I came very close to starting this narration with the words where do I start? Having narrowly averted this time-tested writer's cliche--if only by entering the same parking spot via the alley--and then following it with a shaky metaphor that lands a bit too close to my topic, I have thereby accomplished a first paragraph bookended with annoying bits that may cause you to stop reading.

 

Good, you didn't.

 

Good, you still didn't. 

 

My wonderfully supportive and lovely fiancé Megan introduced me to a thing they do in film known as non-linear. I promptly realized how much I enjoy the confusion and frenetic fun to be had in trying to follow the spaghetti strands of this approach. I also realized how often I've incorporated it into my writing. I tried it with music, but found out that a first verse just didn't work as a third chorus or bridge, so I'll leave non-linear music to all the John Cage students.

 

I start from where I sit. In this instance, on a floor in a remarkably non-ergonomic position between two beds. Please, for those of the more singularly polished rails, take note that I'm sitting and writing...not kneeling before someone or hanging from a harness powered by propane. I'm participating in a short break from an ongoing tour performing solo sets of music wherever anyone will allow me to. By short break, I mean I'm sitting here at 3a.m. Mountain Daylight Time (so, I'm not in Arizona), following several hours of work online. Okay, so I'm online now aspiring to this bit of story telling...if I ever get around to it. My partner in life and crime and I also drove 9 hours from Oklahoma City, and she is sitting enjoying some "down time" submitting my music to music site #437. Well, right now she's swearing at a slow browser.

 

We're in Albuquerque, New Mexico staying with a friend. There are no gigs booked for me currently. This is the break part. It won't last long. By Friday, that's tomorrow if I just stay up, I'll have another show booked. I can't remember the last time I've looked at my calendar and seen no gigs on it, though. There's always been at least one or two, and only so few because I may have been busy playing five in eight days previous to that, so time spent focused on booking more was non-existent. It feels strange, almost empty, especially when my wallet (okay, front right pocket, I hate wallets ever since being rolled for $350 on the "L" in Chicago) is also empty. But I know why it is: I'm on the road. They don't know me everywhere. This is being remedied. And it really doesn't usually feel like work. Here's the laid back schedule of the rock star gypsy traipsing from town to town:

 

July 15th Megerz and I hit the road in our Little Blue Honda for what was originally expected to be a 30 day run of shows (it keeps growing). It's now August 11th. We've stopped and visited and in some cases slept in 23 different cities, I've played 20 or more sets of music. We've visited Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello; drank on Beale St. and Bourbon St. (sure and 23 other streets and avenues); experienced the joyous adventure of a fishing boat's engine overheating right before noon in the middle of the Everglades during the hottest summer in years; seen many old friends and family, made many new ones; got lost twice in Manhattan (who hasn't, right?); failed to stop at all the Civil War battlefields I wanted to see; learned how having oil in your car's engine can really help with gas mileage (and how a Honda can still drive without it); become extremely creative with living cheaply and still managed to get into nice hotels for less than $45 by booking the night before; and we have successfully collected a couple one-gallon zip-lock bags full of condiments from truck stops and one with toiletries from  hotels. All this, while still continuing the booking and promotion process. Sound fun? Sho nuff is! We are now looking at how far we can push this. The road has proven a happy place for us (it's like our bliss, dude). What this tour of two artists, two guitars and a year 2000 model car with 138,800 miles on it jammed with supplies has turned into is becoming a bit mind boggling.

 

Okay, I'm going on break.

 

Consider this first chapter your table of contents. We're documenting the trip through words (ours and those of people we've seen on the road, maybe you if you're nice), pictures (Megan is going through hundreds of them as I write this, she moved on from the uncooperative browser), and of course, video. I'm a little afraid of what she may edit into final form on that last medium. I get kinda nuts every time I have to drive across the debilitatingly flat Texas pan handle, and today the camera was on from Amarillo to Tucumcari.