08.12
Motel Modest-But-Adequate, Colonial Heights, Virginia.
Misty Morn I…
09.32 A conversation on a nearby table is set to fff: this is not conversation, this is venting. Energy that cannot be equilibrated, reconciled & neutralised within the organism gets dumped. It has to go somewhere so, on this morning, on this nearby table, it’s going out the mouth. Dump. Splatter.
10.11 E-flurrying: I have declined another business-meeting-opportunity (the fifth) for New York City tomorrow. However long I spend on the road, however well people know me & how I work, however familiar those-I-work-with-closely know the player’s responsibilities to the performance (especially with responsibilities to a large ensemble on the road) - the penny never quite drops. Hey! this guy doesn’t have much on his plate already - why not add a business meeting with me as well? I’ll be the only one he’ll want to meet! He’ll find time for me! Even better: how about all pals & chums, personal & professional, made over the last 38 years? Let’s all get together!
More difficult, more destructive than the personal hustle, is the professional hustle. NY is a town where this is a practised art & my current road SOP is significantly based on getting sucked-and-fucked-over in NYC during the 1990s.
Lobby call for departure at 10.30.
14.44 Ram’s Head, Annapolis.
On the street, left…
Right I…
II…
Inside, lunch is going down, and most welcome.
15.45 The stage is being prepared. It’s a little small for us...
The Ram’s Head is a well-run club / dining & performance room. Just about everyone has played here. Mr. Beefy was recently in with The Adrian Belew Trio Of Terror, Wonderment & Power.
Dressing Room…
A millage of Crafties…
01.27 Motel Modesto, Somewhere, NJ.
Arriving c. 01.15 via the New Jersey Turnpike – how well I know this road! Well, actually, not very well - but I have been travelling along it late at night for 36 years, fitful slumber interrupted on a regular basis by toll booths, smoke rising from strange industrial towers.
The performance: honourable, to a mostly supportive & generous audience. The character at a front table whose commentary & monologue with The LCG – I don’t get it! why don’t you smile! – may or may not have helped the performance; but Hernan seemed persuaded that the audient’s claim not-to-get-it was authoritative & authentic, and likely the alcohol helped.
This evening’s no-photo request had a seventh language added: Bengali.
"To try is to fail."
