A Soft Ten

After coming home from the March Tour dates with The Bones Royal and The Whiskey Folk Ramblers, we had about a month before heading out again.  We made the decision to do our touring in two different circuits.  Both would be east of the Mississippi to avoid the heart of the country where you have to drive seven or eight hours to get to your show.  These different circuits would be divided into two: one with states north of North Carolina (in GREEN) and the other with states south of North Carolina (in PURPLE).

Notice that we are not touring the Northeast or Florida.  This is purposeful but unfortunate.  See, in a very short period of time, we’re trying to hit the same cities as much as possible.  You could make a whole tour of just hitting places in Florida or the Northeast but we thought it wiser to go back to places that we’ve already played.

Our plan was to have eighteen days on, then come home for ten.  So we’d play the North Circuit for eighteen then have ten off then play the South Circuit eighteen then have ten off and then repeat the whole process over again.  Eighteen is manageable for booking.

It’s also manageable for failing.

At this stage in our career, you can have some good dates mixed in with some bad dates and it doesn’t work on your psyche too badly.  Everyone in this band understands this: it starts off slow, you play to two or three people, then hopefully it builds just like it does in your hometown.  We have accepted that.  But if you play for two people for sixteen out of eighteen days straight, I imagine one really starts to question the value of what they are doing.  Eighteen days allows you to sprinkle in some cities that you have friends and family, playing to ten people instead of two, bookending the bad nights.

Ten days off gives Mike and Beth some time to come home and work and it gives me some time to finish off the last couple of projects on the house before it goes on the market.   On paper it seems okay but in reality ten days off is not a lot of time.  I was able to paint the ceilings and a hallway but I didn’t have time to do the landscaping that I had planned.  It’ll have to wait till July.  We also have to assemble our CD’s in the next day or two and I have to figure out how to install an RV Roof Fan on the top of our van, Vandrew Blass.

Sticking to east of the Mississippi gives us two great luxuries: money and time.  Most of the cities east of the Mississippi are within four hours of one another.  There was one show where we woke up around eleven, got in the van and drove eight and a half hours, arrived in the city and immediately unpacked, set up within an hour and played within the next hour.  That wasn’t fun.  I can’t imagine doing that for three weeks. Keeping the dates within 250 miles gives you some room to breathe.  Also, gas generally will cost $50 a day.  The greater distance between cities, the more gas it takes to get there.

Here’s how you make that $50: two CD’s ($20), one T-Shirt ($10), door money (12 people at $5 cover is $60; divided by Red Collar and two other bands is $20).  On a couple of occasions, the locals generously gave us their share.

Some days you make $50. Other days you make $10.  You pray that it’ll balance out with a $90 show. $50 is way less than the actual operating costs of course. There’s van maintenance, there’s the next order of CD’s, the next order of T-Shirts, and the Publicity. Hometown shows are really, really important in trying to get ahead of the game.

And then there’s the food.  Everyone in Red Collar is responsible for the cost of their own food.  Hopefully on the next couple of tours, Red Collar is able to pay for everyone’s food at say a $5 per diem.  In that case, we’d have to make $70 a day.  This $70 obviously doesn’t include a person’s rent and bills at home, that’s what the ‘down time’ is for-which isn’t down time at all.  It’s actually the exact opposite.  I’ve definitely worked much more efficiently with deadlines than I did when I just did Red Collar part time.  Beth said she’s the same way at her work.  I imagine Mike picks up more double shifts too.

____________________________________

Pittsburgh

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, please read the whole blog.  I’ll also say this: we all have bad days, days that you wish you should’ve stayed in bed.  I wish I could make the claim that when I have a bad day, I don’t take it out on everyone I come across.  Yet I have done that.  Once or twice.  Maybe three times.  I wish that I didn’t, but I did.  We all have days like that.  Hopefully they are rare.  For you and for everyone around you.

But we all have days like that.  Don’t we?  Some people take sick days.  In this profession, there are no sick days.

Beth is from Pittsburgh and I am from Johnstown, about an hour and a half east of Pittsburgh.  I always like playing there though admittedly it’s not the city that we have had our best shows for some reason.  Maybe because it is a hometown, I don’t know.  For this tour, we were going to play at the Garfield Art Works run by Manny Theiner.  The Garfield Art Works is kinda like our BCHQ: an all ages community art space.  I like playing shows at these kinds of places.  We were playing with Blackbird Pie as well as The Atomic Drops consisting of two good friends of mine: Mike and Phil.  We were supposed to be at the venue at 7:30 to unload.  We arrived and The Atomic Drops were already there.  The doors were unfortunately locked.  Not a big deal.  People run late. After hugs and pleasantries, this is what happened.

Mike: “So touring’s been going okay?”

Me: “It has.  No complaints”
Mike: “No one would listen if you had them”

Me: “Yeah, right.  What time did you guys get here?”
Mike: “Just a few minutes ago”

Me: “Cool, cool”

Mike: “So did Manny book this show?”
Me: “Yeah, he did”
Mike: “That guy’s an asshole”

I have heard this from several people over the past decade.  I never met Manny, I only heard about him.  I went to school at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh in the early 90’s and I think I saw him at every show I ever attended in Pittsburgh.  I didn’t know this until later but the reason that I saw him at those show is because he wasn’t just an audience member like me but he was the one who brought the show to Pittsburgh.  He was the promoter.  From what I guess and gather from conversations that I’ve had with friends and bands from the area, he’s responsible for bringing a lot of great music to Pittsburgh.  At the time, no one else was doing it.  Would it have happened without him?  I don’t know.  The job he’s done for Pittsburgh Music is pretty remarkable and I hope not forgotten by the end of this blog.

What this means, reader, is that the man has been dealing with bands and fans in a professional manner for just shy of twenty years but probably longer.

Read this statement another way:

What this means, reader, is that the man has been dealing with flakes and drunks in a professional manner for just shy of twenty years but probably longer.

I cut him some slack because I’ve been dealing with flakes and drunks for not nearly as long and, well, BIG SURPRISE, it’s not always pleasant.  I also obviously wouldn’t have seen any of those shows that I went to in the early 90’s if he were not doing it.

Since the doors were locked to the venue, we walked a few storefronts down to have a beer and watch the beginning of the Pittsburgh Penguin vs. Carolina Hurricanes Playoff Game.  Sports are KING in Pittsburgh, there’s no denying or trying to beat it.  In North Carolina, I think my friends would still pick their rock and roll over their sports teams yet basketball games do cause mandatory intermission at rock shows.

At least the rock shows start in the first place.

I soon found out that if you are competing with the Penguins and most definitely Steelers (though probably the Pirates) it’s not the case in Pittsburgh.

8:00PM.  At the doorway of the bar:

Mike: “Didn’t I tell you he was an asshole?”
Me: “What?”

Mike: “I told you…I mean…I was feeling bad that I called him an asshole, I really was.  I thought maybe the guy has changed but no, this guy is an asshole”
Me: “What…?”

Mike: “He doesn’t want to have the show because he has a headache”
Me: “I don’t understand”

Mike: “Just…just come here”

The one and only Manny Theiner  stood at the doorway of The Garfield Art Works. Manny looks like a punk rock Woody Allen.  With a Steelers Cap.

Manny: “Who are you?”
Me: “Hi Manny.  I’m Jason from Red Collar”

Manny: “Look, I have a headache okay.  A HEAD ACHE.  Understand?”
Me: “Do you want something for it?  We have Excedrin, Tylenol…”

Manny: “No I don’t want anything.  I don’t want anything.  I need to just lie down.  I don’t take anything.  Understand?”
Me: “Okay.  No problem.  So you don’t want the show to happen because of your headache”

Manny: “I have a head ache.  It is pounding in my head.  I can’t lift that speaker…”
Me: “We’ll help with the speaker…”

Manny: “Forget about the speaker!  I am being sabotaged today!!  I am being ATTACKED!!”  Personally attacked!!!!” 
Me: “What do you mean?”

Manny: “My website has been hacked.  HACKED!  Last week someone was posting reviews of show here THAT NEVER HAPPENED.  People are posting fake shows in the City Paper and they are pretending to be me.  ATTACKED!!!  You can call me an asshole, I don’t care.  Your band mates can call me an asshole.  I don’t care”

He started hyperventilating and grasped the doorway.

Me: “Okay.  Let me understand.  Just…calm.   You want to cancel the show?  Am I understanding you correctly?”
Manny: “I am being attacked today.  Look at my website.  LOOK”

He showed me his laptop and indeed The Garfield Art Works website had a simple statement:

Hacked by ICEE STUNTX (or some such name)

Manny: “YOU SEE?  Sabotage.  SABOTAGED!  I have a head ache, I am running this place by myself.  I have been sleeping on that couch for three days.  IT’S A MONDAY!!!  I am being attacked.  There is a hockey game going on that YOU ALL WERE WATCHING”
Me: “Yes but there was no one here and…”

Manny: “I have had shows all week and every time the Penguins were playing, there was no one here.  We are not going to have a show where you just play for the bands”
Me: “Manny…”

Manny: “No one will be here”
Me: “Manny…”

Manny: “No one.  I don’t understand these fucking hipsters drinking Pabst and watching some stupid fucking game.  All week I have lost money.  The bands play for no one and they get mad AT ME.  I don’t have anything to do with it.  I put the show on my website, I hang up flyers”

At this point, Phil from The Atomic Drops got in his car and drove away.

Mike: “These guys drove from North Carolina and you don’t want to have this show?”
Manny: “No.  There’s no point.  They’re going to be playing to no one”

Mike:  “But people are coming”
Manny: “How many?”

Silence.

Manny: “See?”
Me: “Let me check with all the bands and see how many people they are expecting”

“Fine”

I went back to the bar with the hockey game to talk with Blackbird Pie, the other Pittsburgh band.

“Okay, how many guys are you expecting to come out?”

“Well.. like maybe.. I don’t know…four?”

“Does four mean two?”

“Yeah”

“Okay.  Okay.  Mike, how many is The Atomic Drops expecting?”

“Like.  Five?”

“Meaning two?”

“Yes”

“Red Collar is also expecting five…”

“Meaning two?”

“No.  Meaning one because one of my ‘five meaning two’ is one of your ‘five meaning two’ so my five means actually one”

“Blackbird is bringing two, Atomic Drops two and Red Collar one.  Five people total”

I went back to Manny.

“Look Manny, we’ve expecting like ten people”

“I’d do this show for ten”

“But…it’s a soft ten”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Ten means five”

“I’d do this show for five people.  But you’re sure five?  While the game is going on?”

Silence.

“Gimmee a minute”

I went back to the bar and was talking with all of the bands.

“Look.  I don’t know if this show should happen.  If it’s just a show for the bands?  I don’t know.  He obviously doesn’t want it to happen, I’m not going to say he’s wrong.  But all night there’s going to be this vibe from him, right?  The I-told-you-so-vibe”

No one had any answers.  Manny walked in to the bar.

Manny: “Okay.  I’ll have the show.  But you’ve got to understand that I’ve been hacked.  I just found out an hour ago that I’ve been hacked.  Someone has a target on me.  This is my business and someone wants to shut it down.  Now I’ll do this, okay but…”

At that exact moment (and dear Lord I am not exaggerating…seriously THAT EXACT MOMENT), Pittsburgh scored and the place exploded in cheers, hugs and chaos.

Manny Theiner also exploded:

“AAAAGH!  Fucking.  Fuck Fucks.  I hate this GAME.  I HATE IT!!  Fuck them!!  Fuck you too!”

And he stormed away.

Phil came back and very calmly said:

“Fuck him.  I got us a show at Belvedere’s.  No cover.  The show has to start after the game, but it’s a show”

“Awesome.  Thanks Phil”

People finished their beers.  I went back to Garfield Art Works.  It was locked.  I knocked, Manny answered.

“So it looks like we’re playing at Belvedere’s”

Nothing.

“I can help you with the speaker”

“No.  Thank you.  I’ll get the speaker later”

“Okay”

Manny sighed “Look.  No one was going to be here.  No one will be at Belvedere’s either”

“They don’t want us to start till after the game”

“See?”

“Three months ago, neither of us knew that a hockey game would be going on tonight”

“No.  It’s a Monday too.  I mean, what did you guys expect?”

“What are you going to do?  Sure I wish every night was a Friday and Saturday but that’s not the case”

“I understand that.  You’ve got to understand that I am being attacked and my world is falling apart”

Silence.

Manny said “I’ll email your guy Pat.  If you don’t want to work with me in the future, I understand.  I hope so but I get it if you don’t”

____________________________

We were getting ready to get into the van to go to Belvedere’s.  Jon asked to give him a minute.  He took out a piece of paper and wrote on it, got some tape and stuck it on the Garfield Art Works door.

Me: “What was that about?”
Jon: “I wrote a note saying the show has been moved to Belvedere’s”

Me: “Good idea”
Jon: “I also wrote Fuck Manny Theiner”

Me: “That’s not such a good idea”
Jon: “Fuck him”

Me: “No you didn’t”
Jon: “Yes I did”

Me: “No you didn’t”
Jon: “Yes I did”

Me: “Why?”

“Fuck him!  They guy didn’t want to have a show because he had a headache?!?!  Fuck him!”

“And do you think your sentiments are the same as everyone else’s?  Do you think I feel that way?  Does Mike feel that way?  Does Red Collar collectively feel that way?  Do the other bands feel that way?”

Atomic Drops (collectively): ”Yes”

Blackbird Pie (collectively): “Yes”

“Jon, I want you to think about this”

“Fine”

Jon walked to the door with the marker.
“I signed my name”

____________________________________

We went to Belvedere’s and started setting up.  The phone rang.

“Is there a Jon Truesdale here?” asked the Bartender at Belvedere’s.  “Jon?  Anyone here Jon?”

“Yeah I am”

“Manny Theiner is coming down here to kick your ass”

Sidenote:  If you met Manny, this image is a funny sight.

“Tell him to come on down”

“He’s not coming down.  I heard what happened and I told him that if he came down here I’D kick his ass.  I got your back, son.”

We had a good show.  We sold a T-Shirt and some CD’s.  The other bands played well.  The Atomic Drops were great.  They play at The Heavy Rebel Weekender in Winston so if you get out there, please check them out and name drop Manny.  Phil really saved us.  We had two days off before then and having a third off wouldn’t have felt the greatest.

The thing about Manny is he was right.  He was absolutely right.  We would’ve played the show for the bands and to a guy with a headache that had more pressing things to do.  I’m assuming what Manny does at Garfield Art Works is what he does for at least part of his living.  The people that work these community art spaces are heaven sent in my mind.  They don’t do this for a lot of money, if any at all.  Jeff at the Spazz in Greenville constantly deals with other issues besides bands and fans.  The BCHQ folks, 709 Railroad Street in Johnstown, the Lemp is St. Louis.  And I’m grateful.  And again, we’ve all had shitty days.  It seems like Manny has a lot of shitty days but it can’t be fun to be in his shoes either.  I think it’s in a vicious circle now cause people assume he’s an asshole and so they treat him like one and thus he assumes everyone thinks he’s an asshole so why be otherwise?

The complaint that I heard about Manny was that he’s essentially not a ‘people person’ and I wish that he would’ve told us his reservations earlier in the day.  That’s what happened in Cleveland a month before.  Three hours before the show, Cleveland simply called and said:

“No one is going to come to the show.  I’m not going to have it”  CLICK.

We were already in Cleveland, parked in front of the damn venue as well.

______________________

Manny wrote an email to Pat, our manager, explaining the situation and it was a calmly written email.  I called Manny the next day to say that everything worked out.

“How’s your headache?”

“It’s fine.  I just needed to rest”

“And the website?”

“It turns out that it wasn’t a personal attack and that everyone from the particular provider was attacked not just me”

“Well that’s good…I guess?”

“Yes.  That’s good.  That’s better”

“Good”

“So I got a little note from Jonny Truesdale.  And the only reason I saw the note was that three girls did come to see you guys, they knocked on the door and I saw the note”

“Yeah well.  No one was happy that the show was cancelled”

“Yeah”

“Yeah.  But in the end you were right, no one was there till after the game”

“Well these girls showed up while the hockey game was going on so you guys were right too”

“Yeah”

“Yeah”

“Maybe next time”

“Maybe next time”

“Take care”

“Good luck on the road”

And again, we all have bad days.  We all have woken up with a pounding headache and we call in sick.  The people in this business can’t do that.  Should I have screamed and shouted at him?  I don’t know.  What good would that do?

I just watched ANVIL: The Story of Anvil last night.  Some things are worth fighting for/about.  Other shit, you have to let go and pick your battles and make sure you have enough energy left over to problem solve.

These are the things I know to be true (in no particular order):

1. I need a shower, really bad (I thought 3 days was my limit, but it's really 4 which is two days too long).

2. You can download "The Astronaut" for free from KEXP tomorrow via their download of the day podcast (May 27th). This fact alone makes up for the fact that I haven't showered in 4 days. http://kexp.org/podcasting/podcasting.asp

3. I'm currently sitting in a bar in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, at happy hour, stuffing my face with free nachos and drinking a watered down $2 highball thinking of my dad. The highball (whiskey+ginger ale, preferably Crown Royal) is his favorite drink. We were in Pittsburgh in what seems like eons ago and My Dad told Jon and Mike his infamous and gripping McDonalds story. Ask Jon and Mike to pass on my dads story, the next time you see them. It's a classic.

4. Jay thinks I'm at a "coffee shop" catching up on work.

5. We will be doing an interview on Q101, a Chicago commercial radio station, tomorrow, Wed, May 27th, at 6 pm (CENTRAL). Jay doesn't have his accordion with him this time, so things should be OK. They stream online here: http://www.q101.com/. So yeah, turn the radio on folks.

6. Shayne O'Neil suggested we got to Kuma's Corner while we're in Chicago. Best burgers anywhere. Best mac & chz. Metal band-named burgers a bonus. So, I'm gonna do just that, per diems and budgets be damned.

7. I am seriously considering getting an "i'm in the band" tattoo on my forearm. Ross Grady suggested the following tattoo: "do you honestly think I'd be wasting my time in this shithole if I *wasn't* in the band?" I like his idea better.

8. I miss Mimi, and Jo, and Julie, and Reese, and women, in general.

9. We have 5 shows left on this tour: Madison tonight and then Chicago, St, Louis, Owensboro and Knoxville. I get to see my niece and sister in law in St. Louis on Thursday and as I think this thought sitting here alone in this shitty bar, I tear up.

10. Mike is very funny. I did not know this until this tour. While looking out over the Mississippi river he said "this river, it's no joke."

11. My favorite Red Collar lyric of all time is in Rust Belt Heart: I can't afford to stay, I can't afford to say goodbye. I met a guy named Dan in Detroit who lived this line. He is a mechanic with a nice wife and a mortgage who plays acoustic shows every once in a while. Dan makes me both happy and sad at the same time.

12. I found out this weekend that Julie Jones was accepted for a prestigious pottery apprenticeship. This thought makes me delighted, hopeful and proud. And giddy. Just a bit giddy.

13. Jay doesn't know it yet but we're staying in a hotel room for the first time this tour. It's on the water, in downtown Madison. Happy Whatever Day, dear. And thank you Kim, for your tour rules. I played my card.

Beth

"This river, it ain't no joke"

Driving on,

~RC

The halfway point of tour was somewhere around Oklahoma. So far, the whole tour had gone well. No cancelled shows. In my opinion, at a minimum, we played well at every show. Decent crowds at all the shows so far. I guess I should explain what I mean by ‘decent crowd’. Some may think ‘decent’ is seventy people. Some may think ‘decent’ is forty to fifty. Here’s what I mean by decent:

Ten. Ten people.

That’s a decent crowd in my book. Look, in almost every case it’s our first time in not only these cities but also these states. For some people, ten may be a disappointment and to some extent, it is (and by ‘some extent’ I mean that ‘some extent’ doesn’t fill your gas tank and doesn’t buy you food). Psychologically, I can take the disappointing route. I guess I could say, “Hey man, we’ve been around for something like three plus years. We play to hundreds of people back home man”. Well, that rationale is ridiculous and self-defeating. For us, if we played for ten people in Oklahoma City then I consider that pretty decent because that’s honestly more than we played to in our first six months of existence in Durham, our hometown.

__________________________________________

I like to sit and think. Solemn Reflection I guess you’d call it. I like going to Waffle Houses during their non-busy hours to do this. The biggest reason I like Waffle Houses over Coffee Shops is the lack of music in Waffle Houses. Yes, there is a jukebox but the jukebox doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Okay, so maybe every half an hour it plays a Waffle House promo song, the kind based on some popular country western song. Though I’ve heard them hundreds of times, I can’t recall any of them presently even though I am sitting in a Waffle House writing this. Coffee shops always have some kind of music going on. Even diners have some kind of music going on. Denny’s, too. Nobody’s perfect. Coffee Shops and Denny’s have their purpose for me but it is not for Solemn Reflection.

I try and do some solemn reflection on tour but that’s kinda tough. Usually I retreat to the van for an hour or so. Once, we played a house show in Philadelphia. It was suffocating in the house during the happening hours so I went to the van and peeled a Clementine.

For an hour.

Nothing beats a good batch of Clementines. I try and peel each in one long continuous strand starting at its South Pole and finishing at its North. I know, it sounds a little Colonel Kurtz-ish. All I need is a small village of savages and Dennis Hopper and I can recreate My Own Private Apocalypse. What can I say? It’s soothing, I guess. At the time, I thought it was really silly sitting there peeling a Clementine for entertainment but then I thought what’s the difference in doing that and sitting on my couch at home flipping through the channels for three hours?

Sometimes just sitting there is good for you. Healthy. Just sitting there with nothing but your thoughts. No television. No music. My Pap used to sit on the porch of his house for hours and hours. Just sitting there watching kids play or clouds pass. That’s what people did before the need to be doing something all…the…time. It’s just you and the gears in your noggin.

Like I said, healthy.

__________________________________________

But sometimes the problem with Solemn Reflection is that you may not like where you end up. This is very important to keep in mind as you read the next section. I will repeat that sentence throughout the next section: Sometimes the problem with Solemn Reflection is that you may not like where you end up.

Sometimes where you end up is not where you stay. Maybe you go back to the beginning and rethink the whole thing over again. Sometimes you move forward a little bit into a scary unknown. Either way, where you are at that exact moment is not where you thought you’d be when you started down that initial Thought Path.

Part of the reason that I’m writing these blogs is for my own documentation but if I wanted to just do that, then I’d write them and keep them for myself to read at some later point in life. The other reason that I write these is to share our experiences with you. Some of these experiences are funny. Others are life changing. This experience is one of the latter kind. It could be upsetting. Most life changing experiences are…at least a little bit.

It’s also important that you read the whole thing. It always is. I tend to spout and rant here and there and say a lot of things that you may not agree with. But these blogs are more often than not explaining a process or explaining a series of incidents that may have convinced me of a different position than I initially thought, an initial position that you may not have agreed with even though you’d agree with the conclusion...if you decided to read its entirety.

I debated whether or not to post this. I wasn’t sure if what I’m trying to get across… gets across. I had several people read this before posting.

I’m still not sure.

__________________________________________

Sometimes the problem with solemn reflection is that you may not like where you end up.

I don’t like to go to a city and hang out in the venue we are playing in for hours. It’s not good for my head. Or soul. If possible, I like to go to some thrift stores or pawnshops or some type of Monument or Memorial. I like taking back roads if we can. I like seeing my country. If I can help it, I don’t want sit in some bar for five hours waiting to play.

Here we are in Oklahoma City.

Beth was here about a year ago. A program that she works with at UNC called Carolina for Kibera received the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum 2008 Reflections of Hope Award, an award that commended CFK’s work fighting abject poverty and violence prevention through community-based development in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. When she came home from that trip, she said that the Oklahoma City National Memorial was unbelievable and very powerful. She mentioned that if we ever had the chance to go, we should.

Now here we are.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial. For those who don’t know or can’t remember, at 9:02 CST on April 19, 1995, in a domestic attack, a van full of explosives detonated in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Hurrah Federal Building, a government office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured. The van exploded by a loading dock near the building’s Day Care Center.

It’s hard for me to believe that some of you reading this weren’t even born then.

The Memorial is truly unbelievable. It is exceptionally powerful. The design is remarkable. There is a survivor tree, a part of the original landscaping that miraculously survived the blast. Next to the tree is the following:

“(The memorial) includes a reflecting pool about sixty feet long flanked by two large "gates", one inscribed with the time 9:01, the opposite with 9:03, the pool between representing the moment of the blast. On the south end of the memorial is a field full of symbolic bronze and stone chairs—one for each person lost, arranged based on what floor they were on. The chairs represent the empty chairs at the dinner tables of the victims' families. The seats of the children killed are smaller than those of the adults lost”*

You can see the layout here: Oklahoma City National Memorial

Fifteen of the victims were children in the day care center located in the building. Fifteen kids. When you see the adult chairs described above, and then you see these little chairs, you wish that there were a padded room somewhere in the memorial for you to go and collapse under the tears and weight of this unbearable misery.

The bombing was the largest terrorist attack on American Soil before the September 11 attacks. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history.

To me, the most terrifying thing is that last sentence. Domestic Terrorism. One of us. With a foreign terrorist attack, in my opinion it helps psychologically to know that it was done by someone else from somewhere else. They are reported as Crazy People. Why did they do it? They were crazy. End of story. You wouldn’t believe what their religion allows them to do, man. Crazy. Insane.

But this? Done by an American. From the heartland. Insane? He didn’t plead it. Nobody would believe it if he did. Done by a former soldier that served in the first Gulf War. He wrote letters to his local paper complaining about taxes. He quit the NRA because he thought their views on gun ownership were too weak.

I have friends, great friends, whose background and thoughts are very similar to his, okay? I want you all to know that those same friends have visited the Memorial and reacted with the same sadness and disgust that I did. Even though I disagree with their political views, we are still near and dear friends. We are adults. Adults can do that. I would also like to clarify that I do not think that everyone who doesn’t like taxes or owns a gun or is a former soldier is some kind of whack job. That’s a very easy thing to do: someone doesn’t think like you? They are crazy, man. I don’t think that a combination of any of these beliefs means you’re going to be a domestic terrorist or that you will even sympathize with the men who carried out the Oklahoma City Bombing. My stating those facts in the paragraph above could turn into an Us vs. Them, Liberal vs. Conservative, Democrat vs. Republican type thing and it shouldn’t. The victims were from all cross sections of society. The people that showed up to help were from all cross sections. The people that donated to the Memorial were from all political parties and countries and religions.

The guy that did this became obsessed with the U.S. Government’s raid on a compound at Waco, Texas and wanted to enact revenge. He carried quotes by Thomas Jefferson around with him. And John Wilkes Booth.

This Memorial…it’s so powerful because there’s nothing to read. There’s no distraction. There’s no immediate tour. There is a Museum but it had closed by the time we arrived. We just saw the Memorial. Just a big emptiness. A big nothing.

Nothing but two walls, a tree, a reflecting pool and some chairs.

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Again, the problem with solemn reflection is sometimes you don’t like where you end up. And once again, keep this in mind as you read all of this please.

There are two black walls. One says 9:01. The other says 9:03. In between is a pool of water. It is a very thin pool the thickness of a quarter.

I want to collapse. I don’t know why I am holding back my tears. These tourists with me are strangers. I will never see them again. But I am embarrassed. I shouldn’t have come here. I want a room at this Memorial where I can go and collapse. It has to be padded. Has to be because I don’t know how many times I’ll ram myself into a wall, just a bubbling, gurgling mess of a human being.

There are the chairs. 168 chairs.

There are fifteen little chairs.

Those tiny chairs.

I want to vomit.

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Staring at the blackness of the Reflecting Pool, a story I read was reflected back to me:

A Mother eating at a table with her husband and their 2 year-old son.

Then this.

This explosion.

No warning.

The mother is immediately buried in rubble. There is a ringing high-pitched buzz in her ear. She digs herself out. There is dust and rock all around her. She’s crawling around, clawing at the ground, looking for her child. She’s crying, she’s screaming 'My child, my child.' She is surrounded by what were formerly walls and ceiling and roof. She looks to where a window used to be. She finds her husband. He, like everything else, is covered in the dust of the former building. He could blend in, she thinks. Why am I thinking this? He could blend in. He could disappear into the background like camouflage. He could vanish. But she can see his eyes. She sees him blink slowly. She sees a slight trickle of blood from his head. He is conscious. He is okay. Tears run down his cheeks making a chasm in the dirt. He holds her. She holds him.

But where is our son?

Her husband keeps shouting for him. She is hysterical. She can’t control what her body is doing. It is maddening, this loss of control. She hears her husband shouting. There is no response.

He starts to dig. He must be here, my son. He must be here. There was a table here. Our chairs were right here. He was here just a minute ago. We were all here just a minute ago. He digs in the rubble through what was, just minutes ago, a building.

And now, it is nothing.

There was a family here, just minutes ago.

And now, nothing.

He dug for two hours saying to himself, “I will not leave my son. I will find him. I will take him out of here.”

The fire company came and helped him find his son. Eventually they did find him. In the ambulance, the Father held his son’s small cold hand in his own. The child’s name was Ali Hussein.

He died that day in Baghdad. April 29th, 2008.**

__________________________________________

I read that story a year ago. It was different than other stories coming from Baghdad because there was a name. Ali Hussein. At the Oklahoma City Memorial, after just standing there and thinking and reflecting by this Reflecting Pool, that story came to me again. I couldn’t distinguish between Ali and the other 15 year-old kids. I couldn’t just file them away in two separate file cabinets in the back of my head, two cabinets labeled “Acceptable” and “Unacceptable”. Look, I know that no death of a child, any child, is ever considered “acceptable”. This month’s Time Magazine reported that since 2005, there have been 87,215 civilian deaths in Iraq.

Statistics and numbers. There are no Ali Hussein’s there. Just ones and sevens and tens. Numbers.

No names. Makes it a lot easier to accept. Numbers make it acceptable for all of us.

Yet, how many of those 87, 215 civilian deaths were kids? How many were families that just didn’t give a shit anymore about this war and just wanted the bombs to stop so they can eat in peace? In Peace. How many just wanted their kids to be able to go outside and kick around a soccer ball for a few hours and you know, just be a fucking kid? How many forgot why this whole thing started? How many didn’t know why this started in the first place? How many of you know why this started in the first place? How many kids survived but at the age of two or four or six…they’re just not a kid anymore? They’ll grow up with bombs all around them. Kids shouldn’t hear that shit. Nobody should.

There is a night and day difference between what happened in Oklahoma City and what happened in Baghdad. That is not why I wrote this. That’s not why I thought what I did. I have friends and family that have served in the Military. I have former students that still do serve. And I am proud and inspired by all of them.

Who was responsible for Ali Hussein’s death? I don’t care. Some may. I don’t. Not then at the Memorial and not writing this now. I’m not putting the original article in here for a reason and I’m not clarifying it in my paraphrase either. There is no one person, group or government to blame here and placing blame is not my intention.

I want to emphasize again with regards to locale and purpose and persons and intentions involved, there is no comparison, okay? There are a multitude of differences between what happened to the children in Oklahoma City and what happened to Ali Hussein in Bagdad.

But there are similarities too.

And how many of those similarities aren’t going to get a Chair Memorial?

__________________________________________

The problem with solemn reflection is sometimes you just can’t take the reflection.

Sometimes where you end up is not where you stay. Maybe you go back to the beginning and rethink the whole thing over again. Sometimes you move forward a little bit into a scary unknown. Either way, where you are at that exact moment is not where you thought you’d be when you started down that initial Thought Path.

*(From Zachary White, The Search For Redemption Following the Oklahoma City Bombing: Amending the Boundaries Between Public and Private Grief):

**Paraphrased from an article from ABC News by Marcus Baram

What is considered Folk? What is Folk? For most people, the sole qualification of Folk is: no electricity. Like most categorizing, I think that’s too narrow (and too wrong) of an assessment. Most Folk Music, regardless of the country of origin, is still essentially what I consider to be Pop Music: a catchy melody, verse, chorus, verse. Pop music is safe. It’s one big safety net that transcends culture and time itself. People know what to expect and that’s part of the reason why they like it. I was in an Irish Pub the other week on a Friday and there was a fella playing what he called ‘Irish Folk Music’. Yet what I heard instead was Pop Music: a catchy melody, verse, chorus, verse…but with the distinguishable feature of being sung with an Irish Accent.

p>Red Collar is of course just Pop Music too. It’s loud, yes. But it’s essentially a melody with verse chorus verse. I like Pop Music. I like the confines of Pop Music. Isn’t most music that you know of just Pop Music but maybe with degrees of loud and soft? I bet most Folk Music is really just Pop Music even though fans of folk music pride themselves in appreciating it because they attribute other characteristics to make it something more than it is like “It’s earthy” or “It’s true” or “It’s traditional”. I would argue that the traditional songs, the foundation of folk songs, only survived without the modern convenience of recording because they are/were ‘Pop’-ular or Pop Music: Pirate songs, Irish Folk Music, Sailor Songs, Slave Songs, Roots Music, Religious Music, Work Music.

Beth and I went to a party a few years ago and the people at the party were passing around the acoustic and playing songs, all having a good time. I got to talking with the ringleader of this group, an intellectual type (goatee’ and beret…I’m not making this up), and eventually Red Collar came up. He asked me about the band and also asked why, if I played guitar and sang, did I not play for everyone in the circle. I jested about liking the safety net of feedback and a distorted guitar and he shrugged and rolled his eyes:

“I don’t need any of that. Just me and this guitar”

I think that a lot of people who play or appreciate folk music kind of have that attitude: that it’s for and by folks with some higher consciousness, that they’re braver or something. Cause folk music is truth. Folk music is pure. Naked and honest, man. No safety net.

I’d argue that the safety net of Pop Music is awfully big and most folk heroes that I know of do their balancing act directly above that very big cushy net. You can talk to me all you want about Dylan this and Dylan that but the man played what boils down to Pop Music. Just like Red Collar. Just like Brittney Spears. They may not have any bells or whistles and distortion and feedback but the kind of Folk Music people play is not Truth. It’s not Pure. It’s not Naked. It’s contrived and safe and still based on the confines and shackles of verse chorus verse and some catchy melody and probably some unchanged chord arrangement that is literally hundreds of years old.

Honest? If only Truth and Purity were so easy.

To actually play folk music, to commit to the idea of Earthiness, to commit wholeheartedly to what Folk Music means and implies: the music of ‘folks’ not machines. Instruments only available or affordable or created by poor folk. Voices in harmony, strengthening one another because there simply is no Public Address system. No microphone. No safety net. Earthy and traditional. Pure. No blueprint. Before food came from a can. Instruments created without machinery. Hand-crafted. Before we forgot how to walk. From the roots. Grown. Organic. From the earth. Truth. Naked. Honest. To really play this music of the earth through and through…

Well…in the end for me to just hear what boils down to Pop Music after all this hippy dippy horseshit rigamarole is just a disappointment because I think people are plain cheating me.

I only ever want bands to do one thing: keep it honest. Or save my mortal soul. Whichever comes first.

Let me tell you about a band that did both.

I saw a band in Austin and it greatly affected me and I’m still thinking about it. I hope not too much. It was one of those situations where it’s the right band and the right time and the right venue. And I was anything but cheated.

Red Collar played for a North Carolina Band Showcase organized by Wendy from Felix Obelix . The event, like most of the better shows at SXSW, was held at someone’s house. Annuals, Lonnie Walker, Felix Obelix, The Physics of Meaning and Red Collar were on the bill. But it was the band that started the day that really affected me.

Megafaun.

I’ve seen them more than a handful of times before. In fact, I saw them the day before at another venue. Now here they were in someone’s backyard on a perfect spring day. Acoustic instruments. Gorgeous harmonies. What they do is not some limp form of Pop Music with acoustic instruments but what I think may be True Folk Music and when I listen to them, I get the impression that they are fulfilling the potential of Folk Music and all the baggage of Folk Music that I mentioned before. It’s not just verse chorus verse. Sometimes it is, sure. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it wanders. And sometimes they improvise, at least it seems that way. And you get the impression that what one person does effects the other people in the band, that it’s just not the INSERT SOLO HERE type of playing and that each time that they play, it’s not the same. Maybe it is. I don’t think so.

Sometimes after they wander, it comes back together in harmony. Sometimes they get the crowd to sing along in harmony as well. Songs don’t always end when you think they should. Joe, the drummer, doesn’t always play with drumsticks. Sometimes he just rattles springs on the underbelly of the snare.

Mike described Megafaun once as ‘having soul’. Great bands have that. You can’t be one without. And as I listened to them under a cloudless sky, I thought it was perfect. I thought that they were the soundtrack of the earth moving and growing, where it doesn’t always grow in ways that you expect, where if you look at the bark of a tree it’s not orderly and neat and neither is where trees decide to plant themselves or how those trees decide to grow and where their leaves fall. Everything depends on everything else. But when you step back, there is an order, some kind of order anyways. There’s a point where the trees stopped populating and the way that the creek beside that line curves, well I can’t imagine it being any other way. Let me say it again, everything depends on everything else. This is the sound I want to hear before I pass on to somewhere else and the sound I want to hear when I come back.

Everything depends on everything else.

Perfect.

Thank you.

MILES TRAVELED:  Too damn tired to go and look at the odometer.

CURRENT CITY: Durham, NC

_______________________________

We’ve been sleeping in the van a lot.  Here’s the crazy part: I not only don’t mind but a part of me likes it.  In Austin, our choice spot was by the Capitol building.  Kinda close to hotels to use the bathrooms.  Didn’t have to negotiate the traffic coming in to Austin.  In the morning, families were passing by the van on the way to the Capitol tours.  Jon said that he felt like we were an exhibit:

PLEASE DON’T FEED THE STRUGGLING ROCK BAND

________________________________

Austin.

Austin.

I hate it there.

I love it there.

I hate it there during South By Southwest.

I bet I’d love it there any other time of the year.

It’s the reason we’re doing this trip.  It’s a really dumb reason but sometimes you just need a reason and it’ll do.  It’s been two years since the last time we were there.  You can read about the 2007 experience here if you’d like.  Honestly, it's a lot of reading.  For those of you who are fairly new to reading these blogs o’ mine, it might give perspective.  Shit, I don't even know if Jon read these.  I've met a lot of you the past two years and I'm not even sure if you're aware that we were there in 2007:

SXSW 2007 Part 1: Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Pee

SXSW 2007 Part 2: Lily, Lily

SXSW 2007 Part 3: Irony Mullet

SXSW 2007: A Tale of Not Fitting Into Anything

SXSW 2007 Part 4: South by South Pissed

SXSW 2007 Part 5: Valient Fav and the Shit Fishsticks

SXSW 2007 Part 6: Oh Vanna

SXSW 2007 Part 7: A Good Van Is Hard To Find

SXSW 2007 Part 8: The Long Goodbye and even Longer Hello

And if I didn't feel pretty much exactly the same way, I wouldn't even post these.  The biggest difference is that it seems the new thing wasn't so much skinny jeans and irony mullets but neon Ray Bans.

Way back in the fall, Beth asked me if we’re submitting to South By Southwest this year.

“No.  I have contributed to the SXSW scholarship fund for the past couple of years and I think it’s worthless”

Our manager Pat asked if I therefore objected to playing at SXSW.

“No.  I don’t object at all to playing.  I’ll play wherever we get a gig.  I don’t care.  If there’s a PA and a microphone, I’ll play.  I don’t care where.  I’m just not submitting anymore”

We played at a place called Headhunters.  It wasn’t part of any official SXSW show.  It was essentially us and a bunch of metal/punk bands.  We played well.  Not too many people, mind you, but that’s the way it goes.  I think part of this whole trip is to find out if we’re built for this: Do we get along?  Do we play well?  Consistently?  Do we play well after driving six hours?  Seven hours?  Eight hours?  Can we still do this when we play to nobody?  Again?  It’s also a question of endurance.  Austin was our seventh show in a row, which we’ve never done before.

Let me get this out of the way: I think South By Southwest would be awesome if it weren’t for the music.  It’s everywhere.  And it’s pretty annoying.  Beth had a great observation that you start to feel like you are hearing Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood ALL THE TIME.  I really believe that it’s true.  A lot of the alternative festivals to SXSW going on at the same time are more hard rock driven and you really do start to hear Dr. Feelgood ALL THE TIME.  At one point, Beth and I just got in the van and drove.  We drove a few miles outside of the city to a Borders.  We just wanted to sit down and have some coffee.  Read a little bit.  Relax.  Get away from the noise.

Guess what?

We walked into a Borders holding a SXSW Songwriting Competition.  I’m not shitting you.  Some things I will not necessarily shit you about but I will just exaggerate the shit just a tad.

Not this.

We could not escape shitty music.

NOTE: I do not have a Motley Crue bias.  In fact I love them.  That’s just the song Beth happened to say but it could’ve easily worked with Youth Gone Wild or Paradise City.

Maybe I’m wrong about this but you have to accept something about SXSW: it’s not for normal people.  I was going to write that it’s not for fans of music but that’s not true.  It’s for fans of music - that do music for a living.  Big, big difference.  It’s for critics.  It’s for booking agents.  It’s for managers.  It’s for the bloggers.  It’s for the media.  It’s for labels.  It’s for people that hear Dr. Feelgood all the time and still find it in their souls to still love music and to write/promote/whatever it.  But there is a big difference between those people, the ones that have to listen to a lot of crappy music for a living and probably like Pet Sounds a little too much, and the rest of us: people that listen only listen to crappy music if you are innocent or dumb (or both) enough to watch American Idol or listen to commercial rock, country and rap.

Are all those people needed?  It would be awfully fun and punk rock to say “No man!  Book your own fucking life!”.  But it wouldn’t be true for all or even most bands and most people that say that statement in the 21st Century haven't actually done booking.  For some bands, these industry people aren’t needed and the bands do their own publicity and booking and own their label.  Certainly it’s possible to have success and do it that way.  For others, like us, it’s not the case.  We generally take the approach of trying to do things ourselves.  If it becomes too burdensome or if we've reached too many brick walls, then we look for help elsewhere.  If it weren’t for some of these industry people, I would’ve went back to teaching a long time ago and played out once every few months with Red Collar which effectively would’ve broken us up.  The managers?  Some bands don’t need them.  We do.  The publicity people?  Maybe not but ours was necessary for the EP.  We tried doing it ourselves and it didn’t work.  We met a lot of people, a lot of great people, who never would’ve heard of us if it weren’t for a publicity company working it.  Then again, I know people that had some really shitty experiences with publicity companies.  We’re going to try someone out for our touring and see how that goes.  What about the booking people?  Dear Santa Claus…that’s all I want for Christmas because booking ain’t no picnic and has never, ever gotten easier.  Then again, I know some bands that had a horrible time with their booking agents.  Labels?  Nowadays Labels are effectively managers.  Andrew started his own to release the Hands Up EP.  Lots of people have released their own stuff and done well.  French Kiss Records, Merge, Dischord...all artist founded labels.  Then again, you and I would've never heard of a majority of bands if it weren't for a label including the ones I just mentioned.  We don’t have one now.  Some bands yes.  Some bands no.  Is it going to be necessary for us?  I don't know.

I think that this industry is incredibly confusing.  I honestly can’t figure it out for the life of me.  It would be nice to say that all you have to do is play and eventually you get a crowd but that isn’t the case unless you’re a hippy band.  I don’t know how many times we’ve played Charlotte and we still don’t have a consistent crowd there.  I think a lot of those industry folks do have it figured out to at least a small degree.  How else can you account for the success of Fiery Furnaces?

I’m certainly not trying to convince anyone out there to do it one way or the other.  I think every band should try and be self-sufficient and for the things that aren’t working, if you can get someone else to do it then you should. These industry people obviously have some value and SXSW is where they get to work and have some fun though their idea of fun and mine are two different things.

Once you accept whom SXSW is for and don’t argue with it and just accept it, you’ll have a better time of it.

I did.