Letter

Last Thursday I flew to Albuquerque to see a friend and sell some books. I met Bud in the late 90s when I moved back to Chicago. His band, the Country Melvins, was big part my finding a new community to be part of in town. When he moved to Albuquerque in 2005, I went along to give a hand. When I started planning events to promote my new book, Bud offered to put together a night of music in his town.

After a lunch which included the obligatory green chiles, we killed some time at a coffee shop, then moved on to a brewpub. One of the guys who would be performing that night joined us for a drink. He was dropping off a brown bag full of morels for the chef. I didn’t even know there were mushrooms in New Mexico, much less that local musicians might make a living trolling for them. He told me he was putting the finishing touches on a new record and asked whether I’d be up for making some art for the cover. I said yes without a second thought. Bud’s new lady, Arlene, showed up as well. It was great to see him with a woman who obviously liked him a lot.

An hour later we rolled up to the Moonlight Lounge, a barebones bar off the lobby of the Sunshine Theater. We set up a projector to run my slideshow and I laid out books and prints on small red-and-black-tiled table. Carl, a gentle Santa Claus of a guy, showed up. he’d be playing first. Then Brett and Rennie from the Handsome Family poked their head in. They were getting sushi next door, but promised to come back after. We’d been trying to get them to play, but it was even more flattering, in a way, that they came to hang out.

Carl’s songs were sharp-tongued and wistful in equal measure. The one about Gilligan’s Island of Dr. Moreau keeps popping into my head days later. Josh, the morel hunter, was next with a set melancholy, whispered tunes that reminded me a bit of the great Nashville band Lambchop. I’m glad I agreed to do artwork for him. 

Darlin finished out the night with catchy countryish tunes. I sold some books and had some good talks with friends new and old. The next afternoon, I caught a plane for San Francisco.

I took BART and Muni to Deborah’s new pad near what’s recently been renamed Oracle Field, home of the San Francisco Giants. I dropped off my gear, then we went to to the Castro Theatre to meet Ben for a Lon Chaney flick. Deborah and I were once married and Ben and I go back more than thirty years, so, even though I was in a city I don’t know too well, I felt at home.

The next morning Deborah and I went to the museum, then for a walk along the bay. I’m thankful we can spend time together now, whatever problems we had with one another in the past. It’s a privilege to be able track someone else’s life, whether one’s path with them intertwines or diverges. I don’t feel comfortable being open with many people, but on this trip I got to spend time with three of the people that have meant the most to me in my life. It would’ve been worthwhile even if I hadn’t sold a single book.

Another nice surprise was that my high school classmate, Laurel, showed up to my event that night at The Green Arcade bookstore. We haven’t seen one another in at least twenty-five years. She just happened by the store the day before and saw the poster, which looked familiar to her for some reason. She lives in the neighborhood with her husband and their kid.

Ben had been stressing out for weeks about our public talk, but I knew it would go well. And it did. It was the kind of easy banter we’ve engaged in ever since I met him, as a teenager, working at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline.

Deborah generously offered to drive me to the airport for my 6:30am flight back to Chicago. It remains to be seen how much good this trip did for the prospects of the book, but it did a ton to lift my spirits, so I count it a success.

A couple Saturdays ago, my friend Tracy moved to Cleveland. She doesn’t drive stick, so I offered to follow their 26′ truck in her boyfriend’s SUV. She’d buy me a plane ticket to get back in time for my Sunday bar shift.

I got to her place at 2pm, as she was doing the last of the sweeping and mopping. Her terrified cat peeked out at us from the crack of the opened bedroom door. We carried the last of her belongings down to Justin’s car and waited for the landlady to come and approve of the condition of the apartment and promise to return Tracy’s deposit, so we could get going.

Justin and I decided to wait downstairs so we wouldn’t have to keep listening to that suburban trixie whine about some dust on the window pane. She was not the one who’d rented out the place three years ago, when Tracy moved in, and was obviously new to the landlording racket. I’ve moved into many apartments in much shabbier shape than the way Tracy left this one. We hit the road around 5pm.

The six-hour drive passed uneventfully, aside from Justin heartbreak over the bizarre fact of the rest-stop Sbarro being closed at 9pm. No calzones would be enjoyed on this trip. We pulled up to their new house around midnight, Eastern Standard Time. I watched Justin confidently swing the 26-foot Budget truck into the narrow drive between two houses, then stop after scrapping something about ten feet down. What followed was a tense ten minutes of inching forward and backward, trying to squeeze back out of the spot he’d wedged himself into. What happened was that he’s smashed into the awning of the side door, changing the shape of the rotting wood and shingle structure into oblique angles. A nosy, likely inebriated neighbor with a tattooed tear on his cheek offered unsolicited assistance. Tracy and Justin waved him away. He told me he’d be happy to help unload the truck for a c-note, then retreated to the porch of his house across the street to watch the show.

We unloaded the couch and mattress, then drove to a gas-station Tracy knew for sandwiches.

Tracy’s sister showed up the next morning and the four of us unloaded the rest of the truck. There was a couple hours left before my flight, but I had Justin drive me to the airport so I could get out of their hair and get some work done on the computer. No sooner had I settled into a seat with a coffee and some airport junk food then an email informed me that my flight was canceled. It was snowing in Chicago. Their website was unresponsive and hold-time on the phone was 81 minutes, so I trudged to the gate to get an update. A long line snaked away from the service desk. A few minutes later, the PA announced there’s be an announcement in 45 minutes; for no, due to poor visibility, all flights were grounded.

I called Tom and Sherry to see if they could cover my shift, but no dice. Then I called Brian and asked him to book me an Enterprise car from Cleveland to Chicago. I called Sam to say I’d be a couple hours late, then ran for the rent-a-car shuttle. It was 3:50pm EST when I hit the road west.

The highway was mostly deserted as I sped through pockets of blinding rain, rarely dipping below 80MPH. As the milemarkers shrank to zero at the Indiana state line, then reset to count down again, I kept checking the clock. By South Bend I knew I could make it to the Skylark by 8pm, in time for my shift.

I walked into the bar at 7:30pm, reeling a little, but happy to know that years of driving for a living had left me with the ability to do the crazy thing I’d just done. Cleveland to Chicago in four-and-a-half hours isn’t too shabby.

I’ll miss Tracy, but always remember the battered awning on the side of her new house and my frantic trek back to Chicago. When I think of Cleveland from now one, this is what I’ll think of.

I got off the plane from Boston last Saturday and headed straight to Constellation for John Corbett‘s book-release/concert. Evidently, running around pushing my own book isn’t enough for me; I need to watch how others do it. The real reason I was excited about it is that Doug told me that he and most of Eleventh Dream Day (plus Azita) would be covering 70s tunes mentioned in Corbett’s book.

Before I could settle into my seat, I saw my old painting professor, George Liebert, but I before I could get a hello out, I was buttonholed by a Bridgeport guy who wanted to talk about my book excerpt, printed in that week’s Chicago Reader. Then Doug came up and offered kindly to put my suitcase in the green room for safe-keeping. Then Rick came up to congratulate me on my book. He showed me a cellphone photo he’d taken of me drawing at the Hideout Block Party a couple years ago. I asked him to email it to me, as I’m not on Facebook. “I’ve noticed,” he said. I recognized a couple others and said hello. It was a lot more socializing than I’d bargained for. Still, it’s shitty to complain when people are happy to see you. No matter how surprising it always is. 

Corbett read a bit, then introduced The Marker, a Ken Vandermark band I’d never heard. They were killer. Two guitarists, keyboard, drums, and a variety of reeds. During intermission, after their set, I caught up with George. We both agreed that music is the greatest art. There’s no competing with it. He told me he liked running into me at shows. It’s been happening more lately, after not having seen one another for years at a time. George was a great dissenting counterpoint to Dan Gustin during my art school years. It’s really important to have a voice in your ear while learning who doesn’t really buy your shit. I mostly disagreed with George but I’m grateful he was there anyway.

The great Chicago playwright Mickle Maher followed with a funny excerpt detailing Corbett’s drug-enhanced appreciation of the band Yes. 

Then, Corbett’s wife, Terri Kapsalis, read a chapter about his sexual awakening which belonged in Penthouse Forum, rather than a book. I wished I’d never heard it and it made me not want to buy his book. 

The aforementioned cover band closed out the evening with killer versions of Pretenders and Neil Young tunes, among others. As they were closing with Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”, my chair collapsed and I landed with a thud on the floor. It would’ve been hilarious had it happened to someone else, but it hurt and was really embarrassing. Corbett himself took the broken chair away. Afterwards, standing with Doug outside as he smoked, I mentioned what happened and he said, “That was you?” The sound was loud enough for the band and the entire room to hear. I’ve never had a thing like that happen before. It was the cherry on top of a long day. 

Wednesday, I finally got to see the great Ex Hex live. Read this excerpt from my book to find out why I missed them four years ago. They make some of the happiest sounds going these days, so it was a bummer to see the place only half full.