Be Careful What You Wish For, 8/02

I'm standing by the bar at Fitzgerald's in Chicago watching my friend Lonesome Bob onstage, when the Hackberry Ramblers shuffle through the door and slowly climb the three steps to the dressing room. The fiddle player enters last, and he has to be at least ninety. I say to myself, "I have fifty more years to think I'm too old to be doing this!"

It's a fitting end to a crazy few months that started in March at South by Southwest. I've felt blessed and cursed, lucky and unable to buy a break, totally connected to humanity and almost simultaneously the loneliest person on the planet. I've played in a tandoori restaurant, a living room and a senior citizen's center as well as theatres, clubs and bars. I've seen my three albums deleted and an anthology released. I've driven away from the Koch warehouse with said deleted CD's in the back of my van and the theme from "The Great Escape" in my head. I've sat at dozens of cafe tables drinking coffee and writing, thrilled to be part of whatever town I happened to wake up in that morning after leaving hundreds of half-drunk beer bottles on scarred wooden tables the night before. I've lost count of broken guitar strings, and have recently begun breaking two at once in order to save time. I've slept on floors and futons and comfy beds, lumpy mattresses and velvet couches. I've flown on Southwest Airlines so often that one of my band members pointed out I was ending shows with "I know you have lots of entertainment options out there, thank you for choosing us!" On Focus, on Lancer, on Saturn, on Stratus, to the mountains of Alaska, the Gulf of Mississippi, Glacier State Park and the San Joaquin Valley. I-95, I-65, Mass Pike and Palisades Parkway, then I-95 again, the 405 with a shaking steering wheel, 10 East through sheets of rain, endless road construction on 40. Through Virginia on 81 I discovered books on tape, available at Cracker Barrels across the land! Last Sunday afternoon outside Houston I heard an Ozzy song with snippets of The Osbournes family dialogue sprinkled throughout and broke down weeping in the throes of profound homesickness and absurd longing for the dream of nuclear family I gave up on years ago. Time to head back...

A few highlights:

SXSW - Seeing some great films in Austin, before the madness of South by Southwest. "Aces High" about a supposed Ace Frehley-only tribute band, followed by "Tribute" a touching documentary about guys who'll do anything to keep playing music. "Gimme Shelter," where I ran into longtime friend and fellow floppy-haired rocker Jean Caffeine. Doing a panel with Caitlin Cary, Jesse Malin and bigger-than-life Pat Dizio. Drinks at the Driskill Hotel, Swedish band The Venue, Lisa Mednick's show at Antone's. My own set at Clay Pit that could have easily gone either way, what with the questionable sound and the way the previous band was carting the bass amp away as we set up. Negotiations and prayers paid off and the show was miraculously fantastic. Much credit has to go to the wonderful people who come to see me play. I don't have the most fans, but I have the best fans! Next day I was headed to the airport when I overshot the exit. I called Alamo car rental and asked the guy at the counter whether he thought I should stay another day. He said, "It sounds like you're having too much fun to leave, you'd better stay - no extra charge." So I got to stay (cause Alamo said it was okay) and see Neil Finn and Kelly Hogan and The Yayhoos. And break up with my boyfriend, or my ex-boyfriend or...oh shit, there's no easy way to do this, is there?

Northeast shows - Tin Angel, where I opened for Beth Nielsen Chapman, who referred to me as "that young lady who opened the show, I'm sorry - I forgot her name but, ah, er, she was really good, wasn't she?!" Ahem. Oh well, at least she didn't say "old slag." Iron Horse in Northampton was fun but over too quickly - had to vacate the club so the drummer from Medeski, Martin and Wood could do a drums-only show. Must be some kind of revenge for my drummer song. I played a rare Connecticut gig at The Space in Hamden which was a rehearsal space/performance place. Beware of slashes! They were literally pushing tea as a ponytailed man circled the room with a large basket of every possible herbal and caffeinated variety, then brewed it for such a short time that each cup tasted like lukewarm dishwater. I was directed to an upstairs room where I was told I could "hang out, etc." until show time. I decided to change my clothes and was dismayed when a whole group of townspeople ascended the stairs to take a look at the giant electric train set laid out in the middle of the room. Why stay for the show when I've already shown you my caboose?

The house concert outside of Providence made up for Connecticut, what with the beautiful setting, congenial hosts the Fergusons, a great audience and an unbelievable potluck dinner. I even got to stay in the teenage son's room, surrounded by photos of skateboarders, bikini-clad women, Linkin Park and System of a Down. I slept the sleep of the adolescent male, much more satisfying than the sleep of the harried working mother. Which may lead you to ask, where is my daughter during all of this? I have to admit it's a little odd hanging out in another family's house on a Sunday morning, listening to another mother trying to motivate her thirteen year old daughter to get up off the couch and DO SOMETHING! Could this be why my daughter and I still have a reasonably amiable relationship? Because I only have to see her lounging listlessly amidst piles of unwashed clothes and empty Fresca cans half of the time, not all of the time? And now, thanks to Buddy Lists, I can pop up on her computer screen from anywhere in the world at any time of day or night to remind her that I know what she's up to, up to a point. Through the wonder of technology I often feel closer to her from miles away than I do when she's in the other room.

West Coast - After my Alaska adventures I headed to California for a weekend of shows. The Palms in Davis is now one of my all-time favorite clubs - too bad they're tearing it down next month. I stopped at the Starry Plough in Berkeley for a show with Dallas Wayne, one of the best honky tonk singers around. In Santa Cruz I got to visit KPIG with Todd Snider and even went body-surfing with Sleepy John the promoter. I'd like to spend all my time in a wetsuit! The show with Todd at the Rio Theatre was positively memorable, and if I hadn't smoked all that pot afterwards I might be able to tell you about it. The aging freaks in this town understand me like nowhere else. I wonder why?

Back home for a minute, then back out west for another tour with Richard Shindell. Maybe it's a West Coast thing, or maybe I've just learned to keep expressions of self-doubt and descriptions of male genitalia to an absolute minimum, but I felt like I'd gotten better at going over with Richard's more folk-oriented audience. Richard's gravity and bemused ennui (he'd been on tour for months) and my newfound granola enthusiasm met somewhere in the middle for a bunch of fun shows. Visits to Berkeley Wine Merchants didn't hurt either. Davis (again), Berkeley (again!), my own show at the Makeout Room in San Francisco, Chico, Grass Valley, Santa Monica, Portland and Seattle flew by. I ended the tour with a trip to Montana, for one show in Kalispell. A shame to get to such a gorgeous place for the first time and have to leave the next day, but it was worth it for a chance to hang out with the mayor's daughter and her pals afterwards. But adulthood was calling, in the form of a closing on the beloved house I've been renting for the past two years.

Home ownership is the upside of living in Nashville. The downside is having to occasionally play a gig here. The oft-quoted line attributed to David Olney is, "When I need some time to myself I just book a show in Nashville." Or something like that. And mine at 12th & Porter was proof that I actually do live here now, as only a small handful of people showed up. You know you're in trouble when even the promoter has better things to do. Of course I'd forgotten to hire a door person so for an excrutiating half hour I stood by the entrance taking money before taking the stage. Ah well, the out of town fans in attendance and a few locals were happy to be there and not home watching "Blind Date." And a fun show in St. Louis the following night sort of wiped the taste away. I have to remind myself that even Bruce Springsteen seemed a bit uneasy during the first few minutes of his last show in "Music City." I've noticed Nashville is not on his upcoming tour schedule. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Several perfect NYC days refreshed and invigorated me in early June. It was great to play in the city again. The people were as stylish, haggard and endearing as I remembered them - no wonder I'll always feel at home here. A punk rock-style show in Albany, piano parlour fun with Jon Graboff and Joe McGinty at the Lizard Lounge in Boston and a performance at the University Settlement arts camp by the light of a roaring fire were all subtle reminders of what I love about the Northeast.

I was happy to get back to Nashville though, because summer is the perfect time to be here. There's Triple A baseball at Greer Stadium, where you can spot Steve Earle buying a hot dog and the crowd leaps up not for foul balls but "Sweet Home Alabama" over the p.a. Ceiling fans, backyard grills and central air conditioning for the first time in my life. Not to mention a post office where they feature a different Andy Griffith trivia question every day. And Graceland only three hours away. What's happening to me? Am I becoming...content? Aside from the occasional humiliating experience, things are pretty good. I could easily do this for, say, another 50 years.

Amy