Macon GA Jazzplex

Finding myself ultimately tired after the show, I decided to go out on the town with a few revelers. Macon, GA is a town full of poor people and surrounded by, I assume, rich people. I had noticed a place next to a gun store called Jazzplex during the day and it was tough to tell whether it was shuttered for good, as is the norm here, or whether it would be open at night. From the street it had the look of a yarn store gone bad, a storefront in a line of mostly boarded up windows featuring white paint with green painted trellises nailed to the boards, suggesting nothing but that there must be a curious local carpenter. At about 11pm that night I learned that it was open. There was a guy outside the business dressed in a red Ferrari shirt, an extra large one and a red and white cap that might have supported the Phillies. Actually it was not a Ferrari shirt; it was by a clothing designer called Fillippo Rico or something made up with the prancing horse and the red to suggest cachet. This googly eyed guy was insistent that there was enough room in the Jazzplex to accommodate me and my friends and that the music was first rate.

Upon entering the building it’s immediately apparent that the local population – who could supposedly be thanked for it’s non-out-of-business status – have the right idea. There were about 10 old trumpets, saxes and trombones nailed to the walls in between soft focused and blacklight –friendly posters of instruments with slogans like “true love” and “precious metal” in block letters. Some of the framed pictures had the instruments arranged with roses and greens, or with ladders and open gallons of paint. The tables were completely random sizes and shapes and I imagine that anything that could hold a couple drinks off the floor without immediately tipping over was considered a place to sit. There were several outdoor umbrellas opened in the middle of the room whose only purpose must be to shade patrons from the rope lighting and PBR signs that grace the ceiling. Above the bar were plastered several wicker beach mats to frame a few posters of Bob Marley and Milies Davis. The bandstand was at the far end of the store, it is a typical storefront set up approximately 25 feet wide and 40 feet long. The bandstand easily accommodates 7 musicians about a foot off the floor. There were publicity posters from events in Macon, all from several years ago, suggesting that this remained the only game in town.

As the place was quite full and we were a group of 6, and this is the south, there was much hubbub as we entered. My companions and I were the only ones not wearing black turtleneck shirts, gold chains, sunglasses, hackney caps and tan blazers. The gay boys behind the desk at the Ramada didn’t tell us there was a dress code. Despite our lack of coordination with the locals (there were other key features that would have been harder to hide than the wrong color shirt), we were accommodated by much effort to move seats and tables around so that we might sight together. First a woman sort of motioned us to join at her round table in the middle, which had 2 empty seats. She was drinking a margarita with salt out of a pilsener glass, which scared me enough that I hesitated and moved toward a table against the mirrored wall to her right. One of our lot had already sat at a miniature table against the half wall separating the bar from the guests, to her right. Now we were taking up the most space possible and this woman really wanted us to sit with her or together, not surrounding her. So she started to move her table towards me and my table, probably to then abandon it for the miniature table across the way once creating the ideal 6 person table . But simultaneously the doorman was getting some folding chairs to place at the woman’s round table, assuming we were all together. So then the round table goes back in the middle and the folding chairs placed near it. By this time the band had started again. To make us more comfortable, and seeing that the margarita woman had a companion herself, this guy then took the table from the mirrored wall and moved it to the middle, so our supposed group of 8 were all together. And then, in a final awkward decision, we moved all the tables back to where they were at first and the woman and her companion took the seats by the wall and our one stayed at the mini table, with 5 of us at the round table in the middle, where it all began.

The two women looked really nice and appeared a bit older than me so I was interested in talking to them at some point but we had now gone to such lengths to provide separate but equal seating for each other that it just will have to wait. What impressed me the most about the occupants of the Jazzplex was that they were largely middle aged and jovial but the yuppie tide had not a single microbrew or glass accent light in the place. The bartender made not a move to describe the choices when I asked his slightly hunched sagging face what beers he had. This was a true dive bar with music. If there’s a hole in the wall there is a supply of wicker beach mats behind the bar to paper over it. There were happy birthday signs for the bartender over the stage and the bar, his 75th. The band was a 6 piece called the Southern Art Ensemble and they know something about wearing black suits . One number featured two tambourines at once, and there was not even a hint of “oh, I’m the first tambourinist, listen to me!” about it.

New York to Macon, GA

Yesterday began early in Phildelphia, on my way back to work in Georgia for a couple of days. You have to check in 46 miutes before a flight to get your baggage in the hold properly. Also, if you bring stuff through the TSA checkpoint, they let you bring some things that you might not expect, like contact lens solution, in large quantities. The lady said that they can’t see the saline solution on the x-ray, no matter the quantity…..not something she should say to the terrorists. They, after 5 flights cached discreetly between the lining and the pocket, finally found the Neutrogena lotion I was missing in my backpack. Those machines are handy.

The insurgency in Iraq must have investors beating a path to their bunkers and banging down their steel doors (after, of course, the insurgents beat a path to and bang down the investors doors and kidnap them) with an annual budget funded by diverse products and services such as oil and kidnapping, of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is how consultants make their money; they go into these operations that already have a good cash flow and hone their skills. You could offer maybe scarf cleaning for a year to the clan with the highest margin beheadings in the province, or a new HD camera to the highest rated fatwa each season. Maybe they could offer a three day course at NBC to learn about theatrical lighting and set design (“use yellow light if your sheet is off-white, or if you’ve been hiding in your bunker so long that your tan has faded, “black scarves must match AK47 to prevent flickering on TV screens”) When they invade a neighborhood, there’s sure to be waste as they run around henny-penny with religious texts and handcuffs flying all over the place; maybe they could use email instead. There are areas for improvement here, not just by killing more people, but by killing people better.

I was ordering at a Seattle’s Best Coffee in Atlanta Hartsfield International yesterday (across from the Atlanta Bread Company, which I’ve visited in Chicago Midway only) when the woman behind me asked me to order her a medium chai latte. I was about to speak the words when I realized that this was strange. So I turned into her blood swollen eyes and asked if she was going to pay for it, thinking it was like a rum and coke for little Penny Lou at the bar, but realizing that, no, chai is offered to all ages. So of course, I was supposed to buy this drink for this beggar. She said she only had $5 and she had to get some pizza at Sbarro (if you want to eat, and are homeless, fly to Atlanta). I said “if you are homeless and have managed to get $5, in an airport with Security Officers on Segways no less (“how to escape now, jihadi?”), why not start with a small?” She said “There’s a lot of nutrients in the chai, it’s very healthy and I need the protein.” Now the girl behind the counter was watching and listening as this is essentially a three-way conversation now and I ‘m a little uncomfortable because I like to help people but I’m not sure this would be the right way. I’m thinking that this woman is spending 80% of her GDP on a drink that’s loaded with sugar and cholesterol. So I walk to the drink-receiving port to my right, thinking that I will have escaped and the next wool-hatted private college flannel man in line will decide this woman’s fate. Of course now I haven’t paid for my own drink, so I’ve got to go back to the register and hold another press conference about giving to the homeless. This time I gave her $1 and said, put that towards your drink and have a good day. She wondered aloud why I didn’t give her $2, which is still far too little for all but a simple coffee (no says the corporate literature, the Best Coffee!), but is probably how she makes money in any quantity at all. I told the woman at the counter to give her the Nice Price (a really useful phrase when negotiating) or the Corporate Discount (also somewhat useful at Hotel Desks, if $10 means that much to you or it is not a holiday weekend) and walked away. I think after all it would be better for the Segways to corner this woman before she started spending inside the airport food court and offered her a way to get downtown or something, where she would have options other than premium priced beverages.

Don't put sound on your website

The sound effects on your website are earsplitting and
crude even when heard through a high speed connection
and render the site completely useless to someone who
is simultaneously running a music program and visiting
your site. They are also disturbing when using a
computer in a silent room.

I always try to remember that it's your content
visiting someone's private home or office, not the
other way around. Your website's shrill sounds are an
unwelcome guest in my house when planning a meal. I
suggest you remove the sound, or provide a clearly
visible "sound off" link on your homepage. How's
that for monday morning quarterbacking, chef? --mike

If I Went To Spring Break, Here's where

Niceville, FL is a place designed for spring break. There are miles of snowy white sand beaches, calm blue ocean, tiki bars, 3 foot deep pools with tiki bars in them, bungee jump platforms, waterslides with bars at the base of the queue and hotels. Now the only noticeable inhabitants are the elderly. They're wandering the streets propped up on canes and cruising in battery powered chariots from Waffle House to Walgreens. We are staying in one of the nicer hotels here, the Four Points Sheraton. It's right on the beach as usual.

The venue is out in the middle of nowhere at Okalloosa-Walton College. It's nice to play colleges because the local crew are young and awestruck by us. Nice to come into a building as a celbrity. They also provide more than decent kraft services, often with brownies and nut logs!

The trip here began yesterday before dawn in Sarasota. We loaded the bus, confusedly, at 6am under the Leonid meteor shower, and departed soon after for I75. I slept so not soundly that I had the impression that I was actually in a coma and feeling my brain knocking gleefully on the sides of my skull, begging for freeness (freedom? you say? Silly linguist, freedom is/was for Iraqis). Someone near me on the bus squawks intermittently while they sleep. We stopped at a couple rest areas along the way and it was notably colder every couple hours, with more Pines and no Palms. The stretch of I10 we traveled was very remote, often undivided and in very poor repair. Until last night at 10 CST, the driver had only 8 hours rest from the previous day at 10EST, 25hours previous. I'm sure this violates Teamster rules.

Tomorrow I'm off to New York City for a couple of days as the show is closed for Thanksgiving. I'm really looking forward to spending some time with Kathryn in a tourist mecca not also inhabited by my 55 entertaining coworkers. Also, big balloons. As a consolation prize, we've got another week at the beach in Tampa coming up before the christmas layoff.

There's a lot more than beer to drink tonight, Sarasota

For one thing there’s no reason not to talk to myself, and for another, it makes things seem really intense. When I enter a hotel room and say “are you ready for this?” to the floral bedspread, it really gets me going. When else, I wonder, can you wonder if you are really alone or if you are crazy? Driving a car late at night, talking to yourself? For another thing, if you answer yes, then it’ll be one heckuva rootin-tootin’ toothbrushin’! You are ready for this, and it’s rough hygiene!

This is Sarasota in November, but I have no idea what that means. The hotel is on a wide flat beach, with good waves and water warm and shallow enough to harbor sharks and rays, and to swim in. The edge of the continent is as good a place as any, better even, to challenge each other “are you ready?” The crooked rhythm of the surf gets everyone excited, and the drinks paid for by the producer help in this matter. It has been suggested that there is a dance-off to take place, which some call a fuete. As I’ve been swimming today already, and it’s cold outside, I’m just interested in this as a spectator. There’s no guarantees that a fuete ends in submersion, I imagine, but there’s always prayer, and I’m much too chilly to wind up in the gulf just now. To keep things in perspective, this all begins inside at a bar-mitzvah like gathering featuring aforementioned drinks and thus-far-not-mentioned meatballs and cheese cubes. The crackers were restocked very infrequently, and the meatball restocking event recalled feeding time at a municipal coy pond. This is often the setting at which we are offered relaxation and free drinks, maybe this is not unlike your own relaxing place? This time there was a man singing things dressed in a suit and explaining that he’s older than he looks, singing songs like Mr. Wonderful (oh, Mr. Wonderful).

I ask myself am I ready for the sinu-cleanse. As I say the words, I know the answer. I ask the question because I know the answer. Yes. Some people go bowling or to Ihop or make some strange phone calls after a good night out, but for me there’s nothing like a good stumble into the tiny bathroom with a full Neti pot. I’m telling you, this thing will keep the doctor away, or guarantee a trip to the doctor and who would balk at these odds?

Melbourne, FL

Being on tour is a lot like being retired it seems. The lunch specials are very important as we are on a fixed income and you have a lot of time to complain about your neighbors. If I don’t get to something one week for any reason, there will be next week with a huge span of open time to finish up or start some new activity. Scheduling is a luxury rather than a necessity.

My parents and Grandmother are in Cocoa Beach, adjacent to Melbourne, FL, where the show is currently so I’m staying at my grandmother’s condo. Being away from the show during the day is a much better rest than I would have imagined. I didn’t think I wanted to be away from all the activity of the show, but as soon as they left Lexington on the bus and I was left to wait for my flight, I felt very different. I’m happy not to be part of the herd for a few days. And then next week too, we’re on a break for Thanksgiving when many of us are escaping from Florida to various parts of the country for another break.

This is now published to my website and once I figure out the software stuff, I may delete it from here so that I can do it all myself.

The Flanabrand Website

Slip Sliding Jon Benet

I’m dangerous with the remote. Would you believe that I was up until 3am watching a MSNBC documentary about prisons?

I thought that Kentucky would provide only the lowest level of irony and very little hilarity, amounting to the fact that Starbucks was the only place in town that sells internet and is also the only place in town you can get free internet from the conference center across the street. Not much to go on there, and wordy. But yesterday, I ambled into a sign in the hotel lobby that would prick up the ears on the most recently-neutered Doberman: “KY Festival: Beauty Pageant Dressing 10 and under.” Now that the Feds are reading, let me just say that this is a joke and I’ve never been to Thailand.

So there’s a youth beauty pageant going on, what could possibly be amusing about walking around the lobby with dozens of sparkling bundles of joy, male and female (okay, now Interpol is reading). There’s quite a bit of screeching at all junctions, and many have decorated their hotel doors with shivanic photos of the contestants dancing and showing mutually detestable hairstyles. I can’t wait for the retaliatory graffiti over the winner’s monuments tonight after the final judgement. The boys look really stupid in tuxedos.

Lexington, KY

Bar-b-que is a very popular food in Nashville, as it is in Kansas City. In Nashville, you can buy Kanas City Style Bar-b-que sauce, though I don’t think there is a reciprocal agreement. We ate at a place called Jack’s Barbeque and the people behind the counter are truly the nicest people in Nashville. I expected to be returned to the sidewalk forcibly when I explained that I don’t eat meat, but they were okay with that. I didn’t really get enough to eat of the mac-n-cheese and the coleslaw, but they served beer and that turned out just fine. This was the only business on Broadway that closed at 8pm as all the rest were bars with bands in the windows.

There’s a pedestrian alleyway called Printer’s Alley that’s just a bit off of Broadway and features several unfortunately located karaoke bars and a great music club called Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie. There was a fantastic quartet at that place playing great shuffles and whatnot. Everyone there seemed to be from New Orleans, and had a story to tell. The sound mixer said he was stuck in his second floor apartment with a foot of water on the floor, and only because he had Nextel phone service could he call a friend to come get him a day later. The drummer lost his drumkits in the levee break and was given a new Yamaha Recording Custom kit by Steve Gadd, who he met in New York soon after the event. The organ player was not from New Orleans but was a great player, apparently with many high end credits, which sounded about right based on how great he sounded with that band. One of our cast members is from New Orleans and her family house was flooded in Metarie after Katrina. Her sister had just bought a new house that was flooded before she could move in, as was the house she occupied then. Nothing’s easy.

I’m really extremely tired now from all the traveling of the last few weeks. I hope I never have to do a job that includes any more travel on a coach bus than this. All the free time we had during the weeks where we just did 8 shows in one city is now spent on the bus. There are quite a few more one-week sits coming up in the spring, which are well looked forward to.

Nashville, TN

Just got off the bus in Tenessee. It's bigger and more German looking than expected. We're at a hotel that, conveniently, does not have stairs that go to the second floor. Who needs those? I want to hear someone playing guitar loudly tonight, for one. There's many huge arenas around, includng one playing the smash hit The Lion King broadway tour.

Ohla

It’s safe to say that most people I work with did not vote the other day. It also seems that overwhelmingly they are a Christian lot, praying before the show collectively and whatnot. There is a collective sense that “we” are taking back the government, which is fantastic news. Of course, “we” didn’t vote.

I like to look at all the things on C-span and the national news . Having been in at least a dozen states in the last two months, I feel like I can imagine many local populations choosing who to vote for and there is great excitement for having a change.

Tomorrow I have a 10.5 hour bus ride to Nashville to have a night off. This won’t be fun, as can be imagined.

Yesterday I met a temporary cast member’s mom, who is from New Orleans. This woman was full of personality and left quite an impression on me. She advised against going to New Orleans right now, but we didn’t talk about the reasons.

Colbert National Anthem

This is the lobby of the Hotel Galvez with views onto the Gulf of Mexico, including oil rig watching.

Are You a Jelly Belly?

This is actually the pool at a hotel that I was paid to stay at. Scene of fair amount of revelry in 12 person hot tub (not pictured).

Paducah, KY

In Kentucky there are many people in their 30s who celebrate Veterans day for real. The guy next to me at the restaurant was literally being sent medals and commendations for serving in Iraq that were so unique and special that the printer at the DOD failed and sent him completely blank pieces of paper in envelopes with official seals on the outside. Maybe he was intellectually lazy and didn’t realize that this is the Waldorf school of combat awarding: draw what makes your platoon special, use all the fun colors in the rainbow!

The audiences in Galveston, TX and Paducah sure did make us feel special. The band was getting an invigorating cheer at the close of our hit number “Exit Music.”

I visited the Midwest chain called Gander Mt. Yesterday. I was looking for a Nalgene bottle, but found a whole lot more. They sell a full selection of guns and ammo, and everything to remove all body parts from most mammals. I say most because one must remember that whales are mammals, and the largest meat saw they had was 30” long and we all know that’s not going to get you very far into Shamu’s tasty blubber. If you’re looking for a blade for your meat grinder, they’ve got it. They also sell ATVs and boats, all indoors. Quite a well stocked store, and it was a shock that one could by any number of 9mm handguns for about $400, roughly the same price as a non-mechanical plastic platform from which to shoot deer. I guess it’s the hidden shipping cost.

For Halloween some cats dressed as kittens, most men dressed as women and I bought some underpants to parade around in. I was planning on some good hotel room parties, but people went their separate ways, some to Ihop (in costume), some to a gay bar (in costume) and most evaporated into the four lanes of Hinkleville Drive. I was pleased to have the night off from socializing, but very confused as to why people didn’t recognize the fact that many of our hotel rooms adjoin and could be turned into great suites of private silliness. Wearing a costume to a near closing time TGIF didn’t appeal to me, so I just listened to some recently added music on my computer and showered for the first time since leaving TX.

Missouri

Here now we’ve entered MO once again, which I just remembered is the home state of Pat Metheny. As we pass all the truck stops along I55 I’m noticing that in addition to showers and restrooms that they offer the long-haul drivers and passengers is Wi-Fi access, a word I have a hard time saying out loud. Drivers have laptops too.

Last night in Little Rock I had the pleasure of dining at a Japanese steakhouse next to the hotel, with all attendant bits of theater and hilarity. There’s no escaping the wile of a goofy Asian with a rolling tray of food and novelties! The area around our La Quinta motel smelled strongly of mothballs, but only outside, so this didn’t stop me from drinking the tap water. Bottled water is, after all, a gay delicacy. I wondered whether the Drury Inn next door (slogan: “Hey We could have named it Dreary Inn”) would have been an improvement.

Today on the bus ride from Little Rock I sat in the swing seat, which is a delicacy to be enjoyed by all passengers as their name comes to the top of the list. This means that I get my own two-seat area near the bathroom.