:: tourlog 2002 ::

:: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 ::

2/18 - home. wow. shoulda cleaned the plates before I left.

Thank you for coming out to the shows, and thank you for reading this. But before we leave, the final tally -

TOTAL YAHOO! miles: 4997.81
TOTAL DEAD DEER SIGHTED: 12
TOTAL AMISH SIGHTED: 11

THE END. THANK YOU FOR PLAYING.






alternate ending:
:: mike 10:35 AM [+] ::

2/17 - Woke up on my friend Bob's couch. In pain, and way too early. I realize my clothes kind of smell - I haven't done laundry since, um, Nebraska? Yeah - some place by a steak house. I think. Agnostic Front was there...hm, it's cloudy, now.

The Ford Theater and Museum is a beautiful piece of history, and Jeb, who plays a villainous cowboy/drug dealer, does a great job. I hope the show actually makes it to Broadway. I know it's supposed to, but until it actually does, I'll still be hoping.

Downstairs from the theater is a museum that covers Lincoln's assassination. They have the clothes he was wearing, the gun that John Wilkes Booth shot him with, the door with the peep hole that Booth spied on him through, and a bunch of other cool artifacts. It was so strange to be there, considering the last museum I went to was the Confederate sympathizer, Jesse James'.



We all pile into the Old Ebbitt Grill and goof off. Tomorrow, it'll be back to NYC, and it all will have been a dream, all except for this tourlog, which will have remembered a lot more than I will have by tomorrow. I'm already looking back at the archives and saying, "I did that? Hm. Who knew?"

mike has traveled: 4957.81 YAHOO! miles
Dead deer: 3
Amish: 0

:: mike 10:16 AM [+] ::

2/16 – drive home…?

The dreaded power ride home to NYC. Men - say goodbye to the boys. I had M&M’s and my great new mixed CD. I had AM talk radio with lots of Jesus, and the last of the crop reports. I had a cup holder. I had cruise control and a great, great car. I had directions. I figured they were correct. But there was a call on the cell. There’s been a change in plans.

My friend Jeb is a fantastic actor, and is in “I’m Not Rapaport” starring Ben Vereen and Judd Hirsch . It’s coming to Broadway, has warmed up in Miami, and was about to close a three-week run at the Ford Theater in DC (the theater where Lincoln was shot – just in time for President’s Day). A bunch of my friends were descending on the area, flying in from Seattle, Atlanta, Florida, New York. I was instructed to make it there for a 2/17 matinee. And for a party - on 2/16. That was...tonight. I had started late, and had to drive through a time change – another hour lost. O, cruel fate! And yet, I must party! I have been instructed! I topped off the gas tank and drove. Like a hell demon, I drove. I ran through the truck stop bathrooms. I ran past the cashiers selling flannel shirts and VHS copies of The Matrix. I did not stop to admire the Lucite sculptures of Bald Eagles and crucifixions in the display case. I bought coffee, water. I contemplated adult diapers; I dismissed the concept. I ate while driving, lunch, and then dinner crumbs wedged in my lap. There was a glaze of condiment on the steering wheel. I bore my chipped teeth to the oncoming traffic, and leaned into the tail lights in front of me. I was Ichabod Crane. I was Paul Revere.

Jeb’s show ended late, and 12 hours later, I managed to arrive at Clyde’s in Georgetown before the entrée hit the table – sometime around midnight. I missed one round of drinks. Not bad. I caught up. I was tired, but psyched to see friends. We proceeded to bar hop and sing and dance ‘til about 5 AM. Whew. Georgetown kinda smells like sweaty leather pants, but that might just be from where I was standing.

mike has traveled: 4692.81 YAHOO! miles
Dead deer: 1
Amish: 0, tragically

:: mike 3:50 PM [+] ::

2/15 – Aurora, IL – LAST GIG

I was hoping for some big bang send-off gig that would forever crystallize this tour as the total triumph it was. But sadly, it was not to be. Aurora U. is a commuter college, which means that nobody lives on campus. It was the beginning of a long (President’s Day) weekend, and the campus was abandoned, skeletal, its life blood siphoned off and visiting its folks in nearby Ohio, Iowa, Illinois. I set up by a pool table in a student center (o, irony), and was immediately deafened by the soundman, as he turned on the system and howled a wall of feedback at me.

But as always, the rays of optimism did shine brighter than the surroundings. A pair of Moxy Fruvous fans drove several hours for the show, carrying a Valentines Day gift bag for me, which included M&Ms from Butler U. in Indiana, a bottle opener, card, and an awesome CD for my big road trip back home (Moxy, Rusted Root, and, perhaps most touchingly, “Good Things” from Rival Schools. It’s so weird how a song will just appear and become a symbol of a time, like a summer, or a job, or a year in school, a girlfriend, whatever. The line in that song that keeps repeating: “Good things are coming, Good things are coming/ our way.”) Thank you for the gift. Moxy Fruvous fans are a breed apart. I’m so glad I’ve met them.

Also, a man named Justin arrived, still wearing the necklace that we all got at the Lake Forest show. He asked me, “So how were the dishes at Little Maria's in Coal City, Illinois? (tour diary, 1/31/02). Were they clean?” “Um, yeah, I think so…why?” “My girlfriend’s brother is the dishwasher at that restaurant that you pulled over and ate at.” I was amazed. That restaurant could not have been more random. And yet…

Emboldened by these things, I played whatever they requested. I added stuff that even they could never have known about, songs that didn’t make Bite Size, like “Condom Shopping,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” later songs that were iced out of Pictures like “American Royalty,” (dedicated to Wynona Ryder and Kenneth Lay) “Train,” “Keep it to Myself,” etc. etc. I played long, and as hard as a man can when his harmonicas are sitting on the purple felt pool table, he’s been deafened by the soundman, and drove 13 hours to get there. I’ve made a promise to myself to hit every gig as hard as I can, and I’m not about to back down from it, ever. I don’t care if I’m playing through a toilet paper tube in a boiler room. I don’t care if I’m playing for goats on a Swiss mountainside. In the rain. Fuck it. I came to play.

Amen (all rise)

mike has traveled: 3977.80 YAHOO! miles
Dead deer sighting: 1
Amish sighting: 0

:: mike 2:58 PM [+] ::

2/14 – Happy Valentines’ Day. I’ll be in the car. All day. Driving 12 hours worth to Aurora, IL. But I’m psyched. I’ve been playing, I’ve been meeting great people, I’ve been signing their CD’s, I’ve got the new one meeting me in Aurora. I’m finally traveling east, and I have a crate of discs that I haven’t even listened to, yet.
Stevie Wonder – almost every disc he’s recorded
Ani DiFranco – Not a Pretty Girl (“Looking at the Million” – I cry every time), Reveling/Reckoning
Slobberbone – that band I opened for in Lawrence. They have a great song called “Lumberlung”, about some delirious man who is being nursed by his girlfriend, knowing that she’s becoming disinterested with him. In a dream, he’s driving, and he sees a child driving a car in the lane next to him. The child smiles, veers off the road, smacks into an overpass, and the car explodes. It’s excellent.
Soul Coughing – Ruby Vroom. This is what the drums on “Pictures of the Big Vacation” were supposed to sound like. They wouldn’t listen to me. Next CD, I will not ask them.
My demo’s for the next CD – just working on how I want to record them.
A whole suitcase full of other discs from everyone you can think of, Duke Ellington to Radiohead to sneaker pimps to Rival Schools to Deftones to Schtum. Sparkelhorse. Erykah Badu. Beck. PJ Harvey. Bjork. D’Angelo. I drove and sang along, digging the scenery, calling friends on the cell. The car is just a moving couch, and I’m hanging out. The world is a TV I can walk into whenever I want.

In Kearney, Missouri, I passed the home of Jesse James, and decided to pull over and take the tour. I love how history whitewashes outlaws. I like looking at little kids dressed as pirates on Halloween. Don’t they know what pirates did? If they did, Halloween would be different. “Trick or treat!” would be a bone-chilling war cry as the kids stormed the front door, raped the babysitter, slaughtered the boy-ghosts and hobos, and made off with the Twizzlers. And the Xbox. Whatever. Back to Jesse. Turns out, the Civil War went on a little longer in Missouri – it was surrounded by northern states and skirmishes continued after the peace accords were signed. Jesse and his brother were beaten by union troops, and converted to an outlaw life soon after. They had no dad, but their mom was huge, and could probably take any of the James boys on, until she lost her arm to a grenade, thrown into the window of her house by a Pinkerton police squad. Those fucking Pinkertons. I remember doing a report on the Pinkertons in high school, about how they foiled an attempt to assassinate Lincoln. Clearly, they failed later on. I didn’t do well on the paper, either, I think because Ms. Roosevelt confused me with the other Italian kid in the class who always used to fail.
Bitch.

There were some weird Jesse/bin laden correlations, especially when they guide explained how authorities couldn’t catch him because of his network of friends in the area who sympathized with his beliefs in the Confederacy. He was a terrorist bent on older ways, targeting banks and the new train system, and people thought of him as a Robin Hood because he didn’t rob women, Confederates, or hard working men, but still, his family owned slaves. I went to the nearby slave quarters and stood alone in there for a long time, just thinking. It was amazingly drafty, barely a house at all, just a wooden structure no bigger than a tool shed, with a stuffed bed, a ragged quilt, some rusty farm equipment, and a small brown doll with cornrows laying on the stained feather pillow. I remembered that it’s Black History month. I couldn’t even access the things I was feeling in that room.

I drove ‘til dinner, and found a TGIFridays outside of Iowa City. What a Valentines meal. The place was totally packed with couples of every age. The guys were taking their ladies out, getting them chicken tenders and a pitcher of light beer. The younger girls wore push-up bras, and packed on the eyeliner according to the rules set forth by Mademoiselle. Their shirts were tight, and showed off the bra straps that cut deep into the fat along their backs. The guys wore clean Dockers, belted, with crisp blue button down shirts and horny smiles. Every man in this room was most likely going to be getting some. Certainly every man was fixing to try, having sprung for the big night out at TGIFridays. Not me.

So what do I do? Try and get myself buzzed on iced tea and hope I make a move on myself while I’m driving? And if so, do I say yes?

And am I in Iowa or Illinois?

Dead deer: 2
Amish: 0
mike has traveled: 3844.80 YAHOO! miles

:: mike 11:15 AM [+] ::

2/13 - Why am I still traveling west? I know it’s only going to mean I have to travel as far going east. And soon.

Emporia State staged the show in their dining hall. A few people came on the recommendation of folks from the Kansas State show, others came from internet chat groups, mostly Rusted Root groups…yes, yes, this is how it grows. I played some newer material, since it was a smallish crowd. It felt great.

I was put up by the school in a killer old tyme Bed and Breakfast with a pearly white Jacuzzi in the bathroom. They asked if I wanted my eggs brought to my room, and served in bed. No puke stained Travelodge mattresses on this night… I was so grateful. I’m grateful for this whole tour, really. I'm just digging it.

I’ve also found out another fantastic Cracker Barrel fact that should sway you, if by now you are still riding on the fence about the genius of this family style art piece/restaurant: if you buy a book on tape from them, and read/listen to it, you can pull in to any other Cracker Barrel in the country and exchange it with any other title for a fee of $2. It’s like a lending library! OK, a library that promotes illiteracy, but still…what a place!

:: mike 11:08 AM [+] ::

2/12 – Mardi Gras only means one thing to me: it means that in one week’s time there will be a new volume of Girls Gone Wild. What are those stupid chicks thinking? Is that really “wild”? And what is it about footage of women lifting their shirts and kissing each other that only illustrates the sexual repression of the country we live in? I doubt those tapes sell well in Europe. In Europe, that video is entitled Going to the Damn Beach With the Wife and Kids. Oh well. Soon it’ll bed time to pull volume 15 out of my VCR and make room for…16, I guess. It’ll be like Christmas morning.

The Kansas State show was the kind of show that has made this tour artistically rewarding for me, although I still haven’t added in enough new songs, like I’d planned. I admit – I’ve been a little chicken about it. I rationalize by saying that I’m out here bringing people up to speed, so I have to play the big ones.

As my mom says, Sinatra sang “My Way” every show of his life.

This is a big school. I played in one of many restaurants in their student union which boasts a 16-lane friggin’ BOWLING ALLEY. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Another super-fan brought a bunch of friends, and told me, “Dude, I heard your song ‘Daylight’ a year and a half ago, and I’ve been looking for it ever since. I love it.” Out here, I’ve learned that in every city there are a couple of people like the guy I met here, and this year I’m going to find them. If they say that the live show was better than the discs, I have the live disc for them.

mike has traveled: 3249.4 YAHOO! miles
Dead Deer sighting: 0
Amish sighting: 2 (on TV)

:: mike 11:06 AM [+] ::

2/11 – “Where you off to, next, mike?”
“Leavenworth.”
”Leavenworth…wow. Have fun over there. Don’t pick up hitchhikers."

I heard a lot of this kind of talk in Kansas City and Lawrence. I was told, over and over again, that Leavenworth has not one, not two, but three major prisons; one state, one federal, and one military. This is where the murderers were hanged in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. So, do you play “When I get out of jail” here, or not? I don’t know. I mean, you don’t play “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” in Chattanooga, and you don’t play “New York, New York” in New York…right? Or do you? The Yankees play that song after every home game. Shit, I don’t know. I’ve confused myself.

I stepped out of my car, and was overwhelmed with the smell of cow. Not cow shit, or burgers, or leather, or any other process or product of cow. Just straight up cow. A raw, live cocktail of cow hair, cow sweat, drool, teat. The weird thing was that I couldn’t see any cows, and hadn’t for a while (“a while” at this point is about 35 minutes). All I could see from the parking lot of the Villager Lodge hotel was the Long John Silver’s next door, with the usual procession of each major fast food place down the main road from there, a K-Mart across the street, a Cingular Wireless outlet, and a pawn shop advertising a sale on “Unclaimed guns.” Cow had seeped into the fabric of this city. It made me think that eating steak is a patriotic act. If vegetarianism really took hold, America would be up for sale. We’d all be Canadians.

The High Noon Saloon was very Bennigan’s-esque, with license plates on the wall, deer heads, neon beer signs, black and white photos of anonymous high school football teams from years past, that high school long burned down for teaching evolution, the players by now reclining nearby in plaid upholstered La-Z-Boy chairs, swimming in an Alzheimer’s haze and dreading their next bowel movement. Some are long dead. Some are soon dead. I hate old pictures of football teams.

I told the hostess that I was here to play for a group that was dining here, and she dimly gestured to her left. I turned the corner, interpreting her directions (I’m good at that, by now), and walked straight into a private dining room with about 25 much older people, seated quietly at a long dining room table. Their grey heads turned slowly and faced me. There was an odd number of eyes in this room, and some of the ones I saw were purely ornamental. “Hi, I’m here…to play…for you?”
An old woman, dressed severely in royal blue with chunky gold earrings spoke up. “Oh, I think you have the wrong room. This is a church group meeting.” She paused, deliberately. “We were just saying grace just now when you...walked in.”



The St. Mary’s folks had organized a small group for a benefit in the “Great Western” conference room in the back, with bowls of snack foods, “pop” and such. They’d found a PA system, and I figured out how to make it sound pretty good. I managed to find a way to turn off the fluorescent lights, and adorn the stage with two moonshine jugs that had been converted into lamps. The lighting was warm, and the mood was not bad, considering. This was a far cry from the Bottleneck, no doubt. Again, a couple of super-fans were on hand, and requested some old-skool “Stacy” and “7 Bottles of Bristol Cream.” I obliged on the first. 7 Bottles is ridiculous on a single acoustic. It’s like “We Will Rock You” on a ukulele.

In the morning, at Homer’s, the only neighborhood diner that hasn’t been squeezed out by Long John Silver’s and the rest of the multi-nationals, I had breakfast next to people wearing flak jackets and security guard badges. The parking lot was a hive of patrol cars. The prison must be nearby, and must employ most of this town. I was the only guy there without a badge or a gun. Why does an intense amount of security make me feel less secure? What must the Leavenworth Greyhound Bus Depot look like? I mean, when the folks get out of jail, that’s got to be their first stop. I can see a guy in 70s style street clothes dumping a handful of tarnished change on the counter. “Where will this take me?”

That much’ll get ya to Manhattan, Kansas, my friend.
:: mike 3:47 PM [+] ::

2/10 – Morning radio show at KJHK with Bari Koral. Radio stations always sound to me like they emanate from a big place, with a big radio tower, a big DJ, a giant CD collection. In truth, most of the radio stations I’ve visited are cramped closets littered with band stickers (God, so many stickers in this world!), a broken coffee machine, a microphone taped onto a mic stand, and foam-core insulation coming unglued from the ceiling. Most of the music is pre-programmed via computer after “focus grouping” and various “favors” by record labels sort out who you get to hear. The DJ is basically there to make sure the computer doesn’t get unplugged by a stray vaccum cleaner.

There are, of course, exceptions, and KJHK is one. It’s one of the best stations I’ve heard, and you can hear it on the Web, too. Evan, the DJ, came in with a giant raspberry slushie, and suitcases full of cds to play. I could tell he loved his job (his show is called “Route 66”), and was psyched to turn people on to new stuff they might not have heard otherwise. I can’t even imagine what it would be like if radio stations were all so open-minded and not so in the pockets of record labels. You never would have heard of O-town. You never would have heard of, oh, NICKELBACK. Not to slight other bands – it’s just how the system works.

Evan asked about September 11th and its effect on the music scene, and requested “God” which I thought was really cool. That song has deepened unbelievably since the WTC disaster. I also played “Strawberry Song” which was written after September. I’m always happy to play requests – it makes me feel closer with whoever’s listening. I hope to have a copy of the show by the time I get back.

Night: The Bottleneck with Bari Koral, Slobberbone. Once again, there were a couple of super-fans, this far away from home. It’s pretty cool. I found that a lot of them are coming from Rusted Root’s Rust Tribe. God bless them. Someone requested “Halloween”, which is funny, because that’s not the title and because it hasn’t been released yet. It’s called “Underwater” and it’s going to be on the live CD. I'm glad, now, because even though the bottleneck is a cool, fairly large club with flames painted on the riser to create the effect that the artists are “on fire,” (or, on a bad night, “in hell”), the sound system was kinda screwy, and crapping out really badly on stage. The soundman kept saying the crowd wasn’t hearing the popping and crapping and farting, but it was really distracting. At one point I decided I’d just try and blow one of his damn speakers for the hell of it, but that’s real hard to do on an acoustic. The pictures they had on their walls were of Deftones, Radiohead, Rev. Horton Heat. They could blow speakers. Mr. Acoustic Boy could try, I suppose. I did try, actually. It was a good show for me. I needed to rip, a little. Kansas City was tough. Maybe I shouldn’t play cities that have a football team. Like, oh, New York. Which has two.

When I got off stage, a woman asked about my chipped tooth. A Tallboy5 reader, it turned out, and good friend of the infamous Levi Feeney, pimpin’ mack-boy tour manager of several of my previous tours. I thanked him on Tonight I Drink You All and for good reason – he’s clocked many a mile with me. Only Jake comes close. She’s from Kansas, and studying here at KU. I slid into the booth she and her friend were at, and opened wide, exposing the damage. She burst out laughing.
“You did that…HOW?”
“On a fork at the Cracker Barrel.” I need to come up with something better than that.
“What the hell were you eating?”
“Chicken.”
It’s kinda small, I guess, but still ridiculous, I think. After some humiliation, she admitted, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I chipped my tooth once. On my overalls. The strap kept falling off the button, and they would come undone. It was annoying. So I bit down on the latch part that hooks onto the button, and chipped my front tooth.”
“Let’s see it.”
She opened her mouth. I didn’t see anything.
“It’s not there anymore,” she said.
“You got it bonded at the dentist’s?”
“Um, no. I filed them both down to match each other.”
“OW.” The thought of that. The sound of low-grade sandpaper wheezing over exposed bone. The vibrations searing through my head. “Um...good thinking.”
“Kansas dentistry, babe.”
I guess so. Kansas Overall alteration, too, I guess.

I went out til about 4:30 with another friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who tends bar at the Eldridge Hotel, and drank PBRs while listening to crazy banjo-punk – I have to find out what it was. Some local band. In a stupor, we decided Styx is cooler than Boston, any day, and if you just take the singing off Styx, it’s actually cool. No one would admit that, because Styx was seen as a ‘chick band,’ so boys only liked it in secret. He refused to tell me the story behind the cover art of the first Boston CD, with the flying guitars disappearing through space, even though I am sure I understood the message. He just said, “They gave money to some trippy artist, and guitars are cool, and that’s it.” I didn’t want to say anything, but I believe that it’s an apocalyptic vision, upon which the mythology of the band is based. The scenario, I believe, goes as follows: Planet Earth has died, and is seen exploding at the lower section of the canvas. The great cities of the planet (Boston among them) have developed guitar-shaped intergalactic pods (guitar shaped pods are the most aerodynamic and structurally sound for space travel – just ask around), and have all blasted off to discover, colonize, and ROCK other galaxies. I knew all this, but I decided not to get into it. Sometimes I go off on tangents, and when people don’t know me, they get kind of annoyed, even though the logic is unassailable. It’s just something they didn’t want to talk about. OK. Fine. On a voyage of self discovery such as this, some lessons are private.

Dead deer sighting: 1
Amish sighting: 0
mike has traveled: 3048.58 YAHOO! miles. And still traveling westward.
:: mike 1:33 PM [+] ::

2/10 - Rolled into the Travelodge on Iowa St., Lawrence, KS. There’s a mousetrap in the corner of the room. It’s baited with peanut butter. I wonder if I could lick it without the trap snapping on my face. I decide not to, because I wouldn’t want to have to report it here. Admit it – you’d think less of me. It’s cold in the room, but if I turn the heat on, the smoke detector starts firing warning shots, like piercing little digital blips. I decide I can live with them. I hope smoke’s not actually coming out.

Last night was the Hurricane with Bari Koral and Longwave, both from NYC, strangely enough. Smallish club, but a brilliant sound system. Still, Kansas City was rough. No one lives in town, and everyone seems more likely to shop at a Gap outlet and drink at Starbucks than they are to see live music that isn't "Original Kansas City Blues." Quick, let's see the blues guy play his little blues, buy the t-shirt to prove that we were here, and let's get a jump on traffic home. The Hurricane was an oasis in a very sleepy city. The buzz-cut doorman was propped up again the wall reading Noam Chomsky's latest book, "9-11." Three hot women were walking through the crowd in red shorts and tight white shirts, handing out mini bottles of Smirnoff Ice. Those multi national corporations think of everything. I wanted them to flank me and get a picture. They refused. Smirnoff Ice tastes like crap. I suggest you never drink it. It's Zima with a headache trapped inside.



:: mike 1:25 PM [+] ::

2/08 – Day off, piled into K.C. Played guitar in my room. Like I’m 12 years old, again.

:: mike 1:11 PM [+] ::

2/07 – Creighton U. was great, though they did remind me that they were a Jesuit run institution, and that some of my material was probably inappropriate for school grounds. This was a first. I never thought of myself as dirty, or working “blue” like Chris Rock or anything, but out of curiosity I asked which songs were a problem. The activities chair responded, “Oh, I don’t really remember the title, but we heard you play it at the conference…something about nature’s candy being in a woman’s pantyhose…” Hm. Yeah. That was me. I tried to stay clean, but did have kind of a subliminal reaction, and ended up cursing a little in between songs (a societal form of Turret’s syndrome which flares up around polite people and parents of girlfriends), and I did discuss an erection I got while getting my hair washed by two woman at a salon. I thought there was going to be an incident. But hell – no one got hurt. And I used to be an altar boy. I know Jesuits. They’re OK. They used to pick us up in a van, take us to Burger King and deliver us home when we were too high to find our own way. Much respect.

Creighton had a small, but really great crowd, and a super-fan called out a request for “I think your name is Stacy.” That kind of stuff makes my damn day, every time. Pat – you rock.

In the morning, while checking out, I bumped into Agnostic Front in the lobby. They were in their classic mix of leather, camouflage, safety pins, calf-high Doc Martens, and pink Mohawks, all sitting in a tattooed row on a Holiday Inn couch, giggling at Ananda, which was playing on the TV overhead. They were rapt, repeating her jokes to one another, hanging on her guest’s words: “My man, he don’t hafta travel. I get him what he needs. Whoo- hoo! You know that. I’m like Home Depot – he don’t need to shop nowhere else.” They had just played the night before, some raging punk show in a storm of sweat and flailing bodies, but now they quietly piled into their beige rental car as I piled into mine. Whatever glamour exists in this profession does not exist on Omaha mornings. If you’ve seen a nightclub with all the lights on, you know what I mean.

I called in to Engine Company to see how the pre-orders were going. SO MANY have been sold off the site, it’s just crazy. Sometimes you forget how many people out there are listening. You hope they are, but you can never be sure, until they show themselves to you. God, did they ever. And in such force. I am so grateful. If you’re out there, thank you. Thank you. You’re going to really dig that disc. I know it.

:: mike 2:51 PM [+] ::

dear mom,

having a great time on the road. made some great new friends.

thanks for letting me borrow the car.

love,
mike


:: mike 10:01 PM [+] ::

2/06 – It just hit me. I’m in Nebraska. I’m in friggin Nebraska. What am I doing here? Right, I’m playing my guitar in Nebraska. That’s weird, suddenly, the way repeating a word over and over makes it sound all crazy. Nebraska. Neb..ra..ska. Nebrassss-ka. Oh-mah- hah. O-o-o-hma-a-a-a-ha Neb-b-br-a-a-s-s-s-ka. omahanebRASKA. Weird.



I am sitting in a steak house with my laptop. I look like an idiot, I realize. Next to me a couple is sitting in silence. She smiles at me; clearly, I’m staring, even though she’s not particularly attractive, or unattractive. She has shoulder length blonde hair, and a black button down cardigan on. She absently twirls her glass of pink zinfandel. He is meaty, in faded blue jeans and a nike polo shirt that is oozing over his belt line and onto his zipper. His arms are massive. He has short brown hair, parted at the side, and plastered down. He is pink, and bouncer-handsome. He makes me want to show him my ID. They are silent. Painfully silent. They sit there in the glow of the steakhouse lights and stare at each other. Finally, he says, “Wow. I feel like we’re married.” She sighs. I wince. Even I know that was a bad thing to say.

I thought I was just going to get a steak – hell, it’s Nebraska, I’m not leaving without a kick ass steak - but the tension at their table is spilling out all over me. She’s put her jacket on. She’s cold. They’re always cold. I don’t know why. She crosses her legs, he puts his head in his palms, with his elbows pressed into the table. Silent. She finally holds out her hand, and tightens her lips, concerned. He holds his hand out, and puts it in hers. They smile. They’re trying. Behind them, a family with three kids has arrived. The boy, about 5, is banging his fork against his knife like a mental patient. He is learning that life is a tough, heroic choice. He is learning that banging does occasionally help.

Their appetizers arrive. He leans forward and whispers something to her. She smiles, but it’s the kind of smile that seems borrowed from her mother, an old, musty, attic smile. Women hand them down to each other through the generations, and they use them too often, although often they have no choice. He knows that, but takes it. It was better than nothing, and she was generous to have given it to him, so unearned. They’re trying. The appetizers will help. The zinfandel will help. The kid banging the forks and knives together will finally say something so asinine that the two of them will crack up laughing, and they’ll have that to rally around for a little while. And they’ll have me, the freak with the laptop, threatening the waitress for her finest meat upon penalty of a ballroom dance to the Whitney Houston playing on the overhead speakers.

Hey - I did what I could to help.


:: mike 7:15 PM [+] ::

2/05 – Got into Omaha last night, one day early. I had to pull into a convenience store parking lot and sleep for a while. I kept the car idling, or I’d have been a block of ice. I let the tumbleweed out in the parking lot of the Clarion Inn, my home for the next 3 nights. It didn’t move. I nudged it forward, to give it a little boost. Nothing. What happened? Is it mad at me? On the next episode of Mike and the Tumbleweed, Tumbleweed’s grown attached. But it’s just not going to work like that. Nature works in both directions, weedie. This is how we learn to cope with each other. And ourselves. Sundays at 9 on the WB…special guest star Wynona Ryder attempts to shoplift Circus Peanuts from the Conoco truck stop and gets obliterated when the proprietor produces a Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher from behind the register.

Time to find a mall.

And sleep.

Amish sighting: 5, at the Amish Crafts Outlet in the Crossroads mall.
Dead deer sighted: 0
Mike has traveled: 2833.16 YAHOO! miles.
I don’t know why they’re YAHOO! miles.
:: mike 1:26 PM [+] ::

2/04 – Noon show at South Dakota State U. Noon shows are hard. Damn, they’re really hard. People aren’t in the mood for music at that hour, they’re still drinking coffee and hustling between classes. The buildings here are marked “Swine Research” and “Beef Herding,” which is really cool, I think. I love seeing how other people live their lives, and the choices they make. That’s definitely part of tour that I love. What would I have been had I been dealt different cards? Would I have been happier? Unanswerable questions – my special method of self-torture.

It is colder than women’s feet out here. All the bottled water in my car is rock solid; it has gone from sustenance to weapon overnight. Just as well. The radio regularly plays a public service announcement in a calm, but very firm male voice: “If you break down on the road, stay in the car. Your chances of survival greatly improve.” Survival? Did he just tell me about my chances of survival? I stroked the steering wheel of the Grand Cherokee. It has been completely fantastic. It has cruise control, radio dials on the steering wheel, a coffee cup holder, and heat. God bless you, Grand Cherokee. Had this been a 1992 VW Jetta, I’d be in a heap on the highway, next to the deer and the Amish, my orange hair twitching in the merciless South Dakota breeze.

The Student Activities Committee chairman came out of the building in an SDSU t-shirt. Their mascot is a Jackrabbit speeding across his chest with a big toothy, mischievous smile. I ran my tongue over the chip in my incisor, and held out my gloved hand. “Damn, dude, you must be freezing your ass off,” I marveled. He laughed, “Nah, it’s not so bad. It’s not too windy, yet.” I looked at the Grand Cherokee again. Maybe I should get the oil checked.

I really liked this guy. He was one of those super-smart, but also cool, guys who is a biology major, but on a theater scholarship, running student activities, down with all the ladies (“We think he’s really funny.”), probably a marathon runner, and in the church choir. He was it. The Mayor of SDSU.

I played the show (no idea what I played) in their Student Center, and stayed late to play a couple of songs for some people who missed it and were curious (and persistent). It was like “Unplugged,” though I’m barely “plugged” to begin with. As I loaded back into the car, a tumbleweed rolled across the circular drive of the Student Center. An actual tumbleweed. I was so psyched to see one. I ran after it (the wind was pushing it at a good clip) and packed it in the back with my stuff. I figured if it was born to roam, it’s found a compatriot. Come along with me, little buddy. I’ll show you the world. It’d be cool if it started talking back. Mike and the Tumbleweed – Sundays at 9 on the WB…this week, on a very special Mike and the Tumbleweed, Tumbleweed breaks off a big branch full of seeds in the back seat while Mike is unloading his equipment for another show.
“Tumbleweed?! What are you thinking?”
“I’m sorry, Mike. It’s just my nature.”
“Yeah, but…in the car?”
“LOOK…we both knew this day was coming, we just thought it would go away if we ignored it. We can’t live in denial anymore.”
“But, weedie…you’re shrinking. I’m afraid.” Pause.
“Mike…it’s time we faced up to our true selves. We knew it couldn’t last forever.”

Sundays at 9, 8 P.M. Central, on the WB.



I decided I’d take it to Omaha, let it out over there. How’s that for tumbling?

Amish sighting: 0
Dead deer sighting: 1 carcass, but lots of feathers and blood on the road from other varmints. One might have been a pig, though I doubt it, unless it fell off a truck. I thought there were turkeys littering the road, too, until I pulled into a truck stop and asked a woman with three tattooed prison tears down her left eye. “Ring-necked pheasant. They got a ring on they neck. They get kinda skinny this time a year. We got postcards of ‘em if you wanna know what they looks like when they ain’t flat. HA HA HAH…” Hideous carcinogenic laughter.
Mike has traveled: 2828.16 YAHOO! miles

:: mike 3:51 PM [+] ::

2/03 – Woke up in my clothes, stretched out over the bed, with the TV on. Only 2 hours drive to South Dakota, and nothing to do but watch the Super Bowl. Not really capable of much more than that, anyway. Tour is seeping into me. I am breathing into it. I pull off at random intervals and photograph beautiful things. Sometimes I think my photography is stupid and pointless, but then it ends up in the artwork of my CDs, and some of it is pretty cool. I think.

The Brookings, South Dakota Comfort Inn is right next to a Hardee’s, and the wind howls from that direction, unobstructed for hundreds of farmland miles. I stepped out of the car and was slapped with a blast of frozen French fries. I found a sports bar named Cubby’s and watched the game on the big screen. Screaming for the Patriots. Fuck the Rams. It turns out the Patriot kicker, Adam Vinatieri, went to school at South Dakota State University. The place went insane. They all knew him.

Dead deer sighted: 1 actual carcass, but the highway here is stained with huge patches of blood. Investigation has begun.
Amish sighted: 0
Mike has now driven: 2586.03 YAHOO! Miles

:: mike 3:18 PM [+] ::

2/2 – The days of improvisation begin. The Ames, IA gig fell through, so I was left with a potential day off and a drive to South Dakota to split over the next two days. I decided it was time to amuse myself, and visit the International Wrestling Museum and Hall of Fame, in Newton, Iowa. Unlike the hallowed Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, which I visited this past fall, the Wrestling Hall of Fame is connected to a Days Inn, perhaps where the pool used to be. I pulled in and watched an older man check out of his room with a girl of about 15 waiting in the passenger seat of his dirty white Mercury Montego. She wore a lot of sky blue eye shadow, and twisted her bubble gum around her finger, bored. Taped to the front door of the Hall of Fame was a note on Days Inn stationery:

COME IN THROUGH THE DOWNSTAIRS. PLEASE KNOCK LOUD.

I went down a short set of stairs, knocked, and walked into a small, fluorescent lit basement room with a single cluttered desk. A fifty-ish couple were bent over and sifting through large boxes full of paper. Both of their asses were facing me. An ancient blonde Great Dane lay in a bony heap beside the desk. The smell of mold was overpowering. “Oh, hey,” the woman said, straightening up. “You wanna check out the hall of fame? Sure. I’ll have to go up and turn the lights on.” The man chimed in, “We were thinking we’d get some work done, today,” and pulled the Great Dane off into another room.

The woman gave me a short spiel about how wrestling has existed since the early days of Greek Olympics. She charged me $3. She told me that Abe Lincoln was a wrestler, and wrestled a famous match against a local giant who later became a staunch Lincoln supporter in his bid for presidency. I asked if this Hall of Fame had anything to do with Hulk Hogan.


She sighed.
“No. That’s not really wrestling.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I knew that. I was just wondering…”
“Yeah, I know. I wish they would just name…that…something else.”
“So this is more focused on…?”
“Greco Roman wrestling.”
“Ah.” I paused. “Nothing about Hulkamania?”
“No.”

It was basically the Rulon Gardner museum (they proudly displayed his “Got Milk?” photos), along with decades worth of posters for Iowa collegiate wrestling squads looking very menacing at the foot of old grain silos with sleeveless t-shirts and rusty farm equipment gripped in their hands. I watched a short video on the world’s first filmed wrestling match which took place at Madison Square Garden. I bought some postcards. And drove across the state.



I decided to fight off exhaustion and make it to Sioux City. If it’s a day off, I’ve got to do something, and Sioux City seemed my only hope. 9 or so hours later, I pulled into the Sioux City Holiday Inn right off the exit, and asked a waitress at their restaurant where the fun was. She directed me to 4th Street, where there were bars, strip clubs, and live music. I followed her directions and ended up at Uncle John’s, a CD store/coffee shop/bar/restaurant/club with some punks and indie rock types smoking cigarettes next to older folkies. In smaller towns, all of the countercultural types flock together, unlike New York, which has specific bars for every kind of music, drink, sexual preference. All that choice breeds alienation. In some ways, seeing this mix is cooler. I told one of the waitresses about my Ames gig falling through, and asked if I could play a set here. “Well, the guy who was supposed to play is sick tonight. You’ll have to ask his replacement.”

His replacement was a totally cool guy who used to live in Connecticut, and was psyched to help out a fellow road dog. That’s what I am, now. A road dog. El Mariachi. I blow into town like the wind, like a mystery. Whatever. I set up as quickly as I could, and played a great set for these folks who stared at me like I was from some magical planet. A guitar thumping planet that the indie guys liked, but a planet with songs like “When She Walks By,” that the folkies liked. I set up a little merchandise booth and sold more CDs than at almost any other show on this tour. The club picked up my dinner tab. Casey, the manager of the club, came up and talked to me about booking something on the way back from the far west. I said sure. We closed the place and all went next door to watch a friend’s band play Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash songs. They were great, and an awesome toothless drunk woman danced and lifted her shirt for us. Casey smiled. “Welcome to the Midwest, Mike.” I made good friends here, and got back to the Holiday Inn so late, they dropped the price for me. Magical day.

Dead Deer sighted: 0, but several heaps of unidentified meat. Inconclusive.
Dead Amish sighted: 0
Mike has now driven: 2486.03 YAHOO! miles


:: mike 10:53 PM [+] ::

2/1 – woke up in the big mansion, totally disoriented. Creaked down the staircase to the car. The eyes on the paintings followed me. It was nice to drink a little last night. I can’t really do that too much, because of the driving. It was also great to see an old friend who lives out there. As a promotion, Lake Forest had handed out necklaces and bracelets to everyone who showed up. Mine’s cool, I think I’ll wear it for the rest of the tour.

Short drive to Illinois Wesleyan University’s Hansen Student Center, a new building structured like the biggest damn living room in the world. It was like Ludacris’ living room on “Cribs” or something, with two coffee shops, a book store, and ethernet ports everywhere. I played the downstairs level on their new sound system, which sounded good. As the shows keep happening, I keep getting better, but the schools also seem more and more organized and strong on the promotion front. The result is just a better show all around. Tallboys are selling really well out here, which always makes me happy.

Set: Springtime/god/strawberry/be your man/sooner or later/daylight/when I get out of jail/when she walks by/underwater/someday.

:: mike 10:41 PM [+] ::

:: mike 7:01 AM [+] ::

1/31 – drive to Lake Forest College. I pulled over for gas, and started talking to the cash register lady. No, nothing happened…she just told me about a great Italian restaurant called Little Maria’s in Coal City, Illinois. I suddenly got homesick. I topped off my gas tank and parked. I heard the mandolins from the parking lot, walked in, and…well, it wasn’t really home, or not my home, the land of the Sopranos and the St. Gennaro festival, but it felt like a place that was at least trying. I appreciated the effort. Aquariums lined the walls with oversized, orange and black splotched fish pacing lazily past the treasure chest. The floor was lined with battered maroon carpeting, and glowing along the walls in dull chandelier light were landscapes of mustachioed Venetian gondoliers and dusty mandolins (mandolins! My great uncle was a mandolin player in the old country! Mama! Just kidding.) On the overhead, the old refrain…V-o-o-lare, who-o-a, music to my ears. All here in Coal City.



I admit, I was confused by the menu, not by the scungilli or braccioli, but by the “Italian Meatball Poorboy.” Served with fries. I had been fooling myself. The second the bee-hived woman dropped my chicken parm on the table, I realized, what were you thinking, mike? You’re not home. You’re not going to be home. You’re in Coal City, Illinois with people who wanted a change of pace from Domino’s. You are still resisting tour. You are still attempting to touch the home shores. But your attempts are in vain. You cannot resist tour, and now you are to be reminded. The big old fish in the tank turned and stared at me. Leave this place, they said. Interloper! I stared back at them, disbelieving. An air bubble escaped from the lead fishes’ mouth, danced to the surface, and erupted with a message. Va in goulo! I pushed my plate away from me.


Lake Forest – played in a fantastic chapel for a small, but very cool crowd. This might have been my favorite gig of the tour. The closer I get to major metropolitan areas, the more friendly faces I see. I caught up with a couple of super-fans who I’ve spoken with several times over email, and one of them taped the show. It might be out there, available for trade. I know I’ve been getting email for me to post the setlists, but I had forgotten my setlist backstage for this one, and just went based on requests and what I thought would sound good in this beautiful space (“God”--duh.) It went something like: springtime/strawberry song/be your man/sooner or later/god/keep it to myself/good things/shook me all night long, with a story about getting my hair dyed blonde/when I get out of jail/when she walks by/daylight/someday… I may have missed a few, but probably not many. After, a couple of drinks at the Wooden Nickel, conversation with a completely wasted woman with writing all over her arms (not tattoos…writing), and lodging on campus in a gigantic, empty mansion with massive portraits of dead people with eyes that followed me as I poked through the kitchen and basement for pretzels. I was the only one there, and it was spooky, but not nearly as spooky as the Super 8, where it’s just actual people with eyes that follow you.

Amish people sighting: 0
Dead deer sighting: 0
YAHOO! miles traveled: 1787.76
:: mike 6:59 AM [+] ::

have...grown...a...beard. purchased...a...volleyball...talk to it...a lot. know all the words...to...Uncle Cracker songs...I sing them...to the...volleyball.

just kidding.
:: mike 3:32 PM [+] ::

1/30- Early breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. I think I’m not supposed to come here, because they don’t hire minorities, or gays, or something. I’ve gotten enough conflicting information that my conscience is somewhat on hold, but I do think my hostess, a man, could have gone either way. And, as Tallboy 2 notes, the bacon is worth the trip. An added feature is a gigantic fireplace, which they’ve dumped a truly American quantity of logs onto. Does anything beat the smell of a fireplace? I needed something like a fire. It’s starting to get cold.

Gig at Lake Land College – I doubt I’ll see a more beautiful stage than this one. Totally gorgeous theater, with seats that slope up, and everything. Sounded great. “1000 miles” sounded great. “Good Things” got better, and it continues to drift further from the emo-core tune it actually is. A guy name Josh asked to open for me, so I said sure. He was really good. I wish him the best, and hope he keeps in touch.

THEN MEDICAL TRAGEDY STRUCK – I figured what the hell, breakfast was good, why not lunch down the road at Cracker Barrel. They’re all so incredibly the same, I swear 2 hours down the road it was the same waitress, the same logs on the fire, now burned down to coals. Cracker Barrels are wormholes. I was eating and talking on the phone, and somehow I caught the fork weird in my mouth, and chipped my front tooth. God fucking dammit. I look like some dude in the Pogues, now. And not even a bar brawl to remember it by. I don’t think I chipped it bad enough to notice.But it feels pretty jagged in my mouth.

It just keeps raining and raining.

Amish people sighting: 0
Dead deer sighting: 0


:: mike 12:10 AM [+] ::

1/29 – The liquid egg controversy deepens. While cagily asking my waitron at the Perkins in Jacksonville, IL whether they have liquid eggs (I tell them that it’s a “diet issue” and then stare at them, implying that if they don’t tell me the truth, it will be only moments before I am projectile vomiting), she cocked her head, and said, “Well, we have both. Regular eggs and Ultra Eggs.” Ultra eggs? You’re kidding me. “Yeah, they’re supposed to be, like, low cholesterol. Or something.” She shrugged. I stared. On the overhead system, Jim Nabors was singing, “…close the window, come alive, and it will be all right/ no need to bother now/ let it out/ let it all begin/ learn how to pretend.” Ultra eggs. All I did was ask a question one day, and now I feel like I’ve walked into the X-Files.

For more on liquid eggs, check out

Robert Randolph gig at the Chicago house of blues has fallen through. Just as well. He plays too fast.

Gig at Illinois College. Total student body: 1000 students. While unloading the car, I walked by a campus tour for prospective students, led by woman in a blue IC sweatshirt. The woman was going on about the age of all the buildings, the philosophy the school was founded on, the advantages IC had to offer. A concerned father, eager to know more about his daughter’s life-shaping decision, broke ranks, raised his hand, and asked the guide, “Do the pizza places deliver directly to the dorm rooms?” “Oh, yes, there are four major pizza delivery places here in town, KJ’s, Vic’s, Benny’s…”

The gig was strong, but tough. This is totally untested ground for me. Virgin snow. I’m Christopher Columbus. I’m Neil Armstrong. I played their “Uncommons,” which could fit about 150-200 students (mathematically, 20% of the entire student body). They rented a sound system (with lights) that was big enough for most nightclubs. The PA speakers must have been 12 feet high. Had I turned it past “1” on the guitar, I would have killed them all and spent the rest of my life in the nearby Jacksonville Correctional Center. The lights were numerous, multi-colored, and clustered very close to my forehead – I could have extended my hand and touched them, which would have been a very stupid to do, as I figure the nearest burn center must be Chicago, where I am not routed to go to this trip. I played, and cooked. I tried my tour song, “Good Things” by rival schools. I don’t think they dug it, and I don’t think I did it well. New stuff is always shaky, and it takes a couple runs to find how it really works. They liked “Shook Me All Night Long” and “Someday”, I think. I must have talked a lot, because they bought a lot of Tallboys. I’m out of Tboy4, now. Time to reprint it. Again. That one’s probably my favorite.

Long drive after the gig, past the shining wet barbed wire of the Jacksonville Correctional facility, lit up like some man-made version of day. It’s always some version of day in prison, I guess. I thought about all those prisoners, getting ready to sleep. I know that people think the death penalty is stronger justice, but to be locked in a cell and left to feel this short life leaving you…maybe it’s only philosophical punishment, but I don’t think so. On random silent nights in the rain, it must really hurt. It must be nights like this when conversions occur, when Jesus arrives and bares his palms. But what do I know.

1AM, pulled into the Mattoon, IL Super 8. My agent has spared no expense. That can’t be a puke stain on the boxspring. It is too late to deal. I have soundcheck at 9am the next day. Quick shot of TV – couldn’t find out about the State of the Union, but saw that Mike Tyson was denied a Nevada state boxing license. That guy. I’m so fascinated by him. He has clearly forgotten the line between therapy and art. He forgets that the channels that report on him also report on golf. And cricket.


:: mike 8:49 AM [+] ::

1/28 –
noon show at IUPUI – real informal setting, but there are folks out here who really know my stuff. I’m kind of amazed, as I only came near Indiana once, with Mike Glabicki from Rusted Root. They were calling out “American Royalty” and “Happy” and “On This Train”, songs they’d heard about from Moxy Fruvous message boards. It made my day. I really hope they buy my live disc, because I’m so proud of it, and when I play in front of small groups of people, I want them to know that it’s not like this everywhere. I want them to know that they’re not alone, and I want to introduce these people to each other. I think they’d all get along pretty great. Maybe hook up. Share needles. Or both!

On that little cloud of fan support, I kinda floated the four and a half hour drive to the Jacksonville, IL Super 8. I’ve already given up on FM, and listened to talk radio about government-sanctioned chemical castration for sex offenders, college basketball, and aliens foretold in the Bible code. At a truck stop, I bought my girl back home a “panty rose”, which is a plastic long-stemmed rose with petals that roll out into a red g-string. Get it? Panty rose. I love truck stops. I love America.


Amish people sighting: 0
Dead deer sighting: 0



:: mike 8:47 AM [+] ::

1/27- Drive. inconclusive research concerning liquid eggs: while it would certainly seem apparent that the Eat‘n’Park would utilize all nutritional shortcuts available, I ate a ham egg’n’cheese to quickly to know if they were real or not.

in Pittsburgh, pulled over at a Ruby Tuesday's to watch the end of the Steelers game. Every time I step out of the car I'm in another state.

Amish people sighting: 4
Dead deer sighting: 2


:: mike 8:53 PM [+] ::

1/26 – pull out of NYC, around 7pm. Drive. I have an official tour song already, “Good Things” by rival schools. I can’t stop singing it. I think I’ll have to try to cover it. We’ll see. On PA radio, the DJ’s are all screaming and praying for an all-PA Super Bowl.

2am – pull in to a Quality Inn somewhere in Harrisburg. Dinner is a pre-wrapped “Italian sub” from a truck stop. I put it in the microwave, and watched the packaging swell around the sandwich. A food blister.

:: mike 8:50 PM [+] ::

Springfield, MA - great gig, played in front of a gigantic American flag, though I didn't get why a benefit would have been closed to the public. Still, some friendly faces snuck in, and a guy who was actually at the Old Age Home gig (immortalized in Tboy4) - he picked up a copy, and now will get the whole story. John Lardieri also played - great guy.

I signed someone's acoustic 12 string, next to Zakk Wylde's signature (Ozzy's band, I'm pretty sure), which was awesome. I've never done that before. I'm in good company, now.

Frantically putting shit together in the car. Washing socks (no, not by hand). 14 hr drive over the next day and a half, I'd like to split it up, find a roadside motel somewhere about 5 hrs from here (that's ambitious). It'd be funny to add up the miles at the end. What a number that'll be. Car is loaded down like a galleon. Listing to the leeward.



:: mike 4:36 PM [+] ::

VH1 has finally spoken regarding my theme song for their new show, called "Nevermind the Buzzcocks":
Here are the quotes: "too punk, too retro, ends too abruptly, ends with the words 'nevermind' instead of 'buzzcocks.' Needs to be more rock & roll, less punk. we don't want a tweak - we want a whole new take on it."

Too punk for a show called "Nevermind the Buzzcocks"? Sorry, I can't do "Nevermind the Counting Crows." Not now. I've dyed my hair bright orange and yellow and it's on. Time to tour.

:: mike 10:19 PM [+] ::

Nebraska in February. Deer wander up on the highways to eat cold fries off the shoulder. I totalled a car out there, once, and ended up with a concussion in a motel room in St. Francis, KS, watching They Live, starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Roddy got hold of a special pair of glasses that could discern humans from aliens, and could de-code billboard ads as political slogans about enslaving humanity. I flew out of Denver and got an MRI.
:: mike 11:15 AM [+] ::

tour schedule continues to fill...it's totally insane. Possible opening dates for the Wailers in KS and Robert Randolph at Chicago House of Blues. I've been there once - it is an amazing room, despite the ironic fact that none of the blues players that plaster the walls could afford a night there. (There's a hotel section, too. Each room has official "Blues Brothers" Jake and Elwood hats on the wall, with a price tag attached. I remember it being $12.) Still, they treat artists well at all the HoBlues clubs, much better than most places. Food, a nice backstage, a little something to drink -- not much is really needed, for me, anyway. The night I was there, I opened for Far Too Jones, and then they cleared the room out, and Al Green played the late set. Someone got shot in the parking lot that night, but I didn't find out until the next day.

Mentioned to my tour manager the concept of flying in from NE on Feb. 9 to record the VH1 theme, then flying back on the 10th or 11th. If that worked out, I wouldn't even miss a gig. That is, unless the Wailers thing comes through. "That'd be hardcore," was the response. As if driving to SD in February isn't, already. But fuck it. I can do it. I have a CD player in the car.

This whole life is one of reacting. It's very hard to plan, because something always comes up. It's all contingencies, and suitcases. My sister gave me a rain jacket and a cool pair of cargo pants. I'll probably just pull off the tags and jump on stage with them. I have not even considered packing. Packing will be picking stuff up off the floor and putting it in a bag.

rock





:: mike 7:28 AM [+] ::

concern: VH1 has asked me to write a theme song for a new show. I've done it, but will have to go into the studio with live musicians and really kill it: it's a hard rockin', "Daylight" meets Foo Fighters thing. I got it done over the weekend. They never picked it up. Now they want it, and will want the finished product before I leave. No chance of that happening. Kinda their fault for dragging their feet. But, if we get all the proper approvals, I may have to do something extreme, like bag a few dates, fly in to the city, fly out, and get back on tour.

shit.
:: mike 12:26 PM [+] ::

:: mike 8:37 AM [+] ::