2003-09-29 - 3:35 p.m.
The Fall Tour…
The tour begins like most: Waiting for everyone to show up so we can leave. Eventually we’re off on our way to Indianapolis. Our first show is in Colorado Springs, Co. so Indy is where we’d like to wind up on the first day out. I feel nervous about leaving and a little guilty. Hurricane Isabel is bearing down on the northeast and I’m leaving my wife at home to deal with whatever may come alone. I’ve enjoyed my time at home and am loath to leave.
I’m well stocked with new CD’s to listen to. The new one from Steve Malkmus (ex-Pavement front man) is good and I’ve picked up an album from Badly Drawn Boy that’s terrific. Books by Thich Nhat Han and a great book called “What Would Buddha Do” will help ease the boredom of the daylong drives ahead. My reading for this trip begins with a book called “Circling The Sacred Mountain.” My friend, Tad Wise in conjunction with Robert Thurman, the foremost expert on Tibetan Buddhism in the West, wrote it. I went to India with Tad and have also written some songs with him including “Flowers ‘Tween The Stones”. It’s a fascinating book; part travel diary and part Dharma teaching, written on the occasion of the author’s trip to Tibet to circumambulate the holy Mt. Kailash. Tad gives his impressions of their pilgrimage in the form of a travelogue. I know him well and he speaks very much like he writes so it seems as if he’s having a conversation with me (although a one sided one).
The next day I take over the wheel in Kansas. It’s a windblown trek as air seemingly born in the mountains has the whole expanse of the prairie to build up speed and buffet our little van. My wrists are sore by the time we stop for the evening. Just 200 miles to go to Colorado Springs and I decide to take the wheel so I can have the satisfaction of conquering all of Kansas! I should have given the wheel over before we reached our destination for as I rounded the last corner and was pulling up in front of the club I was stunned to see a motorcycle patrolman pulling up behind me. So, alas, my first experience of Colorado this trip, besides driving across its eastern plains, was to receive a $130 ticket for going through a red light! First I’m sitting at a light behind two cars waiting for the light to change and as the light changes, I follow them around the turn. The next thing I know, a jack booted, mirror sunglass wearing cop in a foul mood is staring in the drivers window telling me I’ve gone through a red light. I explain to him it was not possible as how could it be that only three cars can make it through the intersection after the light changed? I ask him politely to please not give me a ticket. He is unswerving. I resort to begging him not to ticket me, as the amount would represent half a week’s salary to me. He is unswerving. He finally tells me to call his sergeant and ask him to have the ticket rescinded, saying that if his sergeant told him to, he would. This I recognize as a gambit to get me to go away. What can I say? The guy was a prick. When I called his sergeant he confirmed that he was not only a prick but a lying prick when he said, as I knew he would, he had no authority to do any such thing. I’m left with a very bad taste in my mouth and really just want to get in the van and go the fuck home or have the boys drop me off at the airport. I’m really in an awful mood the rest of the day and into the night. Playing is the only thing that snaps me out of it. It’s a great crowd; a near sellout! We’re playing at a place called 32 Blue and it’s much bigger than the other room we’ve played in this town. The band’s in good form and it turns out to be one hell of a way to open a tour.
Check out my website and new solo album at http://www.timcarbone.com
