over. The kitten spent most of the day sleeping on a chair that was part of the large old house. The chair had a sign on it “Antique chair, do not sit.” Someone added beneath that: “except for kitty”.

The woman taking care of the craft service table was very kind and drove to the nearest town to buy some Kitten Chow. My little kitten, however, was only interested in sleeping.

It was about 1AM when we finished striking and left the location for the last time. I sat in the dark van with the tiny Delilah, as I had named her after the main character in the movie, in my lap. I poured some of the Kitten Chow in my hand and offered it to her. By this time she was plenty hungry. She chomped voraciously into the food with her needle sharp teeth making no distinction between the kibble and the flesh of my hand.

“MOTHER F...” I yelled in the silent van to the half-asleep crew.

I called the airline the next day and made arrangements to carry a cat in my home-made cat carrier I had constructed from a Kodak film box and Gaffer's tape. The 'arrangement' consisted of my giving Delta Airlines more money.

I flew from Jackson, Mississippi to Cincinnati, Ohio with no problem but when I tried to board the plane to LAX they informed me that my cat carrier was not approved and I could not board. At the desk back at the gate they my only option was to buy an 'approved' pet carrier. They had a basic model and deluxe. By-the-way, the basic isn't available.

Eighty dollars please!

At home I already had two cats, now placing me perilously one cat away from being officially crazy. It took some getting used to on everybody's part but soon Delilah was one of the family. We already had a couple thousand miles under our belts together so I took Delilah in the car with my every time I had the chance to acclimate her with it which paid-off nicely later on.

You might have the impression that my Mississippi kitten, Delilah, is a sweet little southern belle.

Perish the thought.

She's my little redneck.

Delilah, interrupted from watch wildlife on TV.

She'll roll on her back and invite you to rub her tummy but don't you fall for it; you'll probably bleed. Over the years I have learned the subtleties of her moods and signals as well as earned her trust so I can get away with it but I keep on-guard.

The little sun-goddess takes her afternoon nap where it's warm.

Delilah is now around ten years old, a middle aged lady in cat years. If she were in human form, My wife and I are certain she would have a cigarette hanging from her never-smiling lips, curlers in her hair and a slot machine handle in one hand and a beerin a plastic cup in the other.

Contentious and moody, she's quick to anger but just as quick to recover. She'll growl hiss and run away for inexplicable reasons but no worries, she'll be running back to you 'in five... four... three...'

Delilah will face down any dog or human with a steely resolve and has used up about seven of her nine lives by my count (including sword-swallowing an entire chicken satay bamboo skewer and not one, but two falls off a three-story balcony). For all her bravery, she is scared to death of birds real or imagined; she has been known to scurry across the room on her belly because a spinning ceiling fan was making her nervous.

Even at her age, she's still as playful as ever. We purchase cat toys for her once in a while but we waste our money. Her favorite thing in the whole world is to run full speed into a just paper grocery bag on it's side then attack it from within as I agitate it. The paper is no protection from those claws so it is wise to use a stick.

I am not above playing the odd trick on her either though. After a visit from my parents we were draining the air out of the double-high air mattress they had slept on. Delilah was sleeping on it at the time and slowly sank into a crater as the air leaked out. The mattress was about half empty and I could not resist the temptation of falling onto the mattress. Of course, when I did, the sleeping Delilah suddenly found herself airborne. As if in a Wile E. Coyote universe, she managed to begin running in mid air and had almost cleared the room by the time her claws hit the carpet. She returned a moment later sniffing the mattress with great curiosity.

She's not the smartest animal I've ever had, in fact we sometimes call her “Bag-O-Hammers” or sometimes just “Hammers,” as we shake our heads when she can't seem to find a cat treat that has landed inches away.

Don't tell all the other pets I have had through the years but in spite of her temperamental nature and her lack of mental horsepower, Delilah is my without a doubt my favorite.

That hellish week in Mississippi was quite worth it after all. The way the Kitten looks at me when I scratch her head (or stop scratching her head) I think I may be her favorite too.

The Road

For a musician, the balance between music and survival is a contentious and constant problem. Even the most successful musicians need 'day gigs' if you define a musician as I do: someone who writes, records, produces and performs music. Anything outside that, even if intimately related to music; selling 'merch' (T-shirts etc), giving music lessons, buying and selling music gear, inventing a new music gizmo, are essentially day gigs. It's difficult to survive without them.

For the rest of us that means having a regular, forty-hour-a-week job. 

I used to curse the concept and wish I could spend all day every day being a musician.

Then I tried it and as a result I have had a slightly greater affection for regular employment.

But still...

A time a couple years ago I was a full-time musician. My sole income was performing one the road with an Eagles tribute band. It was very satisfying for once in my life to be able to tell people “I am a musician” and have it be absolutely one-hundred percent true.

In early 2007, I had had it with my day job. I decided enough was enough. I had always dreamed of hitting the road with a band. Riding down the highway in a gleaming tour bus, I was going to get a full-time gig playing bass on the road if it killed me. I started a blog on my Myspace about my 'road to the road' (http://myspace.com/joeltjohnson -it would take a bit of back navigation to get to early 2007). Later I renamed it "Diesel Fumes"

Not long afterwords, out of nowhere it seemed, I got called to audition for a touring country band. I passed the audition but afterwords, a former band member threw his hat in the ring was naturally preferred. That band felt badly so they recommended me to another band who, a few months later, hired me sight unseen, without any audition or a face-to-face interview.

I quit my regular job, I sold a bunch of music gear so I could buy a bunch of different music gear and some stage clothes, stepped on an aging odd-smelling tour bus with my suitcase and *presto* I was a musician.

The highest paid member of the band: I'm talking about the bus

In many ways it was great. I played all across the country, from Southern Florida to Northern Washington State, from San Diego to Long Island, from a stone's throw from the Mexican border in remote Arizona to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We played Wyoming cowboy bars for a few dozen people and opened for well-known national acts in front of thousands. We played dusty fairgrounds in Montana and opulent and grand old theaters in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

This theater was actually in Pittsfield, Mass

We even had a few girls flash us their boobs. Truth be told it was not entirely spontaneous rock star worship; we had a sign.

This truck full of rowdies in Iowa gave us quite a show

A typical day was spent traveling whether we were playing or not. We spent the majority of our time riding on the bus. We could ride for days at a time, driving through the night. I had my own bunk I to sleep in and my own stock of food in the fridge to heat up in the microwave. Of course there was bathroom too so we only had to stop for fuel and to change drivers–with no professional driver, the whole band rotated in four-hour shifts at the wheel.

The bus broke down at least four times in the time I was on the road. Sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes both.

Broke Bus Mountain

A video I made when the bus dropped a tranny in the middle of Pennsylvania

We might arrive at a hotel in the middle of the night or at high noon. There were times I awoke from my bunk to find the bus parked God knows where and find a hotel key or two sitting on the table. There were times after a gig when we checked into a hotel room just long enough to shower, then we'd drive all night to some other theater, or fairgrounds, or casino.

In six months I covered over ten thousand miles and thirty-one states—eighteen of which we played shows in.

We performed four to six days a week and rarely had more than four days off to spend at home.

A gig usually went down like this. We would arrive, load-in and sound check around mid-afternoon. A catered meal was both preceded and followed by time simply hanging out, either in a hotel room or a dressing room. More often than not, the bus served as both.

The performance itself was rarely over ninety minutes. After playing those twenty six songs a few dozen times those ninety minutes felt more like nine. Breaking down the gear and packing it back under the bus took less than half-an-hour. Then it was back on the bus and on to somewhere else.

I had a love/hate relationship with life on the road. It was cool to be rolling about the country and only 'working' for a couple hours a day, but being marooned on the island that was the bus, hotels and venues could really be draining. It was especially difficult to be away from my wife.

I started to understand what Bob Seger was talking about in his song “Turn the Page” -minus the hearing loss, cigarettes and underage groupies.

Okay, okay, there was a little hearing loss.

Then there was the money. Even with the lower expenses, we were barely surviving. The sad part was that the band I was with paid better and had more gigs than most. How some musicians manage doing that for years at a time I can't imagine.

My least favorite thing was that I felt like a fraud. I was playing music that someone else wrote and recorded; strutting on the stage pretending to be a rock star. Even when I was younger, the 'rock star' thing was not my vibe. It blew my mind that after the shows people, especially in rural areas, wanted my autograph. I hadn't with the band long enough to be in the band photographs they sold at the merch table, so I was actually signing a picture of some long-haired dude I had never met.

“You look different than your picture,” someone would always say.

“I know, it's like I'm a whole different person,” I responded.

They would laugh ...and I would pretend to.

Then I took a week off to travel to New York for Christmas and came back to find myself replaced. It was an harsh adjustment at first, but in truth, the timing was perfect. I was happy to be back home with my wife and our cats on a daily basis. I was also suddenly unemployed. Fortunately, was able to get my job on Jeopardy back and eventually find some other work to fill in the gaps.

I decided I had fooled around long enough and it was time to record and release my own album.

And that's exactly what I did.

CD or Download at CD Baby

Also on iTunes

I no longer dream of tour buses and of a life on the road. I dream simply of bring my own music to people who will love it. I might hit the road again when I have opportunity to do it playing my own music and if I could take Audra along with me.

I do still miss the satisfaction of being a full-time musician, but precious little else. I don't regret a second of my experience on the road, the wonderful friends I made both in the band and great folks from the audience that have been in contact and reading my blog ever since.

I also learned a lot.

Like the importance of a good contract rider. Mine now specifically states that all the brown M&Ms must not only be removed from the bowl in the dressing room, they are to be flushed down the toilet with a compliment rose pedals and a fifth of gin while three monks sing Rapper's Delight in drag.

And no wire hangars!