9-26 Columbus: Dear Reader, full of cheers and jeers, if you are still there, here is my final notice, my– cough, cough– swan song: We left Buffalo, gased up at a reservation, and, with the windows down and a sky full of blue, listened to Desire and the air blew chilly on my anxiety-bald patch from a head full of worry that resides where I’m going next. That place is called home, and as I arrived safe and almost sound, I feel pretty good about the trip/tour. It wasn’t great every night, but we met lots of good people and saw a part of the country we hardly knew. Months from now, the bills on my table will be forgotten as will the nastiness that everyone endures when they step two feet beyond where they feel most comfortable. The unknown is the best and I would rather play to 30 strangers in a strange town and sleep on floors than to a room of friends down the street from my apartment any day. We sold a lot of CDs, played some of our best sets ever, gathered life lessons. And, it was our first tour where there were– gasp!– fans, and I’ll always remember that.
I feel pretty lucky to have had a place to sing my songs every night, even if, at times, we were at odds with our environment. Our isn’t for everyone, but I’ve never tried to be the Coug and “Dark Plums” is no “Jack and Diane”. There is a place in the world for most people’s music, you just have to go out and find it.
The drive home was quiet. The Black Swans enjoyed a 4:20 farewell, Canaan sketched some cock-n-balls in the back seat, the Taurus stole the guts from a few more butterflys on I-90. I whistled along to Roger Miller.
Sometimes you want something for so long, it is hard to admit you don’t want it anymore after you get a tiny taste. But I could have stayed out there playing shows for a while longer, and so the dream lives on. And maybe that is all it is, a dream, a dream, a dream, that no one else shares. And in our untelevised St. Elsewhere, I am Mark Harmon and Canaan and Noel are a hot, narrow nurse, standing beside me in a snow globe holding hands, as we sing songs of doubt, hard-ons, and faith.
So thanks for watching. Just don’t cuss the fiddle, or Noel might type, “Barf! You rong.”