July 3, 2008

The Last Great American Ride PART II... In which the band goes on a voyage to meet the Wizard and the narrator's tent holds steady in the storm... Ticket holders cough up $5 for draughts but the deranged and penniless drink for free... Everywhere I go they're playing rock and roll, and singing rhythm and blues... Humid evenings in the shadow of Lincoln's hat... Down the alley from Kansas City and a block from old Chicago... She was driving Humvees over Kuwait sand while I was behind the wood pile with a cap gun...

Behold, the valiant ones cry without; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly. The highways lay waste, the wayfaring man ceases. "Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell with the everlasting burnings?" Isaiah 33 vs. 7-8 & 14

This is a story of the myth of the road, and how I kept faith in rock and roll. Time to refresh my drink, find my way downstairs in the dark, and finish this draft which I volunteered to write. We're going to get downright rowdy here. Downstairs where it's cooler in the summer... in the studio, the office. There's a dartboard, some dark rum, a fresh stack of printer paper, all kinds of blues, jazz, and rock CDs. I had to take all of this weirdness out of the bedroom. It was invading my dreams. Now I can sleep peacefully, without the specter of the itinerary, the internet, the trumpet, and the checks for rent looming over my repose. I mean, I'll sleep peacefully later, after I've assembled these frenzied appraisals.

Belligerence blooming in full flower, I knelt before the cable television, Gideon's good book fallen open on the floor. It was sometime around 4 AM in the Route 66 Hotel and Convention Center in Springfield, Illinois, and I was mired in depths of depravity which I hunger to understand. When I read verse 18, Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? Where is the receiver? Where is he that counted the towers?

I flipped out and proceeded to shave off my beard. That's tough luck for a narrator, because I've heard that a scenester with a mustache can't be trusted. To continue we must consider what a turbaned woman* said as lightning scathed the sky, "When your number is up and you're face to face with Him, He's going to give you a choice, and how you answer will determine your eternal fate. He'll ask: Which do you want to be? A space wizard or space pirate?"

Meanwhile, somewhere over the rainbow, Dorothy's trustworthy little dog pulls back the curtain to reveal a short, fat, timid man, furiously working the controls of a ponderous contraption. Thousands of miles of road lead to the shining green city, whose great and terrible ruler is a con-man with a PlayStation 3.

Of course the talk was of tornados. When the storm rolled in we were all faced with the thoughts. How bad is this going to be? The media and the festival promoters were ready for the worst and doing their best to scare us out of our wits. Know your proper emergency procedures. Am I ready to die tonight? That's not a question one must ask, most nights, lying comfortably in bed. Out on the road I've had to think about those answers on more occasions than I'd like to recount, and for very concrete reasons. If, God forbid, the end should ever come, if the gas stations are empty, our debit cards are worthless, and there's no internet, the refugee camps will look much like Wakarusa, minus the huge stage, light rig and sound system and probably the beer.

There was no music that night at Wakarusa, even on the smallest stage, even by the most obscure band. I was in a pretty bad mood before the van filled up with a bunch of wet ducks we knew from Michigan. They had brought some rum which I wasn't ashamed to share. The problem with co operative living is that everything you own gets taxed, whether you'd prefer to share it or not. The benefit is that you live in a community, and as we all know, it takes a village. I drank out of that handle of rum and chased it down with the warm 2 liter of Coke and sat back there while the van was steaming up, talking to Beacon and **Genevieve, feeling better about life. I finished typing my cynical thoughts on the laptop and got out of the van, refusing to believe the music was done for the night. I have an acoustic instrument. It's pretty damn loud even without electricity. I searched out the bluegrass musicians I had met before the storm. We played under a shade tent for a minute until someone said, "Let's take it to the street." So we went out with our cans of beer to the intersection between the campgrounds and started playing.

There was an upright bass, two mandolins, a guitar, a banjo, and a slightly tipsy trumpet. In the early hours of the morning, before the third verse of the tune, a party assembled and the whiskey was being passed around. I was yelling at the stars and playing the music the way it needed to be played, loud and grimy and with joy in my heart. Brennan took over for Zach on the bass and we had an all out hollering free jazz session. Everyone was singing. I want to be in that number, When the Saints Go Marching In. Hand drummers arrived in droves and we played Caravan, and trying to wrangle those rhythms was like the scene in Back to the Future III when the wagon driver is passed out drunk, nearly sending the squealing schoolteacher over the edge of the canyon. The Tone Farmers# were Marty and Doc. We got on to playing St. Thomas and had the whole bellicose crowd singing the melody with no words. We had an a cappella breakdown, howling at the Gods and each other, because we could and because we had to. Sonny Rollins, you were there with us in Kansas. We were vibrating, and I have faith in rock and roll.

It wasn't always that way. Like all true believers, my faith is challenged by the strange and terrible entanglements of consciousness, but that's another sermon on another Sunday. For now we'll just say that I spent the rest of that night and the next morning mining for the small gem of innocence in the caves of my heart. I found it, deliriously, in the afternoon while eating a chicken salad sandwich. Sleep deprived and sunburned; I fell in love during the Del the Funkee Homosapien set and was having a picnic. I could hear the emotion in Deirdre's voice when she told me about Desert Storm. That was the first war in Persia in my lifetime, but probably the 1,000th of the modern era. These jerks have been going at it in the Holy Land since before the Assyrians were persecuting Isaiah. The ambassadors of peace are still weeping.

So, enough of the pity party. It's time to start gnashing teeth. My handy digital dictionary explains that Del the Funkee takes his name from the Latin meaning "wise man." IMHO, the world can use as many funky wise men as we can get, these days. Part of the problem I was having, though, stemmed from the suspicion that we have a surplus of everything on the market, including funky wisdom. But the fat old wizard is a nice guy making the best of a bad situation, and if you have your investments in the right place you can make a lot of money from an armed conflict.

I'm reminded that we played at Summer Camp. Allow me to reminisce about the old days, a few weeks ago. We drove the familiar route from Ann Arbor to Columbus and turned left. When we arrived at Hookahville, the Schwa flag was flying high. Ekoostik Hookah was in the middle of a raging sound check and I began to dance. It was Memorial Day Weekend and the Macpodz were on the road. Flags have been flown and people have died- the innocent along with the guilty- but there's fuel in the tank of this Ford and juice running to the amplifiers. We have the tools and the ingredients, and on certain nights we get to brew our potion. We gaze out the van windows at the homeland of Lincoln, Debs and Vonnegut.

Regardless of the ethic of paranoia that pervades our Empire, even we, here, now, are permitted to preach our nonsense on the internet or the stage. As individuals we have come together with the intent to do creative work. Maybe as a group we can find the meaning. Maybe, as an entity, we can resonate. It is a feeling. The only thing is the moment, the momentum, the feeling. We are learning to make it work. Make it funky. I want to hear the earth vomiting molten rock. I want to taste the hot flava. I want the feeling. I want to slice everything away, the useless chunks, dead weight, old ideas... until we are left with the dense core, the understanding, pure vibration, heat. We have the chance to walk the walk. This talk is useful to evaluate ideas but we must remember it's only a menu. We like lunch, but we love a buffet. A chair is a chair except when it's a coat hanger. Lucy was never holding any football- Charlie Brown was falling on his ass over an idea.

Later that night, we got the gear set up and played our songs for our friends in Ohio. Yes. We packed it in and slept. In the morning we drove across the Hoosier state to Illinois. To give you an idea of what that was like, I'll jump back in time, a week later, to the Kansas run. Linear thought is troublesome and I don't take many photographs. What I mean to show is that driving across Missouri is not unlike driving across Indiana, or for that matter, Virginia or Texas. The road, my friends, is the road.

Laying here long ways on the bench, riding in the van, looking out the window, listening to Beck sing this song, on the way to the theater, on the way to Lawrence, Kansas. Just about able to get comfortable. I'm riding down the highway in the second to last seat of the van. Cruising west, I'm looking south. Good old Joanna Newsom comes up on the playlist and I'm riding down the highway, looking south at Missouri, feeling sad, lonely and homesick. Yearning for love, sleep, and a place that feels like home. A white water tower is in the distance behind another empty cornfield, growing grass and the stalks of last year’s harvest. Fields fallow. Why why, why, drive up the price of food & fuel when we could be feeding the whole world? Burning up this gasoline to get our damn kicks.

Rolling Stone magazine's claim that there are more summer rock festivals than ever before suggests that there must therefore be more rock bands playing the festivals than ever before. (Knopper, RS 1053, May 29, 2008) I play trumpet in one of the bush league rock and roll bands that's making the rounds of the more obscure summer festivals, and my experiential evidence supports Knopper's claim that, "the proliferation in U.S. festivals may be getting close to over saturation." The music scene is flush, and it's just a microcosm. What we are experiencing in our little sub-cultural environment is manifested in every area of commerce, the arts, and culture. Every town has its double A ball club or its University. Everybody has their favorite slice of pizza or scoop of ice cream.

This is the "Last Great American Ride," as Nick put it, cruising at 60 MPH in the hot afternoon. (Our top speed is pretty meager now that we pull a trailer.) If petrol was legal tender, we'd be making fifty gallons a night. How long can we keep it up? Brennan's assessment of the meaningless, rampant hedonism that exists all over the country made sense to me. "These kids will fuck anything that moves, because the Empire is just too vast." Our confused culture is like the exoskeleton of a cicada that's still clinging to a leaf. There was something here, once. A vital and enthusiastic energy is lost somewhere out there in the rain, in the night. As a physical act, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll still exists, but we struggle to connect with the meaning and the magic. We restrain ourselves from making real contact with each other. Everybody is somebody's customer, but it's only numbers jumping around on a computer screen. There are vicious potholes in the yellow brick and the Wiz is worried that the paparazzi will release the pictures of banquet with the Emperor, who showed up in no clothes.

It's a dangerous resignation to suggest the best thing to do is get a good seat to watch the show, enjoy the party, and eat your slice of pie. America is just trying to turn a buck and I feel abandoned. Whether it's right or wrong I like it. I know it's only rock and roll. I like a road trip. I like my gear in my bag, all folded packed and cinched in tight. I like these pillows, these headphones, jamming to music, writing, wearing shades, with all the time in the world. I'll do some foot reflexology as we cruise over the eternal Mississippi. Oh, I'm nostalgic, I feel like I'm on a band trip. It feels like this. A band is a once in a lifetime event. I have my coconut oil, my dried mango slices, a Clif bar, Odwalla green juice; I have a Nalgene full of water with a shiny Shiva sticker on the side. I've got a trumpet and a tambourine. Get hydrated, stop to stretch & urinate every two or four hours, eat healthy snacks, salty snacks, eat a little junk food, good for the soul.

Something about this vibe makes me sentimental. Now crossing the Missouri River. There's a barge being pumped out by a couple of tug boats. I have been going on this road trip since I was about 12 years old. Get out of the car and there's music all around, there's nothing to do but play your horn, play some Frisbee, dance. I could give you the facts about what time it went down or what state, but that doesn't explain the feeling. There is only one road and it is the road, there is only one show and it is tonight. My favorite national holiday is set break.

Now it's a week after I started this literary turmoil and I'm in Dulles airport waiting on a flight back to Detroit, surrounded by clean-shaven guys in suits and ties. I'm a business traveler too, but I'm rocking a scratchy 4-day shadow and my tie is this colorful cotton scarf. Apparently this is my TPS report. I'm going to have to figure out how to get to the point here, so I can leave this abomination behind and get back to the business of playing trumpet.

Better than the lake, the "mixers" or ultimate Frisbee, the coolest thing about camp was the counselors. They made everybody feel good about themselves and included everyone in the activities, even the dorkiest, most fun-hating kid there. They made you have fun. There was a point during the mixer at which everyone was required to dance. There was always one kid who wouldn't dance, sitting alone in the corner of the tennis court, and the counselors would stand there talking to him. The whole party was hung up, the DJ was in a holding pattern, and we were all waiting. No one ever knew what was said, but the counselors always prevailed. They somehow used their coolness leverage to make that poor kid realize he had to get over himself and have some fun. The party would continue and everybody, every freaking body, did the ridiculous line dance and looked goofy together. *** It was fun, and no one could sit on the side hating it, not looking like a dork, or looking like the only dork there. You had to get off your ass and dance, and it was hilarious.

It's twelve years later and I'm still hauling off to band camp every summer, and the coolest camp counselor of all is a weird guy named moe., who is so hip that he doesn't even use a upper case letter in his name. These guys have a damn fine rock and roll band, and in certain circles that's more valuable than Texas Gold. Except it's not something that you have, like a bellybutton or a foosball table. It's something you do. It's a dynamic process that requires the fire and focus of thousands of people. It's alive and has an energetic presence that transcends a room full of geeks sitting around figuring out harmony lines or which chords to use on the bridge. It's a critical mass of people recognizing that there's a feeling we get that's impossible to explain.

There's a logical fallacy in trying to explain a feeling because it's part of a process. To characterize it with words is to quantize it with a false set of distinctions. You can either find out how big it is, or where it's going, but not both at the same time. However, when you're there in the middle of it, you realize it's massive like a freight train but that it moves like a water snake. It's profoundly heavy but will lift off faster than the DC-9 behind me on the runway. It smells rank but you inhale it like it was the Lake Michigan breeze. It is grotesquely beautiful, it is priceless cheap thrills. It is low humor and high culture. It's just a feeling, but it may be what it really means to be free.

While it was storming in Kansas, I was brooding about the myriad ways our lives and culture are damaged and imagining that we've all been let down by the great and powerful Wizard, who never asked for our votes in the first place. In their fear and awe of that old con, that band of travelers forgot that the Tin Man was a lover, the Scarecrow was a smarty pants, the Lion had brass balls and Dorothy had the ticket home all along. They had to take the trip to realize what they already had but couldn't discover when it was obscured in the ordinary comforts of home.

This summer, down in the Land of Oz, I remembered that sometimes I'm the kid sitting in the corner of the tennis court, unwilling to dance. It seems so easy to forget that the funk is in there, along with the love and the laughter, which is why we all take a turn getting our panties bunched. The people dancing look silly as hell to the party pooper, but at least the dancers are smiling. Eventually, and with a little help from our friends, we'll figure out how to get over ourselves and just have a good time. It may seem like we're screwed, but everything is fine. Here we are, right? Crank up the volume and keep the faith. It's only rock and roll. Let's party.

-Ross

*Thanks for the Turkish coffee, Christine.

**The official unofficial winner of the Halloween costume contest based on popular vote, rather than the judge’s panel. Thanks for the shots.

***The song was "the Madison," and I need to find a recording of it. Any leads, jazz heads? # The gigging name of the Brennan/Ross duo

PERMISSION & PRIVACY

You have received this email because you "opted-in" and requested to receive the The Macpodz Band Letter or as a courtesy because you are a member of the media. If you feel that you have received this email in error, you may unsubscribe from this newsletter by clicking the link below.