Buffalo, NY – “No Coffee, No Chocolate, No Bubbly Drinks” – Morning TV Show – October 27, 2000
There’s something magical about the week before a tour wraps up. The road feels like home, the crumpled itinerary is a keepsake now covered in coffee stains, and the van? It’s a disaster but no one minds or cares to clean it up.
By this point, we’ve conquered the dreaded “mid-tour blues.” – that 3-to-4-week slump where you’re convinced THIS TOUR WILL NEVER END and all you want is a bed that doesn’t smell faintly of fried food. A week out, the finish line is in sight, every gig crackles with an energy that only comes when you’re burning the candle at both ends—and occasionally, in the middle.
8 AM. Room 111.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“S.T., time to go, girl. TV time.” Soucy’s voice, muffled but chipper, rang through the motel hallway.
Reluctantly, I untangled myself from the beige fuzzy blanket that clung to my legs. Cheap motels rarely offer fitted sheets, so the mattress—a spectacularly ugly green-and-yellow relic from the ‘70s—was fully exposed. The room smelled faintly like old carpet and stale cigarette smoke. A boy was next to me in bed. We’ll call him Tom. The heating unit went “thump thump thump.” A crack in the polyester curtains bleached a pie-wedge of daylight on the adjacent wall.
I shuffled toward the door, opening it just enough for the security chain to hold firm. There was Soucy, awake, too awake. He looked washed, and refreshed. He let out a seagull-like laugh when he saw me, all puffy and crumpled around the eyes. “I didn’t get my wake-up call,” I said, stating the obvious in a garbled morning voice.
“I can see that,” he said, amused. “We’ve got five minutes before we have to go. Wash up, put on some clean clothes, brush your teeth, and meet me downstairs,” he directed. I washed my face but because I hadn’t bothered getting undressed the night before; I spared myself the hassle of picking out a new outfit.
Still clad in the jeans and the tank top I’d worn onstage in Syracuse, I figured it was passable enough for TV. We’d driven straight from the gig to Buffalo and landed at 4 am in the current shit-hole motel we found ourselves in. Well, I didn’t drive—I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Thank GOD for Chris Delucchi.” I swear that man is my savior. If it weren’t for him, I’d lose my mind, not to mention my wallet, my keys, my voice, and probably any hope of a music career.
Soucy and I performed on AM Buffalo, a local ABC affiliate, at 10 am, after an inadequate vocal warm-up in the women’s dressing room and some black coffee. My pop called as we were packing up.
“Man Sal, you sound awful,” he said.
“I know pop. My voice really hurts. Between stage, radio and TV, we played twelve shows this week.”
“12 shows!?!?!” he said in an exasperated voice that mirrored the tone he once used to respond to the tatoo I got when I turned 18. “That’s too many shows Sal.” I’m calling my throat specialist in Boston. Can you get there today?”
Boy-in-bed-Tom agreed to drive me. The doctor sat me in a straight-backed chair, sprayed a numbing, watermelon novocaine into the back of my throat, then stuck a miniature video camera on the end of a metal stick into my throbbing windpipe.
“Oooohhhh,” he said “Ahhh, uuuhhh, yup. Looks swollen.” He said as Tom sat bedside, staring fixedly at my naked larynx (the most nudity he’d seen of me). *
“What should I do?” I asked, choking on the cold camera stick.
“You gotta sleep and drink plenty of water. No coffee, no chocolate, no bubbly drinks, no acidic juices, no spicy food, no eating before bedtime, no talking, no singing and try an’ avoid smokey areas” he said. I almost laughed out loud. That aint gonna happen, I thought as Tom drove me back to Buffalo for the gig at The Tralf.
Footnote:
The larynx is often mistaken for the most private of the female anatomy and I felt oddly exposed in front of Tom.