FROM DAVENPORT TO ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER CHICAGO
Sept 10, 2008 – Rock Island, IL
Wow – so here I am at Huckleberry's in Rock Island after a very long day that won't end anytime real soon and that's ok . I just finished up at Daytrotter and will play a show here very soon at this fine pizza joint– it's neat to be on my own but strange as well – it feels, well as you drive in a certain light on the highway, listening to Allen Ball talk about Vampires, and his life and loss and movies and funerals and his dead mother and sister and sexuality, you feel, no I felt, almost nowhere. My guitar was late arriving and had to be sent to Rachel's house, then, out of stress I guess, I left my bag at the car rental place. Oh man! So with nothing much in tow save for Marc's little amp and my wallet and a phone that could not be turned on in an effort to save battery I drove to the Quad cities, giving in to the temptation of a cigarette and somehow resisting persistent memories which had of late kept me, not nowhere, but nowhere I needed to stay. And so perhaps this entry is written through the filter of tiredness, with a sense of humor about the fact that sometimes stress wins and you can fight back by laughing, by pulling out of the gas station and almost hittin' the car behind you, by having to answer a question about a song which somewhere I must have said was about not 'growing up'. I didn't mean it that way, and I explained myself, I meant resisting, out of fear, growing out of old patterns, growing on, growing into, grout out of, and plain old growing – and somewhere in there I think I said that that it was noble to try for that and damn hard sometimes as well. So here I am one salty salad and a tomato soup later – feeling like I've never felt before – which is a blessing, because that's the high I guess, of going to new places, of being no where. And then here's the amazing part – by tomorrow this cowboy in the desert mentality will quickly fade I'm sure as I meet up with Ra Ra and Walter Meego, see the lovely Geon and my cousin Rachel, stay at her amazing apt and then, and then and then – man I get to be blessed with the company of some of my best friends on the road ! Amazing ! Audrey and Sarah and Danielle – man I am lucky and so excited. I am in Rock Island and I got to get on to go sing some songs now.
Bye,
Pepi
Sept 12, 2008 – Minneapolis, MN
Another day, another Chicago – I almost can't believe I was there this morning, last night, just yesterday. Played the first leg of the tour with the Ra Ra Rioters and learned my first lesson from them – make-up. Well I borrowed some really amazing shiny green eyeliner and it may still be on my eyes, hanging around the bottom rims, or it is my tiredness, I'm not sure, and I'm not even sure of all I'll say here. Tiredness I find, is like a drug, talking to friends from home is like talking drunk without words slurred, profundities are not profound, nor stupid, they're just some other sound uttered form your tired mouth that find themselves in the mix of the minutes you spend trying to get your way from the counter and your coffee to your table. This morning I woke up at 6:30 and Rachel, my brilliant and kind cousin was making me sandwiches, two kinds I later learned, cream cheese with tomato and cucumber and egg salad. She also threw in a ginger ale, a plum, a banana and three chocolates, oh and two shortbread cookies. Rachel is a Phd candidate at the University of Chicago in Yiddish Literature, she has many books and is very neat. She has soft big brown eyes and answers the door first with a quick 'hold on' from behind the door and then opens it with a welcoming and excited smile. And so off I drove, through the city, watching the neighborhoods change as I approached the highway, and the railcar that runs along it, folks standing on the platform, a girl in black, going somewhere, cars stuck, going nowhere. The clouds were too heavy, too melancholy for what was supposed to be a fresh day and I took out everything in the bag and tasted it all. I drove down 90W for what seemed like forever, maybe it was forever, but probably not. I think if you love or hate something that something feels like both forever and no time at all. I think I both loved and hated this drive. Against a backdrop of cornfields which had turned from the summer sun, frayed at the edges to an almost toxic green, past yellow wild flowers and brush that looked purple as the light changed, and trees whose thick leaves were already blood red, I made my way through Wisconsin, asking myself big questions. What I found was a gas station, another bathroom and the conclusion, at least for the hour, that the decision to go or stay, to do it, or walk away, call or not call, write or leave it alone, these things we think will keep us in control – they are no-thing at all. It doesn't matter. And to be somewhere, as fighter planes fly overhead, thin as paper, drawing invisible lines in the sky, well to be there and think that you could be anywhere else, maybe we are fooling ourselves, at least I was. No amount of thinking, I don't think, will change the light. And as I made it then to 94W, my last 200 miles that took me to Minneapolis, the sun came out, as it will. And it was hope and it was life and it was also just the weather and the land. When I landed at the college radio station, 7 hours later, a whole bevy of really awesome students set me up and I sang the songs I tried to write to get me into better weather, and it was fun, ya know, thank you K radio, thank you to the lovely gal who boosted me into the tree to take that cool Polaroid, I was smiling and I meant it. Sarah must be getting off the plane now, maybe she'll meet me at this coffee shop and I'll be so happy for her company.
Des Moines, of Where?
Sept. 13, 2008 – Des Moines, IA
Here we are seated in the long and cavernous Java Joes in Des Moines. Today we came from the cornfields, where we, Sarah and I, stopped for a listen to the cicadas, and tried to capture on film the way the slight wind blew the crops, green, yellow and gold, like coastal air blows the water in a bay, discreet and quiet and glad to be of use. This breeze and the electric hum of those long-necked insects is the closest thing to the ocean I have found in this dense midland. A golden dome on the top of a city building blinds you as you drive in to Des Moines, but gives itself away, too proud and too obvious to offer the promise of anything but the glory of it's own reflection. There is not much in this downtown, though that could be unfair, why would there necessarily be more 'life' in Brooklyn, but the buzz on the place is quieter, that much is true. There is a hotel, the Randolf, where we had thought to stay. We received word in line, waiting for a pick-me-up that, The Randolf is home to the town's most derelict, down and out drunks, druggies and bed-bugs. Sarah and I looked at each other. Bedbugs? No. Thank you. A 24-hour bail bonds place, is on the corner of this street and a building, The Jewett, ha!, whose windows are boarded up is here too. College somebody's are getting drunk on something and sporting their college somewhere t-shirts, cheering for someone, and the bums are talking to us from hidden eyes behind red-tinted shades and leather jackets and sneakers and studded belts and the meters don't care about your quarters.
Post Script – Went to the Randolf to check it out. Turns out you can access Bail Bonds through the lobby. I think the place is run by its tenants.
From Downtown to Downtown
Sept. 16, 2008 – Denver, CO
From downtown to downtown in a daze. From Minneapolis to Kansas, through the plains, past Custer's House, the cows and horses, black and tan against the green, and the wild flowers with centers like black hearts and petals like pollen. To the Family Inn diner in Colby and then to the lobby of another downtown, this time in Denver, in the din of morning TV broadcasts, in the middle of feeling nowhere and feeling too sorry to breathe right. When we pulled into this city we passed by anyone who couldn't make it, in the midnight hour, with hair matted and dirty, with the lights of the city and the new buildings, each one looking like it had been built on the same day as the other. The roads felt so wide, so new that the car was a toy. Those lights of the city, so bright after the hours of black flat surfaces - the plains, these were the lights that 'they' were talking about. When ‘they’, you know them, drove into these cities from the mind of nowhere, from no sleep, from medications and free drinks and trucker speed. From hours of longing and loving and defeat and looking at and deceiving, themselves and anyone who would buy their ten-cent stories. Their lights were so bright and so clear in the mountain air, their burn fixed a halo around them but no two halos touched. And nothing touched them, cloaked in that numbness, a halo in its own right, we glow with what we think we're hiding. I too was glowing, wrecked by quips in the car about who knows what, and realizing, seeing finally that what was acting on me, the ghost force of memory, keeping me down here, Jesus Christ, well this weight, this weight I was bringing, it's acting on her and him and them and I didn't want to see it. I'm sorry. Well the lobby is cold and the coffee is free. Upstairs Sarah is sleeping. Someone I loved is half destroyed and we all need to grow up. And this year I faced every sleeping daemon I ever needed to know and watched as they shined my shoes and brought me tea and kept me here, comfortable and unable to leave. Let's move this place. Take these these mountains, this border surrounding us, you and me. Move this place, shifting and creaking, move these mountains, stretch out the horizon, pray, and let it be easy.
Joe Bob Browning
Sept. 17, 2008 – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Sitting in the Sub, the dining hall at Santa Fe College. Danielle set up the stage with a woven rug and a fur throw. She'll come with us, me and Audrey now as Sarah is leaving tomorrow, down through Texas and into Oklahoma. Today we drove from Denver here, stopped off in Maxwell, for a coffee, ironically tried to get a coffee in a shut down store called Maxwell's House. I made a joke of it but Sarah was in the phone booth and Audrey was taking a picture of a dead bird, eyes still open. No coffee, but gas, and a sweet mastiff pup at the station. The colors changed along with the landscape and the hour. Flat land and the distant promise of the range gave way to tall flattop rocks, and green shrubs, antelope, windmills spinning silver in the afternoon sun which cast itself across the plains wherever the clouds would let it. We saw a turn off, an exit maybe, or just an old nothing, a chance to leave the highway and find the train we'd seen. What we found was a long dirt road that led us to a bruised red trailer and three cowboys, staggered in age, one of who was staggering. The eldest introduced himself, well I'm Joe Bob Browning, this is Mike, the one with the glasses and this is my son, Colby Matt Browning. Joe Bob has a leathered, weathered face, welts on his hands, big old cuts and is holding a beer. There are cans on the ground and the men are all grinning. Can we take your photo? I asked. Oh sure thing he said. And what should I do? He asked. Oh pretend I'm not here, I said. But how could we do that? He asked. Y'all are the prettiest things we ever seen. And he told us we could stay forever and they would show us a real good time, Sarah he would take camping. His eyes were thin, unfocused, and his mustache was the opposite, thick and full right up to his cheeks. There was white mess coming form his eyes, like they were running with chalk and I wondered about the hours he spent in the sun to turn his skin so brown and his hat so dirty. And how long he'd been on the drink, and why he couldn't stop tearing. They took us into a field to show us the cattle. Colby rounded 'em up in a pen so Sarah could get close. He was our age, 25, or a year older. And Mike disappeared for a while, maybe it was that Joe Bob was a show stealer and it was hard, near impossible to compete. We followed the cattle around the pen, trying to get a closer look at their shit stained sheathes and their big soft eyes and the sun on their backs. When you take a picture of Joe Bob he says, well thank you darling, thank you darling.
***
Here at the college Danielle is setting up. It sounds great. I miss her clear voice and the sweetness in her eyes and how her shoulders move when she sings. We lived together when I first moved to Brooklyn, in a tiny apartment across from the gas station and the downtown jail, with a roommate Nick and his cat Spirit, thin as a slat and she couldn't stop shitting. And we read Passage to India to each other in her oversized blue chair, wore wigs, smoked Lucky Strikes, worked at the same place and drank a lot of tea.
80 miles outside Santa Fe I realized with a greater clarity how certain sadnesses were running me around and it wasn't just me, it was acting on the people I loved, the people who are good to me. Was that the face of the bottom of the rock, the one I hit in Denver? Time to grow up, cross a new border. I don't know if what you do unintentionally can act on you, but what you don't do, even unintentionally, don't listen, don't ask, think it don't matter, well it starts to seep in, to everything. When you go there, you've gone to that invisible wood, thinking no one sees you, even if you are as exposed as a hawk walking the empty road. And when you look up, face to the dulled sounds of a car pressing the wind, oh well, then you thank god for your wings.
Pecos, Jean Sherman, That Old Familiar Joy
September 18, 2008 – Fort Sumner, NM, 3PM
Jean Sherman drove rock candy from Chicago to New Mexico and down into Texas. He met Hank Williams and some other country singer and got around in his day. He's 85. His brother's living outside of Buffalo. He's living in Fort Sumner and will bring us coffee, he says, if we land in jail. We're driving on 60, heading to Lubbock. Stayed at Danielle's place in Pecos last night, slept inside the beautiful empty red clay house on warm mats and woke up early to Sarah knocking at the door with allergies and a swollen eye. Drove over to the restaurant to meet Shayna, Emiliano's not not girlfriend, to eat Huevos Salvadorenos and then dropped Sarah off at the airport shuttle. Last night we drove home from Santa Fe under the giant moon just past full. Edith Piaf sang as Audrey and I tried to imitate her 'r's' and I tried, in between turning left or right, to glimpse at the sky, almost unreal, so wide and so metallic bright. Danielle bought a pack of Lucky Strikes, and driving past the ranches, behind an old school bus, we sang along to Shelter From the Storm and I caught myself in the passenger side mirror, smiling, filled with a sense of renewal and that old familiar joy.
Lights in Trees
September 19, 2008 – Denton, Texas
Grain Mills. Oil rigs. Cattle. Corroded iron livestock pens. Signs for Jesus. Town square. Pawn shop and a neon sign. Village green. Christmas lights in all the trees. It looks like a blur. My eyes are drying and puffy and the waitress at the restaurant on the corner of the street asked about if I was ok. Denton, Texas. I cast off a long brewing spell. And exercised those buried incantations I'd been saying to myself without listening. I feel for the first time in too long, awake, not tired any more, free. It was a phone call and it was an understanding and it was a blessing. Somehow I had chosen to walk away from myself for a long time. I was trying to walk backwards, thought that if only I could access a memory, a void, a history, not really access it but stand near by it, awkwardly, waiting for it to reveal itself to me, I would not have to do the work of moving into the day, into the sun, beautiful though searing. Down deep, in the place of spells and blessings I realize my legs carry me. Danielle and Audrey told me about how life is silly and we ate ice cream, got some wine and Danielle got us glasses from the wine store, real glass, and we sat in the park under the lights, their halos, those halos, burning as a man talked in a strange voice for his dog, and a little kid was trying to spin to get dizzy. And I spun to get dizzy and plopped down exhausted next to them, Audrey, the quiet storm, Danielle the mystical beauty.
enton, Norman, Torrie Resurrecting the Dead
Sept 20, Norman, Oklahoma
Comfort Suites sitting on the bed with Danielle and her friend Israel and his friend Joshua from Arkansas. Audrey left today and tomorrow Dani is leaving. We played at Opolis and went to Waffle House, put a pickle in the grilled cheese. I talked to Matt today for a long time. He amazes me. I don't know how he got like that, Jesus, man. Right now we are listening to Israel's songs about his home town. His voice is moving.
Earlier today D and I bought cheese, three kinds and dates and crackers and sat with the rest of our wine by the tracks as trains passed us carrying vans, cargo, it was the Santa Fe line and as we ate, D told me about bike rides in France. Later we did a tarot card reading. I asked my questions and got the card of Death and also a green fairy lady who was all about re-growth and creativity. Death in cards means letting go over what's been holding you back.
The night before we got to Denton, before I finally just let go, tendered my resignation, hey you, good man tinged with tenderness and your mean things, my mean things, our mean things, I was in Lubbock, hearing stories from Torrie. Torrie is 29, a folk singer, a real great guitar player. She has pale skin and clear, pale gray eyes and has lived in Lubbock all her life. Now she lives in a house whose door is carved like the moon so when you are sleeping on the couch you can look out the door and think you are looking at the sky. Torrie is beautiful. After the show we went back to her and her girlfriend Brooke's house. Torrie told us she'd tried to open an art space, tried to get people to see the choice in things. But over and over again the town shut her down. Her friend Ariel who was also there had been beaten to black body, gay-bashed in a town where cops don't believe in gay bashing. They said in Jasper there's a sign, a billboard as you drive in that says if you're black you better not be around when the sun goes down. They said Lubbock was the kind of town that could crack your spirit in half, but they couldn't leave. Torrie's mom lives down the street, and like a Tornado you know is coming, you refuse to believe you can be hurt in a place where you were raised to feel safe. She said god was word for most of her community. That there was one way and it was the bible and that's what most people she had known growing up were taught to believe. Maybe she could be an example, she said, of a new way to be free in mind, spirit and body. And Handler, their crazy kitten wrapped his small arms around the legs of the couch and darted across the room, as Torrie lit another Malboro. She said when she was in the church she came into a relationship with another woman who practiced there. When her father died this woman told Torrie that if she prayed hard enough she could bring her father back from the dead. So she went to his body. She put her hands on his heart and held them there. She prayed as hard as she knew how, just stood there, praying, reciting. I knew the bible back and front she said. I knew every word, I said every prayer I could. I stayed like that for I don't know for how long and he just lay there. Nothing. Then I woke up. That's when I started looking at everything they had taught me. And I could see the bible and the passages and point to them and I said this is bullshit and that is bullshit and then that was the end of it for me. And Torrie, who was wearing a t-shirt with Elmo on it, who's dirty Burt and Ernie tee was laying in a chair in the bathroom didn't want to change anybody. She just wanted to live and by example let it be known that there were others ways to have faith and be free. Let it be known, that thank god, no amount of love or praying was gonna wake that sleeping body.
Situational Extremes Revised: Crystal’s Singing on Main Street
September 22, 2008 – Dekalb, Illinois
Outside a young kid with dreads and an earring and a headband, who is supposed to be at work, is tracing Crystal's body in chalk on the street. She's shoeless. She has her guitar and she and Jordan played their songs as a train cut across the town. One song was about love making you crazy. Crystal said all the train activity was because of gas prices. And maybe she'll leave school early. She doesn't want to be around to pay loans when the depression hits. Earlier today I was wishing I were on Dekalb Ave, Brooklyn. I have thrust myself into situational extremes, joined a new tour last night in Omaha. A happy hippy was riding around on a scooter when we got here and said he was looking forward to the positive vibrations of the evening. Back outside, after the show Crystal asks if I'm from Brooklyn. Ya, I say. Let me ask you my one Brooklyn landmark. Pratt University? I say I know it. I lived in the campus dorms she tells me. Was your dad a teacher there I ask? No, she said, he was an architecture student until we ran out of money. Then we moved here. I asked if he got to finish up somewhere but she said no that he drives trucks. She's beautiful, short hair, skinny, dirty feet, a tattoo on her left leg she designed of her and her girlfriend's names, two C's. Jordan is wearing a silver shirt and shorts, she has a video camera. She's full of spunk and talks about moving to Norway to sing and also about the survey she has to finish for gender studies. Crystal and Jordan restore me. We take a picture when they leave. A big sized man on a bench gestures in his leather jacket to somewhere across the street. I watch as his arm falls against the brick, lit up yellow by the glow of lamplight and again a train is passing.
These nights I'm dreaming vague dreams. Driving through Iowa I saw wheat stalks with tips the color of the palest lace pulsing in the breeze. And every bird in this country loves a wire when not flying. The wind energy towers were not spinning, I'm doing everything I can to stay dizzy. When I eat I eat ravenously. A band is practicing above the Lincoln Inn and a sign that says Bakery. There goes the happy hippy, redhead with dreads, riding his scooter in his shades down the street.
Stray Cats, Sunset, Football, Peanut Butter Tacos, My Favorite Jukebox(the Ghost!)
September 25, 2008 – Cleveland, Ohio
Oh man, here I am, out of breath the at the Beachland Tavern, just finishing dancing to the best dance set of the tour, provided by my new favorite Jukebox Ghosts, ok ok Jukebox the Ghost. I joined up with Ben, Tommy and Jesse in Chicago and have been riding with them for that last few days. Today we took pictures down by an old person's home on the beach and saw a whole family of stray kittens, played football and got us some exercise, finally! I feel good, it's been such a long year and I think I found the light, not sure how but man oh man, it's finally ok again. I am so excited for the future of things, new approaches, blessings, and wings on the wind of wings. It's band time again, it's California soon. I almost can't believe the lightness in my heart(the red bull in my veins) and what this levity will mean. Cheers to new friends who feel old, to old friends who feel new, to cool friends who will hold on and those who see you through. Cheers and love from Cleveland. See you in LA.
OBAMA-NATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Category: Life
Nov. 5, 2008
Pecan groves and cotton fields, white white buds on long black stalks. We made it through Virginia, into Raleigh, NC and then to Mount Pleasant SC. Played at a bar, and after I cried watching Obama, turned the volume up on the screen as loud pop songs played over the speakers and a girl jumped up and down after winning at a deer hunter video game. I felt an enormous relief. I hugged my band mates.
We pulled into the hotel and got high and drank our free beer in our sleeping bags watching the pundits. In the morning I wandered into the parking lot in my pajamas and asked the maid her feelings. She smiled and said she was happy and I felt her and it seemed to be such a proud day. There was a card for her tip in the room. It said Thanks - Gi Gi and had two smiley faces on it. I put on real clothes and drove to the grocery store with Jon. I tried to ask the checkout girl what she thought about the election but she said it was store policy that she wasn't allowed to talk about it. A quick drive back to the motel and I noticed how the trees were a mixed bag, half spruce and half palm, somewhere between my childhood and my idea of what was possible down here.
We got on 17 and drove under weeping trees covered in hanging moss and drove past an old plantation that looked perfectly entact , white fence, a sign and those overgrown trees lining a long driveway we could not even begin to see the end of. When we stopped at a gas station, it wasn't Ashepoo but it was close, it was quiet. And there were two men in a bright black acura with tinted windows, Louis Vuitton luggage in the back, and one of em was wearing some kind of leather whip around his waist. And it was just so quiet. And the night before we'd been at a gas station somewhere between North and South Carolina and a bunch of cats were hanging around the pump. A baby kitten let me pet her and I thought about what it would be like if we took her with us. Apparently they get addicted to the fumes, they're huffers, strays. Onto Tallahasee. We stopped at a BBQ joint next to Wendy's and a gas station. A guy named Trent had gold teeth and his name carved into the gold. He was working the big cookers, said the meat cooked for 18-24 hours and you could see that by the skin of the chicken Jon ordered and the moistness of Matt's brisket. And he said to the white lady in the jumpsuit that he agreed it was a great day as we did have a new president. But he said to me wait until they try to shoot him because he said some shit was gonna go down. That Bush was a puppet, that the real men running this country are 170 years old, that they don't want to get their hands out of the cookie jar and they're trying to figure out ways to live longer. Said that they throw punches at united nations meetings which is why they aren't televised anymore. He was a former tattoo artist and was a starving tattoo artist at one point and was from Atlanta and I guess now lives in that border town and isn't hungry anymore and they gave me and Am tea for free.
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