Slow Sunday and a Late Odessa Drive

Just like most mornings, I get up and start my coffee. I do a French press, and boil the water with an electric kettle. These days it’s all about convenience, but I still buy me “some serious gourmet shit”.

Last night I got in about 3am from my gig in Odessa, TX. It was my first time to play out there and what I learned is it’s basically Midland, just 20 minutes further. The drive out west on I-20 can be brutal and since I’m kin to doing one offs (a long distance-out of town-show where you drive there and back usually in the same night) I knew this would be a long day of driving. The good thing is the gig ended at 10p and I could be back before dawn. When the band plays The Lone Star Bar in Midland, we don’t end and get out of there until close to 2am and that puts me back in Granbury around 6a. I’ve done it a couple times. Once had to stop in Abilene and piss away $70 on a hotel. The gigs I play at the moment don’t usually offer accommodation, but do pay well. When it’s just me I sleep in the car.

Anyway, it’s a bit of a slow Sunday. I haven’t gone to church since pre-pandemic. I was attending Unity in Fort Worth and even joined the choir for a spell. I sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah on Ash Wednesday in front of a very small audience just before everything shut down in March 2020. The director there is just an amazing person, and pianist. I went up the hill the other Sunday to this sorta mega church called Lakeside that is about 10 minutes from where I live in Granbury. It was a big church with blue neon lights shining from the back of a large stage. I sat in the back and heard the bands last song. When the preacher came out, I couldn’t focus because I started noticing that every person around me, and the place was packed, was elderly and having little coughing fits. My mind immediately ask me, “How long has this coughing been going on? How long have you been sitting here?!” and I got up and darted back out the front door.

On the way out a man, who had eyed me down while walking through the lobby toward the sanctuary, sardonically queried if I had “found what I was looking for”. The comment sent a shock wave of rage through my body. I felt the impulse to tell him where to stick it, but only muttered in a slightly defensive tone, “lotta people coughing in there”, as I quickly crossed the lobby and was safely back in my vehicle outside the building.

I’ll stick to my audio church for now and even a particular TV preacher from Houston gets my attention quite often. On my drive out to Odessa I finished listening to The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault | Audiobook | Audible.com (free with audible subscription) and it really had me going. The talk of what Jesus might have been before all the Bible re-writes and the suggestion that Jesus was trying to teach us more than to be subservient, thrilled me and the 4 and a half hour drive to my gig was effortless. I had no idea what to expect from the gig as it was my first time playing. Most places I play, I’m there to entertain the guest of the establishment. I’ve gotten good enough the majority of spots I work with are fairly busy and I’m always playing to people.

Now - schedule a show where I have to draw - and let’s just say 2 people showed up to the last one. I can’t handle the stress and responsibility of getting the bartenders paid, but that’s really what it comes down to. I’m grateful to work with a few agents and directly with venues to play places where they just want great music and are not concerned with tapping into my social ambit. My parents, as lovely as they are, can’t be expected to eat at every establishment in Fort Worth, although I thank them for seemingly trying at times.

I arrived to Homemade Wines, a cute little winery with a dedicated following, and there were just 4 people there, 2 who worked it. I got that deflated feeling, but the great thing about playing so far out is they really are just paying you for the drive time….and prolly the tax write off, so I didn’t worry about not getting paid. Finding out “the fight” was on pay-per-view gave me an even lighter load to carry. My only job at this point was to not run anyone off who might wander into the winery not knowing there was a fight (and a party) going on virtually anywhere else in town, the state, the country even.

I donno; I don’t watch fighting. Once in Cheyenne, WY earlier this year during a week long residency one of these “the fights” came out of nowhere and me and my band sat side stage for almost three hours waiting for the projectors to be lifted and the stage lights to come back on. The place was packed! maybe 30 % were there for the music and the rest were there to see “the fight”. It was not a good night, but hey, whatever puts the butts in the seats and sells the alcohol and gets the waitstaff taken care of is alright by me. Ain’t nothing wrong with getting paid to watch that mouthy McGregor get knocked the fuk out.

So my night was easy, the waitstaff friendly and after a half set of covers, the people there started requesting songs, now about 8 of them. Tips flowed and the compliments started. I really enjoy singing for people. When I came back from my break to play the second set, there were about 12 people in there now, and it was LOUD!. So I got a little louder and played more upbeat stuff. Out of nowhere this guy comes up to me and asks me to play “So High”. I’m so unused to having strangers ask for original songs that I thought he was talking about the Bone Thugs N Harmony tune and started to play that. They all laughed and insisted they had watched the lyric video when they were looking up who was playing. I played it and they tipped me $20. I felt stupid and turned a little red, but they seemed to appreciate me all the same. Before that table left, the girlfriend ask me to play the song again.

So High -https://open.spotify.com/track/2WSbo3vT4gNWEkl550Ruxo?si=de79c0dc35a443b4

It’s kind of a complicated song with fast and what I think to be witty lyrics about being a drunkard songwriter with “a half a joint and a brand new record with nowhere to go but up. Playing in a bar next to a sold out show, plucking each note for blind luck”. This is how the song opens in my sloppy version of John Prine picking or what might sound like a sped up Kris Kristofferson song.

I’m thrilled they liked it. It’s one that has been referred to as “too heady” and the production shows off a lot of my inexperience in making records and working with producers. I still love the song and the album Liver Dye, but what this song request taught me is that maybe I don’t believe in my songs the way I should. Even though I often dream about people requesting my songs and wanting to hear them and sing along with them, when it happens, I just have a hard time believing it. Funny. But that table meant a lot to me and because of their request I played entirely all originals during the last set and the people really showed appreciation with applause and big tips. A couple even bought a copy of the new CD El Camino.

On the way home, I listened distractedly to the YouTube channels I subscribe to. Getting off I-20 and heading toward Granbury I saw an owl in the middle of the road. He seemed to be looking right at me and saying, “Watch out for me!”

It’s not often I see an owl that close and I almost turned around to see if it needed help. It was likely hunting or eating and so I drove on. A young buck crossed over the highway in front of me a few miles up and I turned off the phone and radio and lit a cig; I’m always so grateful to not hit them. I see so many dead animals on the highways going to a from my gigs. The last hour of a long trip like this is always the hardest and I get pretty tired. I pulled over and ran in place and jumped around and finished my cigarette pulling out for the last 30 minutes or so of the drive.

When I got home, Dexter my cat, is waiting as usual to greet me. He’s got total freedom yet chooses to rarely miss me pulling in. It’s a delight. He’s my second cat and I find that the more I trust a cat the more we can really be buddies. In our neighborhood, Dexter could eat and hang out at multiple other places with many other cats and cat owners and he’s free to leave any time. That’s the hardest thing about loving him, but makes it that much more rewarding when I see him waiting for me to get home.

He walks inside with me, I give him a treat, tell him I love him, squeeze him until he gets pissed, and let him go back outside, which he demands by plucking his claws on the shuttered screen door until I get up and open it for him. He can be demanding, but the joy and awe of authentic communication with an animal who - by all intents and purposes of the word - loves me back, is immensely overwhelming.

For most all of my 20s, and really from the time I was 15 until about 30 I didn’t have a pet. What I found, and even though the heartbreak of Dexter the 1st dying was almost unbearable, is I’m still willing to love another pet. Having a pet around to love and appreciate makes me a better person and often teaches me more about myself than the effort of taking care of them costs. That’s been my experience with two cats, and yes, I named both of them Dexter. If I get another one later in life he will likely be Dexter the III. Right now Dexter Duex is healthy, strong and looks to be living his best life.

Its rarely difficult for me to fall asleep, and after smoking a little spliff, I crawl into bed and put some meditation and prayer audio on. I hope Dexter will come and cuddle with me a little, but it’s still not cold enough outside for him to come in. I assume he spends the time hunting, but he regularly comes in and wakes me very punctually at 4:30am. Sometimes I get up with him, make coffee and start the day, other times we sleep in and enjoy the peace and relative quiet that Indian Harbor in Granbury has to offer.

Putting in that 10 hour round trip drive takes its toll and I slept today until 11a or so. I’ve been meaning to start writing again and to do it more diligently. No promises though. It’s very enjoyable to write this and I hope someone may find it interesting.

My focus today is getting to my last of 6 gigs in a row. I’m booked Tuesday through Sunday until the end of the year, minus Thanksgiving and Christmas (which I’m looking forward to!) and really the only other thing on my mind is that I am walking the Camino de Santiago again in 2022. I bought my round trip plane ticket a month ago and I’m starting to get nervous.

I plan to fly out March 31 and come back June 1 and walk the same route as I did last time. I find it super fascinating to go back and visit the same places and sorta see who you used to be by interacting with places you once knew in the past but this time in your present. It’s a great exercise and one I often accidently experience when visiting a gig I’ve already played. Your last presence in a space seems also engrained into the walls and surroundings, and being there again can bring those experiences back to life. Comparing them with current feelings can give me a sense of how I’ve been growing and this reflection is great for making adjustments in current trajectory.

So I’ll be doing the Camino del Norte or the Northern route which passes throgh Bilboa, San Sebastian, Gijon and other delightful cities - big and small -as the trail hugs the Northern coast line of Spain. I’ve bought my ticket, have my pack and my little guitar. I need to buy some boots - Some water proof but breathable boots. Last time I did Redwing duck hunting boots and they lasted only the first few weeks without getting a leak. In the end I abandoned them at the end of the trail as the smell was unhuman. If you have a recommendation of a nice hiking boot that can do 500 miles without needing a resole - let me know!