New Mexico; and Back Home

Wow.

Seated in Winning's Coffeeshop, Albuquerque, NM; played my final show of the tour last night. Well, I'm playing at Cafe Ole tonight, to wrap things up; but last night was the last road show. But first, a recap of the final days in Boulder, and then the show in Taos.

Monday May 3rd I had a day off, to just hang out; the weather proved to be awesome, so I decided to go for a hike. Turns out Johnny Wonder lives there, hadn't known; but we ended up joining forces for a trek into the wilderness. Well, up the mountains next to Boulder, anyway.

I hadn't seen Johnny in a couple years; he had been part of the Flagstaff music scene in the early aughts, like so many of us. Actually, the first time I went to the Charly's open mic in September of 00, I saw him play. He did his parody of "La Bamba", called "Vagina", which blew my mind and brought the house down.

Anyway, up to Royal Arch, which is pretty incredible; you can walk through it, and the view on the other side is pretty much breathtaking. It was nice to get out and hike after so damn much time in the car, though I was feeling having spent three weeks doin nothing but play, drive, and eat. The hike is about 6 miles round trip, with a 1500 foot ascent/descent, which is fairly intense, especially after a long stretch of leisure and laziness. Felt great.

Headed out next day at around noon; met Seth for lunch at a crepe place in downtown Golden, pretty schnazzy. It was windy as hell, which would prove to be a royal pain during the drive; I was fighting the wheel the whole time, 60 mph gusts just slamming in the rectangular profile of the Volvo. I arrived in Taos about an hour before the show, basically enough time to change clothes and head on down there.

Shadows was a sports bar. No other way to describe it. Flatscreen TVs, a video projector, the whole bit. However, it also had a pretty sweet, funky feel; and it turned out they turned all the TVs off except for two behind the bar when I started playing. That was good, since the stage was literally right next to the projector screen.

I got some curious looks as I set up; but once I started playing, people were fairly indifferent (as will happen sometimes.) I've found that, when you start playing at a restaurant, the people who were there before you started setting up are the toughest to win over. They already had a groove going without your sorry musical ass interrupting, and they aren't really interested. So be it. I did manage to garner some applause, which was fine; but I was mostly feeling tired from the 5 hour drive combating the wind. The second set I felt better, looser, and sunk into a groove; there weren't so many people there, but they were enthusiastic, which was nice. A bit of a letdown after the Boulder show, but you'll have that; and frankly, it's good to be reminded that not everyone thinks your the shit, that in fact most people don't and won't. It's always enough just to reach a couple of people, and sometimes those couple of people happen to all be in the same place, and you get a rocking good crowd like the one in Boulder. Taos was the other end of the spectrum, but not totally; there were a good handful of people there enjoying themselves, and they made sure to let me know. At the end of the night the bartender tipped me close to ten bucks, which she didn't have to do at all; I had tipped her $5, for bringing me my dinner and supplying me with coffee and water, but I always do that, and feel like it's the right thing to do. She just returned the favor, and wouldn't take no for an answer.

I was pretty much exhausted after the gig; playing to a mostly indifferent and/or empty room is much more tiring than playing a full, enthusiastic place, and I was already beat. Slept well, got up early, and on the road to Albuquerque.

The road between Taos and Santa Fe is gorgeous. Winding between the delicately curved, green hills of northern New Mexico, I am almost instantly brought back to the delicate, pseudo-philosophical frame of mind I achieved while studying at Saint John's College in Santa Fe. It's always refreshing.

Along the way I stopped at the former site of El Quinto Sol, a bar I used to go to in the late 90s to see Thamusemeant and Apricot Jam. It had been shut down for five years, and had been turned into a restaurant before that. It made me sad to see. There were people doing some work on it, getting it ready for some folks who would be renting it as a residence for - get this - $850 a month. They'd be doing some work, too, but still that's a ridiculously smokin deal for such a space. I couldn't help think about the house show possibilities in such a place. Anyway, they let me in and I took a picture of the stage, then went on my way.

Santa Fe was as a I remembered it; I ate lunch at Horseman's Haven, home of the hottest food I've ever had in my life. They have a Saint John's College sticker on the cooler by the counter, and I combated many a hangover by eating there back in the day whilst going to SJC. I bought a pint of the level 2 green chili, with which I will make some green chili stew, and afflict everyone I know who will let me with it. It lays the most ardent lover of hot food low; I'm usually the only one I know who can eat the stew, which pretty much ensures I don't have to share. Afterward I stopped at a thrift store to shop for a hat, as I had misplaced my Old Time Hockey one (I later found it in the car, under some stuff).

After the trip to the thriftstore I went up to SJC, to reminisce and to hike up Monte Sol, which is right next to campus, and is a beautiful, short steep hike. In my brief sojourn through campus I ran into Matt Johnston, who had been my RA my senior year. He was the Res Life director, and had helped organize a blood drive. I didn't recognize him, he had grown a rather respectably scruffy beard, and walked right past him; then he said, "what's up Matt Miller?" and thus we started talking. I gave him CDs, and promised to talk about him at the show coming up for Reality (I'll be playing with Annie Jump Cannon on the 15th of May; Reality is a three-day party that the Sophomore class organizes every year at SJC, and while I won't be drinking of course, I will be there to get down). I still remember that we didn't even see him in the dorm for the first week and a half of senior year. Pretty funny.

Then it was off to Albuquerque, where I would play at the St Clair Bistro. They have a great patio, which is covered, but which was nevertheless really warm. I set up in my hiking clothes, which made me seem rather more scruffy than I would when I played. It amused me to think that I would look like a roadie while I was setting up, then would look like a somewhat more well-dressed performer once I got on stage. The place was just down the street from what used to be the Sheraton Old Town, where I had worked waiting tables in the summer of 95. I can't remember what the place was called, but I do remember being required to purchase and wear white tuxedo shirts and a silver bolo tie. Wish I still had the tie; I sold it at the yard sale I held when I left Santa Fe after college.

Anyway, just as I was finishing getting set up, Jared from Le Chat Lunatique walked up. One of the best bands in Albuquerque, I had played shows with them with Phantom Vibration, and always made the effort to keep in touch. As the man said, a swell buncha guys, really humble and cool for, which quite remarkable considering what a phenomenal band they are. Jared had basically gotten me the gig, as he told me I could drop their name while I was contacting the booker. He stuck around through a good portion of the first set, when people were still acting like there wasn't a musician there apart from a few bits of scattered applause. (cf my earlier note about starting to play in a restaurant, and the people who are already there). I took a break after a fairly short set, just 40 minutes, and resolved to drink coffee and water until the sun finished going behind the neighboring building. It was windy, and pretty damned warm.

While I was on setbreak Muni (pronounced "moonie"), another member of Le Chat, turned up and sat down with me. He's the most social of the members of the band, and it was no surprise that he knew a girl who worked there. He and I talked for a bit, I told him a bit about the tour, then it was time for me to get back on stage and play some more. I gave Muni the camera to take a couple pictures while I played. The crowd had filled out a bit, but was still fairly non-responsive until the last half of the set; I took a break at 8, got more coffee and water, then went back on to finish up.

By the start of my last set the sun had gone completely down, thus cooling things off considerably. Two older ladies sat down as I was playing the first song, and proved to be enthusiastic listeners and participants; sometimes that's all it takes to make everyone else feel more comfortable, and from that point on I could comfortably engage the crowd, and got rounds of applause after every song. People just aren't sure what the protocol is for a solo artist, sometimes; that, coupled with a natural tendency for most people to display a not inconsiderable indifference, leads to awkward silence after songs a lot of the time. That spell was broken, though, and people were even comfortable with me talking to them between songs, which also requires that they relax quite a bit. It turned out that she was a music teacher, and had a grandson who played guitar and wrote songs, too. She said she was the one who supported him, and bought him instruments, and encouraged him to play and be happy rather than to seek for wealth or fame. She bought both of my CDs, and I gave her two Songwalk CDs, as well.

A bit into the last set, Rowan Lange and her girlfriend walked into the place and sat down. I had sent her an email about the show; she went to SJC too, and we had had senior lab together. I had last seen her in Tucson, when I went to the Dust Devil - the southwestern regional rollerderby championships. She had wowed the crowd by body-checking Deadlock Doe off the track; Doe worked a jackhammer, she was an unstoppable force, and Ro (Death Ro, as she is known on the flat-track) had knocked her the fuck over. I should mention that Rowan is a shade over five feet, and weighs a bit over 100 pounds. The crowd exploded, and it is my most distinct memory of the whole event. She and I hadn't had much time to chat then, but it was great to see her at the show, and to shoot the shit. One of the neatest things about being on the road is catching up with old friends.

And that was the tour; the last show was more or less the whole in microcosm, with some indifference, some friends, and some enthsiastic, friendly strangers. And now, back to the car to see if I have a ticket for overstaying my parking meter; and to drive back to Flagstaff, where I'll play at Cafe Ole tonight, and then sleep like a pile of rocks. I had a great time; but it'll be great to be home, and to be able to get started on a number of other projects I have in mind - like booking the next tour, in September. Until then.

The World Famous Dark Horse Saloon, Boulder, Colorado

After the hike with Seth, I showered and headed off to find the world famous Dark Horse (that's how they answer the phone) – a funky joint, it turns out, with tons of interesting stuff on the walls which I completely failed to photograph. I am a bad documentationer. Ah, well. Anyway, I was supposed to play outside; which, given my experience in Grand Junction, and the state of the sky in Golden when Seth and I went on our little walk up the bluff, seemed a tough option. I headed on over anyway, thinking I had to show up and give it a shot. Just as I pulled into the parking lot, the sun came out – and the clouds split up to reveal a huge swath of blue sky. It had been clearing up while I was driving, but the sun was still behind the clouds, and I didn’t really have a view of how much through the roof of the car.

The patio at the Dark Horse was pretty sweet, surrounded by 8 foot walls with glass constituting the top four, providing a great shield against the wind, and a nice little mini-greenhouse effect to keep you warm – provided it was sunny. I went in and met Mike, who had booked the show; he proved to be a really friendly, instantly likeable dude. He looked at me and said, “you’re playing here in a week, aren’t you!” to which I replied, “I’m playing here today!” Pretty funny. He had someone open up the door to the patio so I could get my gear inside.

The wind continued to blow a bit while I was setting up, and the clouds continued to move; I had gotten there around 3:40, so over an hour before the gig – which meant there was lots of time for me to relax, set up and upload pictures on my computer, and for the weather to change. I decided to record the show, figuring that it was an interesting enough joint that it might be a lot of fun.

By 4:55 there were like three people on the patio, who moved inside once they finished their cigarettes; there was one dude doing homework against the patio wall. I figured I’d give it a bit before I started, to either let more people show up or the sun come out; Mike had just gotten off work, and he came out and shot the shit with me while the sun went behind the clouds again and it cooled off considerably. Even so a handful of people, mostly friends of Mike’s and/or some co-workers, had turned up by then, so I started playing.

The guitar strings were damned chilly with the sun hidden, and I found my fingers growing a trifle clumsy as I tried to do stuff that would normally come easily. Nothing to do for it but play through it, though, so I kept at it, to good response from the people there. I loosened up, and started telling stories and bantering. One guy – Joey - kept asking for Freebird, and being shouted down by everyone else there. He proved to be a pretty good sport about me giving him shit over the mic, laughing along with everyone else, and thus the best kind of heckler. He told me later, he had a buddy who used to do comedy, and who would ask him to come to the show and start shouting dumb shit, so he had someone in the crowd to play off of.

Mike and his buddies sat and listened intently to almost every song, apart from some brief moments interrupted by the usual stuff that interrupts things in bars. He and Curtis, who worked there also, laughed at appropriate moments in the tunes, and caught some of the more subtle lines (read: stuff that most people don’t end up reacting to), and in general proved to be great audience members. (Curtis told me at set break that he mostly was into hip-hop, but even so was really digging my tunes; it’s always great to reach someone who’s into a vastly different style of music). They were being so responsive ant attentive in fact, that everyone else there started following their lead - which got me wound up and playing better, bantering better, and so on.

It had been cloudy for 45 minutes or so, and increasingly chilly as the clouds ate up more of the sun; Mike brought me a cup of coffee, which warmed me up quite a bit (especially when I stood there with it in my hand while I told a five minute story, which I can’t remember at all). I started playing “A Step in the Right Direction”, which people reacted really well to; Mike and Curtis both were catching some of the odder, quirkier lines, and everyone else there was getting into it, too. In the middle of the bridge, which culminates with “It’s a step in the right direction” repeated twice, the sun broke through the clouds, and everyone went berserk. It was an extremely special moment, and it set the tone for the rest of the show, and for how I’ll remember the day.

From that point on, more people filtered out onto the patio, and things warmed up even more – both in terms of the weather, and in terms of the crowd. Your Favorite Restaurant (which I went into once Joey, the guy who kept asking for Freebird, asked if I did any country) went over great, but so did almost every song. It’s not often a show goes that well, with the right crowd in the right mood. It was only the second show I had played all tour where I didn’t have any friends or people I knew in the crowd at all to help swing the mood, and it was easily the most fulfilling of them all – like winning an away game, I suppose. You can tell when people are really picking up what you’re laying down, and when they’re just enjoying you as background music, or when they are digging it, but maybe not resonating with everying you’re saying. People there seemed to get it. Of course, being as how I’m three weeks into the tour, playing almost every day, my chops are pretty sharp; and I felt very good about the performance.

From the funky to the strange to the folky to the country, every song I played went over really well. This tour has had some mediocre gigs; where peole haven’t been too excited or interested in the random longhaired dude playing and singing in the corner, or haven’t been demonstrative, or just haven’t been there. This was a fulfilling show; if you get one gig a tour that goes as well as the one at the Dark Horse did, I think you’ll be a happy performer. They were enthusiastic about having me back.

Off to Taos, NM, today, to play at Shadows Lounge and Grill. Back to the Land of Entrapment, and green and red chili.

Colorado (Yes, All Of It)

So. Several days to cover, as always. Hard to fathom that this is almost done; I'll be back in Flagstaff in just four days, maybe even three if I'm feeling feisty after the gig on Wednesday in Albuquerque. But enough about the future! Let us reminisce about the past.

I arrived in Grand Junction well before the gig; it's less than a two hour drive from Moab, and I didn't really feel much like dawdling there. I've been to Moab a ton; GJ would be a first for me, and I wanted to spend a little time there.

I hit up a coffee shop/bagel place downtown, to get some grub and catch up on me blog (an ongoing theme). The place was a little surreal, playing 40s pop music while people chowed on bagel sandwiches and joe. I spent a good couple hours there, then headed out to shower before the gig. I managed to get a brief nap in, too, which was just dandy.

I was supposed to play on the patio at The Ale House, a brewery/restaurant. The weather looked spectacularly uncooperative (c.f. the last two days in Moab); but I packed up and headed over to check the place out. When I got there the manager said I could set up and give it a shot if I wanted to, but that he expected that it would rain, and no one would be on the patio; he also couldn't have music inside, as it would just take up a table that people would have otherwise sat at (Fridays being, apparently, completely berserk there. And it was; though a waitress told me, it was actually a bit slow. Mahgod.) Anyway, he and I went back and forth a bit, and he finally agreed to pay me half of the guarantee, even though I wouldn't play at all and wouldn't even try. Nice sometimes to get paid for not playing; I was a bit disappointed, but at the same time somewhat relieved that I would get a night off. The previous few days had taken it out of me, what with the long drives and multiple giggery. So, I accepted my filthy lucre, carried my stuff back to the car, and tried to figure out what I'd do with myself.

Someone told me about an art show with live music downtown; that seemed like as good a place to start as any, so I drove over and parked across the street. It was about 8; the place was still pretty slow, and I needed to get some food anyway. The next building over was a coffee shop, so I decided to grab a cup & ask a few questions. Roasted Coffee and Subs was the name; a pretty small place, with a long-haired, bearded dude behind the counter, and a knot of people just inside the door at the counter. I ordered the coffee, and asked about music that night; he said "Those are the people you'd want to talk to", and directed my attention at the aforementioned knot. They proved to be mostly musicians themselves, but offered the opinion that there was, in fact, nothing to do in town, and nothing worth checking out. Kind of grim, really; we talked a bit about some other possibilities, but then I finally suggested that we just jam right there in the coffee shop, which they were into. One went to get a guitar, another a violin, and we sat around trading songs for a couple hours, attracting a small group of people in the process. Turns out that Roasted is quite the nexus for people to meet an connect with one another; the lady at the art show next door told me later that she had been waiting for years for that kind of connecting to really start to happen. Who knows, really, how in tune with everything in town she may or may not have been; but it was definitely an interesting idea, to think that Grand Junction might have been in the beginning of a renaissance (the Redneck Renaissance, as I like to call it). The guy running the coffee shop (he turned out to be one of the owners) fed me a sandwich for playing and getting the jam session going, which was nice. Sometimes that's all it takes.

I headed over to the art show, which by this time had wound down to an almost empty room. I paid the cover, figuring it is always good to support local art in its most interesting forms, and wandered around checking it out. The theme was "Gifts of the Goddess", and had pieces by something like 35 different artists, in all different media. Plus there were snacks, which always helps. There was a DJ, who seemed not to be super thrilled about spinning for nobody; I guess it was his last show in town, he was moving on to greener pastures - to be expected, perhaps.

I split after that, to head out to hang out more with the guys i had been jamming with before; the violin player had called it a musician's collective, which effectively meant six or so people living in an apartment together, playing music a lot, and letting things get cluttered and dingy together. Bohemia at its best, really. By the time I got there, the guys I had been jamming with were gone; but I ended up jamming with the folks who did live there, one of whom played clarinet, and gave me a basic intro to playing the clarinet. She said I was doing well for someone who had never tried to play one before, which was encouraging; the strange contortions you have to put your hands in to get the valves covered to play the most basic scale were definitely not, however. I wondered if my damned hands were just too big to play the dumb thing, but I will persevere.

Headed out at about 1 a.m. to crash, having counted the night a great success; the gig getting canceled was actually a very cool thing for me, as it gave me the chance to hang out and jam with several local folks, which I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do otherwise. I passed out and slept well.

Let myself have a nice, mellow morning the next day; the drive to Boulder wasn't that long, and the gig in Nederland didn't start until 9 PM, so it was fine getting out of town by 1. The drive was epic; amazing mountain views, with tons of fairly fresh snow in the higher elevations and carpeting the mountains all around. I took a bazillion pictures while behind the wheel; really ridiculously gorgeous. Drove through Vail pass, at 10,300 feet or so; tons of snow on the ground there. Then descended back down to more human elevations, at around 5000 feet: Golden, Colorado, home to one Seth Ruggles, younger brother to Erik Ruggles. Seth and I hadn't seen each other in a long time, and couldn't remember when the last time was; great hospitality, the first manifestation of which was offering to drive me to my gig in Nederland - a good 35 minutes and 3000 feet in elevation away. I took him up on it, and he and is girlfriend Shea helped me move my gear into the back of their Saab, so we could cruise on up to the Pioneer Inn, the site of my next gig.

Nederland is a funny town; kind of like Jerome in Arizona, but more remote - and, thus, a bit freakier and funkier. I'd been looking forward to this gig all tour, as being one sure to present a singular experience in one sense or another. Nederland is best known for having an annual festival in honor of a frozen dead guy - i.e., Frozen Dead Guy Days, in honor of a Norwegian man who is cryogenically frozen in a Tuff Shed. Google it, look it up on YouTube, whatever - my descriptions can't possibly do justice to what goes on there. Suffice to say, an interesting place.

The Pioneer was an instantly memorable locale; wood paneling, crusty-looking dudes at and behind the bar (the bartender was an ex-jerseyite named Bones, with the attitude and accent to prove it; he was a chill guy, very friendly, but no-nonsense in the way that you only find in the east coast.) Seth & Shea went off to meet some folks at a nearby barbecue place, while I set up my gear and ate the complimentary meal that was part of my arrangement with the Pioneer. They told me to order the fish & chips, which proved to be mediocre; but I had been pining for fish & chips all trip, and couldn't resist the possibility that they might actually be awesome. Ah well.

I ended up setting up in front of the (unlit) fireplace, which gave me a bit of a raised platform upon which to play, and stuck me right next to a stuffed elk head - makes for great visuals, of course. While I was setting up a dude named David came and chatted with me, telling me about his work as a stonemason ("who holds back the electric car?") and whatnot. This would all prove somehow salient later. I got done hooking up all my gear, and the computer (I had decided to record the show), then went down the street to hang with Seth, Shea, and their friends. And a good thing, too, since the place was otherwise almost empty when we got back, and I started to play.

As I'll often do when I've got a friendly, sympathetic crowd (read: there are people I know there), I blathered on for a while before I started playing. Several minutes in, the guy I had chatted with earlier started heckling me about starting to play - "I can't hear the music, Matt!" (reference to an earlier moment he and I had had earlier). Apparently he was annoyed that I was talking, and not playing, which I found rather amusing in that talking and telling stories is part and parcel to the singer/songwriter whole goddamn raison d'etre. I told him as much, hoping to shut him up without being too rude. He kept it up, though. This went on for a while, though I tried to blow it off, and made the group I had come with uncomfortable to varying degrees. I can take some heckling, of course, but this wasn't your good-natured stuff - he was drunk and ornery, and taking it out on me. I finally just told him he needed to settle down (I may have said "settle the fuck down", I can't really remember), which got an uncomfortable silence from the room but worked. I managed to soothe the situation with the other folks in the bar by going on about how I'd put up with anything up to a point, but eventually you have to draw a line, and everyone relaxed. I wondered to myself for a few minutes there if I wasn't about to get into a fight with a local just minutes after taking the stage. You have to expect that kind of thing when you play small, funky, mountain towns; but, though the heckling is of a higher intensity (and often, frankly, higher caliber) it's almost never driven by any kind of genuine aggressive spirit. This guy, I later learned, had just had a fight with his wife, and was looking to get into it with someone. Anyway, he left the bar shortly thereafter.

The small group that Seth had brought were pretty attentive and cool; I had a great time playing for them. They all left after my first set, except Seth and Shea, who were stuck there because they had foolishly offered to drive me to the gig. But when I got up to play my second set, the bar started to fill up; apparently night life in Nederland doesn't really get off the ground until like 10:30, or more like 11. There was a good-sized crowd there for my whole second set, including a couple who were into King of the Hammers, a new kind of racing that's a hybrid of Baja style high-speed desert racing and rock crawling - requiring that you build a vehicle capable of both. Real Mad Max type stuff, in my book; when the apocalypse goes down and shit gets real, these guys will have vehicles ready to handle whatever the roads or lack thereof will look like on any given day. I just watched a few second clip from the website, and it's fucking ridiculous.

The drive back to their place was a bleary one, and I was glad that someone else was driving down that crazy mountain road. In retrospect, playing such a late show at such a remote spot doesn't seem like such a swell idea, but there you go. Now I know.

The next day I would be playing at The Dark Horse Saloon, which would prove to be an awesome gig; Seth and I got in a quick hike up to the top of one of the bluffs overlooking town, the one behind their house, actually, before I had to roll out for it. More on the gig at the fabulous Dark Horse tomorrow, though, as it is pushing 1:30 and I feel the need to crash and crash hard. Hoping to do a burly hike tomorrow (Monday, being the last day off I have on tour before my two gigs in New Mexico, and my return to Flagstaff). Til then.

Boise, Idaho (well, Meridian, actually); Moab, Utah

Tuesday morning I groaned myself awake, after staying up until almost three finishing up stuff for the Song Walk (how did I manage to put it off until then? Oh yeah - my car had a minor seizure just five days before I left down, and ate up two days. Wunderbar!) I quietly packed my crap, and was on the road by 11 or so, bidding Jeff and Emmy a sleepy goodbye, and scratching Dinah on the head through the top of her cage.

The drive was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Starting with the Columbia river gorge, a canyon festooned with spring green, and working its way into the high desert, volcanic mountains in central Oregon, it was one spectacular view after another. I took many pictures through the windows of the car, which might give some indication of how awesome it was. When did I get transported to Middle Earth? I hit some pretty crazy, intense rain and wind, but managed to make pretty good time. My gig in Meridian started at 7, so it would be a bit tight; as it was, I drove like hell, made one stop for gas, and got there just 15 minutes before I was due to go on (having lost an hour traversing the border.)

Corkscrews proved to be a homey little joint, set underground (you descend a stairway to get there), with a friendly, low-key atmostphere and... no damn tvs! Almost always a good sign. (The lack of TVs is one of the first things I cite when describing how cool Mia's Lounge in Flagstaff is). And there, awaiting my arrival, was one Shawn Surber - one of my best friends in high school, who I hadn't seen in like twenty years. He and I spent hours and hours playing Dungeons and Dragons and the like together, but had lost touch after graduation. You never know when you see somebody after so long if you'll have a connection with them, or what form that connection will take; Shawn and I were able to pick up as if very little time had gone by, and were pretty soon trading gibes with one another as if we were still seated around a table littered with pencils, papers, and polyhedral dice. I gave him the twenty minute thumbnail sketch of the last twenty years of my life, and then he did the same. There too was another Gettysburgian, Scott, who I hadn't known well at all, but remembered hanging out with with Shawn back in the day, as well.

The crowd at Corkscrews proved to be a bunch of excellent listeners; very much into the music. Molly and Von (the proprietors, who were working there that night) have gone out of their way to make a place that's comfortable to go to, and a great environment for performers and audience members. I was pretty dazed after they day's drive, and hungry for having not stopped to eat along the way at all (clif bars and coffee whilst behind the wheel). At one point while I was playing a song I got dizzy and almost fell over; but it passed, I got some food in me from Corkscrews (which proved to be a rather pathetic excuse for a hummus plate - Strictly Organic Coffee in Bend had spoiled me, truly).

I got a late start the next day, choosing to get some food before leaving town (I slept til something like 10:30, after going to bed at something like 1). While looking for a promising restaurant, I happened upon a thrift store where I bought a decent little guitar amp and a pretty damned nice clarinet for $80 - score! I didn't end up getting on the road until around 3:15; which proved to be an unfortunate circumstance.

The drive until Salt Lake City was all cross-country driving could ever hope to be; I averaged about 85 mph, and made it to Ogden in about 3 1/2 hours - fantastic, if I do say so myself. The next 250 proved to be a completely different story, with rain and traffic all along the way past Salt Lake City; then I turned onto the 6, which took me over the pass toward Moab. That portion of the drive proved to be harrowing and difficult, as the road climbed, the rain turned to snow, and I was cursing myself for getting such a late start. I was driving at about 30 - 40 mph for like two hours, grinding through slush and snow, wondering when the road would level out and then finally descend; but descend it did, eventually, and I found myself once again pounding the highway at 60 mph, through the relatively open southeastern Utah desert. The moon came out as I finished the drive on the 6, just before it hit the 70 and I turned east for the final 50 miles to Moab, lighting up the escarpment along the highway in an unearthly, eerie glow. It's one of the reasons I live in the desert, y'all.

Moab was windy, cloudy, and cold for the time of year. I had envisioned 75 degree days and sunshine, and planned to hike while I was there; as it was, I stayed the fuck indoors, and slept late. I did manage to weasel my way onto the local radio station - well, I made a phone call, and they were cool enough to have me on to play a few tunes, and blather a bit about being on the road.

I had two gigs that night: dinnertime at the Slickrock Cafe, and an evening gig at Frankie D's. These two places couldn't have been more different, and there was some undescribed bad blood between their two proprietors - each had asked me not to tell the other that I would be playing at their place, too funny. As it happened, they were both really cool; who knows what went down?

The Slickrock was right downtown, on Main Street; had the weather not been apocalyptically bad for that time of year, there would have been scads of people out on the street. As it was I managed to lure about one in four in off the street, via a powered speaker set up outside which must have echoed for a couple blocks. At the end of the night the owner said I had "earned my keep", which was a cool thing. Next time: sunshine. The regular guy who plays on weekends turned up to scope me out, an irresistable urge among musicians to compare and contrast and soothe their inward dialogue that yes, I'm better than he is. Amusingly, he came up to ask about my guitar, and when I asked his name, and put it together that he was the regular guy, he seemed a trifle embarassed to have been positively identified. (note: why doesn't spell-check on this dumb website recognize "embarassed" as a correctly spelled word? Someone should be.)

Frankie's was a local bar in all the senses of the word you could imagine; vaguely divey, with several guys playing pool, and a handful there for dinner. There was one table who had heard me on the radio that day, and come to check it out; they were the only ones who consistently clapped and paid attention, everyone else being fairly wrapped up in their drinks and the TV. There were a few people at the bar who were listening, one of whom was a retired Marine with an oxygen tank on; we talked for a while, and he tried to convince me that I should go out on the USO tour. I filed it away under "future reference/desperation moves".

It was slow, and it was cold out; and, being as how this was the third gig i had played that day (if you count the radio show) I was pretty slagged. Made it through until around 11:40, then packed it in. Made a small, but respectable amount off the door and the percentage of the bar; I could imagine that, on a busier night, it might well go better. Overall Moab had treated me pretty well, considering the abominable weather for that time of year; off to Grand Junction the next day, to see what could be seen there.