:: tourlog 2002 ::

:: Saturday, February 09, 2002 ::

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 [+] ::