We know you're out there.

You've screamed
"BLUEBERRIES!!"
along with the rest of the audience
at all the right spots.
You've whipped out your banana bandana
just in time.
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when you've passed a certain fungus.

You agree with us that
together
we can change the world
if we all "TURN OFF THE PROJECTOR!"
at the same time.

You know it was the Asteroid
that hit planet earth.
You still love our foto.
You get How Many Daisies stuck in your head for days and daysies.

You're a Great Balancing Act fan,
plain and simple.


Now, here's the deal. If you know in your heart that you are truly a Real GBA Fan, and you'd like to give back to the Great Balancing Act like we've given to you over the years, then NOW IS THE TIME!

We would like our 2 Birds album reviewed. We think it's rather special. So special, in fact, that we believe it should be heard by more people than our moms and our fifteen best pals. We have a hunch that if there were more customer reviews on our CDBaby and iTunes listing of this album, that there would - in turn - be more customers. We're looking to find Real Fans who will commit to registering for CDBaby and iTunes, logging in, and reviewing said lyrical masterpiece in either official language. To make it even easier for you, we don't even care if you cut-and-paste.

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The Pie Lady's story said alot about the human spirit. It was one of those stories where you think, man if that was me I don't think I would have made it. By the time we got to Da House Nina and I had nothing but the utmost admiration for this woman (and her man, Dennis).
After eating a home cooked meal, Dennis showed us to our quarters. I remember how Dennis, as soon as he knew my name, kept repeating it every chance he could. I had the eerie feeling that these people had been expecting us; that they knew who we were, although we did not know them. "Come with me, Jeep!" He said " I'll show you the room. It ain't the fanciest place, Jeep. But it's a bed."
As we entered the little guest room, Dennis read my thoughts: "You're probably wonderin' how come I'm lettin' ya stay here overnight, Jeep." It's true, this guy was letting two strangers off the street stay overnight BY THEMSELVES, in his newly purchased bar. "It's cause I trust you Jeep. I know I can trust you." Somehow, I felt that Dennis was putting some kind of spell on me, as he said that. It was like the force. "Yes...Dennis...you can...trust me." It's true, we were trustworthy, but I think this man had some voodoo powers nonetheless, and he was in control of the situation.
So we had a great night and the next morning Dennis came with some breakfast! We really wanted to repay them and so we offered to do a Great Balancing Act show for them and the kids, at Da House. That evening, they had set up candles for us. The atmosphere was nice. Nina and I sat on the stage as those amazing folks sat a few feet away. We played for about 45 minutes to an hour. I think they really liked it. Nina and I were something to see back then, with our funny little songs and our sesame street delivery.
We had another breakfast the next day and then it was time to head out. But before we left, Dennis had a little talk with me, as Nina hung with the Pie Lady. Now i really started getting a feeling that there was more to this man than met the eye. Dennis sat facing me at the little black bar table where we ate our breakfast. He looked me square in the eye, the way he did when he said he could trust me, and said: "You're gonna be famous one day, Jeep." Now, in those days if somebody said that to me I would have usually said something flippant like "yeah, right", but this felt different. Obi Wan was speaking to me. Dennis liked to kid around, but you knew when he wasn't kidding. He turned into this other guy. With a serious, almost hurting expression on his face, he looked past my eyes, right into my soul and said: "You're gonna be famous one day Jeep, but you've still got alot of suffering to do."

As we said goodbye and headed out, I thought about that first night and how Dennis seemed to be waiting for us. How he called us in, the second he spotted us. I felt that shiver you feel when struck with a beautiful truth; the truth that is not an understanding of the mind, but one that is felt in the cells of the body. This was all meant to be.
Call it God, the Univers, All That Is, Whatever. Sometimes that creative, mysterious force puts an angel on your path, when you need it most. These were our angels. And in some subtle, indescribable way, the two young folks that left Memphis that day were not quite the same as those that arrived there only nights before.

"Let me go get the Pie Lady", says Dennis. "I'll introduce ya!"
So Nina and I are sitting in this brightly lit little cafe/diner late in the night. There are four cute little black kids runnin' around. The youngest is Michael and he shows us a drawing he did of Spiderman. We were having one of those road moments. I love those moments. Again, it wasn't hard to read each others' thoughts. We were looking at each other, waiting for this wat-too-nice Dennis guy to return with the Pie Lady, thinking "how did we get here all of a sudden?"
It's funny when you travel this way; by the seat of your pants, diving into the void and trusting that the Universe will catch you, it's funny how you often find yourself in a sudden unexpected reality shift. Like you just fell down the Rabbit Hole.
"Jeep, Nina." It was Dennis. He was back, and beside him was a woman of about thirty five or forty. "Meet Sarah...the Pie Lady!"
We how d'ya do'd each other and exchanged a few pleasantries, then Dennis said we would be staying at "Da House" that night. Da House was a night club that Dennis had just opened. There was a little room in the back with a bed. We didn't go there right away though. Sarah went first, with the kids and made us a great meal, while we stayed behind waiting for Dennis to close up shop. He gave us a pamphlet that told the Pie Lady's story.
What a crazy story. The Pie Lady's husband had been shot and killed a few years earlier. She was left alone with four kids. No job, no money. But she made a real good pie. So she started going door to door, mostly hitting the business sector, selling pies to white businessfolk at lunch hour. People loved Sarah and her pies so much, she could hardly keep up with the demand. So she opened up this little shop we were in, and it became hugely succesful. Good for the Pie Lady! Dennis was her new man. I'm leaving out alot of details in the story, but let's just say it was pretty heartbreaking and inspirational at the same time. I was crying inside, reading this story. I know Nina was too.

So we went back to Aaron's and he and his girlfriend told us about this crazy thing that had recently happened to them. A few friends of theirs climbed some mountain (the one we did?) and once up there decided to take some magic mushrooms. They were way up there at the top. I guess one sort of unstable friend started getting really weird. He thought he was Jim Morrison, the Lizard King. He attacked one of the girls and started pushing her dangerously close to a cliff. Another friend intervened to stop the Lizard King. The two of them started fighting and scuffling and Jim Morrison ended up going over the cliff!
So completely freaked out, the other guy and one of his buddies knock on Aaron's window in the middle of the night, high on shrooms saying "buddy's dead! Buddies dead!"

The friend who struggled with Jim Morrison was in some nasty prison somewhere and he had been there for nearly a year now. I guess they were trying to get in touch with Oprah in some desperate act to clear their friend. It was really strange and creepy. Aaron and his girlfriend were really sweet. They wouldn't have been putting us on. They seemed genuinely distraught and worried about this. In fact it was pretty much all they talked about. What a nightmare. The American legal system can be pretty twisted, especially when dealing with bohemian types using psychedellic drugs.

Anyway, I later wrote a song inspired by that story and our time in Arizona, called Oranges In February. It had the line "I think it was love/ I think it was love that did that." That was referring to the girl that seemed to be caught in the middle of that whole incident. I remember having the distinct feeling that this poor guy was in love with the girl he was attacking and so was the guy who ended up coming to her rescue and pushing him off the cliff. Either way, it really made me think about the potentially destructive power of romantic love and I couldn't help but feel that suddenly our bright orange sunshine dream had lost its innocence and had now developped a sinister edge, as if Death had entered the play to remind us how youth, beauty and life itself are merely fleeting illusions.

The next evening, at dusk, Aaron took us out to the desert. This was very cool! It was fairly dark by the time we reached this mountain Aaron said we should climb. In fact it was so dark as we began to climb that Aaron had to point out a big cactus tree every now and then, else we might have smashed into one of these huge things that were the size of telephone poles! We could barely make them out, silhouetted against the starry night sky.

After about an hour of climbing in the semi-darkness, we finally settled down to sleep. We slept on a fairly steep slope, and our sleeping bag must have slid down a good ten feet during the night. But we slept great under those stars, with the coyotes howling in the distance and the warm desert breeze whispering some ancient spirit song to a part of us that was eternal and boundless.

I woke up as soon as the sun burst over the horizon. When I opened my eyes, I was in awe! We could barely see two feet in front of us when we'd climbed that mountain. Suddenly someone had turned on all the lights, and I could see everything! We were way up. In the warm amber light of dawn, I could see the whole world. But it wasn't the world I knew. It was like some Star Trek planet. There were cactii everywhere! Not just your Bugs Bunny Roadrunner variety either, but as far as the eye could see, every size and shape of cactus imaginable. I had no idea such things existed. I mean I had seen a wide variety of cactus in my time, but they were always pokin' out of some little orange flower pot the size of a salt shaker. These babies were trees! Some were stubby, cute and prickly looking while others were skinny and crusty. Some of them looked like huge porcupine-fish with snakelike tentacles wrapped all around them. Picture a big, fuzzy yellow Octopus or an enormous, round tarantula. Crazy!

I absolutely love the desert.

And now back to our story.

Phoenix was OK, but we heard that Tempe, Arizona was the place to be. Tempe is to Phoenix what Berkeley is to San Francisco. We caught a city bus and within 15 minutes, we were in Tempe, a quaint little college town. It took us no time to find the "cool coffee shop".
When you're travelling with very little money and no itinerary, the wise traveller quickly learns to sniff out the Cool Coffee Shop before doing anything else. Here you will find bohemian types who live on the fringes of society, yet have managed to irk out a reasonably comfortable existence. Every cool town has its Cafe Phoenix, and Tempe was no exception. Nina and I had become pretty good at snagging a place to crash wherever we went, simply by being around. Cool Coffee Shops are ideal for this. We wouldn't even approach anyone. We would just sit there, sipping tea or coffee, and soon enough someone would come up to us and say "You guys travelling?" A conversation would get sparked and eventually someone would invariably ask those magic words; "Got a place to stay?"
It restores ones faith in humanity to see how many people will put up travellers without even knowing them. Just from a vibe. Nina and I were pretty unthreatening, with our flowery outfits, and our rollerblades. A guitar always helps too.
So this is exactly what happened in Tempe. We met a really nice guy. I still remember his name: Aaron. He brought us to his pad and introduced us to his girlfriend who was also super hospitable. They cleared out this big closet they had and set up a little bed for us. Sweet!
We slept like babies, that night.

Our next real stop, where we actually stayed a day or two in the place, was Chicago.
What can I say? Didn't leave much of an impression. It was like New York except the cabs came in a greater variety of colours. It was somehow...heavier on its feet, if that makes any sense. Chicago, Chicago. It might have been Frank's, but it wasn't MY kinda town.

So off to weird places like Knoxville and Nashville. Nashville was nothing like what I thought it would be like. It didn't really feel "country n' western". It was just very white, blue collar and dusty. We didn't meet one country singer. I didn't see any cowboys.

We stopped in Dallas Texas. We thought alright! Now it's gonna start warmin' up! Remember we took this trip down south to escape winter. It was late january at this point. We had been travelling for about three weeks. We got off the bus in Dallas and it was FREEZING COLD! We got back on the bus a couple hours later.

It finally warmed up in Arizona. Ah! Arizona. Oh yeah! This is the thing I forgot to mention. While Nina and I were in New York City, I had this great idea that we should purchase Rollerblades! Then when we arrived in a city, we could get anywhere easily! Ha! Ha!
So on top of this Udu drum that felt like it was made of lead, we also were carrying around rollerblades that we still had not had the opportunity to use. It was just a cockamamie idea.
BUT! It was so warm in Phoenix Arizona (about 20 degrees celsius), that we actually felt like we could put on the blades, roll around and check out the place.
It was amazing! There were orange trees everywhere, lining the streets. And all over the streets, the way the leaves are here in the fall, were oranges! It was surreal to be rollerblading suddenly in february, and it was summertime with these little round orange spheres everywhere.
We came upon this nice hostel.I can't remember if it was Nina or I who had the Udu drum on our back (we would take shifts), but one of us took off that green army bag and plunked it down on the hard, concrete sidewalk. Did I mention that the Udu drum was a ceramic drum? There was the unmistakeable sound of breaking pottery.
Nina and I looked at each other with the very same expression. We didn't need to open up the big green vinyl army bag to know what we would find in there. We put the pieces of old Udu in a--conveniently--nearby garbage can.
"Well, looks like we don't have to carry THAT around anymore!" one of us said, and we both cracked up, and headed down the walkway of that little hostel.

We wrote a song to commemorate the occasion.

Udu Drum Broke In Phoenix

Udu Drum
Broke In Phoenix
Canvas bag
Thin as kleenex

and so on and so forth

OK. I just remembered. Memphis was a big stop for us because that's where we met the Pie Lady. We had just got off the bus. It was night time. It was Memphis. We figured, we should at least take a little walk around and check out Elvistown. Another bus was leaving in an hour or so. We kind of felt a nice vibe from the place. The weather was nice. About 13 degrees. With about a half hour to go before getting back on the bus, we spotted this little shop with a light on. It was late and evrything else was closed. We sort of glanced inside, but we could tell it wasn't actually open. It was just the owners, closing up shop, hangin' out with their kids. We kept on walking, heading towards the bus.
"Hey! You guys hungry?"
The man in the shop had spotted us.
"C'mon in and have something to eat." he said.
So we went in.
"Hi. My name is Dennis. Welcome to the Pie Lady's shop." It was like we were in a Willy Wonka movie all of a sudden, only this Wonka was a black man about forty.
"Why don't you guys have a seat and I'll get you some of the pie lady's wonderful food to fill your bellies."
Was this a dream? And who was the Pie Lady? There were pictures all over the wall of famous people. "I love you, Pie Lady!" signed Dolly Parton. "Best wishes, Pie Lady. Mike Wallace." and so on. There was even a picture of the Pie Lady on Oprah!
"You're gonna love this!" says Dennis. "Billy!" He calls to one of the four cute kids hangin' around the place, "get the nice people some forks!"
"You know why the Pie Lady's food is the best there is?" asks our smiling host. He doesn't give us a chance to come up with an answer.
"Because," he says "the Pie Lady makes her food with Love."