New York City – “Greetings, From My Hairy Nuts” – Sotheby’s Auction House – July 24, 2002
After tonight’s gig in New York, we have a whole week off in Colorado. I can’t overemphasize how excited I am to see my fiance! But it’s too early to get worked up. Though our flight home is less than 24 hours away, we still have four states to visit before take-off.
The day kicked off in New Jersey, where Soucy woke me with breakfast in bed? Suspicious. He hovered over me with a lukewarm coffee and a bagel, ever so slightly smudged with cream cheese. He gave a little throat clearing, eh hem, and gently grazed my shoulder with the underside of his paper plate. Soucy is nice, but never this nice. I stumbled in the sheets to insinuate my reluctance to get up.
“Come on, Sal,” he announced with unreasonable charm. “It’s Raptor Trust day!”
Ah. Now it all made sense. The Raptor Trust, if you aren’t already aware, is a bird rehabilitation sanctuary in New Jersey. It’s operated by Soucy’s parents and is the childhood home of my continental breakfast carrying guitarist. I should have remembered it was bird day!
As we slid through the backroads of Soucy’s hometown, he pointed to places of interest like an enthusiastic tour guide — his best friend in fifth-grade’s home, unrequited loves parents’ house, favorite stoner hangouts, and the pièce de résistance, the site of his first french kiss.
Unfortunately, our Soucy tour made me late for my interview with Paper Magazine, and I spent the first hour of my visit, glued to a phone in the Soucy’s living room.
When I finally emerged, I joined the band on the continuation of the Soucy tour around The Raptor Trust grounds. Chris proudly showed us the inner workings of his family’s organization. He demonstrated how to feed baby birds with tiny instruments inserted into cup like, screaming mouths. He explained the process of freezing rodents to make yummy rat pops for hungry adult raptors.
I got to hold a barred owl and a beautiful eagle with an injured wing. But to stay on top of our busy schedule, our bird handling would have to be cut short.
Bidding a grateful adieu to Mr. and Mrs. Soucy, we cruised over the bridge and down the FDR toward New York City. Our destination? Sotheby’s. Yes, that’s right, that Sotheby’s.
Was playing a set at Sotheby’s even a thing? Turns out, not really—we found ourselves in the middle of some big opening event for a new Miguel Calderon exhibit. Load in included riding up in a freight elevator next to a $5 million Andy Warhol portrait. Our green room was crammed with precious artwork worth billions and we decided against making ourselves to comfortable, least the couch turn out to be a Thomas Molesworth or the drink tray, something once belonging to Louis Xiv.
After a brief sound check I decided to amble around the newly hung gallery. The artwork was quite shocking (which is really saying something. I am not easily shocked). Off to stage left was an series called “Greetings from my Hairy Nuts” featuring Miguel’s balls against scenic postcard backdrops — tiny paper mâché action figures vacationing, diving, and fishing on the artist’s hairy nuts. Off stage right was a series of photographs showcasing a wannabe gangster shooting taxidermied safari animals with a Magnum.
Our makeshift stage was in the main hall and when I took the mic, I pretended I was only there to auction off some of the instruments (insisting the players came with them). The audience seemed to enjoy my bit and played along. Sotheby’s was soon packed with music enthusiasts, two of whom came from 6 hours away in Syracuse just to see us. They shouted and sang along to all my songs (even the words I forgot). The whole event was a surreal experience — more dream than reality, and over too soon. Once again, we were rushing to stay ahead of our unreasonably tight schedule.
This last bit was going to be the tricky part—the dismount if you will. I’d made reservations at The Spring Hill Suites in New London, and figured we could get there by midnight to kack out for a while before heading onto Boston for the flight. But there was construction traffic and cars dripped through the interstate like water through a leaky faucet. Dino took the first shift and I, in shotgun, fell asleep to the lull of classical music over crackly FM airwaves.
I woke up at 1:55 alarmed. Dino was doing 90 with his chest pressed against the steering wheel, elbows jutting left and right. There was loud static coming from the radio, which was, intermittently playing Mozart and Brian shouted up from the back “How you doing there Dino.”
Dino’s eyes were wild and wide “I dunno man. I’m getting tired. I might need to stretch a little.” We pulled over and Dino proceeded to do some impressive yoga on the side of the road to wake himself up. Luckily New London was only the next exit and we snagged three hours of sleep, before climbing back onto the road at 5 AM.
I took the morning shift, navigating toward the sunrise and Boston while Kenny, finger tacking a map, hollered directions from the back.
At the airport, we cobbled together a breakfast of dry biscuits, suspiciously yellow eggs, and undercooked, fatty bacon before collapsing at the gate. Dino and I claimed an unmanned secondary screening table for a kip while the rest of the band sprawled beneath it on the floor. As I fell asleep, I could hear Soucy distressing about the things he’d forgotten in the van and when I woke up it was to getting kicked out of the area by a frizzy-haired, secondary screening woman with an intimidating frisking wand.
The flight itself was a collective knockout—we were all sleep-deprived, drained, and high fiving our legendary capacity to make an exceptionally chaotic, tight schedule work out.
Colorado, here we come.