when we get to cleveland there are no rental cars. none. they have all been sent down to help out the efforts where hurricane ike had its way.

we cab it. 60 bucks later we arrive at the beachland venue, a club with a very good vibe and harboring the original flavor of a bygone day.

on stage i decide to wax on with my instantaneous politico manifesto. maybe its because of the role ohio played 4 years ago in the election, or maybe cause a few things were coming to lite at that moment, but i talked for quite a bit.

then we played a very good set.

and then i fell asleep for a long time.

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arrival always means your right on time.

we headed over to the hotel to have an hour to chill.
it was on 49th and lex. the entire area was starting to be quadrant off for the upcoming emergency UN meeting coming into play on monday. today was sunday.

so while the city prepared to set up a conference for the world leaders to discuss the impending global doom of a collapsed economic system, we managed to get to the venue on time anyway.

it’s the blender theater and it feels pretty good in there. the crew is remarkably helpful. the design sensible. and the rented gear has included a fine electric grand piano and upright bass. tonight will be the first night on this tour we will headline our own show, so we spent all our money on rental gear and travel to make it work right.

while the crew assembled the stage gear, we walked around a bit, visited the chelsea guitar shop next to the old chelsea hotel and just took in the splendor of an autumnal new york about to happen.

back at the venue we sound checked and hung out downstairs back stage. when the set commenced we had a plan to begin with songs from the new record as a band, then break down to a slew of piano songs with upright bass, then make our way back to the record but with more available gamble. the set seemed tight right up until gamble time, then we attempted muck machine in all its uncategorical beauty. it was such a slippery little devil, i felt the sleek set design begin to go into a nose spin pummeling to its death so far down from where we had flown up to. it was evil gravity having its way with us.

i pulled a few levers, and toggled several switchings. i yanked on a whammy and i put the pedal to the metal.
slowly the tanking ship began to get er nose up. and then swoop over ground zero in the NYC of time to avoid collision with the planet. up we shot again, up and up away from the ill confines of the gravity of the situation.

well immersed in the atmosphere again the song plying under our fingers was no longer a mucked machine, but instead some form of paradise here abouts.

and that was that.

left the stage and felt a good job had been done.
the crowd cheered and the sweet danes always want to get back on stage right away for an encore. i would have to explain to them that it is not a form of politeness to do so too quickly. but they are wired like that, which is sweet, but still a misnomer.

an encore has its own life force and should not be bantered about as if it is always routine. the importance of the crowd to yip for a while has to do with the audience mind set actually needing a reason to yell, its part of the release of energy and part of the fun. to cut it off too soon is not only a drag for the yipper, it also dangerously confuses etiquette with ego.

no no no.

so… relax a bit. get your breath. have you not been playing as hard as you should have been playing for an hour or so. then feel that exertion’s wicked weariness come into play like a badge. let the crowd swell actually work its lather up to destroy any remnant of the remaining gravity and give the applauders a true sense of changing the course of the evening’s precedings.

the encore should not happen unless we all feel that swirl of an upward spiraling cone of energy.

so … i slow down the band and they grow uncomfortable.
its fun to see them squirm a bit under the strain of their own sweetness in wanting to instantly gratify. but there is a science says the elder and it needs to happen it its own natural time.

and so it does. and it all feels more jubilant for the inertia now spilled all over the room.

i think we decide to do ketty lester’s love letters from the heart and then shiver… maybe. did we ?

and then at the end i had a word with everyone and offered up a couple of new songs that were undone.

a quiet sweetened philosophy to kiss like it could be for the last time, your kids, your girl, your dreams. to live life then accordingly. to play each night like it is for the last time. its egotistic to think it can ever be anything more then that.

and then another newer noisier song called unforgiveable, which offers the redemption in statement that in the end, nothing should be.

- – - – - – - – -

that night we convene at a bar way down on the lower east side and i am rendered nostalgic for the time i lived there in the dangerous year of 1981.

at the local drinking hole i am approached by a fellow who seems to know me. he plays bass for ryan adams.

it was all a good night and a relief to have played well without much of anything going too wrong to make it impossible.

we are traveling as a 4 piece band. a guerilla tactical unit clotted with original punk ethic to get this stuff done without assistance from tour management or roadies or any help at all except from the band itself.

fortunately we do have a light on at command headquarters back in tucson with good old celia organizing from a far.

but other then that, we are stealth.

- – - – - – - –

waking up the next morning, it’s time to check out and head over to the digs of friends in brooklyn for our one night off. outside the hotel there are a sea of police.

i bail at the last moment and grab a rental to drive to pennsylvania and have dinner with mom. its always a tunnel of time to shoot through to get back there. back in time i go and it is not without its lingering effect.

the trees are crazy beautiful and just about to change their color. the air gets thicker, the scent in the air is pine and diesel. soon it all gets emptier and pennsylvania surrounds the car. i find out mcain was just in town a few minutes ago. but the town seems empty now.

after a couple hours visit i am back on the road again heading east. i nick in to a hotel for the remainder of the night and get up way too early to miss the rush hour into a city that will be already mucked by the alteration of traffic flow due to the UN yippity. i just make it through and over to brooklyn as the hi-way becomes a parking lot. i fetch the band from old nick hill’s house and we head back unhampered by the traffic flowing in the opposite direction.

at the airport too early now.

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