James Taylor – Page 2

Columbus, OH – “The one about the time my dad picked you up hitchhiking” – The Thirsty Ear – October 31, 2000

The Thirsty Ear was buzzing—especially for a Monday night. The show was nearly sold out, and the energy was infectious. Afterward, as I signed CDs, I noticed there were a surprising number of attendees with the same “funny story” to share.

It always starts the same way. “I was hitchhiking on Martha’s Vineyard when this guy picked me up, and it turned out to be James Taylor.” Without fail, each person says it like it’s the ultimate plot twist. Then come the variations—“He was so kind/tall/handsome/skinny and a bit shy. He complimented my red scarf/bee keeper suit/Icelandic sweater/ZZ Top beard. If you tell him this story, he’ll definitely remember me.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my dad picks up hitchhikers—it’s a lovely trait. And to the thousands of people who swear this happened to them, I’m not calling your bluff. But I can’t help but wonder when he had time to do anything else in his life. Was he just circling the island, trolling for thumb riders? And honestly, after hearing this story every single night from someone who expects me to be shocked, it’s all I can do not to spoil the punchline halfway through.

We had a day off yesterday and drove to Columbus to get us closer to the next show. It was eerily quiet at 2 a.m.—except for the blaring red neon “Bob Evan’s” sign advertising their “Famous Fudge Brounies.” (Yes, Brounies—their spelling, not mine.) Delucchi couldn’t help but point out the typo as we pulled into the hotel across the street. A massive billboard nearby loomed in judgment, asking, “What part of ‘Thou shalt not’ didn’t you understand? – GOD.”

The hotel, creatively named “Cross-Country Inn,” had a drive-through check-in window, which was a first for us. Naturally, we had to document the experience, so we started filming. The night shift attendant—a blonde woman with smudged mascara and a less-than-enthusiastic demeanor—squinted at us through the window. She couldn’t find our reservation at first, but we didn’t panic. This kind of thing happens all the time. Sure enough, after her third attempt, the reservation turned up. It was filed under some inexplicable name like a club owner’s wife’s maiden name or their daughter’s pet hamster “Hugo.” Go figure.

The club got me my own room. It was quiet in #217, except for a mini-fridge humming with an off-tune bathroom fan. I dropped my bags and had barely settled in when there was a knock at the door. “Knock, knock. Open up. It’s Kenny, beer police,” came a muffled voice from the hallway. I opened the door to find Kenny grinning. “Gimme a beer and a hug,” he said before strutting back to room #221 to play video games with the rest of the crew.

At 4:30 a.m., just as I was about to drift off, Soucy barged into my room—full of energy. “Can you shave racing stripes into my head?” he asked, as if this were a perfectly reasonable request at that hour.
I wasn’t asleep yet, so I groggily agreed. “Have you ever shaved a skull before?” he asked skeptically.
“Yes,” I replied, offended by his lack of trust.
“Whose?” he pressed.
“Kipp’s, my brother Ben’s,” I listed confidently.
“Did you mess up or cut either of them?”
“Of course not,” I said, though honestly, I couldn’t fully recall.
“Because scalp cuts bleed a lot,” he emphasized.
“I know,” I cut him off, rolling my eyes. Eventually, I convinced him to sit down, and I swiveled the TV to catch “Sex and the City” on HBO while I worked.
“You’re not seriously going to watch TV while cutting my hair,” he protested.
“Just trust me,” I said with exasperation.

And, I nailed it! Soucy may have been too much of a baby to outright thank me, but I knew he liked his new look. “I’m sure my mom wouldn’t want to read about this in tomorrow’s road tales,” he hinted, hoping I’d leave the story out.
“Oh, there’s no way I’m not writing about this. I did too good of a job not to brag,” I shot back.
And that’s how Soucy ended up with racing stripes at 4:30 a.m. Sorry you had to find out this way, Mrs. Soucy.

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Buffalo, NY – “Heir Force” – October 30, 2000

The People article came out today. “Heir Force,” the headline reads. A photo of me, arms stretched like an airplane cruising at altitude, was taken against the canvas of my mother’s gazebo on Martha’s Vineyard this spring. While the tagline is regrettably cheesy as all get out, the piece is flattering and praises the independent path I’ve chosen to take in music. In many ways, the it’s exactly what I’d hoped for — public recognition of my musical capabilities propelled under my own steam and on my own terms. But the headline makes it painfully obvious I remain in the shadow of two musical giants and ride the pages of People magazine, not on my own merits, but on Heir Force One. Folding the rag in half, I decide the piece is both a victory and an embarrassment and choose to focus on the victory. Next, I grab the boxing nun and challenge Kenny to a match. I need to let out a little steam.

I found the puppets- – “boxing nun,” “boxing rabbi” and “boxing devil,” at a gas station back in Albany and they’ve become the band’s go-to entertainment during long drives. Our boxing matches are not fun in themselves but the band’s sordid and inappropriate commentary make for great comedy. I admit it, I’m the least sportsmanlike of our brood when it comes to boxing and if puppets could bite, mine definitely would. Kyle’s commentary on my fights are my favorite:

“… Usually, before long, Sally resorts to illegal head butting, hair pulling, and grabbing the other puppet’s muumuus for which the ref, time and time again has to reprimand her. He will not hesitate to take a point away if such behavior continues Sally!!!!”

The show at the Tralf was decent enough. My voice held and Tom’s desil leaking 80’s Mercedes Benz managed to get us to soundcheck on time. After the shock of watching my lyrex’s pornographic debute at the throat doctor’s office, Tom drove me back to Buffalo, but half an hour into the ride the car started smelling funny. Worried it might be leaking carbon monoxide into the main cabin we stopped at my pop’s place in the Berkshires to check it out.

My dad’s no car expert, but he jumped under Tom’s hood like a well-oiled mechanic. After careful analysis, he decided it could be remedied with some dental floss (his goto tool for almost any project).

His fiancee, Kim, and I made soup and veggie burgers for our burly dental floss-wielding technicians. Pop and Tom returned, covered in oil, their faces blackened with assurances the carbon monoxide situation was abated. But as we waved goodbye and got back on the highway, I was more nervous about the repair job than the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. But we managed to survive the rest of the ride and as we pulled up to The Tralf I was starting to wonder whether dental floss might be the cure for all the world’s woes.

—

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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.

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New York City – “Meeting Tarantino Part 1” – The Bitter End – October 21, 2000

October is the Sunday of months. For 31 days each autumn, the world hits snooze and time is suspended, like linen, licking at the wind on a slack clothesline. The earth holds its breath and we are weightless in the air before the gravity of the holidays brings us slamming back down to the ground.

Ahead, through the windshield, the world is a patchwork of rolling fields — blond wheat and dead corn interrupted by orange-dotted pumpkin fields all hemmed in by fire-engine red leaves. The cerulean sky beyond, towers tall and jagged, swallowing the earth’s edges.

Jeff Buckley sings Hallelujah on the radio. His voice is threading perfectly. A jumble of cables – radar detectors, CD players and car phone adaptors balance precariously in the cigarette lighters, threatening to collapse at the mere mention of a bump. The “Happy Camper” supplement I only half jokingly picked up at the last rest stop, sits in a cup holder signaling a Pandora-like hope with its joyous yellow box. We should have called this tour, Tour-ture. We are all at our snapping points.

We’re bound for Great Barrington tonight for a gig at Club Helsinki. My dad’s (who is coming to the gig) offered his pad after the show and the promise of a proper bed and a good night’s sleep is all I can think about– That and how stoked I am to see my pop and tell him about our EPIC our show at The Bitter End.

The Bitter End is considered New York City’s oldest rock club and is where my dad got his start. He used to play the club’s legendary “hootenannies” in the 60s along with Jonni Mitchel and Carol King and is partially responsible for the reputation it earned for showcasing great new talent.

It was an honor to stand on the stage where my pop got his start and almost as cool, to meet Quentin Tarantino there….

TO BE CONTINUED….

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Arcata, CA – “Abstain from Cocaine” – Café Tomo – September 7, 2000

I keep buying things at the gas station–plastic rings, gum, keychains with bottle openers–hoping it’ll be the thing I’m missing in my life but it turned out I was missing an hour soak in a hot tub… Found on at the Mokka Cafe in Arcata.

After a decent show at Café Tomo, Noel and Felix, a couple locals invited us back to their hippy-dippy crash pad for some homemade wine. They met us in their doorway with huge smiles and an industrial size mayo jar full of weed. They hoisted fistfuls into our hands as if we were felonious, underdressed trick-or-treaters. There was coke too, copious amounts of it, which Noel chopped on a cheese board, spilling it haphazardly all over the counter. I politely declined. Cocaine is one of the few drugs I’ve never had to try thanks to my dad who when I was 13, took me aside.

“Sal,” he said, “you can try cocaine,” shocking words coming from your father’s mouth, “but first,” he continued, “do me a favor, 1. Drink 20 cups of coffee as quickly as you can. 2. Punch yourself as hard in the nose as possible and 3. Gather all the money you have and light it on fire. If you like that, you’ll love cocaine.” And just like that, I escaped the clutches of that drug.

After two glasses of moonshine, I stumbled out of Noel and Felix’s macraméd drug den. I walked alone through the town square under a full moon to the hotel where I watched Dexter’s Laboratory on Cartoon Network until two in the morning. When I woke up I discovered an expired, crumpled, soggy hot springs pass next to the bed stand,

“Courtesy of Noel and Felix,’ said Soucy who was up for a soak and knew I was in need of some serenity.

Café Mokka was sort of run-down, or maybe it was never built up to begin with. A murky, green duck pond sat stagnant in the center of a circle of changing huts and soft, silvery moss had taken up residence on everything. But when I got into the hot water I could feel the painful pressure that had been weighing on my heart lift, and for two hours I didn’t think about anything– not work or the next gig or the drive back to San Francisco. I just floated in the stillness of the moment with the light filtering through the redwood trees like water through a helpless strainer. I was high for the rest of the day—reborn—a phenox from the ashes of a music career.

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Oakland, MD – “ICU. URAQTπ.” -The Little Yaugh Summer Music Festival – July 28, 2000

It’s a still, gray morning, damp from the recent rain. Once again, I find myself on vocal rest. My larynx ache, like a frozen tree unable to bend. Six shows in six different towns have left me as dry and worn as an old dishrag.

We drove 90 MPH from Phili to Maryland yesterday, arriving in a quaint town called Cumberland as the day was winding down. Birdman, gracing us with his humorous, talented and generous self, treated us all to dinner at a New Orleans-style joint—think alligator tail and gumbo—a hidden gem underground and empty, except for us, the wisps of smoke from a waitress’s lipstick-stained cigarette and a James Taylor CD stuck on repeat.

We sat around the table drawing phonemic sentences on my speech pad:

CDB? DBSAB-ZB.
(See the bee? The bee is a busy bee.)
AK8, TLIQ12BLON.
(Hay Kate, tell Ike you want to be alone.)
ICU. URAQTπ.
(I see you. You are a cutie pie.)
I NVU.
(I envy you.)

After enjoying a grilled chicken salad, a glass of Chardonnay, lemon cheesecake, and a shot of espresso, we headed back to the warmth of the van to continue our journey to our promoter, Ken’s house in Oakland.

When we arrived, a misty blue fog was settling in the valleys between distant green hills and there was a party going on. For us? I couldn’t ask since I was on vocal rest. Throughout the evening, I stayed silent, furiously scribbling notes to keep up with conversations until the night’s darkness stole my words from the page of my note pad and I became just another shadow sewing together the night.

At Ken’s, we made full use of his hot tub with the special massage seat and the view of the moon as it rose and etched a silver sliver into the dark blue ripples of the universe just beyond the horizon.

The next morning, Ken’s adorable wife Nancy made us coffee before sending us off to our gig. We’d been told we’d be playing a farmer’s market type of hall but I guess I hadn’t expected the long, thin, tin roof painted with the words “Fresh Produce,” next to the train tracks which stumbled through town escorting locomotives with great roaring “yeehawws” through the adjacent neighborhoods. It reminded me of places my dad used to play when I was younger. I remember him calling me to the stage to sing with him and the pride and excitement of being in front of an outdoor audience that I could see.

Birdman and I skipped off, arm in arm, to find a leather craftsman to cut me a piece of hide to fix my watch band. We stuck out like sore thumbs in the quaint town of Oakland full of antique shops and old-time coffee shops with swivel stools. Birdman wore a shirt decorated with subway cars covered in graffiti, while I sported a panther print skirt and dark NYC shades. A shopkeeper, standing outside her wind chime store yelled after us:

“You going to the concert tonight? Starts at 7:00.”
“We’ll be there,” Eric shouted back over his shoulder. A few paces later she hollered again,
“Hey! YOU ARE the concert?!” and we laughed in recognition.

At 7:00 people started pulling up to the farmers market and pitching their families and lawn chairs on the surrounding grass. A nice young guy with a guitar and synth sampler opened for us. A train ran by with high-pitched toots and kids scampered between parent’s legs to get a look at the stage. Polish sausages, pork sandwiches with coleslaw, and baked ham stands were served in white tents; not much for a vegetarian in Maryland, unfortunately.

Halfway through our set, an Amish family pulled up on a tractor to listen to the show. A bunch of cute kids came up on stage and danced to Happy Now and Split Decisions and some even stayed to sway to Tomboy Bride.

It was a brilliant starry night. We sold CDs, I signed kids’ shirts, and Elizabeth, Amber, and Tina —three groovy little girls—helped me hand out stickers. I was taken with the honesty and beauty in people’s eyes—the children in particular, with their blue, snow-cone-stained tongues, gleefully requesting my signature on their dusty, farmer’s market T-shirts, enchanted me. Somewhere during the night, someone gave me an “I Love Oakland” pin and as the crowd dwindled and distant laughter filled the night, I looked at that pin and realized it was true—Oakland is great!

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Salt Lake City, UT – “The Terrible, Terrible, TERRIBLE Misunderstanding” – The Zephyr – June 30, 2000

SLC was as hot as a skillet when we arrived at The Zephyr. In the green room, I dressed in my brand-new black rubber pants. So did Soucy. That may have been where the trouble began. The boys said I looked hot and that Soucy reminded them of a fishing lure. To accompany his plastic pants, Soucy made the bold choice of a python print button-down — an outfit that I’m pretty sure, almost cost us our lives.

The show was a little slow to start but by the end of the night the joint was jumping. Everyone was dancing. A hot little blond was gyrating in front of Soucy “The Lure,” and he beelined it to her after the show. Having caught her, hook, line, and python shirt, he reeled her in backstage.

“Cindy here, has invited us to a party back at her house. Who’s in?” Soucy lifted his eyes hoping to bait one of us into being his wingman for the night.

“I’m pretty exhausted.” I apologized and the rest of the band nodded in agreement.

“Awe come on guys, this is the last night of the tour,” said Soucy, “Let’s get into it!”

“Come on,” said Cindy, bubbly as a candy wrapper, “I’ve got a bed if you want to crash and I make a mean breakfast.”

I knew Soucy needed me if he was going to try to get with Cindy and I figured I could always use a good night’s sleep on a real, non-hometel bed.

“Sure what the heck,” I gave in. Soucy mouthed “THANK YOU!” to me in bold letters as he escorted Cindy out of the green room.

Unfortunately, the night did not unfold the way either Soucy or I had planned it. There was, in fact, no party at Cindy’s house. Though we thought it odd she’d advertised one, it mattered little to Soucy’s smooching agenda or my sleeping plans. What DID matter to us was that Cindy’s house was a tiny studio apartment with only one bed and over that one bed, hung a life-sized poster of James Taylor!!!! It was the only art on the wall!!! Hmmmm. This is unfortunate I thought to myself, pretty well convinced we were about to be murdered.

Cindy locked the door behind us and as the bolt slid into the lock she machine-gunned my least favorite questions at me “What was it like growing up?” “Were there a lot of drugs?” “Do you like your parent’s music?” “Which of their music do you like more?” I stared daggers into Soucy who looked at once terrified and sheepish in his lure outfit.

Next, Cindy suggested we watch the video she’d just made for her boyfriend who’d “mysteriously” died in a snowshoeing accident. She chain-smoked Camel lights as the three of us sat nervously on the edge of her strawberry-print, ruffled bedspread. Ten minutes into her creepy video, I excused myself. “I’m so sorry, I’m super tired. I think I might need to turn in. No need to stop the video, I’ll just sleep on the couch over there,” I said, pointing to a long cushioned stool next to a fabric room divider.

“No, no. You two take my bed. I’ll take the couch,” she said, moving toward the sofa. Soucy and I looked at one another, breaking into a nervous, silent laughter that was almost painful to try to contain. As we climbed into opposite sides of her small twin bed, Soucy looked at me with saucer-sized eyes and whispered “There’s been a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE misunderstanding.”

At this point, the lights in the studio apartment went black, Sarah McLachlan came on, and Cindy shouted over Building a Mystery in explanation… “To sleep too…”

I bit my fist hard so as not to laugh and as I stared weepingly at Soucy, Cindy suddenly and without warning, launched herself out of the darkness, landed in between us and, under my father’s watchful eye, tried to make out with both of us. I turned my head just in time and slid my body sideways off the bed. While Soucy occupied Cindy’s mouth, I felt my way through the dark and Sarah McLachlan’s caramel-y voice to the couch/stool and curled up in a fetal position praying for morning to come so.

I didn’t get much sleep, but I am very happy to report that neither Soucy nor I got murdered and the boys managed to track us down in the morning. Ahhhh-nother adventure in SLC.

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A Day Off – June 3

I Thought I’d give you a day off to catch up on some of the gigs you might have missed up ta this point. We’re headed west on Monday.

The one about finding my pet hedgehog in a pile of trash…

The one about playing with my pop…

The time I turned a man into a bubble bath…

And one of the most recent and heartbreaking…

Enjoy and I’ll see you on the West Coast!

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St Louis, MO – “Disaster” – Cicero’s – May 31, 2000

The Vineyard was just what I needed and while I felt a pang of anxiety when the boys pulled away, leaving me at the airport, I was glad to miss three days of Missouri, “Roller Coster Haven,” and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

On The Vineyard, my mama and I drank chai tea and curled up on her couch. Between her velvet throw pillows, she triaged my shredded heart and we laughed between my tears. She taught me her beauty secrets, “always put a streak of highlighter down the bridge of your nose to make it look slender” and, “use your taupe eyebrow pencil as a lip liner.” She toured me through old photo albums and we listened to sad songs and I wrote a few of my own. Mama absorbed my tears and brushed the hair from my forehead while I told her what a fool I’d been to fall for Sam.

At the end of Memorial Day, when I came downstairs with my overnight bag and a guitar case full of new songs, my mama was awake. Her hair was piled into a little spiky nest atop her sweet head. She greeted me in the kitchen, in her soft robe, a spatula in one hand and a plate of her famous shredded apple Swedish pancakes in the other. We ate with our hands. She poured me a giant glass of grapefruit juice and sang to me, my own lyrics to remind me just how strong and capable I am of getting through this. I hugged her and told her (because it’s the truth) that she’s the absolute best mommy in the world.

On the plane to meet up with the boys, I listened to one of the new songs I wrote and tinkered with the lyrics. It’s called Disaster.

Disaster

I broke my own heart
For the good of my pride
For my own piece of mind and
Left my soul deprived
Now there’s sleepless and sky and
my memories to ride and
A picture of you left on my bedtable side

You’re a distraction to my lonelieness
While I’m in ink jotted
On your “To Do” list
But there’s love in your words
And there’ll be one last kiss
Goodbye and I’ll miss you and
Whatever this is

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The image of you bellow me, I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

There’s something about this pain
That makes me feel happy
Happy to feel anyting at all
I’ll listen to sad albums and
Cry all day long to
Get you out of my system
One more track then
I’ll move on

Now out of this picture, you smile in my face and
The immage of you bellow me I’ll erase
Now I’m a disaster and you’re a disgrace
How funny that this should be “love”

Missouri was a scorching 95° when I flew in to meet back up with the band. I shaved my legs in the airport sink (sorry, I know that’s gross) and slipped into some stage clothes in a stall feeling like some B-list superhero. I hoped the slip dress mom let me borrow would be appropriate attire for the heat but when I arrived at the club, the air conditioners were cranked to sub-Antarctica, and traversing through two clashing climates for load in made me convinced I was catching a cold.

I remember one summer when Ben and I were kids, my dad took us out on the road and there weren’t enough bunk beds on the bus to accommodate both the band and two little kids. My dad set up a couple of cots on the floor for us and being 6 and 9 we didn’t much mind camping on the floor of the bus. However, the AC was on full blast and my brother’s cot was directly in front of one of the vents. One morning, after a particularly long overnight drive from Pittsburgh to Illinois we woke to find half of my brother’s face frozen and as the day continued, it wasn’t thawing. The poor bugger couldn’t blink let alone take a sip of water without it dribbling out the left side of his mouth. Turns out, my brother had Bell’s Palsy. He spent the rest of the summer with one eye patch over his eye which I tried to make him believe made him look like a cool pirate.

The show went all right. Cicero’s is sort of a jam band gig. The walls are plastered with posters announcing coming bands named: “The Kind,” and “The Shwag,” etc. I don’t mean to stereotype the place. It was clean, (intensely) air-conditioned, had ultra-friendly employees, and filled up pretty nicely for a Wednesday night.

The best part of the show for me was catching up with the band in the green room (literally just a bathroom with black walls and a handwritten note on the door that read, ”Not a Public Restroom.”) Inside the “Not a Public Restroom,” of a green room we elbowed our way around empty gear cases crowding in with us like extra players waiting for show time. Kyle sat on the toilet and warmed up his wrists against an empty drum case, “Thrum thrum thrum.” While I washed my face I listened to Kenny’s excited retelling of each and every roller coaster they rode in my absence. Delucchi laughed at Kenny’s “wooshing” reenactment noises, reliving the experience through Kenny’s vivid retelling.

I was grateful to secondhand smoke their memories, to be getting ready to play another show, to be Sam-free going on one week now, and most of all, grateful (after 5-weeks out) to see Boulder on the horizon.

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Boston, MA – “Good Morning America” – The House of Blues – May 16, 2000

The alarm went off at 6:30 and my eyes opened into a house of hanging plants and warm, honey-still sunshine. Rachael and Billy, a couple of friends of a friend, put us up last night, along with an assemblage of people who’d come from far and wide to see us play Boston. The couple’s 27-pound orange cat spread himself out like a slab of peanut butter across a sunny spot on the floor.

Still fully dressed from last night in Adidas sneakers and a sparkling champagne-colored tube top, I rolled over on my right to find Soucy, open-mouth snoring next to me. On my left, I discovered my pal Heidi from Martha’s Vineyard snuggling and gently prodding me to wake up. “Get up,” she whispered, “you’ve got Good Morning America with your mom in New York.” I rubbed my eyes and slid my hand along the wall towards the bathroom.

Scattered bodies, packed in colorful sleeping bags, littered the floor. Everywhere I stepped there was another sleeping form to navigate and I wondered how I’d gotten lucky enough to score the futon.

Delucchi too, had lucked out on bedding. I found him in a side enclave, curled up inside a red puddle of blanket, trapped in the quicksand of a slowly deflating blow-up matrice. “D., I gotta get to the airport,” I rolled him like pie dough but Delucchi wasn’t coming to the surface of the day anytime soon. Handsome Joel, a friend of mine who I may or may not have kissed during my Brown rowing days (honestly, I only recall wanting too, not whether I actually did or not), woke up and generously volunteered to take me to Logan to catch my Delta shuttle to New York City.
The show at Boston’s House of Blues the night before had been sold out and my dad showed up unannounced to play a song with me.

After the gig, we moved the party out of the green room and back to Rachel and Billy’s house. There, we drank (too much) wine, listened to Al Green sing “Let’s Stay Together,” and stayed up way past “When.” Now, I’m on a plane on my way to New York, on 2 hours of sleep in the same outfit I sang in last night, to be filmed for Good Morning America with my Mom, Dianne Sawyer, and my brother Ben.

Funny how dream-like everything becomes on a diet of 2 hours of sleep.

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