Sitting in a pitch black corner of The Nick in Birmingham, AL. By all the accounts, the entire town looks to be a cesspool. Bad, mean, crazy homeless folks abound, like a tall clean shaven man w/ white hair and a hunch shuffling down the street, orange barf covering his face and the front of his shirt and his long gray trenchcoat. I’ve lost a couple of days here just from being sick and being busy, going to try to catch up here…
Never found a place to crash in Wilmington. Just wandered around all night after my show, trying to find the author of my lousy write-up, just in hopes of her giving me a place to crash. Finally gave up and just got drunk on vodka and slept in the van.
Woke up early and drove for about four hours before I took a break in a rest-stop. Managed to fall asleep after a while and dreamt about Jason from the Means and a partially flayed white dog that could talk. When I got to Athens, I went right over to Bob and Amy’s and spent a lot of my night with them, just hanging out. They’re both really great, they manage to be both sarcastic/bitter and genuinely hospitable. Morgan finagled a spot on the bill for me, and I played a couple of songs to, shit, probably the biggest and most appreciative crowd of the tour, at least for me. Got a few names on the list, sold a CD, watched Roy Owens Jr. and then took a dive for the bunk. I just have not been able to shake this phlegmy thing that I developed as soon as I left NY. I slept through the third band and The High Strung and then Bob and Amy woke me up and I followed them home and slept wonderfully in their guest bed. Their house has always been an oasis for me, I always manage to make it to Athens when I’m on my last leg and I always leave feeling replenished.
They treated me to breakfast the next morning and then I had to drive straight to Nashville. The High Strung had stayed up until seven in the morning and I couldn’t compel one of them to ride with me. It sucked, third day in a row driving by myself. When I hit Texas, I’m going to go insane. A five hour drive quickly turned into a seven hour drive w/ a couple of well-placed accidents and I made it to The Bluebird Café on time only with the hour we gained by changing time zones. Even then, I was all shaky and jittery from driving so fast for so long without break.
At the Bluebird, I got really, really nervous, like I used to when I first went out. I guess subconsciously I saw The Bluebird as a rubicon, you know, that’s where I started when I went out solo for the first time and it was a total joke, driving two days to play one song for no money. You’ve come a long way baby, now just driving one day to play three songs for no money… Anyway, I guess it was important to me for it to go well as I felt like it would be a sign of progress.
It’s always tough being there because it’s so crowded and it’s so not my crowd. It’s a bunch of older folks out for dinner and then a bunch of young bucks—one guy I saw had the black cowboy hat w/ the sharp creases and silver buckles, a full length rancher’s leather coat, black cowboy shirt w/ silver piping, new black jeans, black boots w/ square toes and a black goatee to match. Christ on a crutch. When I got up there, I was just fucked up, my face was all prickly and I wanted to shit my pants. Four ultra-sincere chick songwriters had preceded me, so I said “It’s so great to see these strong women songwriters… and all of them singing about some jerk that left ‘em. I am that jerk.” And I had ‘em from there. It was like I had a plant in the crowd, one woman laughed at the first possible appropriate moment and kept laughing the whole way through. All in all, an unmitigated success.
I jumped back in the van and drove over to The End to try to hop on The High Strung bill. Josh was great, he asked the soundguy for me if it was cool, then came over to me shaking his head. “Wow,” he said grinning, “that was a pretty emphatic ‘no’.” So, fine, I just watched last night.
A high point last night was seeing the Hot Pipes, who were really great. If I was uncharitable, I would say they had ‘emo’ leanings, but I’m not uncharitable. After the show, I hung out w/ Roy Owens Jr. and we talked about the possibility of doing a tour together in the spring. Right now, I don’t think that it’ll happen, but fuck, that’d be a good shot in the arm.
They roped me in to crashing on their hotel room floor, though I wanted to hang out w/ The High Strung. I slept pretty well, but had a long, semi-coherent dream this morning that disturbed me. Dana came to me because she was distressed about Jacob, I guess it was revealed that when he died, he was HIV positive. At one point in the dream, I was riding her around on a bike, cradling her in my arms and I was really aware of her big breasts and I was getting hot for her. Later in the dream, Allie came and told me that she was HIV positive, and I couldn’t figure out what was worse, if she had gotten it from someone else or if she had gotten it from me, and then I couldn’t figure out if it was worse if I had it or if I didn’t. I’m still sad and scared thinking about it. But the tumor on the base of my cock is gone. Got to take my good omens where I can get ‘em.