The 2012 No Hotel? No Problem Tour: The End

A view from the harbor, Annapolis, MD

Sunday, March 18
Bus from Annapolis to Glen Burnie: 5:08 pm
Light rail from Glen Burnie to Baltimore: 5:58 pm
Amtrak from Baltimore to Newark, NJ: 8:04 pm

I don't think I've ever attended a rock show at 1 in the afternoon on a Sunday before, so I can now safely add that to the list. What list, you ask? OK, I'll be honest with you, because you've been nice enough to read this: I'm not keeping a list of concert start times. I just needed a way to start this post, and it seemed like as good an idea as any. But don't tell the others. Let them think I keep a list of concert start times. We'll know the truth.

After an early rising for some churching and a literal wave hello and goodbye to Jesse's daughters, Paige and Harper, it was time to get in Jesse's car and head to Annapolis. As if his magnanimity in foregoing an evening of March Madness to come see the rock show and watch me shove meat down my throat (that doesn't sound right...) weren't enough, Jesse also agreed to drive me to Annapolis on the way (sort of) to dropping his mother off at the airport. As we discussed with his wife Anna before my departure, not only was this not the shortest time I've ever spent with them during a visit, but it wasn't even second (my impulsive decision to meet them at a Nationals game last year at which Paige served as between-innings cohost stands as the first, and the Obama inauguration--my sister and I arrived at night and left well before dawn cracked--takes second, though it's first in Actual Waking Hours Spent). If the secret to being a good guest is not overstaying your welcome, I might be King of the Guests.

Despite all the food I consumed the night before, I still wanted to eat a Belgian waffle at the Ram's Head Tavern during the show. Because, really, how many times are you going to get to eat a Belgian waffle during a rock show? Alas, my dreams were shattered when my waiter informed me that the brunch menu was not available in the concert venue section of the Ram's Head. What a punch in the face.

As it turns out, though, I might not have had time to finish the waffle during Amy's set anyway. Because there was an evening show (jazz fusion guitarist--and, as I discovered in I Want My MTV, an early MTV favorite just because he had videos--Lee Ritenour) and the room had to be cleared and, I assume, there had to be another soundcheck, the 1 pm show was on a tight, done-by-3 schedule, which meant Amy and the guys had a whopping 25 minutes. But they made the most of it, and Amy even had time to throw in a Sunday-related joke in the set.

After helping with load-out and listening to a dizzying array of questions and comments from a fan (of Amy, not me), I finally got my Belgian waffle, albeit outside the concert venue and in the tavern part, as we sat down for brunch. It was fine, but it would've been better if I could've consumed it while listening to the show. C'mon, Ram's Head, if you're going to schedule shows at 1 pm on a Sunday, just go all out and have a rock 'n' roll brunch. It's the right thing to do.

I was off merch duty in Annapolis (the Ram's Head controls the merch selling, for a cut of the profits; this makes the Great Waffle Denial even more egregious), but by the time we were done eating, I only got to see two songs from Rich Robinson before wandering around Annapolis for a few hours prior to my multilayered trip back home. The dread of having the fun stop began to set in, and I realized that I would have to be at work in the morning. Blah.

Luckily, perhaps my favorite line of the tour came as Amy, Dave, and Shawn were getting ready to leave. A Rich Robinson fan who had been to more shows on the tour than I had (I forget the final tally, but it was close to 10) lamented to Amy about the short set but said she sounded great anyway. A perhaps slightly overtired Amy got her sayings a bit jumbled and responded, "We make lemons." And if that's not a catchphrase waiting to happen, I don't know what is.

Continuing my 24 hours of gluttony, I bought some cookies (which I saved for the train ride), a Chicago dog, and an ice cream cone as I killed time (and, slowly, myself) in Annapolis, briefly stopping at the harbor to take a few pictures on what started as an overcast day and morphed into a picture-perfect spring afternoon. Annapolis was another city I've only seen under cover of night (my friend Pat and I saw the Avett Brothers and BR549 at the Ram's Head a few years back), so it was good to get a better feel of the place.

And then, after being denied entry on the Annapolis city bus because of my ice cream cone (I forget that NYC stands pretty much alone on its eating policy on buses), I caught it after finishing my cone (it loops around the city before heading out) and began the six-hour-plus process of heading home. It was actually a lot easier than I expected, and I got a good chunk of reading done for the first time in a few days. Plus, though I assumed the Sunday night Amtrak would be running late (there always seems to be delays on the regional trains on weekends), it was actually right on time, and after the bus-light rail-Amtrak-PATH train ride home, I was back in my apartment by 11 pm, just in time for a decent night's sleep before heading back to Cubicleville.

Shawn Zorn, Bowery Ballroom, NYC

Monday, March 19

Walk to work: 8:30 am
PATH to NYC: 5:45 pm (approx.)
Subway to Bowery Ballroom: 8 pm (approx.)

I'll be honest. That Monday wasn't the most productive day at work I've ever had. But, because I've finally figured out that it makes more sense to bust your ass to get things done before you leave on vacation rather than letting it sit on your desk until you return, I didn't need to bring my "A" game (which was a relief, because I'm not 100% sure I have an "A" game). I feel like I'm getting the hang of this work thing. So now I would like to retire. And I'm only a few hundred thousand dollars and a house away from making that happen.

There was still one more show left on the Amy and Rich tour, and I only needed to take a PATH train (and a subway from the yearly NYC Ithacan Alumni Dinner, where I was only the second oldest attendee this year...thanks for coming, Mike!) to get there. The Bowery Ballroom show was a bit underattended, but my friends and fellow Monday Night Social Clubbers Frankie and Kelly came out for Amy's set and to engage me in whatever I was providing in the way of conversation (I recall talking very fast and repeating myself a bit), so that was nice.

Both Amy and Rich sounded good. I'm assuming that everyone who reads this knows me and has already sat through a fair number of pleas to see Amy, so I've kept the music descriptions to a minimum. But, honest, you should go see her. The band sounds great after all the touring (though they're even better with violinist Krista Wroten Combest, busy with her other band, The Memphis Dawls at the moment), and after seeing them seven days in a row, I can assure you they are worth seeing. So, please do so when they come around again (July on the east coast and sooner out west, and Amy will be touring as a member of The Wandering in May). I won't like you any less if you don't go see her, but I will like you so much more if you do.

The merch sales moved at a slow trickle for most of the night in NYC (though I did sell a T-shirt that wasn't even displayed, so I did serve some purpose), but in the downtime I got some more backstory on the Dude, who told me that he got started doing pretty much what I was doing, except he was following Marcy Playground around for awhile and detailing his adventures on a fan listserv, and through the years, that turned into his current position as professional merch guy/driver. I would be lying if I said I weren't a little jealous, though I imagine a week on the road (particularly when you're not driving) is a lot more fun than, say, a month or two. But maybe not. I am willing to listen to offers from bands looking for a merch guy who can't drive. Please list your detailed offer in the Comments and I will get back to you at my earliest convenience. I will accept proposals from bands that suck, but please know that you will have a steep climb.

After Rich Robinson ended his set with three Neil Young covers ("Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," "Down by the River," and "Cinnamon Girl") and a Velvet Underground cover ("Oh! Sweet Nuthin'), the fun officially came to an end and it was time to fully get back to the real world. I said goodbye to the Dude, and then helped Amy and the guys load up the van before heading off to the PATH train. I'd been carrying around my poster from Rochester for most of the trip and kept forgetting to have everyone sign it. My camera, as you might have noticed, is on the fritz, so I needed a better souvenir of the trip. And it's a cool poster, if a little girly for the walls of Disgraceland. But a little girliness might liven the place up. Actual women might, too. I will also consider those offers in the Comments section.

Abilene (Rochester, NY) poster, made by Fly Rabbit Press

It was a fun vacation. I recommend something similar if you've got the time. Go out and see bands. They'd be happy to see you, after driving all day, loading and unloading the van, trying to find decent food, and doing their best to bring some sort of happiness into your and their lives, even if it's just for 45 minutes. Just promise me you'll watch what you say at the merch table. And please don't haggle.

You should go see your friends, too, the ones who aren't physically as close as you'd like them to be but are still right there in your heart. They'll be glad to see you as well, and you'll be happy to know they're still as funny, smart, and incredible as you remembered. Plus, some of them have created little people that can make you feel all right about doing kid stuff again.

So, my message is as it always is at the end of these hectic trip recaps. Get out and enjoy life. As much as you can and as hard as you can. As soon as you can.

But don't do two overnight bus rides in a row. That's just stupid.


(Thanks to Amy, Dave, Shawn, the Dude, Brett, Jessica, Sam, Fiona, Bryan, Kelly, Everett, Wesley, Eleanor, Liz, D.J., Wendy, Kaelin, Abby, Jesse, Anna, Paige, Harper, Frankie, and Kelly for your general awesomeness and help in creating this memorable trip. You're good people.)

The 2012 No Hotel? No Problem Tour: Part 4

John Train, Fergie's Pub, Philadelphia, PA

Friday, March 16


Megabus from NYC to Philadelphia: 12:45 pm
SEPTA train from Philadelphia to Trenton: 11:51 pm

As I boarded the Megabus at South Station in Boston for my second overnight bus trip in a row (after having a brief moment of panic when I arrived and didn't see my bus on the Departures screen), I started to rethink the intelligence of this part of the trip. Maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to spring for a hotel in Boston for the night. Actually, scratch "maybe."

But no matter. I was on the bus and though we were a few minutes behind schedule, in a few hours I'd be home and, since I didn't need to catch my bus to Philly until 12:45, I could add to whatever sleep I picked up on the bus with a few hours in my very own bed. So I leaned my head against the window and looked to get a jump on my bus sleep.

I heard people talking about something as I drifted off, but I was sufficiently dead to the world that it didn't bother me much. Then, after a few minutes of rest, the talking got louder and I heard someone's name being spelled out and a phone call being made. OK, I'm up. Kind of.

It turns out that because of Megabus's bad-things-are-bound-to-happen-with-this policy of not providing tickets (you can either show them your receipt on your mobile device or print out the receipt and bring it with you), the driver was trying to confirm that a woman who had changed her reservation but figured she didn't really need any proof of that before boarding was in fact allowed to travel on the bus. The woman in question seemed largely unfazed by the proceedings and instead blamed the whole situation on the driver's poor command of English.

Finally, after sitting in the station for about 45 minutes, everything was resolved, the woman got to stay, and we were on the road at about 1 a.m.  And once we were moving, my plans for sleep quickly went away, though I probably picked up maybe a half-hour's worth of shuteye in Massachusetts. But once we got to Connecticut, it was sleep for a minute, wake up, look out the window for a highway sign, realize we were still in Connecticut, and then repeat the cycle for the next three hours.

I seem to recall arriving in NYC around 5:30, about an hour behind schedule. So by the time I got the PATH train and back to my apartment, it was closing in on 7 and what looked like a nice window for decent sleep was now about four hours. Super.

But I did it and made the Megabus to Philly with plenty of time to spare. And, when I got to Philly, I had a few quality hours in one of my favorite cities, mainly spent sitting and eating at one of my favorite places on earth, the Reading Terminal Market (though being there on a Friday during Lent was kind of torture...next time, DiNic's, next time). Then it was off to the first set of one of the last weeks of the John Train Winter Residency at Fergie's Pub, another of my favorite things about Philly. I saw a few Marah fans from back in the day and was happy to hear John Train's cover of Butch Hancock's "Boxcars" before walking up to World Cafe Live for the night's Amy and Rich show.

Dave Cousar, Shawn Zorn, and Amy LaVere, World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, PA

I hung out with the Dude at the merch table for a while before the show as he extolled the virtues of his pulled pork with cheese sandwich (the cheese was his addition, and he was quite proud of coming up with it) and then headed inside to see Amy and the guys play. It was another good night for them, and there was a reasonably steady flow of sales at the merch table afterward, where I also talked with Amy's friend radio DJ and Dylanologist Michael Tearson for a while. I am sad to note that I only discovered now that he was in the movie Wise Guys (Captain Lou Albano's shining moment on the big screen, as Frankie the Fixer), which actually is probably good for him, because I would've talked his ear off about that. As it is, we stuck mostly to Dylan.

Unfortunately, the evening also brought another Merch Table Faux Pas. Musicans, I'm guessing, generally like to hear that you enjoyed the show. And if it's your first time seeing them, they're probably even more excited to hear that, because it means this touring thing is actually working. However, it would be nice if you didn't start off your well-meaning compliment with "Wow, this was a total shock!," as someone did in Philly. I know you mean well, and I admit that I once said something similarly well intentioned to Kristen Barry at Maxwell's ("I enjoyed you so much more live than on your CD," which still makes me cringe when I remember it, especially since it was the same night I told Pete Droge I hated the band that came on before him the last time I saw him, which turned out to be a band he loved). But, as a general rule, it's best not to provide a preamble that establishes how much you thought the musician you are now complementing was going to be terrible. I cannot speak for Amy or any other musician in a similar situation, but I think it's reasonable to assume that they hear what I hear--namely, "I came to this show headlined by a band I like completely dreading, you, the band opening for the band I like, because you are not the band I like and therefore could not be another band I might like. Imagine my surprise when I discovered you are good! Huzzah!"

So, try to keep those compliments brief, or at least free of qualifiers, at the merch table. Another one to grow on...

I got to see a good portion of Rich Robinson's set after the merch rush died down and, though I'm not much of a guitar jam guy, liked what I heard (which, If I were at the merch table talking to Rich Robinson, I would phrase "I liked your set"). We got a few more customers after the show ended, and, after Amy told me that Saturday was Dave's birthday, I volunteered to pick up a cake in NYC in the morning. I suppose it would've been easier to get one in DC, but I feel confident that NYC is a better cake city than DC. Yeah, I said it. You're not impressing me, Georgetown Cupcake (plus you're here now anyway).

And then, with the overnight buses now behind me,  it was off to 30th Street Station, to pick up my SEPTA train to Trenton, which would take me to the NJ Transit train in Trenton, which would take me to the PATH to Newark, which would take me to Jersey City and home, and dreams of the Burporken at the Red Palace in Washington, DC.

Preassembly Burporken w/ fries, Red Palace, Washington, DC (photo by J. Ellis)

Saturday, March 17

NJ Transit train to Newark: 12:59 am


Megabus to DC: 12 pm

I was intrigued by the Burporken from the moment I noted its inclusion on the website for the Red Palace in Washington, DC, where the Amy and Rich show was due to play on St. Patrick's Day. I'm not really a gluttonous, Man vs. Food kind of guy, but when presented with a "beef burger, topped with pulled pork, topped with grilled chicken," I became intrigued. You may replace "intrigued" with "disgusted" if you wish. Perhaps you will be proven more correct when you outlive me by a few decades. We'll see.

In any case, I made the decision that the Burporken was for me. So I began hyping myself up for it and, all things considered, didn't really eat all that poorly in the days leading up to the Burporken adventure. Visions of it would have danced in my head had I been able to picture what it might look like. I couldn't quite wrap my head around it, and assumed wrapping my jaw around it would be a challenge as well.

But I was still about 10 hours away from my Adventure in Meats when I left my apartment and headed into NYC in search of a birthday cake. I did some advance scouting on the Web in the morning and settled on one of two places. The first, Billy's, refused to sell me a whole cake, which, I suppose is their prerogative. So I headed to bakery #2 (which really should've been #1, because I knew they'd have plenty of cakes they'd be willing to sell me), Ruthy's in Chelsea Market. The only snafu I ran into came as the woman taking down my order wrote down what I wanted on the cake (an order, I should point out, I volunteered to write myself). She was not as well versed on punctuation as I'd hoped. An apostrophe became an exclamation point. Parentheses became quotation marks. But I thought we had it all sorted out, until the cake came back and had single quotation marks instead of parentheses. At this point, time was of the essence, and I can't be expected to copy-edit cakes on my vacation, so I lived with the single quote marks and headed off to the subway to take me to Port Authority and my Megabus to DC, deftly avoiding St. Patty's Day revelers in the process.

When I got to DC, I had a few more St, Paddy's Day revelers to dodge on the Metro, and then I met up with my friend (and world-class lawyer) Abby for a late lunch/pre-Burporken celebration at the Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle. We caught up on things, watched a dude completely back into a parked moped, and then hung out in a bar for a bit before making our way to the Red Palace in my first and only cab ride of the trip. Unless you count my friends driving me everywhere, which, because they didn't have a meter, I won't.

My friend Jesse (outside of family, the human being I have lived with the most in my life...two years in college) graciously extricated himself from his High Holy Days (March Madness) to meet up with us in the downstairs bar/restaurant at the Red Palace (the show's upstairs), and after handing off the cake to Amy, I waited anxiously for my Burporken. And waited. And waited.

Fifteen minutes until Amy starts, no Burporken.

OK, kid, don't panic. If it comes now, you can power it down. Maybe save half for later.

Five minutes to showtime. Still no Burporken. OK, maybe the show won't start exactly on time.

Showtime. I walk over to the staircase and hear Amy start her first song.

Noooooooooo!

I check with the waitress to see if I can bring food upstairs. She tells me no, and I explain the situation about the show starting and could I maybe just have them hold on to it in the kitchen and I'd come down and eat it after Amy's set (Abby expressed concern that it wouldn't be the same if I had it later; I assured her that 40 minutes wasn't going to really affect the gustatory quality of a bunch of meat smashed together). After explaining that the place is super busy and a bit overwhelmed (which I could've used a heads up on when I ordered...just sayin'), she tells me the Burporken just came up, so I could have it now and take it upstairs, though Abby would have to wait for her order of sliders because she ordered them after my Burporken order. OK, I guess.

So Abby, Jesse, and I went upstairs just as the first song ended, with me holding what felt like about five pounds of food in my hand. But I soon put it down on the floor and enjoyed the show, which featured a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Tonight Will Be Fine" for, I think, the first time this trip. The merch area was stage right, and a bit tight, so I might've been a little more in the way than actually helpful. Plus I had to contend with the now-nightly gentle mockery from the Dude regarding placement of prices, how I keep track of purchases, slowness in dealing with customers, and whatever else he felt like pointing out. He later admitted that the needling was part of how he keeps awake (the Dude was also doing the driving on the tour).

After the selling was all taken care of (no incidents to report at this point), the moment of truth had arrived. I was about to meet my Burporken. Or my match. Or my Maker. Perhaps all three.

Me and my heart attack, Red Palace, Washington, DC (photo by A. Bertumen, Esq.)

I am pleased to report that I finished the whole damn thing (Abby helped with the fries). It was delightful. The chicken kind of gets a little lost, but other than that, no real complaints (and the delay did not affect my enjoyment in the least). It's not something you probably want to eat more than, say, once a year, but, well, I'm looking forward to a trip to DC in 2013. The Red Palace, overall, is a pretty cool place, despite the Burporken delay (I made sure I wasn't being rude or short with the waitress in our earlier interaction and we were cool; I get what it feels like to be overwhelmed).

After decimating the Burporken, I waddled back up the stairs to catch the rest of Rich Robinson's set and had similar feelings to the Philadelphia set, though I thought he sounded better in DC, or maybe I just like the room better. And after the show ended, there were a few more sales to make, including to a guy who tried to haggle with Amy and get 2 CDs for $15. Unfortunately, he caught the tour on one of its Non-Buy One, Get One Free days, so he settled for a $10 EP instead.

And then it was time to give Dave his cake, which took a little work because Shawn had to get hold of Dave on his phone and tell him to come back upstairs. But he eventually made his way back, "Happy Birthday" was sung, and cake was consumed. And, because there was an inch of space left in my stomach, I decided to fill it with a piece of cake, after which I felt a little dizzy while walking to Jesse's car.

I probably should've run to the next show, a 1 pm matinee in Annapolis, and worked off my gluttony, but Jesse had a bed all ready for me, so I stuck with that plan and got some sleep in Alexandria, VA, knowing that the fun was just about over. And by "the fun," I mean the tour, not "my life," for I ate the Burporken and a piece of cake and lived to tell the tale.

UP NEXT: A short set in Annapolis, a long journey to a train. and the end.

The 2012 No Hotel? No Problem Tour: Part 3

Amy LaVere, Dave Cousar, and Shawn Zorn, Angry Mom Records, Ithaca, NY

Wednesday, March 14 

Bus from Rochester to Ithaca: 10:55 a.m. 

After a quick breakfast with Liz and her mom, it was back to the bus for me, for a two-hour ride back to Ithaca to see Amy and her band play an in-store at one of my favorite record stores (Angry Mom Records) before the official show at Lot 10 (formerly Delilah's, formerly something or other in my college days but definitely not a bar). The bus wasn't all that crowded, so I figured it's be a quick, uneventful ride. And it was.

Until we almost killed a dog.

I was trying to block out the smell of urine hovering in the bus, reading my book, and occasionally taking a peek at the towns we were passing by when the driver started laying on his horn. When I looked outside and saw that we appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, I thought it odd that we would be close enough to a car to warrant some honking. And then the driver hit the horn a few more times and I saw a mangy-looking dog just sitting down in the middle of the road. And the pooch seemed pretty indifferent to the honking. Oh boy.

I braced for an awful thud, but thankfully it never came. Without swerving at all, the driver somehow managed to drive over the dog, who, the woman across the aisle from me reported, came out safely on the other side. When we got to Ithaca, I commended the driver on a job well done. Killing a dog really would've put a damper on the trip.

Turkey burger on waffle bun, Waffle Frolic, Ithaca, NY

Since I had already overloaded on nostalgia on my Sunday visit to Ithaca, and I was carrying around four days' worth of dirty clothes, I declared Wednesday Laundry Day. I briefly debated breaking into Terrace 12 or using the laundry room at the off-campus apartment where I lived my senior year but decided being arrested for doing laundry would be funny but ultimately embarrassing. So I settled on the laundromat closest to the bus station. And after that was done, I consumed one of my favorite sandwiches in America, the turkey burger on a waffle bun from Waffle Frolic. The cafe didn't exist when I was at IC, and that's probably for the best. Not only would I have spent entirely too much money there, but it would've made weekend breakfasts at the Terrace Dining Hall, where you could make your own waffles, less exciting. And, really, there was nothing quite like the feeling of waking up on Saturday knowing that you were going to be able to make your own waffle.

Amy LaVere and Dave Cousar, Angry Mom Records, Ithaca, NY

I made a quick run (via bus) back to campus to grab a copy of the latest Buzzsaw (of which I am a founder and former executive publisher) before the in-store at Angry Mom. When I saw Amy, she noted that the cold was now gone but there was still recovering from Rochester going on. The in-store went well, though, with a decent crowd showing up to watch Amy from her spot in the Comedy section.

Amy LaVere, Angry Mom Records, Ithaca, NY

As the band headed back for some rest, I wandered back into Angry Mom and bought a Steve Goodman LP and a CD by Auburn, NY's A Cast of Thousands (the most controlled purchasing I've ever done at Angry Mom) before drifting around Ithaca in search of a place to eat dinner. There are a bunch of new places, so I looked at some menus, hoping something would pique my interest. There were a few possibilities, but then I realized, "Hey, I've never actually eaten dinner at Moosewood," one of the more famous vegetarian restaurants in America. I think I had a piece of pumpkin pie there once when my sister (the vegetarian of the family) came up for a visit, but I never got past my skepticism of vegetarian restaurants enough to go there for dinner. Now that I've learned to love a few vegetarian restaurants (and one vegan food truck), it seemed like the right time. And when I saw spinach cheese ravioli on the menu (which changes daily), I was in. And so now I've eaten dinner not only at Dinosaur BBQ but also at Moosewood. And I declare Moosewood good (the cream of asparagus soup was a winner, too; it didn't last long enough for the photograph).

Spinach and cheese ravioli, w/ side of bread, Moosewood Restaurant, Ithaca, NY

Feeling slightly bloated (I probably should've spaced out lunch and dinner a little more), I made my way to Lot 10 a few minutes before showtime. Everybody seemed rested and ready to go, crowd included, except, apparently, for the one guy Dave said got angry when they started setting up the merch table. We weren't exactly sure what bothered him so much about it, but Dave said the guy moaned something about "coming here to hear music." Ithaca: you've gotta love it.

Dave Cousar, Amy LaVere, and Shawn Zorn, Lot 10, Ithaca, NY

And for the second Amy show in Ithaca in a row, there were some verbal fireworks between a  gentleman and a lady in the middle of Amy's set. Last time, the gentleman (same guy both times) chastised a woman for talking loudly during the show (for which I applaud him, though I'll admit he could've been more tactful), which she didn't take too kindly to and responded in a measured but vaguely combative tone. This time, the gentleman was irked by an Ithaca staple, the woman twirling and wildly gesticulating around the room and occasionally attempting to rope a gentleman into gesticulating with her. I was safely behind a wall of guys occasionally humoring her, but the gentleman in question was all alone in front of the stage and not enjoying the interpretive dance show. So, after trying to deal with it for a while, he eventually stormed off to get someone from the bar involved, with the twirling lady soon following behind. I'm not sure how it was resolved, but I didn't see her much after that, and she was definitely gone by night's end.

As for the show, it was another good one, highlighted by Amy's cover of David Bowie's "Moonage Daydream" and Dave's take on Tom Waits's "Clap Hands." I realized this was probably the last night of the tour that I'd see Dave do his mini-set (and definitely the last "long" show of the tour, with the rest of the shows likely being 40-minute opening slots), so I was glad I'd decided to go to the Rochester and Ithaca shows. He's a good one.

I helped out with merch at the Ithaca show, because I like to be useful and I actually enjoy selling merch at shows. In fact, if that were a legitimate career. I'd pursue it over copy editing. I would've even gotten a degree in merch selling if it were offered. How could it be less useful than the journalism degree that I have?

Unfortunately, I experienced the downside of merch selling at the end of the night when I made the foolish decision to try to carry both the t-shirt suitcase and the CD suitcase down the stairs and out to the van. Note "try to." I failed. Well, actually I got down the stairs, but somewhere between opening the door and stepping onto the sidewalk, I also stepped on a strap at the bottom of the t-shirt suitcase and promptly tipped over like a Little Teapot. And, so after all that time sober and staying on my feet outside the bars of Ithaca, my streak ended on the pavement outside of Lot 10. It was a good run.

I came out of the fall with only a skinned left knee and a slightly bruised left shoulder, so I was still cleared for travel, and shipping off to Boston, by way of New York City, via bus and train.

Kaelin

Thursday, March 15

Bus to New York City, 1:30 a.m.
Train to Boston, 8:30 a.m.
Bus to New York City, 11:59 p.m.

Yes, that's a busy travel day. No, I didn't think it through properly.

I forgot to factor in that, despite my bag full of clean clothes, I wouldn't have a chance to shower on Thursday. And, not only that, but if I wanted to change my clothes, I would probably have to do that in a bathroom somewhere. And that didn't seem like it would be fun.

So, as the Coach USA bus wound its way through upstate New York and in between grabbing about 30 minutes of sleep at a time, I decided I would take a chance on missing the Amtrak to Boston in an attempt to rush home, drop my bag off, and take a shower. If I made the 8:30, cool; I'd maybe take a tour of Fenway Park to kill a few hours, since I hadn't heard back from my friend D.J. (and understandably so; you don't want to know about the week he had) and wasn't sure what else to do in Boston. If I missed the train, I'd just take the next one, pay whatever fee I had to, skip the Fenway tour, and bum around Boston (bag-free, which would make the day much more enjoyable).

We got in a little early, so it looked like I might make it. But I just missed the PATH train to Journal Square and, after the bag dropoff and cursory shower, just missed the PATH train back to NYC, so I wound up getting to Penn Station at about 8:35. Oh well. At least I didn't stink.

The next train wasn't for a few hours. Well, there was an Acela Express leaving sooner, but that was an upgrade fee I was not willing to pay, so I forked over $20 for the next regional train, went to the FedEx Office for a bit, and then went back to Penn Station to read the newspapers and wait for the train. In that time, D.J. texted me to tell me he and his daughter, Kaelin, would be more than happy to hang out if I so desired. I did, and since it'd been a few days since I'd seen one of my friend's adorable kids, I was happy to have some more kid time.

But before the train pulled into Boston (after leaving NYC 15 minutes late...the laws of travel: the train you show up late for will always leave right on time, and the next one will always be late), I got to overhear my favorite conversation of the trip. It seems the woman seated in front of me was not pleased with her doctor, and she was expressing her displeasure on her cell phone to someone connected with said doctor. The problem at hand was some test results that she was waiting on, but it turns out there was another, more pressing issue. My fellow passenger had "done a stupid human thing" (her words) and now had a codeine situation. See, in the process of pouring the large bottle of Tylenol with codeine into a smaller, more manageable bottle (because she wanted to carry it in a bottle that "wouldn't break her back"), she spilled "a third to a half" of the liquid codeine. Oopsie!

So, clearly, she would be in need of more codeine, please. From what I could gather from the side of the conversation I was hearing, I don't think it worked out. An important lesson: be careful with your codeine, kids. And I also learned that Tylenol with codeine is now dispensed in gallon jugs. You learn so much when you travel on trains and buses.

Anyway, after my train arrived, and I hopped on a couple of Ts to get closer to where D.J. lived, I was in his apartment in Peabody and under the watchful eye of a very wary one-year-old. But Kaelin eventually decided I was less frightening than I appeared and even showed off both her expert head-dancing skills while she ate and her nascent walking skills afterward.

Alas, after D.J. made dinner, it was soon bedtime for Kaelin and almost showtime for Amy. So I bid Kaelin and her mom, Wendy, adieu, and D.J. drove me back to the T station so I could get to the show at TT the Bear's (so many Ts!) in Cambridge. I arrived with plenty of time to spare and got to see Amy's first show back with her bass. She seemed glad to have it back, and she got a good response from the Rich Robinson fans, both in the crowd and at the merch table. I did have to deftly avoid a haggling session with a guy recommending Stevie Ray Vaughan DVDs to me. After the Stevie Ray talk, he turned to me and said, "Here's $40. I want everything." It was an enticing proposition, considering Amy was selling four CDs, an LP, and a T-shirt, which would run the average concertgoer a total of $90. Still, I decided not to jump on the deal and suggested he might want to wait for Amy to come over and see how she felt about the offer. He did. She wasn't that impressed. But he did get a slight deal on not quite everything.

C'mon, music lovers. Don't haggle at the merch table. It's not a flea market or an episode of American Pickers. You look bad when you do it. If someone's gone to the trouble of coming up with a price for their art, why don't you just go ahead and pay that price. Or if you don't have the cash on you, just wait and buy it some other time. No one will think less of you, whereas someone (namely, me, and probably a few others) will think less of you when you haggle.

And so ends my anti-haggling PSA. It's one to grow on...

After trying to straighten up the t-shirt situation (finding sizes was a struggle) and meeting Rich Robinson's merch guy, the Dude (or Dennis, if you prefer; I prefer the Dude), I had to cut out during Rich Robinson's set in order to successfully wrap up my brief run through Boston and catch the Megabus back to New York City to, with any luck, grab a few hours of sleep in my own bed before moving on to Philadelphia.

As it turns out, I didn't really need to rush.

UP NEXT: One overnight bus ride too many, two shows in Philly, and three kinds of meat in our nation's capital.

The 2012 No Hotel? No Problem Tour: Part 2

Eleanor

Monday, March 12 
No travel 

The lone day of rest for the NH?NP tour was spent in Tully, NY, at, it turns out, a House of Vast Illness. The man of the house was all congested; the baby of the house, Eleanor, had an ear infection; and, on the day of my departure, the lady of the house was having some stomach issues. But the boys of the house (Everett and Wesley) and the manchild taking up residence in the computer room were feeling just fine. And, of course, Hunter was his usual steady presence.

Hunter

On Monday, Everett was off to school before I was out of bed, but Wes and I took in some Scooby-Doo (they're kind of tramping up Velma if you ask me) before he departed for the morning and I tried to navigate my way through the photo-uploading process (unsuccessfully) on the family Mac. After Wes came back, we celebrated our health by playing Legos, during which I built a pretty awesome tree. Then before naptime, I read one of the weirder kids' books I've ever read, which seemed to celebrate the joys of violence, so long as you use that violence against bullies. Interesting. Old-school.

Despite his congestion, Bryan nailed the audio-book version of his legendary foreword (rest assured, the children were nowhere near the recording area) in one take and gamely tried to read another essay before we bagged that and decided we'd try again later. We ran out of time, but we'll get it before November 19, 2012 (the official release date...mark your calendars, or whatever people mark these days).

There was more Lego time after Everett and his friend returned from school, but having already achieved perfection with my tree, I thought it best to just sit back and watch.

Monday was, in fact, mostly a day to sit back and watch. I can do that. For a day. Two would be a bit of a struggle.


Tuesday, March 13

Amtrak from Syracuse to Rochester: 12:48 pm

I think I can speak for Wes when I say that we're both comfortable enough in our masculinity to admit that we watched My Little Pony Tuesday morning. It wasn't bad either. I'm not saying I'm going to the next Bronycon, but I enjoyed it more than I expected. What? Why do I know that there is a convention "for afficionados [sic] of the show 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'"?

Not important.

Anyway, Tuesday was the day I almost concussed myself. Wes and I were engaged in a spy mission in which we couldn't be captured by Dad. I'm not clear what the ultimate goal of our mission was, but Wes drew a map and everything, so I assume it was something pretty important. I think at one point chocolate chips were mentioned. I didn't ask many questions, because that's the approach Chuck Barris took when he was a hitman for the CIA. It seemed to work for him.

Unfortunately for my head, I was so into the mission that when it looked like we might be caught and Wes told me to hurry into his room before Dad got us, I neglected to factor in the sloped ceiling right by the door, and, well, that hurt. Wes even expressed concern, bless his heart. I checked for blood  oozing from my scalp and didn't find any, so that, combined with the fact that we weren't captured, means the mission was a success. It turns out there weren't any chocolate chips to get, so we settled for mini Clif Bars.

Wes, upon my departure

After determining I was feeling no dizzier than usual, I declared myself ready to get back on the road. So Bryan and Wes drove me (well, actually, just Bryan drove; Wes read a Harry Potter Lego book and then shut his eyes for a bit) to the William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center in Syracuse and it was off to Rochester for a return visit almost 14 years in the making. The last (and only) time I was in Rochester was with Bryan and his then-girlfriend/now-wife Kelly to see Todd Snider and the Nervous Wrecks open for Kenny Wayne Shepherd (guess when we left) at the Water Street Music Hall. I only saw Rochester in darkness and not for very long that time. In fact, the only thing I remember from that trip (other than Todd singing "Call Me the Breeze" and his bass player smoking a bowl in the alley behind the hall) was Bryan stopping to pee in a field in the middle of nowhere and the two of us singing Old 97s songs really loud so that everybody stayed awake on the ride home. Neither Bryan, I, nor Wes sang Old 97s songs really loud on the way to the train. I doubt Wes knows any, but he'll learn.

The Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge and the Genesee River, Rochester, NY

Trains are supposed to be more peaceful than buses, right? So how do you explain that my 90-minute trip featured the following:

• Across the aisle from me was a gentleman who was on the phone for the entire ride (when one call ended, he'd start another within 10 seconds), debating the merits of buying certain athletic equipment, including trampolines from Germany that are called Grand Master. That can't be right, I thought. Grand Master? From Germany? That's a little too Third Reich-ish, no? Well, a Google search reveals that is simply the name of a trampoline sold by a company in Germany. The actual name of the company is Eurotramp. I don't care what you tell me; there's still plenty of weird crap going on in Germany. Let's keep an eye on them. And don't mention the war.
• Behind me were two children who seemed adorable on the platform. As it turns out, one of them was slightly less adorable than expected, because he or she (I honestly couldn't tell, and I wasn't turning around to look) spent I'd say a solid 15 minutes hacking "like an 80-year-old man" (in the words of a woman I assume was Mom) and spewing something (vomit? bile? who knows?). It made reading a touch difficult. I considered recording the event, but, lucky for you, I decided that was in poor taste. I would say something pithy like, "Score one for Greyhound," if I hadn't been on a bus last month where a grown man was making noises 50 times as bad and walking back and forth to the bathroom three or four times. And he was only on the bus for 45 minutes. I actually would've recorded that. You'll have to just settle for my impression. Just ask the next time you see me.

But enough talk of whooping cough and wretching. For now. I can't say I won't return to it later on. But I'll try to avoid it.

While waiting for my friend Liz to pick me up at the train station, I perused the free local weeklies to see if the Amy LaVere show at the Abilene got any advance press and to see what else was going on in Rochester. While doing that, I happened upon this Blondie comic strip and soon found myself kind of wanting to yell at a newspaper in the middle of an empty train station.

Is anybody even trying at Blondie headquarters anymore? First of all, the thought of a guy with his own bowling ball and bag throwing eight gutter balls in a row during a tournament (and a "big" one!) is ludicrous. But, putting that aside, the "in the 9th frame" kills me. If you leave that out, maybe I'm not so in the flesh. But adding it means you're implying that he threw his first eight gutter balls in the first eight frames, which, I guess means he just skipped the second ball each frame. Because you get to throw two balls a frame, you jerk! I understand that he never said he threw eight in a row to start the game, but the implication is clearly there. And if you just take out "in the 9th frame," there's no problem and the strip is no less hilarious.

C'mon, guys. It's bad enough that Dagwood's the star of the strip and gets no billing at all, never mind top billing. Don't make it worse by making him sound like an ignoramus. He deserves better. We all do.

Me and my sweet ass, L&M Lanes, Rochester, NY

After I'd cooled off from that (it took a while), I noticed an ad for L&M Lanes in Rochester, a two-floor bowling alley. I'm a sucker for two-floor bowling alleys, so when Liz picked me up and asked if I wanted to do anything before the show, I mentioned the ad. And soon we were on lane 5 and listening to the Avett Brothers, Dawes, Flogging Molly, and Prince on the L&M jukebox.

I had a respectable showing (158 and 174, I think...I certainly didn't throw nine gutter balls in a row, and neither did Liz), and the second game was with a guy bowling on lane 1 who would let out a hearty "Hoo-ah!" when he threw a particularly good ball. He would have smoked Dagwood in the big bowling tournament.

The L&M was a swell place to spend a few hours in the late afternoon. And I was pleased to comply with their strict dress code.

 

After bowling, there was plenty of time to make my first ever trip to a Dinosaur BBQ. Yes, despite having spent a fair amount of time near Syracuse and being a PATH and subway ride from the Dinosaur in Harlem, my first Dinosaur experience was in Rochester, where I have spent roughly 30 hours of my life. Go figure. Anyway, it was quite good, and I applaud myself for balancing the pulled pork with a tomato and cucumber salad. You would expect no less from a guy who spent his morning watching "My Little Pony."

Finally, it was showtime. Liz and I got to the Abilene pretty early, grabbed a few prime seats at the bar, and reminisced about the glory days of copy-editing direct mail brochures (if you threw out an envelope touting 5 books for $1 in the late 1990s, there's a decent chance Liz or I made sure that got to your trash can as error-free as possible...you're welcome). The bar eventually filled up, and I think the show might have been a sellout. Unfortunately, this meant our prime seats at the bar turned into the seats where everyone who wanted to get a drink or go outside for a smoke had to pass. But at least we had seats. I like seats, even when the woman standing in front of me is both so close to and so oblivious of me that I think my kneecap is getting lucky in Rochester.

The show was fun, and since it was one of the two headlining shows I'd see Amy do before she hooked back up again with the Rich Robinson tour, it was a long one, too--two sets, in fact. And it was also the first time I'd seen Amy play a bass other than her own, because there was a luggage-falling incident in Buffalo that resulted in a fairly severe neck injury for Amy's upright bass. So she was playing a loaner (and a really nice-sounding one) while her freshly glued bass rested up and set. I would like to point out that no necks, bass or otherwise, were broken after I started following the tour. I'm not saying I'm a hero, but if you want to, you can.

Amy was also a bit under the weather in Rochester, which led to some trouble toward the end of the second set, when the mix of Dayquil, Red Bull, wine, and whiskey started to really come together. So, after a little mini-set from guitarist Dave Cousar, the show came to a close soon after a gentleman yelling out "Whipping Post" and "Cumberland Blues" insisted that Amy should just drink more. She wisely realized that wasn't a great idea and after, I think, calling out a song they had just played about 10 minutes prior, decided to call it a night and get some rest. She and the band played for about two-and-a-half hours by then, so she earned some sleep.

Since Liz had to be up for work and I had to catch a bus to Ithaca in the morning, we made a somewhat hasty exit and called it a night. I'm now two-for-two with fun shows in Rochester. So, nice going, Rochester. I'll be back someday. Probably sooner than 14 years this time.

UP NEXT: A dog is nearly killed, I go back to Ithaca (no more dorm-room window pictures, though), and I finally fall outside a bar in Ithaca.

The 2012 No Hotel? No Problem Tour: Part 1

Preamble

As avid Tinsel & Rot readers (both of you) know, I occasionally get the urge to travel. And, for me, traveling does not involve heading to a peaceful locale where I can catch up on sleep and slow down for a bit. On the contrary, I frequently set an itinerary, usually built around seeing friends and/or going to shows, that I know will completely and utterly exhaust me and lead to at least a week of recovery from the supposedly relaxing break from cubicle life.


So, when I saw that Amy LaVere would be opening for Rich Robinson for a string of dates in the Northeast, most of which were in or near cities where friends lived, the wheels started turning. I originally thought about just taking a few days off, but when she announced headlining shows in Rochester and Ithaca, a new plan started to take root. I had already thought about going to Ithaca the Sunday of the week she'd be in town, because Todd Snider was playing in Ithaca for the first time, roughly 16 years after I first wished that would happen (see here for details about that, although, really, you should have this whole blog committed to memory by now). And if I was going to go to that, well then why not just go for the whole week? And maybe I could get the ball rolling on the Critical, But Stable 10th Anniversary Audio Book while I was at it.


Thus, a vacation was born.


As I started figuring out bus and train schedules and how much all this would run me, I decided that I would try to keep it down to no more than two nights in a hotel. Sure, this would mean imposing upon friends and perhaps taking a few overnight bus rides, but I could do that. Heck, I've been doing it for years, and though the knees and back get a little stiffer on those long bus rides these days, maybe I could make it all happen one last time. Then, because my friends are such lovely, giving people, it began to look like I could do the whole trip without staying in even one hotel. And some might even be able to come out to the shows. Nice!


So, what follows over the next few posts is the summary of the No Hotel? No Problem tour, as best as I can recall it.

Saturday, March 10
Bus from NYC to Oneonta: 8:30 am

After a Thursday night at the Todd Snider show at Irving Plaza and a Friday night with Bobby Keys and the Suffering Bastards at the Highline Ballroom (during which I thought Mr. Keys might pass out), I rose and shone and made the bus to Oneonta with about 30 seconds left to spare. The driver informed me I was lucky when he took my ticket, but I prefer to think of myself as a professional bus rider who knows exactly when I need to be at the gate. In fact, I think I've taken enough buses in my life now that I deserve one of those bus driver jackets. It seems like the right thing to do. Please contact me at your earliest convenience, Greyhound and/or Coach USA.

I actually didn't really need to get the 8:30 bus, but, because I am such a pro, I know that the 8:30 bus is my best shot at having enough of a layover in Kingston that I can get to Deising's Bakery in Kingston to get a bunch of the soft pretzels they make on the weekends. And I did (and also picked up some Irish soda bread rolls), thus providing much joy to two of the families who would be   providing shelter on the first leg of the trip.

I got into Oneonta around 1 pm, and my friend Jessica (who, as a mother of two who had her parents up for the weekend, was more than willing to get out of the house to pick me up at the bus station) and I soon found ourselves in Silks and Treasures, the local consignment shop at which everything in the store was $5 that day only. Jessica scored some deals on clothes, and I picked up a $5 pair of sneakers that looked like they may have been worn once. A nice start to the trip, followed up by a visit to the local hoarditorium, where boxes of records, shelves of VHS tapes and DVDs, and piles of books lived together peacefully, willing to go to a new home for a reasonable price but just as content to stay there until the endtimes. I kept myself mainly in check, buying only two records, a Dean Martin LP and this, which I wasn't willing to buy for $10 but gladly walked away with for $5.

Sealed! With the exercise poster untouched! I cannot wait to do the Fire Hydrant while I listen to "Elvira"!

By the time we got back to the house, daily quiet time was almost over, and I was soon drafted by young Sam into playing with trains, climbing into the not-really-for-35-year-old-legs fire truck/tent, and serving as a nurse in the animal hospital. I'm not bragging, but we saved a cat from a fire, and that was even after the cat, in something I didn't think was felinely possible, went back on fire after we had seemingly put the flames out. It was tense for a bit and I'd love to take most of the credit, but the doctor really came through on this one.

My friend Brett, fresh from supervising a Model UN afternoon, came home just after the cat situation was resolved, and we went out for dinner, to Andre's Blue Ribbon BBQ, where we were treated to good food (any place with a baked sweet potato has a special place in my heart) and generally playful though occasionally uncomfortable rapport between the husband and wife who own the restaurant (we were the only two people in the place, so that might have caused some of the discomfort on my end...also "Prairie Home Companion" was on). This is one of the few places I ate where I didn't take pictures of the food, so you'll have to just trust me that it was good.

And then it was back home, and soon time for sleep after a successful Day One. It was not, however, the best day of the year for me to be losing an hour. Thanks a lot, stupid Daylight Savings Time.


Sunday, March 11

Bus from Oneonta to Binghamton: 12:50 or 1:00 (depending on which Coach USA schedule you consulted); Bus from Binghamton to Ithaca: 2:05


 





















After some early-morning churching and the first dancing Bocephus sighting of the day (in a deli in Oneonta), there was some heavy conversation at the breakfast table between Sam and me on the topics of pirates, sharks, and poop. I can't entirely recall how the three connected, but suffice it to say it was the best conversation I've had all year, perhaps in my entire life.

Unfortunately, I could not spend more time traversing the pirate-shark-poop triangle, because I had to get back on the road. So, after a little more playtime, Brett's stellar work on getting the audio book project started, a quick goodbye to Jessica and her parents, and a parting snapshot of baby Fiona, Brett, Sam, and I headed to the bus station, to catch the bus to Binghamton, where, if we hit no traffic and arrived right on time, I could catch my connecting bus to Ithaca. It is such a precise connection that they don't even give you the hope of making it at the Oneonta bus terminal, instead telling you the time when the next bus to Ithaca (4:15) leaves from Binghamton.

Please. Of course I made it.

The above is, essentially, the view just outside of the window of the room where I lived for two years at Ithaca College. It turns out I was not aware of this. Or maybe it's because the day I arrived in Ithaca was far and away the nicest day I've ever seen in Ithaca. I had layered up for the trip, assuming that my few days in central New York would involve some combination of wind, clouds, and precipitation. Pretty much wrong on all fronts, so I had to de-layer once my friend Bryan arrived in town. So, that done and my Huey Lewis and the News shirt now uncovered for the fine people of Ithaca to see (multiple compliments, thank you very much), Bryan and I took a walk down memory lane on campus (largely shut down for spring break) as we tried to remember where our friends lived when we were in college. I was a little better at that than Bryan, which may have something to do with the difference in the amount of alcohol we consumed in college.

Here are a few pictures that won't mean a thing to you. But what is a blog if not a place where one can post things of no importance to the rest of the world? Good. That's settled.

The middle room on the left is where I lived for two years: Terrace 12, Room 220. You can't see it too well from the picture, but the room on the bottom right has a Justin Bieber poster in the window. I am hoping it is ironic. I fear it is not.

And this is the room where I lived my junior year: Terrace 2, Room 102. Excellent, easy access to the Terrace Dining Hall, but a bit of a challenge because it was right next to the main door, which meant every time someone needed to get into the building and the door was locked, my window would get a tap. I noted that the current resident has his or her bed right up against the window, so maybe that isn't a problem anymore. Or maybe the current resident is just a people person.

Junior year was the year I first felt completely comfortable in college. And kind of in life in general. I miss junior year.

OK, enough wistful, nostalgic longings. Let's get to some pictures of food! There are many fine eating establishments from my days in college that are now gone (Gino's, I miss you most of all), but, luckily, the Glenwood Pines still remains. I actually think I was there no more than once while in college, but it became the go-to stop in the years immediately after, and it remains so today. The food is good, but the old school bowling game is even better.

And no trip to the Pines is complete without a piece of Kentucky Derby Pie. I had already marked this as a trip highlight before the first bite entered my mouth. You might not match it with a pint, but Bryan knows what he's doing, so let's not question him. And, anyway, it is what Tom Waits would do.

Then it was time for the first rock show of the trip, a show I'd been waiting for since the fall of 1996, when I first started checking Pollstar (a concert website) during breaks between classes on the computers in the Friends Hall computer lab and the Ithacan office. Finally, Todd Snider was coming to Ithaca. I was maybe a little less excited than I would've been in 1996 and if it was a Nervous Wrecks show at the old, smaller Haunt, but not much. After all, it was still a band show (though the band had lost two members from the show I saw in NYC on Thursday), and that was enough reason to rejoice, since Todd's generally a solo act these days.

After a bit of a rocky start due to some guitar issues, Todd and crew settled into a groove and played a looser, rowdier, and generally more fun show than the NYC show (which was still plenty of fun). He seemed less intent on showcasing his new record and more focused on just having a good time on a Sunday night in Ithaca. It was a good-sized crowd for a Sunday night, too, and I was proud of the people of Ithaca for coming out on a Sunday night. By the time Todd settled into a reworked version of "Doublewide Blues" (off of Viva Satellite, the very CD I was obsessing over as graduation approached in 1998), it felt a little bit like college again. And then when I finally got to see Todd's road manager, Dave, do his best Elvis during the encore (he does it fairly frequently but somehow never at the shows I go to), I was really happy with how this trip was turning out.

And, really, any day where you see two different dancing Bocephi (and you're not in my apartment, where one stands in my bedroom and one's in the kitchen) is a good day.

NEXT UP: The last day of no music, I almost knock myself out, and my long-awaited return to Rochester, NY.

You Never Can Tell

Chuck Berry is going to be 85 years old on Tuesday. So I figured I should really get on that whole seeing Chuck at a small club in St. Louis--and getting his autograph after the show--thing. Who knows how much longer he'll be doing his monthly gig at Blueberry Hill, and, even if he does, who knows how much longer I'll want to see it. I'm all about paying respects to the heroes of rock and roll where they're still among us, but hopping on a plane to St. Louis (not the most exciting place on earth) to see one of those heroes in a severely diminished capacity might not be the best use of my money going forward.

So, while initially planning a trip to Nashville, I began to look into cheap flights to St. Louis so I could start the trip there. I found a pretty cheap one, but then getting from St. Louis to Nashville turned out to be problematic. There were no direct flights, and the only other option was a ridiculously long Greyhound trip that might have seemed appealing (or at least like something fun to write about) 10 years ago but now seems like a nightmare on wheels. The trip to Nashville went by the wayside. Maybe next year, Music City.

While holding on to the St. Louis idea like Wilson Phillips, I started concocting baseball playoffs scenarios. Milwaukee was within reach, so I could plan a side trip there. And then Atlanta started collapsing, and it seemed like St. Louis might make the playoffs. Very interesting. But I needed to lock in my flights/trains/hotels so I wouldn't be spending more of the money I couldn't afford to be spending. So I went with this itinerary: fly into St. Louis for Chuck on Wednesday, take the train to Milwaukee (via Chicago) for a Brewers playoff game on Thursday (or, if tickets were too tough to come by, a Jets-Blackhawks game in Chicago), and then fly out of Milwaukee on Friday. So I booked all that on the last night of the baseball season (a/k/a The Greatest Night of Baseball Ever), as the Brewers clinched the #2 seed in the NL and the Cardinals won the Wild Card. Cool. I figured the Great Almighty Phillies Pitching Staff would easily beat the Cardinals, and hoped the Brewers would have enough to get by a tough Diamondbacks team.

One out of two aint bad.

The Phillies' choking threw a wrench into the plan, because now the Brewers were the home team in that series, and that meant Game 4 on that Thursday would now be in St. Louis. And seeing a playoff game at Busch was less appealing than one at Miller Park. Did I really want to break the bank to see a playoff game where I'd be rooting against the home team? Eh, maybe.

Then, a fortuitous comedy club booking was revealed over the Internet. David Koechner, better known as Champ Kind in Anchorman (or best known to me as Gerald "T-Bones" Tibbons of the Naked Trucker and T-Bones comedy duo), was doing a comedy show that Thursday night at a hotel comedy club in Illinois that advertised itself as 14 minutes from the Gateway Arch (or 44 minutes via MetroLink and bus). Whammy!

Trip itinerary completed. St. Louis and Chuck on Wednesday, Fairview Heights, Illinois, and T-Bones on Thursday, and then a ridiculously early train to Chicago Friday morning before another train ride to Milwaukee and my flight home Friday night.

Well, that was easy enough.



Chuck Berry shows, or, for that matter, any rock and roll shows by 84-year-old men, are an iffy proposition. Some nights he's so wildly off that it makes you sad (e.g., the first time I saw him, at a baseball stadium in New Jersey), and some nights you see enough of the old magic that you feel grateful to be alive to see a pioneer of rock and roll a few feet away from you (e.g., the second time I saw him, at a festival in New Jersey). You pay your money, you take your chances (although the time he was good was free, so that was even better).

So as I made my second trip to the Delmar Loop of the day (the first was right from the airport to do a Vintage Vinyl run), my expectations were pretty measured. If it stunk, I could still say I saw Chuck Berry in a small club with a few hundred people. If it was great, well then I saw Chuck Berry in a small club with a few hundred people and it was awesome. Plus, there would be the bonus of getting Mr. Berry's autograph after the show, as the club usually sets up a table and he signs stuff after the show.

But, before all that, it was time for what I'd been saving up for my big meal of the day, at Pi Pizzeria, a few blocks away from Blueberry Hill. St. Louis is unjustly famous for its mediocre cracker-thin pizza with Provel cheese in lieu of mozzarella, but Pi, apparently a favorite of President Obama, doesn't use Provel and is best known for their deep dish pie. I'm not a huge deep dish guy, but the reviews looked promising, so I dug in.



In order to give my gorging a healthy sheen, I started with a salad, the Bada Bing (field greens, toasted almonds, gorgonzola cheese, dried bing cherries, with a raspberry vinaigrette). That was quite good. In fact, I could've left happy with just that. But then came the pizza.




And that was even better. It's the cornmeal crust that does the trick. The sauce was pretty good, too, but the cornmeal makes it stand out from your average pie. I started to feel a little bloated toward the end, but my mama didn't raise no quitter, so I dusted off the whole pie and walked to Blueberry Hill wondering if throwing up during the Chuck Berry show would ruin the trip.

There is limited seating for the Chuck shows at Blueberry Hill (120 seats, and I think they said the room is 300 capacity), so I knew to get there early. I got there around 6:30 and there were already about 25-30 people in line for the show (doors opened at 8). So I joined them, stared at the pictures of the owner and various celebrities on the wall, read a chapter of "The Maltese Falcon," watched two women almost pass out, listened for updates on the playoff game, and then, voila, it was 8 pm. I got a seat in the second row, right next to the people who looked to be about fifth in line. I'm not sure how that happened.

The opening act, Butch Wax and the Hollywoods, did a wedding-band set of oldies that was pretty good and then the stage was reset for Mr. Berry and his band. After a while, a guy came out to tune his guitar and I thought, "Hmmm...he's not in the band." Then, as I looked closer, I thought again, "Hmmm...I think that's Johnny Rivers." And it was. And he sat in for the whole set. Nice.



Having Rivers on stage seemed to loosen Mr. Berry up a bit, and the extra guitar took pressure off him too, as there are some things 84-year-old fingers can't quite do anymore. If you go see Chuck Berry now, those guitar runs aren't gonna be quite like they used to be. In fact, they're probably gonna make you cringe. A lot. But so what. He's Chuck Berry. You can cut him some slack. Going to a Chuck Berry show and complaining that he "just doesn't have it anymore" would be like meeting Thomas Jefferson in 1825 and being disappointed that he didn't write the Declaration of Independence for you. He's done the work already. Now's the time to be glad you're alive to see him.



Rivers sang a good portion of the set (with Mr. Berry joining in on a few verses here and there), starting off with "Maybellene" and continuing with "Carol," "Memphis, Tennessee," "Reelin' and Rockin'" (done twice...Why? Why not?) and "Little Queenie," among others. Mr. Berry seemed to be having just as good a time as I was, and even gave an abbreviated duck walk of sorts during "Let It Rock." If Rivers hadn't been there, I probably would have still had an OK time, but his presence made the night far more memorable than I had anticipated going in.



And then Mr. Berry left without signing. Curses! Foiled again. Oh well. What was it the old folks would say about that? Oh yeah...



It was still a really fun night. Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!

I switched hotels on Thursday, so I could be a little closer to the train station. This made it slightly less sad to not have time or money to go to a playoff game, because the hotel I stayed at Wednesday was literally a block away from Busch Stadium. I could walk out of the lobby and see the ballpark. Sigh. I did pop into the pep rallies outside the ballpark on Wednesday and Thursday, though, where I looked so out of place not wearing any red that I feared someone would point at me and I'd soon be burned at the stake. But I wasn't. So I took some pictures of playoff fever in St. Louis.




I had nothing to do during the day on Thursday, so I decided to walk to the City Museum and check that out. I'd heard good things about it, and that though it was intended mainly for kids, adults would have a good time at it too. And that was very true, because I had a great time wasting two hours there. If you've got kids, or you're a 34-year-old single man, I highly recommend visiting it.




The City Museum is and old shoe factory and warehouse that has been turned into a completely ridiculous funhouse of sorts, with about a dozen slides (including one ten-story slide), a cave, a human hamster wheel, a ball pit, a Ferris wheel, two gutted-out airplanes, and a school bus that juts off the roof. This has to be the coolest place to take a class trip in the whole wide world. I thought about going down at least one of the slides, but I had visions of an ER visit, so I chickened out. I did go on the Ferris wheel, though. Good times.




After that, I watched some of the ALCS game in my hotel before heading out to Fairview Heights for the David Koechner show. I got there a little early, but too late to grab some food (and since the comedy club was in a hotel on a highway, the main option--TGIFriday's--wasn't exactly inviting anyway), so I went in for the 8 pm show around 7:20. And there were 5 people there. Oh boy. This might be a rough night--if not for me, then definitely for Koechner.

And it was kind of a rough night. I was sitting next to a gentleman who was celebrating his 32nd anniversary with his wife. And, man, was he chatty. Not with me, though; we had only an odd 20-second conversation in which he asked me the last name of the headliner, whom he said he had just met in the hotel.

No, he was way chattier with the opening comic, who probably wished he had never started talking to him at the beginning of his set. And that set, I would say, was about half the comedian talking and half the guy next to me talking. The guy next to me (I honestly could not determine if he had a legitimate mental handicap or was just odd; his wife seemed normal) just kept interjecting himself into the set, vowing to stop talking after every time he spoke, until he capped off his mini-set by asking, "Was she really from Soulard?" after the comedian told a story about losing his virginity to a girl in Soulard (a neighborhood in St. Louis). He then proceeded to give us his thoughts on Soulard and telling us about the time his brother fell through a floor in a house in Soulard. The comedian just gave up at that point and let him tell the whole story.

The guy was only slightly less chatty during the beginning of Koechner's set, interrupting only once, punctuating a story Koechner told about his cousin giving him chewing tobacco at the age of 10 and telling him to swallow the juice by saying, "I've heard that story a thousand times." He again vowed to stop talking after Koechner's reaction, and mainly kept his promise until he got visibly bored and antsy toward the end of the set and started what I assume he thought was whispering in his wife's ear. Which you kind of can't do in a front row in a comedy club when you're five feet from the comic. Koechner shushed him, then did so again when he and the missus started hemming and hawing on their drink order while Koechner told a story about how his wife can't give birth anymore and the scare they had with their youngest child, born via surrogate (yes, I agree, that is odd material for a comedy club). After the second gentle admonishment from Koechner, the gentleman slammed his beer bottle down and walked out. He came back later and took a picture with Koechner after the show. He sounded like he had a good time.

I'm not so sure Koechner did, but he did a good job of holding it in. I can't imagine doing a show for a quarter-full room on a Thursday night at a hotel comedy club is a thrill ride. I hope the Friday and Saturday shows went better.



In any case, I got my Champ Kind bobblehead signed (and my Naked Trucker and T-Bones CD, too), so I left happy. And that happiness almost went right away when I thought I missed the last bus to the MetroLink station. But just as I went to go call a cab, I saw the bus coming, and tragedy was averted. I finally had dinner back at the hotel bar, roughly four hours before I had to board the train to Chicago. It was at this point that this part of the trip began to seem like a terrible idea.



I took a nap and made the train on time, drifting in and out of sleep for the first few hours. We got to Chicago a little late, and I thought my plan to go to the World's Finest Chocolates outlet in a Chicago strip mall might have to be postponed, but I pulled it off. We used to sell (and by "sell," I mean, my mom would sell a few bars at work and then just give me the money for the rest of the box) World's Finest candy bars in grammar school as a fundraiser, so I wanted to relive that glorious time by buying an excessive amount of WF chocolate at their outlet store. And I did. Bought a hat and a bag, too. Here's to you, Blessed Sacrament.



Then it was back on the train to Milwaukee, buying tickets for shows I'm going to in Milwaukee with my sister at the end of the month, getting on a bus to the airport, finding out my flight was delayed for three hours (later knocked down to one-and-a-half), listening to the Brewers lose while on the plane, and finally making it home from LaGuardia around 1:30. I think I tied my record for most states visited in a 24-hour period (5) and I fell asleep in four of them, which I think is a new record.

If you've been holding your applause until the end, you can now commence clapping.