March 2 2006 - The Bluebird Theater - Denver, CO

I get a tarot card reading from 'Phoebe,' a middle-aged flaming redhead with graying inch long roots, at the witch shop adjacent to The Bluebird. I draw some decorative cards with medieval characters bearing swords and shields. I should, she says; follow my musical path even if it costs me my marriage. I draw more cards. Maybe she reads my eyes between the cards. In them she can see how important my relationship is to me, or maybe the spirits guiding the cards are just confused because "These cards," she says, "contradict the last." I should stay with my husband now even at the expense of my musical career. One thing seems clear; I can't have both. Little jingle ferries busy their bells in a breath from the door. White, Black and Green Wicca literature is stacked against the back wall gathering (angel) dust. Candles, potions, essential oils and incense have a tea party in midair. A witch broom rests against a ceramic Buddha and prisms splatter rainbow nymphs onto modest shadows. I pay Phoebe 30 bucks ($25 for the reading and an extra $5 for changing her mind about my man). Gwen pokes her shaggy head around our silk room divider and ushers me back to sound check. My first tarot reading may turn out to be my last.

I'm very glad to be back in Colorado and playing in a joint I've so frequently gigged at in the past. Down in the copper spraypainted green room, I flop next to Jen and Blanch hitting a bad spring. I massage my backside as I drill Jen on Blanches flight plan to Atlanta tomorrow. Blanch, donned in her pink puffy monogrammed doggie coat, looks like she knows she's been banished from the road.

Larry Cancia is here with brand new baby in tow. Batman C. is a beautiful bouncing boy with little or nothing to say about the cosseting gang of shaggy musicians oohing and ahhing. He winds up playing his kit on a couple of songs that night. Larry, not Batman.

March 1, 2006 - The Record Bar - Kansas City, MO - Ash Wednesday

I have the exact opposite sleeping schedule as Buddy. In fact, I haven't seen our driver for days now except for the 6pm morn-night he woke me up for sound check at Shuba's. He's leaving right now. I see his taxi's tail lights pulling out of the car lot headed toward a hotel I'll never see the light of, to sleep till it's my turn for bed.

Across the concrete lawn I see a ½ price bookshop in which I lose my time. Man, do they have some good books in there. An Anna Karenina first printing. A signed "Moor's Last Sigh" first press. Every author under the sun is living there together in print, tightly crammed onto wooden shelves under sunny crystal bulb lights. I fill my arms with paper and ink and dust covered mysteries. I'm literally in literary heaven.

Even though I've been up for an hour (a long time for me before a show) when I ascend the golden swaying, starlit, meretricious stage there is still a hoarsy quality to my voice so while Ben persnickety requests less of frequency 220 and more of acoustic #2 I ask only that Steve dial some of the sleep out of my monitor. Of course this lethargy is not the monitors fault and all Steve can do is hunch his shoulders and smile teasingly at my groggy silhouette.

Downstairs in the dungeonous green room there are sky blue bags of laundry draped over bulk orders of plastic ware and Styrofoam cups. I read employee's time-off requests posted on the backstage (underground) door.

Ben and David tune guitars between decedent harmonies and Gwen and I discus wardrobe and makeup. I take a hippie shower with a stick of deodorant and some baby powder and decide to wear "merkin de cabasa." This is Gwen's sobriquet for my fake ponytail hair clip. Confessedly, it makes fewer showers almost forgivable and is a nice quick fix for a bad hair day (which these days are every day).

The audience is seated on a filthy, bacteria infested floor that is growing onto their legs and laps with voracity like a disease in a Petri dish. We gather up on stage to start our set. This is when I catch Steve's eye. Now, it's quite common during the first two or three songs for musicians on stage to want to alter their monitors. They want more vocals, less guitar, more kick drum etc., thus the soundman is looking out at us with questioning raised brows just letting us know he's on top of it if we need to (excuse the pun) tailor our mixes. But if you're not needing monitorial modulation and you catch the soundman's eye by accident looking so intently in your direction you can go from quite content and confident to overtly paranoid and anxious.

You catch his quizzical eyes and meet them with your own furrowed brow. He thinks you're making a face because you're unhappy with your sound and raises his brows even higher. You exchange a few more inquiring glances which grow in intensity until suddenly, it occurs to you:

"Maybe Steve's not curious. Maybe he's perplexed!" Which he probably is by now - wondering what the hell you want more/less of in your mix. Your inner voice starts screaming at you, drowning out all the music you've worked so hard to memorize and harmonize with.

"I'm sucking! I'm clearly sucking! I'm obviously not hearing myself right and I'm completely off key. That's what it is. Shit, I'm off key! That's why Steve's staring me down. He's trying to tell me I'm singing the wrong part." The solution, you think while trying to calm down is:

"OK, I can't hear correctly, what do I do? I've got to get Steve to change my monitor mix." Of course this is the wrong move and once you've mimed out 'more vocals please. MORE! M-O-R-E!!' you're screwed for the night. Now you really are sucking, it's only the second song, you can hear yourself but to the exclusion of everything else you're trying to harmonize to, you're paranoid and twitching, and you're probably off key too.

This problem doesn't abate any time soon and only agitates your other fears and worries such as "Maybe my fly's down. Did I wear underwear? My merkin de cabasa's falling off. I'm late for my math exam, Where am I? Who am I?" and "where is my mommy?"

So...
A. I had a great night
B. Marlon Brando took my place as do wop singer and tambourine shaker.
C. Marry had a little lamb or
D. Don't fix what 'aint broke!"

February 28th 2006 - University Of Iowa - Ames Iowa - Fat Tuesday

Red and yellow pompoms float fierily in slow motion to an amplified 80's Rock The Casbah. Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras beads hang and dazzle from jigging sophomores in green, blue, purple and gold. Beer drips and drains from broken bottles onto tables, onto floors. "I love Buddy" is scribbled in finger on one fogged up windshield and "Fat Tuesday hoochie coo" on the other. 23 students of all shapes, sizes and majors are smushed together into the front compartment of our tour bus. They're dancing on the leather couches, in the open doored bathroom and some are spilling like trayless gumdrops from glass globelike dispensers onto the frozen streets.

Now this is what I call a dance party. Two more cases of beer arrive on senior's shoulders, mid garrulity. My socks are soaked in lager and my lips are pumping out rote and vociferous lyrics. If you can't beat 'um, join 'um I figure and dance 'til sweat stains my eyes and night stains my morning.

In the back of the bus, in 'the naughty lounge,' so named by Gwen for the assignatious events that brew in its remoteness, Ben, David and Tristan put on a private concert for the more mellow minded matriculates. Gwen adjusts the lighting.

Come 3:00 the buses' occupancy has dwindled to a handful of youthful handsomes who insist on eating Chimmy Chongas pronto. The streets of Ames are empty. A frosty, ticklish wind blows hollowly at the cores of our consciousness. I think to myself that if I can make it through Iowa, I'll have made it through the entire winter in my woolen A & F cardigan. Daren and Steve almost bought me a secondhand coat in Illinois but decided the "kootie factor" might be too high for me to don such apparel.

Chongas is shut tighter than a frogs bottom but the pita pocket place across the street's still flashing neon so we order some hummusy bready products and meander busward. I nibble on my veggie pita while searching the net for an old 70's 'Speak & Spell.' I wanted one like the unit Ben and I played with as children. We use to press all the buttons at once and agitate the mechanics of the toy until Speak & Spell mumbled gibberish in early electronic vocals making us roll. I make the mistake of winning a '78 Speak & Spell on eBay only to discover my pay pal account has a password I've completely forgotten attached to a e-mail address I've long since discarded. So, I'm up till 6:30am attempting to give the toy back to its original owner.

February 26th 2006 - Shuba's - Chicago IL

Besides the hiss of the heat strip and the buzz of the generator, a new sound been introduced to my indominatable doze. My lids unfasten to reveal Buddy hovering almost unnoticeablely whispering for my imminent presence at sound check. It's still dark. I bring this to Buddy's attention. He tells me I've missed the light part of the day, and it's now 6:00pm. I've taken to sleeping in my wardrobe seeing as I've been waking just in time for stage call recently.

Nobody's surprised to see me when I bolt through the door at Shuba's, eyes still indelibly crusted shut and arms held high in my victory over sleep. Trying to sing through my superannuated vocal chords is to sing badly at best and I mostly croak monotically throughout sound check.

There's an old-fashioned photo booth in the bar portion of Shuba's. I've been in said booth numerous times before so when David suggests we get a photo taken I prompt him in the monetary portion of the picture taking process and pat my lap for him to sit his tiny butt down. Gwen thrusts her head through the curtains and we commence a series of facial extortions #1. Completely surprised, unprepared mien. #2. Fishy puckered face #3. Kiss the Brit and #4. Grumpy old man mug. We're especially animated in black and white and further strips of comedy turn up as the night progresses. They wind up on the bus refrigerator.

Ben practices old school break dance in the verily prosaic dressing room. David tries his hand at an inverted yoga move that requires Ben's assistance.
"Hold my legs." Requests The Saw, which Ben accomplishes overzealously and nearly purees the P.O.M. who ends up face down, chin to floor, money dripping from his trousers. Gwen challenges the boys to a yoga off. Ben complies by twisting his elongated torso into pretzelian poses while Gwen one ups him with her rather small more pasticine physique.

The stage is a peregrination from the green room so when I realize I've left my in ears I have to send Dom back to fetch them. I'm left dumb through the first 3 songs. Funnily enough it's not so much better when Dom returns and I'm donned with monitors. Once again the room wins and Ben is once again sulking in the back lounge.

February 25, 2006 - The Fine Line Café - Minneapolis, MN

Blanch is famous. When Jen takes her out for a walk, the people (on the line that's formed around the block) mob her:
"Is that Blanch?" They scream "It's Blanch!" "Blanch, over here," flash, flash, flash go the flash cubes. It's colder today than any other I can remember. Ones vision is severely impaired by the vapors that condense and plume from our warm articulate mouths. Every time we speak we're masked by our own words. We run from The Fine Line to the high-end sushi spot 'Nami' across the street. We order Dragon rolls, #9 rolls (which prompt potty mouth in reference to 'going #9') we order sake and miso. Tristan gets some wasabi dumplings that make her eyes water and her stuffy nose clear temporarily relieving her of the cold she's got going.

There's an amazingly large crowd at the Fine Line. People are smushed up against the stage and I get lost trying to find the green room. When I do finally locate it, I open the door to find a mini denim jacket wearing Blanch staring at herself in a cracked and gratified floor length mirror. Just look what a little fame will do to a perfectly demure little pooch.

From on stage the audience looks like a sea of bubble wrap waving and troughing into the distance. I take a picture before handing my camera off to two University of Wisconsin students who've driven up to see us for a second night running. Their names are Zac and Amanda. They insist that they love us. I'm pretty sure they're rolling. They take some pretty fantastic pictures for me though.

Although the crowd seamed to like us all equally, we each have our own individual fans. Mine is an excessively tall John Mayer look alike from stage left who repeatedly screams "Sally. I love you Sally!" With great aplomb. Gwen has a "Blueberry!" yeller and The Saw has a mini harem of Abercrombie & Fitch wearing, young, nubile women below him on stage right - who whistled and exaga-sighed every time he fingered his frets.

Even so, it's a hard show to play. The sound on stage is whack and haunted and Ben gets down after the show and wants to be alone. Meanwhile blanch shivers and cuddles me like a Brownian survivalist. The Saw gets a little tipsy and no amount of peer pressure will ruse him into staying up and make a fool of himself with us. Steve heads off into the cold to find the hotel. He's obsessive about getting a shower immediately after a show. Dom and Kindra jump into a bunk for a little… I don't know what and Gwen, whose heard a rumor that Prince has just played the Orpheum, relentlessly insists (in slurred tongue) that we go party with Prince!

Gwen is moping and Princeless and we're out on the road by 1:00am.

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