February 2, 2006 - Santa Barbara, CA - Soho

It's chilly for California while we wait on the stoop outside West LA rehearsal studio for our tour bus to arrive. Our equipment sits on the sidewalk. Guitars are staked on drums, drums on monitors, monitors on concrete and we're all piled on top of the pile. Most of us are in t-shirts, which, no matter how hard we tug, won't keep the cold night out of our bones. Under a flickering street lamp we wait. Some of us smoke (Gwen and David to be specific) and some of us chew Nicorette gum (that'd be me). I got hooked on the gum some 3 odd years ago despite the fact I didn't smoke before then. I slowly developed my habit from 2 milligrams to 4. I'm currently on the Target brand of nicotine gum. The original is expensive as all get out and at the rate I'm chain chewing I can't afford the high-end stuff.

Larry told us he had a surprise, and there it was, turning the corner down the street. We're getting Mom's tour bus - yahoo! It's not really Mom's bus, but it's the one we toured in most recently on the Northeast jaunt this past December. It's a bitchin' ride! It's got Internet, 2 huge TV's, a killer sound system, leather couches, a kitchen (though very small) with a coffee maker, fridge and microwave oven. It's got a bathroom, a large back lounge (for smokers) and 8 bunk beds with DVD screens in each one. I tried to get the bunk I'd had on Mom's tour but Ben already snagged the back right top so I settled for top left and started my nest. I nest more than most women I know. Into my nest goes every book I intend to read this year. 50 skeins of wool with knitting needles of every size. A couple gallons of water. All my CDs. My purse, my computer, dozens of earplugs, "pretty bag" (my amenities kit) and then, with what space is left, I stuff as many pillows as I can find and then last, but not least, I squeeze my body in there.

Not only do we have Mom's tour bus, we have Mom's bus driver - Buddy Sofia! Buddy is one of a kind. He's a night owl. He can drive all night long without a wink and he does so for 355 days out of the year. Of course, this means that he needs to sleep all day long which, although as a band we'll be sleeping on the bus, requires a hotel room in each city. He's as nice a guy as you're gonna find out here on the road and has a heart of gold. He and his wife make a practice of adopting children who, otherwise, would not find homes. He's had so many children, in fact, that he can't even remember them all. Their most recent adoptee is a 17-year-old girl who's been an orphan all of her life and had little hope of ever finding a family at this stage of her life. Then along came Buddy and Jennifer (Mrs. Buddy) out of nowhere to make a proper home for her. He's also been shot once in the stomach. The bullet came so close to his spinal chord that the doctors chose not to remove it, so now, every time he flies he sets off the metal detector. He carries an x-ray photo of the bullet with him for proof that he's not packin' heat.

On the way back to the Double Tree for our last night in Santa Monica, we stop at an all night diner for a late night snack (which includes milkshakes and cheese burgers). Everything's all fun and games until Ben bites into a pickle and finds a very prune-y, dead worm inside. There's mostly nausea but some laughter (with a side of tears) as he spits out the bite.

The next morning, we gather in the lobby for check out. I pay my $18.09 bill (two waters which Ben drank from my mini bar and a 45 second phone call) and get in line at the in-hotel Starbucks. There was once an Onion article which read: "New Starbucks to open in the bathroom of Starbucks." It's a farcical paper but one gets the feeling that such an event is not entirely out of the question. I order a hot tea and fill my 'Grande' cup to the brim with milk and honey. Carrying it over to the couch I realize just how hot my hot tea is. The water tips ever so slightly to spit on my fingertips. I react with excessively loud "Oh S___! Oh hot, very hot, oh ouch, ouch, too hot, Oh Jesus Jesus." David Saw reacts with: "Let me help you Sal," In his cute British superman accent.
"Ouch, No, Ouch too ho-" But he takes the cup from me any way and proceeds to spill more than ½ the cup's contents on his guitar playing hand. You know when something is so not funny that you have to laugh and then tear up trying not to laugh because someone's in pain and you should be worried and consoling but now you're laughing even harder. Get the picture?

David's hand is still pink when we arrive in Santa Barbara and he doesn't mind showing me his peach colored flesh wound with frequency and a 'don't feel bad about it, wasn't your fault' type of resentment.

Santa Barbara is sunny and perfect in a Stepford wifey kind of way and I bask outside of the club considering the dry smell of the dessert and the green freshness of mown lawn. Ben's sound checking when he realizes he's left his ATM card in the machine across the street at Washington Mutual. He flies off stage and out of the club and across the street only to return cardless, depressed and hunched over. Turns out if you forget your card at a Washington Mutual ATM and you don't have a Washington Mutual card they shred it, do not pass go, do not collect 100 dollars. I go into mama gorilla mode and with Dom (inick) in tow, and I go to find a WM manager. Inside, I lure a bank representative over with a smile only to tell him that we have a really huge problem on our hands. I explain the situation to "Randy," a handsome gentleman in his forties who realizes we're all human and ends up fishing Ben's card out of the shredder before it's too late. I get mega sister points for this.

Now, officially on tour, I must introduce the rest of our circus troop. There's Dominic Keska, our tour manager, and his girlfriend Kindra Adair who'll be selling merch. These two are indistinguishable from one another. Truly, they have the same hair color and cut, and the same calm, easy going, quiet demeanor. They are both smiles from ear to ear and they both seem to know something the rest of us humans don't. Of course, what they know I have no clue as to, being a mere human myself but I think they may have been given the guidebook to peace and happiness. Of course they could be aliens too. Let's not discount that option. Nevertheless, I'm goanna try to get as close as possible to them to see if I can't get my hands on that guide book.

Hadley Wiggins is Ben's girlfriend who, unfortunately for us, is only with us through Phoenix. This is because she's on her way to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa. That's the kind of girl I like! She's just come back from India too, where she taught English to orphans. She's gorgeous, independent, courageous, smart smart smart, and larger than life. Did I mention how much I dig this girl?!
Steve Scherms arrived yesterday. He's doing sound for us and like any good sound engineer, came equipped with hiking boots?!
"Why do engineers wear hiking boots?" asked Hadley. This is a very good question. One for which I have no answer. He's got the bunk below me and though I don't know him well at all yet, he seems like a thoughtful, observant, clean, happy, helpful, strong man who happens to have exceptionally keen ears. I hope I don't keep him up with my late night knitting. Those metal needles can make quite a racket for someone with ultra mega sensitive ears.

January 31, 2006 - Day 2 Rehearsals

Do ya' ever get that kind of agitation where it feels like your lungs are hooked up to a Hoover vacuum hose and you can't get your breath in? Where your skin itches from the inside? Where any one within a 50 foot radius is suspect of perpetrating your discomfort and you want to shove them all out of the way, get to the window, throw your head out and scream "HELP?" or "FIRE?" or "BURGLAR?!" but you don't know which is the problem? Well then you know how I'm feeling tonight. It's 6:34(ish) and we're in West LA studio room #3. Been here since 4:20(ish) and everything's protruding into my silence. It's as though someone has removed my skin and put miniature cloth pins on each of my nerve endings. The guitar is too loud. My jeans are too tight. I can't get a certain note right on "Nothing I Can Do" and there's nothing I can do. I can't get Garage Band to record our rehearsal without feeding back and I'm at the very end of my wit's end.

But then Ben breaks a string and not just any string but the very first string he's ever broke while playing and somehow it relieves some of my tension. The way throwing porcelain across a room, hearing it smash and shatter into a million unsalvageable pieces can diffuse anger, the breaking of the string caused some of my anxiety to disseminate as though the tightness in my strained mood stretched that F-in string to it's snapping point. "YES!" "FREEDOMM!"
We take a break.
Ahh... space

Ben rests up against a grey egg crate, foam wall and tells an antidote he heard on The family Guy about baby Stewie and a Samuel Adams commercial. We all laugh. These kinds of antidotes have pervaded our daily communication. This is how we get to know one another, by reenacting our favorite movie scenes. It may not seem to be intimate but… well, it's not. No, really, it helps to define what each of us finds interesting, where our opinions differ and what kind of humor we enjoy or accept even and yes, it keeps us at an arms distance until we can get to know each other well enough to trust one another with bigger stuff. Besides we'll be forced together soon enough into tight (TIGHT) living quarters where we'll have no choice but to learn each other's insides and out. The good, bad and the ugly. I know this type of enforced intimacy all to well. I spent 5 years in a van with 4 guys dancing around the USA on 3 hours of sleep a night. The only privacy I can find in this type of scenario is a set of earplugs and a bottle of beer. But beer's out of the question this time and I'll have to make due with earplugs alone.

Wish me luck.

January 30, 2006 - Day 1 Rehearsals

West LA Rehearsal studio is located somewhere between Olympic and Santa Monica. You'd mistake it for a New York magazine hole in the wall if it weren't for the numerous 8 X 10 black and white glossies of (semi) famous acts littering reception's walls. But don't get me wrong this place is a hole. Dirty too. The floors are dirty the lighting is dirty even the guy manning the front desk is dirty. His beard looks like burnt brilow pad and his eyes are foggy beneath a set of broken burly brows. He grunts but doesn't visually register as we stream by with instruments in hand.

Room #3 is padlocked and has a walk-in freezer door handle giving it a mega Mafioso vibe. Fresh paint smell permeates the hall but it's obvious this place hasn't seen a new coat in decades just making a mockery of the gaffers tape protecting white wall paint from encroaching on teal ceiling paint. Music, blindingly loud in adjacent rooms, muffles its way into the corridor under doorways and drywall cracks. "The Sound Of Silence" blares then a Grateful Dead cover song takes precedence as some long hair appears from behind door #6 and bounces into the "gentleman's" room. I can't say I've seen the gentleman's room but the "lady's" room is up to horror show standards with floating cob webs grasping hardily to a grey ceiling and some tarry goop drooling southward through a hole in the wall over the toilet. I'm gonna avoid liquids for the next couple hours I think.

The rehearsal room is not much better (how could I have expected much, you may ask). A solo (off OFF) white couch sits against a (semi) white wall. Both are badly stained with food and who knows what else and I lay down a pink paper flyer before sitting down on one of the cushions. Colorful 80's squiggles fly across the couches fabric - trying, in vain, to distract from it's stains and spills, which cover the carpet as well, but seem less heinous as the carpet is navy with beige speckles. As we load in equipment (silver sparkled drums and attach quarter inch cables to shinny shellacked guitars) the rest of the band begins to joke about the mics having harpies but you can tell they're partially serious because nobody wants to get too close up on them, even if it means being inaudible over the speakers.

And now I think introductions are in order:

David Saw on lead guitar. David is English so he's got that adorable British accent which, in accompaniment with sharp chiseled features and the ability to manipulate a guitar to emote from sheer gratitude at it's own playing makes him quite a catch. I've traveled with him once before, last summer, when Ben brought a bunch of POMs over for a short East Coast gavotte where he was shy and sweet and not getting out of his black clothes into a bathing suit to come swimming with us hippies in the pond up in Vermont. He sat in the shade even on overcast days, hunched palely over a guitar in acoustic stupor writing and rewriting lyrics which flow from his mouth in Marlborough exhales.

Larry Ciancia: President of Iris Records and drum player extraordinaire. Larry is a fellow Coloradoan living with his (presently very pregnant) wife and child, Jacob in the Colorado foothills closer to the clouds than I do, in my abode. He's been a familiar face in the Simon/Taylor family for years playing for both my mom and my bro. Mild-mannered and strong, I credit Larry as majorly responsible for the temperature staying so steady, on an emotional level, in our lives. He appeared in my life on a raft one summer day in my pool 6 years ago and has been floating around on that same raft in my heart since then.

Gwen Snyder is on the bass. My memory's picture of Gwen is of a petite black haired girl with a Joan Jet meets Emily the Strange glint in her eye. Her tiny frame supports what looks like an un-sheared lamb. This is her winter jacket that she wears like an appendage. She always looks like she wants to do something naughty or maybe she just has. Her blond bass holds her and in a stance that screams "ROCK STAR" as she plants a red leather boot up on a wedge and purses her lips as if to kiss her strings… O.K. maybe I'm exaggerating (I'm prone to hyperbole) but nonetheless, this girl is a hot, smokin', badass piece of Rock & Roll. Oh, did I mention she's got a voice as pure as cold spring water on a hot summer day?

And last but not least.. Ben Taylor (the crowd goes wild! Standing ovation. "Encore" "Encore" "Bravo") what can I say about this beautiful being who happens to be my brother?! He is the deep end of the sky in August. He is the sway of mid Atlantic waves, the earth's sigh when the day finally takes to breaking your heart. He's the tallest branch on a weeping willow tree tickling the wind as she passes by. He is the hardest fit of laughter, the kind that rips the fabric of your soul and finds tear stained smiles indelibly etched into your mind. Baby, he's the BEST.

January 29, 2006 - Travel Denver-Los Angeles

The sheep like bleating of the aromatherapy alarm clock seeps into my subconscious. It fits in flawlessly with the car alarm I've set off in the dream I'm having. The scent is what ends up waking me up. Lavender is way out of place in the devilishly gray Detroit alleyway (dream setting) I'm currently running down. Dull winter light squints at me though clenched and quaking lids. 7:00am, bedroom, Boulder (reality setting) fifteen minutes to departure and suddenly it's occurring to me; I don't need half of what I packed.

Last night in my leisurely luggage stuffing I'd pictured myself solo, in some hotel room in South Idaho or somewhere, with busy, poly, floral bedspread and matching curtains fighting off the road blues with my guitar, mini recorder and one of any number of blank tapes I've filled over the past 3 years with licks and melodies I've yet to find lyrics to. But this morning it's clear. With 15 minutes to spare I remember that this tour with Ben will be almost void of cheap hotel rooms, let alone floral, poly curtains, and will be spent almost entirely on a rental Provost bus with 9 other musical passengers.

Needless to say I can't leave my guitar at home. If only I hadn't packed the majority of my stage clothes into my guitar case. Toothbrush in mouth, mint lather gathering at my lips, I free silk camisoles and sequined skirts from E strings and sound hole wirings. These garments will be fitted into the limited gaps left by subsequent equipment I've deemed un-Ben Taylor Tour-worthy. Five minutes to go I shake my still sleeping husband. He's agreed to drive me to DIA (Denver International Airport) but appears to be baked into the soft downy covers and I feel bad about taking him up on his offer. We share a Peberry's mocha and muffin as we drive, sing along to the radio and carry on about how much we're going to miss each other, how we miss each other already and how long a time we'll have to miss one another before the month's up.

Our kiss goodbye lasts so long that traffic cops stop directing traffic to concern themselves with the possibility of having to deal with terrorists.

The cold air which had squeezed the warm wind out my lungs as I loaded my generic black bags into the trunk back home should have been an indication that my jacket was something I'd forgot. However, this thought didn't occur to me until I was halfway between terminal A and B on the airport tram. That'll be a problem come Minnesota. But no matter now, California here I come.

There's a family on the jetway and I stop to offer assistance as they fold prams and juggle three toddlers. The father looks at me suspiciously and replies in English brogue "No thanks, (sound of straining) fine here." I'm sitting one row behind and diagonally to the right of said family when I'm all buckled in and the youngest baby repeatedly throws a clear pacifier at me. It lands in my lap. The parents seem too distracted to notice and I return the spittle covered faux nipple to the giggling child. But on the fifth or sixth pass the father turns around in his seat to see me with his baby's pacifier and looks at me as though I'd swiped it from her toothless mouth. I smile meekly, apologizing with puckered brows and though he doesn't say it out loud, I imagine in his head he's saying in the British twang "Hey B____, get your own."

Ben is at the baggage claim. His magical Cheshire smile bounces atop his rubbery walk. It seems to float solar like above the faces of the tired masses. I feel my own exhausted face lighting up and it keeps getting turned up higher and higher like a lamp on a dimmer that has more watts than one'd imagined. Then I was in his cashmere sweatered arms being freed of gravity with a spin that set my calves a sway. He'd been at the airport an hour already having read my departure time as my arrival. He had musical bootie to show for his self-imposed, non-passenger, lay person, lay over. "Yaeverheardof The Ying Yang Twins?" and thus starts our tour. A new adventure. -- Sal

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