September 2005

I should be dead in a ditch yet again. I came to this realization as I was running my fingers through my hair, somehow managing to construct complete sentances talking to Wayne, and nodding off to sleep at 3:00am somewhere slightly south of Marysville, coming back from one hell of a rock-your-balls-completely-off show by 4020 and T-Bob in Lincoln on Friday…er…Saturday morning. Thanks, by the way, to FortyTwenty for letting me sing a song with them yet again. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you remember the words to your own song, Lern, but you only wrote them down on the napkin for me a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping to write more of the song on which I’m currently working, tentatively titled “I Might Not Make it Home”, but Wayne kept talking about the Purple Wave and just wouldn’t go to sleep. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t, though, because you know where I’d be right now were he to have.

I went to Wichita yesterday for Travis Nittler’s wedding. I arrived at the address provided me by my mother from the invitation, only to drive up to a block in downtown Wichita that included Intrust Bank, the now defunct SC Telcom building, and a parking garage. After driving around for 30 minutes finding nothing but the aforementioned establishments, I drove back to Manhattan.

I’ve been working on a theory about how Republicans aren’t patriots because they don’t trust the government, but it’s not complete enough to explain right at the moment. I’ll keep you posted as the story breaks.

Today, as my family and Kyle Dohm remembered, was my birthday. I’m assuming Kyle remembered because he always does and always calls. He called today, but I was in the middle of an auction and couldn’t check the voicemail; I still haven’t because I’m bad about those kind of things and my phone died. It wouldn’t be a birthday without an auction. The last three years have seen auctions on my birthday. My grandmother sent me a birthday card and wrote about how nice it must be to have a birthday on a Sunday when I could relax and not worry about playing shows or otherwise working. I mailed back an auction flyer.

I’m looking forward to my next show at Rick’s. It’s his grand opening. I’m playing a show with Rick and Martina McBride’s father, Daryl. I’d better wear boots.

I can’t remember when the last time was that I heard a song, put it on repeat, and listened to nothing else but that for an extended period of time. At the moment, I can’t listen to anything other than Whiskeytown’s “Yesterday’s News”. It’s so good I feel like I’m flying during the chorus. It’s kind of the same feeling of sheer joy I get when I drink a lot and tumble down a flight of stairs, laughing all the way.

Requests are like invitations
To leave after the song
Every request played
Was another patron gone

I played Bobby T’s last night to a crowd which was double the last. Every time somebody wanted to hear a song they left right after I played it. I think we’re going to hold off for a while until we can put a band show in sometime in November or December. Until then, I booked a song swap with Robert Hildreth for 22 October.

I’m liking my new log entry setup. I have a little more tweaking to do, but it’s already better than the old Nuke version, to say nothing of the Blogger bullshit I was forcing my band to use.

I’m headed to Lincoln tonight with Wayne and whomever else I can conn into making the drive. Tomorrow will find me in Wichita for Nacho’s wedding. I figure I’d better burn what diesel we have left on this planet before everyone else gets to it.

I haven’t written anything in quite some time. I’ve been working with Chivalrous Productions on a new logging system for this website. You’ll be noticing more changes in preparation for a new band website to be rolled out when we get it up. For now, the only changes are the band’s log and my log. It may not look so good at the moment, but the reasons for the changes will be made apparent whenever the hell I’m ready to make them so. For now, I will attempt to remember whatever it was I’ve been doing for the past three weeks.

The Rail show on 2 September was good. It was nice to play a solo show there, but I’ll be looking forward to the 7 October show with more players. I’m not sure who will get the nod yet, but I wouldn’t tell you anyway.

The Labor Day show in Kiowa was grand. Chris G. did quite well, especially considering the short time we gave him to learn the material. We were rough, don’t get me wrong, but I’m quite optimistic that we’ll be able to come out strongly with a few practices.

PJ’s was a little light, but the 8 September shows were fantastic. FortyTwenty opened for the Great Divide at Longhorns and Trevor played at Bobby T’s. It was good to finally get to introduce my friends from Manhattan to the nauseatingly cow-punk country sounds from my friends from Lincoln.

I became very sick somewhere between the ninth and the eleventh of September; I was sick enough to get out playing the Faces of Rock Festival in Junction City. I did get to hear some of the bands and it was enjoyable to see a different kind of music performed than that with which I’m familiar. I’d like to extend an official big "thank you" to Chad Hicks for putting on the festival, implementing some stellar advertising, and agreeing to collaborate in the future.

I headed for Hutchinson after the Junction City show for the Garrison Keillor show. I’ve listened religiously to his show as much as possible every Sunday, and since this was the first time he’s ever come to Kansas, I was more than happy to fork over the $35 to see the show. Kansas Governer Kathleen Sebelius made a guest appearance and performed as well on stage as she does in her office. She is very good for Kansas.

I watched the Mike McClure Band at Longhorns last Thursday. They were as good as always.

I played at Buster’s Saloon last Saturday night. I was just getting over my cold and didn’t expect to keep my voice, much less sing, for the night, but I somehow pulled off a great show. I had an interesting two hours before the show. I stopped at Domino Food and Fuel Plaza in Medicine Lodge, KS, and who of all people do I see but Mike McClure, Eric Hansen, and Tom Skinner standing in line at the counter. They were headed to Alva for a car show. I never thought I’d ever run into them at a gas station, much less in Medicine Lodge. I headed out and was three miles from Buster’s when I looked in my backseat and saw nothing where I was supposed to see my mixing console. Turning around and making a plethora of phone calls, I was finally able to locate Kevin, David, and Justin of Dorfus Crack Tractor fame who were playing at a local wedding reception. I massive "thank you" goes to them for loaning me a very nice powered mixer. Thanks to officer Kenny Joe Rinke as well for working the hand-off after the show.

I’ve been absolutely worthless for the last few weeks. I made the mistake of watching 24. Not only did I watch 24 episodes in the course of a few days, but I’ve also discovered that my favorite characters from my beloved The Practice show have been secretly acting on a show called Boston Legal behind my back. It’s Captain Kirk, for crying out loud, and I didn’t know about it until I heard he won an Emmy.

Well that’s the summation of my activities to the best of my knowledge. I’m sure that there was some other cool shit that happened, but I can’t remember it.