A Long Overdue Report (long is both a description of "Overdue" and "Report"), part two.
Saturday, October 8 (Marquette to Houghton)
I awoke hazy and pissed. Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) was sawing logs as he is sometimes wont to do, especially after a marathon of drinking, but on such mornings he is so loud, not even his charm can save him from my ill-directed grumps (though it is hardly his fault he is such a snorer). I laid in bed, still slightly drunk, and thought, "shit, it's gotta be 5:00 AM." I decided to shower and dismounted the top bunk. All were presumably asleep, though I found out later that both the Crone and the Pope were also awakened by Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace). How Peabody wasn't awakened by the volume, I shall never understand, but over the amount of time I've spent with him in the last five years or so, I've learned not to predict such silly things as instinct and what people are or aren't capable of doing.
I showered and noted the time was 7:49 AM when I left the room in search of the Nordic Bay Lodge Breakfast Lounge. Jayme approached my table to take my order at 7:55 AM, brought me my coffee at 8:00 AM, and my omelette at 8:45 AM. I soon regretted not bringing along a book, but one of the bizarre claims of inter-band structure is who holds the two hotel room keys, making the possibility for retrieving a book from the dormitory impossible for me on this morning. An incomplete list of other odd hierarchies in our band when traveling are as follows:
As one of only three customers in the Nordic Bay Breakfast Lounge, I was pissed for the second time in my day, but I didn't make this clear to my server Jayme. She wasn't making the 50 minute omelette. When I finally left the Breakfast Lounge (9:10 AM), the rest of the band was up and most were loading in their sleeping gear and clothes. I packed my bag too, then followed the others back into the Breakfast Lounge and spent another hour waiting (this time served by James) before the others received their food and I excused myself for a walk in the beautiful trails behind the Lodge. It was the beginning of an extra long peak of autumn for me and my band (considering the leaves had only just started to change in the Lower Peninsula, but in full bloom in the UP) and I intended to soak up as much as possible.
We were on the road to Houghton by 11:00 AM, but not before we stopped to gander at the glory of Presque Isle which, among other things, gave my fear of heights a fair workout. The delicate mushrooms were of great interest to Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) and he showered me with some of his incredible memory for facts about such things. The travel time between Marquette and Houghton is around two hours and we made a point to lazily drift along and stop randomly at any remotely interesting place along the way. After one of these stops, somewhere along US-41, the Pope noted a decline in the power of acceleration, and once the iPod was muted, we heard the muffled screams of the serpentine belt our mechanic had warned us was on its last loops. We decided to haul straight to Houghton (at this point we were only 40 miles away or so) and consider our options. The drive there was smooth enough and the screams died away, and coupled with the fact that the auto shop in Houghton was about to close for the weekend as we were pulling into town, we decided to pretend like it never happened and loaded in at the hotel, the King's Inn.
Each of us went off on our separate ways to explore Houghton for an hour or so and I was lucky enough to find the new record store in town. There wasn't much in it, but there were several signed promotional photos from the likes of Cinderella, Def Leopard, and Janet Jackson. There was no music playing in the store, but instead a rather fat man sitting behind the counter watching a video of a motorcyclist hauling ass through the streets of some European city with the cops hot on his trail, all shot from the pilot's point of view. The fat man had the sound turned up loud. My entire visit in the store sounded like this, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." The fat man turned out to be a very jovial sort and shouted to me briefly over the incessant screams of his video about his time as a roadie for each of the musicians whose signatures grace the walls. He is the only person I've met, other than Peabody, who refers to pizza as "'za". I bought Mickey Newbury's long-out-of-print Frisco Mabel Joy and was on my way.
The show was put together by some students at Michigan Tech, and really, it was their offer to pay us well that subsidized the rest of the tour. Kevin was there to greet us and the show went off rather nicely. It was good to play for people who were interested though it was oddly very quiet for a rock 'n' roll show. Kevin posted a photo, if'n you care. Sycamore Smith and Jerry Fels both put on fantastic sets before us (Sycamore's random prat falls were unbelievably awesome) and afterward, we stopped at the hotel, shed our suits, and headed over to Kevin's house to hang out with a bunch of folks from the night. We brought the gift of 30 PBRs and laughed a great deal. After about 6 of said beverages, I found myself fawning over a strange little book printed by some small press in Houghton in the mid-'60s that is essentially a precursor to the popular book The Way Things Work. I was mostly drawn to a couple of creepy woodcuts in the book -- fighter planes and cows whirling through the air in the hubbub of a passing tornado -- and drunkenly bought the damn thing for $20. This was stupid of me, and honestly, I haven't looked through it since that night. At the end of the night, Peabody had the group of 30 or so party-goers gather together for a great Polaroid, his intention being to shoot one photo for every night we had a show.
Back at the King's Inn, the Pope opened his bag filled with the tools for productive alcoholism and poured the Crone and I little Dixie Cup shots of Pedialite. As I arranged my sleeping bag on the floor between the two beds, the Pope dumped a glass of water on my head. It was accidental. Still, with the puddle on my pillow, I slept almost immediately and very soundly, as I had so little sleep the two nights previous.
I awoke hazy and pissed. Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) was sawing logs as he is sometimes wont to do, especially after a marathon of drinking, but on such mornings he is so loud, not even his charm can save him from my ill-directed grumps (though it is hardly his fault he is such a snorer). I laid in bed, still slightly drunk, and thought, "shit, it's gotta be 5:00 AM." I decided to shower and dismounted the top bunk. All were presumably asleep, though I found out later that both the Crone and the Pope were also awakened by Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace). How Peabody wasn't awakened by the volume, I shall never understand, but over the amount of time I've spent with him in the last five years or so, I've learned not to predict such silly things as instinct and what people are or aren't capable of doing.
I showered and noted the time was 7:49 AM when I left the room in search of the Nordic Bay Lodge Breakfast Lounge. Jayme approached my table to take my order at 7:55 AM, brought me my coffee at 8:00 AM, and my omelette at 8:45 AM. I soon regretted not bringing along a book, but one of the bizarre claims of inter-band structure is who holds the two hotel room keys, making the possibility for retrieving a book from the dormitory impossible for me on this morning. An incomplete list of other odd hierarchies in our band when traveling are as follows:
- The order of arising from bed
- The order of showers
- The order of seating in the van (driver's seat, passenger seat, back bench, front bench [driver side], front bench [passenger side])
- The order of arrival back at the van from a gas station/rest area stop
- Participation in unloading the van
- The quickness in breaking down the stage
- Participation in loading the van
- Whose music is played in the van (or who has an iPod)
- Who gets a bed
As one of only three customers in the Nordic Bay Breakfast Lounge, I was pissed for the second time in my day, but I didn't make this clear to my server Jayme. She wasn't making the 50 minute omelette. When I finally left the Breakfast Lounge (9:10 AM), the rest of the band was up and most were loading in their sleeping gear and clothes. I packed my bag too, then followed the others back into the Breakfast Lounge and spent another hour waiting (this time served by James) before the others received their food and I excused myself for a walk in the beautiful trails behind the Lodge. It was the beginning of an extra long peak of autumn for me and my band (considering the leaves had only just started to change in the Lower Peninsula, but in full bloom in the UP) and I intended to soak up as much as possible.
We were on the road to Houghton by 11:00 AM, but not before we stopped to gander at the glory of Presque Isle which, among other things, gave my fear of heights a fair workout. The delicate mushrooms were of great interest to Crazy Bear (Not Spider Ace) and he showered me with some of his incredible memory for facts about such things. The travel time between Marquette and Houghton is around two hours and we made a point to lazily drift along and stop randomly at any remotely interesting place along the way. After one of these stops, somewhere along US-41, the Pope noted a decline in the power of acceleration, and once the iPod was muted, we heard the muffled screams of the serpentine belt our mechanic had warned us was on its last loops. We decided to haul straight to Houghton (at this point we were only 40 miles away or so) and consider our options. The drive there was smooth enough and the screams died away, and coupled with the fact that the auto shop in Houghton was about to close for the weekend as we were pulling into town, we decided to pretend like it never happened and loaded in at the hotel, the King's Inn.
Each of us went off on our separate ways to explore Houghton for an hour or so and I was lucky enough to find the new record store in town. There wasn't much in it, but there were several signed promotional photos from the likes of Cinderella, Def Leopard, and Janet Jackson. There was no music playing in the store, but instead a rather fat man sitting behind the counter watching a video of a motorcyclist hauling ass through the streets of some European city with the cops hot on his trail, all shot from the pilot's point of view. The fat man had the sound turned up loud. My entire visit in the store sounded like this, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." The fat man turned out to be a very jovial sort and shouted to me briefly over the incessant screams of his video about his time as a roadie for each of the musicians whose signatures grace the walls. He is the only person I've met, other than Peabody, who refers to pizza as "'za". I bought Mickey Newbury's long-out-of-print Frisco Mabel Joy and was on my way.
The show was put together by some students at Michigan Tech, and really, it was their offer to pay us well that subsidized the rest of the tour. Kevin was there to greet us and the show went off rather nicely. It was good to play for people who were interested though it was oddly very quiet for a rock 'n' roll show. Kevin posted a photo, if'n you care. Sycamore Smith and Jerry Fels both put on fantastic sets before us (Sycamore's random prat falls were unbelievably awesome) and afterward, we stopped at the hotel, shed our suits, and headed over to Kevin's house to hang out with a bunch of folks from the night. We brought the gift of 30 PBRs and laughed a great deal. After about 6 of said beverages, I found myself fawning over a strange little book printed by some small press in Houghton in the mid-'60s that is essentially a precursor to the popular book The Way Things Work. I was mostly drawn to a couple of creepy woodcuts in the book -- fighter planes and cows whirling through the air in the hubbub of a passing tornado -- and drunkenly bought the damn thing for $20. This was stupid of me, and honestly, I haven't looked through it since that night. At the end of the night, Peabody had the group of 30 or so party-goers gather together for a great Polaroid, his intention being to shoot one photo for every night we had a show.
Back at the King's Inn, the Pope opened his bag filled with the tools for productive alcoholism and poured the Crone and I little Dixie Cup shots of Pedialite. As I arranged my sleeping bag on the floor between the two beds, the Pope dumped a glass of water on my head. It was accidental. Still, with the puddle on my pillow, I slept almost immediately and very soundly, as I had so little sleep the two nights previous.