I'm just an okie from muskogee

I'm starting a perfume line. Its called "Odeur de l'greyhound". The idea just came to me on a bus ride from Austin to Dallas. Inspiration strikes at the most unexpected moments. The downtown bus station in Dallas is the happenin' place for drug buying and dealing teenagers. There was an old white security guard shuffling away kids who were loitering. It is a testament to our sorry state of urban affairs that the greyhound station is the desirable hang out.

Sunday the 3rd I met up with the two bands that I am playing bass for. It's a complicated story, but I'll do my best to explain it clearly. One band is named Zeb Dewar & the Half-Breeds (or the Working Poor, depending upon Zeb's mood). The drummer of this band is my good friend Dan Galucki, who used to work with me at the coffee shop Random Order in Portland, and is how I landed this gig. The other band is named Justin Gordon & Passengers. A woman named Samantha Crain is singing with Justin, and possibly a doing a little more with Zeb. She's an up and coming singer-songwriter and she booked our gigs, which is how we were able to obtain modest guarantees from the clubs. Six of us, Zeb, Dan, Sam, Justin, Kyle (Justin's drummer) and myself are playing eight shows in ten days, then driving through Mexico for a month, all the way to Guatemala. I had only ever met Zeb and Dan before Dallas.

left to right: Zeb D, Dan G, Justin G, Kyle C, Sam C.

On the 3rd Samantha was opening up for the Avett Brothers at a sold out show (12,000 capacity) at the Grenada Theater on the hip strip in Dallas. It's a beautiful old converted movie palace, with art deco paintings on the walls. I had played the theater two years ago with my band A Weather when we went on a tour opening up for the New Year. A week or so before A Weather got there, Gallager had been there and left his smashing stool, which had his name in his trademarked font imprinted across the seat. I was dead set on stealing the thing and somehow stuffing it into our already packed mini-van, until the backstage guys working at the club started talking about how great it was when Gallager played there and what a great guy he was and how nice it was of him to leave his stool there. At that point I felt guilty for even thinking of stealing it, and I hung my head in shame.

At the Granada Theater, over a year later, Gallager's stool was still there I'm happy to report. Sam made all of us tour kids homemade backstage passes, written in sharpie and laminated at her parents' house. Despite their completely faked appearance, they worked like a charm, and we ate like kings off the leftovers of the popular boy band. While the Avett's played, there was an extremely drunk recovering hippie girl in the back of theater who was singing along at the top of her lungs to all their songs, with her own unique interpretations of the melodies and delivery, much to the chagrin of many of those around her. In between songs she screamed various non-sequiters such as “There's too many yuppies here,” “Fuck Off Yuppies!,” and “Thank You Dallas!.” She was my favorite part of the show.

After Samantha packed out we drove the almost four hours from Dallas to Shawnee, OK, to sleep at her parents' house. Somehow, this was deemed a good idea. Sam's incredibly hospitable parents had laid out many pallets on their floor. We slept from 4am until 10:30, and then I rehearsed with both bands in the rec room until 7pm and ostensibly learned about 20 songs. My brain felt like a washing machine being abused by a college freshman trying to stuff a semester's worth of laundry into one load.

We went to “Hamburger King” in downtown Shawnee for dinner. There is a red telephone at every booth and when your table is ready all you have to do is pick it up and place your order. Technology! They also had Louisiana brand hot pepper vinegar which was a smashing addition to the potato wedges. The highlight of the “Hamburger King”, though, had to be the painting of the establishment's founder. The portrait was in ¾ view, with a hand stuck awkwardly and in odd proportion in the bottom left of the canvas. It was very heavy in the red dirt ochre tones and the brushwork on the face and hand went vacillated between outlines and no outlines, like a poor woman's Alice Neal. That painting was worth the trip alone.

Already on the trip snafus have surfaced: the plans have changed from taking one van with a trailer that was never purchased to taking two cars, and a suitcase with one member's clothes, credit cards and a passport has been left in a hotel in Dallas. Arrangements have been made to pick up the suitcase next week when we play Dallas and hopefully with the short drives the small guarantees at the shows will cover the cost of both cars. Last night my asthma acted up a little bit, my no-insurance two-years expired inhaler appears to be on its death bed, and the existential angel appeared on my shoulder asking me what the hell I was doing. Thoughts of the comforts of my ex-girlfriend's bed weighed heavy on my mind. As a man who wants to be in a relationship and raise a family, I'm beginning to see my lack of a belief in romantic love as a problem. I've always believed in commitment, and unconditional love, but I'm such a skeptic and such a “let's wait and see” kinda guy, I've got trouble jumping head over heels into anything. But, eventually I was able to fall asleep, wake-up, shower, make coffee, practice some more, and hop in a van to drive to the five hours to Little Rock, AK for our first show. Idle hands are the devil's play things, as the saying goes.

According to Samantha, Little Rock has the prettiest girls in the country. I'm not sure I believe her, but as that lesser known saying goes, you've got to get under somebody in order to get over somebody. And I did have a crush on Chelsea Clinton back in high school