:: tourlog 2002 ::

:: Saturday, February 02, 2002 ::

:: 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 [+] ::