More Stories of the Airport

I wrote this yesterday while traveling, though it wasn't for a "gig." Again, I make no claims about how interesting this is. I had some time to kill, so I wrote:

The last time I did this, I was trying to get out of rural Mississippi, having an (apparently) inappropriate chuckle over the nasal deficiencies of large camo-clad Southerner. Big fun, you know? Make the best of a situation. Lemons into lemonade, frowns upside down, etc. Like that.

If I got even the least bit of sympathy last time, that’s not likely to happen here.

This time, I’m in Salt Lake City, proud home to what I believe is the looniest of all religions (sorry, can’t help but speaking the big quiet truth and all), returning from a 4-day trip with the male types from my wife’s family. Earlier this year, my wife went on a trip with her mom, sister, and sister-in-laws. They did a spa thing, complete with all that weirdness that dudes never understand – bathing in wet dirt and getting their feet mangled with scrapey rocks and such – and generally had a big time.

So my father-in-law, a big believer in equality and tit-for-tat and things of that nature, offered to take me and Staci’s two knothead brothers on a trip. What better destination than the Mormom-packed deserts of Utah? Nah, just kidding. We went to Lake Tahoe, CA. But SL City is our layover, and we got delayed on the way back home.

It was weird timing, honestly. Keith has been mixing my project while I'm gone, and the control freak in me is a little frantic and anxious about not being there, looking over his shoulder, messing with him while he works, saying "i can't hear the drums on the left side" and him saying "that's because you're nearly deaf in your left ear" (see fact#5). It's probably for the best that I left town.

The trip was, of course, amazing. I won’t bore you with the details, but it involved stuff like kayaking, hiking, laying around by the pool, a viewing of The Bourne Butt-Kickamatum, and various consumption (in biblically supportable moderation, of course) of delicious food and beverages. In short, I lived like a rich guy for nearly a whole week.

Just to remind us that regular life ain’t all hi-jinks and umbrella drinks, God has us delayed here for about 5 hours. If you haven’t been to a big-city airport in a while, you may not know that they’re basically designed for situations just like this. Most major airports are better than the mall in Lufkin, TX. I should know. I once got stranded there for about 4 hours, waiting for my wife to come thru town and pick me up. Long story, but it wasn’t pretty. Needless to say that I came out of that experience with a bad haircut and a top score on (at least) Galaga and Area 51. I mean, I owned the arcade in that place. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there weren’t still some RSK’s perched atop several of those high score screens (Todd, check it and let me know). Hey, lemons into lemonade, you know? You make the best of it.

Plus, I’m an animal on the Galaga.

I’m getting off-track. I was trying to tell you that it’s not that bad being stuck in an airport. For some reason, this has me thinking about the fall, when I’ll be spending a good bit of time in airports and, likely, getting delayed from time to time.

Which, again, isn’t really all that bad. I mean, you’d always prefer to get where you’re going, but if you must be stranded, airports are okay (and, to be fair, so are mall arcades in East Texas). Most of them make you pay for internet, which I’m not about to do, but aside from that, there’s plenty to entertain you. I’m pretty sure CNN pays somebody, because there are always big TV’s up high on the walls giving you their version of the news. And there are all kinds of stores and restaurants and time-killing diversions.

And this is where I get to the very unimportant point of this particular entry.

I have several favorites. Not every airport has all of these things, but this can serve as my way of lobbying to that end.

Here are my top 10 favorite time-killers in the major airports of the world, in no particular order:

1) Starbucks: come on, I know it’s cooler to hate the big corporation, but I need my fix. I NEED IT!

2) Cinnabon: holy moley, what is in these things? There are very few people who I wouldn’t gladly karate chop in the throat to get my hands on an icing-covered treat from this place.

3) Brookstone/Sharper Image: don’t care which one. I always find a way to get some kind of free robotic massage kind of thing when I go in these stores. I have never bought a single thing at any one of them, but there are no signs saying “don’t put your foot in this contraption unless you can afford to buy it.” This, kids, is called a loophole, and I boldly jump thru it like a camel thru the eye of a massive, jumbo-size needle.

4)Smoothie Bar: there are several versions, the most common (as far as I can tell) being a place called The Grove. I’m no health nut, but sometimes, during a long day of travel, fruit-pretending-to-be-a-milkshake is the only way to purge the nasty travel sheen that stains the core of the sojourner.

5) Bookstore: I rarely buy books at these places, but when I do, it’s because I’m in desperate need. I’m pretty serious about the reading, and I’ve bought more than my share of Harlan Coben or Robert Ludlum in airport bookstores. And I’ve bought more entertainment magazines than I care to admit. I mean, if I’m jonesing for a Brangelina fix, I’d rather satisfy it in a place where nobody knows me. Don’t act like you don’t relate.

6) Bathroom: the bathrooms at airports are almost always clean, roomy, and well-lit. How many public bathrooms can boast of that? In addition, they are increasingly automated, hi-tech and (as much as possible) germ-conscious. Lots of hands-free devices and motion sensors and protective paper circles and whatnot. I won’t be crass (I mean, not anymore than I have been), but on a day that involves a lot of sitting and coffee consuming, a good, dependable bathroom haven is important. I’m just saying.

7) Not-nailed-down rows of connected chairs: if you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself in a spot with this little-known-about amenity. Of course you’ve sat in those welded-together chair-chains that are in every airport in the whole world, but they’re only unpleasant when they are connected to the floor by industrial bolts. When they aren’t, you can drag those suckers as far as you’re willing to, and put together a sleeping contraption of your own design. Once you’ve got it fully assembled you will, for a moment, feel as if you deserve your own Discovery Channel show. Then that moment will pass and you’ll fall into a fitful, cramp-inducing semi-sleep.

8) Arcade: these aren’t very common in airports anymore (which is dumb, because they’d get lots of my money and, therefore, a good chunk of my heart as well), but they are a treat when you can get them. I think I’ve already established that I am a 9th Level MegaWizard in the world of vintage video games. Is anybody surprised at this? I mean, nunchucks and comic books? This is the completion of my Nerd Trait Trifecta. I am not ashamed.

9) Automated Sidewalks: there are very few places where you can feel like you have superpowers (which is sad, I think). This genius of engineering is one. If you break into a full run on one of these things (which is totally easy to do because people are always running in airports), you will be momentarily transformed into a panther-quick superhero. Just be sure and slow down before you get to the end. If you step off this device at a full run, there will be consequences, and they will be ugly. Every Superman has his Kryptonite, and to Automated-Sidewalk-Man, it’s the regular, not-moving-at-all floor.

10) Starbucks: I know I already said it, but on a long layover/delay, I usually go twice. I have an addiction. I love the sweet, semi-narcotic ambrosia of the Americano, the Cappucino and, even (gasp!), the Macchiato. Say it with me. I am not ashamed.

Okay, that’s enough time wasted. Be on the lookout for more of these in coming months. There's no end to my prolificacy when I'm bored.

Also, this week I’ll update at least one more time. I’ve got more tour and CD news, but I’ve already taken too much of your time with this nonsense.

I’ll leave you with this. Next time you’re in a major airport, if you hear the sound of quarters bouncing and clashing together, and if you see a blurry, super-fast figure carrying a latte and a magazine with TomKat on the cover, you just may be in the presence of Automated Sidewalk Man. And he may be on his way to the arcade. Or he may be rushing desperately to find a clean, roomy, well-lit place. Either way, it’s best to just let him pass.

I’m just saying.

various miscellany

Coupla things that may be of interest to some of you.

First, the new CD is now available for pre-sale here. The release date is Sept 10 (maybe sooner, though), but you can go ahead and order one (or five) now. I'm excited. Go order one, or at least go look at the cool artwork done by AM Design.

Second, all of my CD projects, except for the new one, are now on iTunes. I'd link to it here, but that would only take you to the audiobooks page of an author who has the coolest name ever, and apparently deserves to have first claim to it. I'm bitter. Anyway, I've had a couple of records on there for a while, but my pal Britt Norvell helped me get the rest up this past week. Since a couple of my records are currently out of print, this is pretty much the only way to get them. Tell your friends. Buy lots of stuff.

Third, I've put most of my fall schedule on my website. It includes the house show tours, which are still being updated and planned, and also my worship gigs, as well as the Sundays when I'll be at Community Church.

Here's something cool. I have like 5-6 out-of-town worship gigs in the fall, and all of them but one are with Voddie Baucham. He's a good friend and, as many of you know, an amazing preacher/teacher. Between being with him several times and getting to plan my own tours, I'm getting really excited about my travels. It's still more "being gone" than I've had in a while, and I know it will be tough time away from my family, but I feel like very excited about it all.

Coupla mo things...
I'm still trying to figure out when/where to do all the Texas venues, but hopefully that will get worked out soon. I'm hoping to do shows in these great TX towns, and maybe a few others:

Bryan/College Station (of course)
D/FW
Houston
Austin
San Antonio
Lufkin (Todd? Chris? I haven't forgotten about you guys)

I also really want to try to figure out a second set of PA/NY/MD shows and, hopefully, the oft-mentioned-but-never-materialized Florida tour.

Sorry this post is only boring data, but not every post can have car wrecks and nunchucks.

Go.

It's official, and it only took me about 3 months longer than I said it would. I've finally confirmed the first 2 out-of-state legs of the Su Casa es Mi Casa tour of tiny venues.

Here's the first one:

Sept 6 Stillwater, OK
Sept 7 Clever, MO
Sept 8-9 Wichita, KS

***I'd be happy to do a house show in OK or KS on the 5th or the 10th. Anybody interested? Let me know asap.

And here's the second one:

Sept 18-19 Reisterstown, MD
Sept 20 Reading, PA
Sept 21-22 Chesapeake Bay, MD
Sept 23 Lancaster, PA

That's all I can do in the NE area on that leg, but I am definitely planning on going back in November. So those of you who missed out on this one, be patient as I try to fit you in on the next leg. Either way, let me know if you live in/around any of these areas, and I'll get you more details so that maybe you can check out a show near you. Also, all you NY and northern PA folks, I didn't forget about you. I'm just trying not to be out longer than 7 days or so, and with travel, this tour is about maxed out.

Hey, I can't thank all of you enough for encouraging me thru this process. The tours haven't even started yet, and I'm already really affirmed and excited. Keep coming around and giving me feedback.

That's all for today. Next thing on my tour planning list is working out Texas shows. Also, I'm still trying to see if the Florida tour is going to work. It's been the toughest one to organize, but I still have hope. I mean, it's Florida, so I wanna go.

Until then, Buck Savage (above) says "thumbs up." And that, I know, gives comfort to us all.

Okay, fine.

My pal Johnny “tagged” me. Boy o boy, do I hate stuff like this. But I love Johnny, with his super-good drumming and his deep-theology-talking and his martini-drinkin’, so I’ll do it for him. But all I’m doing is posting the facts. I’m not following any of the other rules. Like a good theonomist, Johnny loves the law. Not me. I’m free from it.

Two warnings. First, some of these are pretty crazy facts. One of my friends once told me that I’m the “great unintentional one-upper,” because I have so many weird stories and such. I told him that, if it made him feel any better, most of the weird stories were miserable experiences.

Second, I don't write facts in bullet-point sentences. I write them in narrative essays. Hey, I'm a writer, and if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it my own way.

At any rate, here are my SEVEN RANDOM FACTS:

1) I have a decent-sized comic book collection. Probably around 300-400. Haven’t bought one in about 20 years, but from ages 10-15 or so, I was a full-on geek, hanging out in comic bok stores talking about how DC was lame and Marvel was the coolest (no duh). In many ways, I still am the geek (no duh).

1) I have a weirdly good ability to do nunchucks (or, nunchaku, as they are known in the martial arts world). During that above-mentioned time period of geekdom, I was also into ninjas and stuff (it was the 80’s, and I was a stuttering kid who sucked at sports), and I thought it would be a cool thing to try and learn. Thad has video somewhere of me doing them at the ComChurch Talent Show a few years ago. Yes, my church has a talent show, and yes, nunchucks were my act.

3) Three years ago, I ran over someone with my car. This fact has the potential to sort of “trump” the whole thing, because it’s really like 15 crazy, random facts in one.
a) I hit a teenage girl, and she lived, and only sustained relatively minor injuries, even though I hit her with a suburban going 45 miles an hour.
b) She sued me, and it went all the way to court, so I had to actually go sit on a witness stand and all that stuff that people usually only experience on TV. In the end, I was absolved. It didn't make the experience much better.
c) I had to ride in a police car.
d) I’m pretty sure I encountered an angel that night on the road, while waiting for the cops to work it all out. She was black and elderly, and very much like a kindly grandmother, only she spoke with authority and supernatural knowledge about the circumstances of the accident. See? Random.
e) I had to have a blood test (sobriety). I passed it, and the hospital charged me $1000. Cool.
f) I had to hire a lawyer for one day (the day after the wreck), and it cost me $1400. Cool.

4) On Halloween night several years ago, I was hit by a drunk driver. It was like one of those pseudo-wrecks in TV car chases, when the good guy tries to knock the bad guy’s car off the road. I was the bad guy. He drove right past me and slammed into the side of my car as he went. I was fine, but my Nissan truck was pretty smashed up. I gave chase, and when we finally pulled over, another car pulled in, and a dude jumped out and started beating up the drunk. Apparently they had history. It was weird.

5) I only have about 70% of my hearing in my left ear (and I own a recording studio, by the way), and when they first discovered it, they thought I might have a brain tumor. I had to lay down in that MRI machine and everything. Not a tumor. Just can’t hear perfectly in one ear.(This is why Keith does the mixing at The MixLab.)

6) I have actually used the “barf bag” on a plane (see above photo). The plane was taxi-ing, about to take off when it happened, and the flight attendant (a very feminine male wearing eye make-up) started screaming like a girl about viruses and stuff, and they parked the plane and made me get off. For several flights after that, I was “flagged” by the TSA folks and searched during security. (For the record, the bag holds about three heaves of stomach stew before overflowing, which mine did. Also for the record, the flight attendants keep plastic shopping bags around in case of overflow.)

7) I once got in a fight with a dog. Long story, but I’ll give the highlights. 14-15 years old. At the house of a friend-of-a-friend. Great Dane. Nobody in the room but me and Marmaduke, who takes a rather erotic liking to my leg. I “resist” (no means no). He perseveres. I continue to resist, and growling/hostility ensues. In a panic, I punch him, pretty hard, in the ear, 2-3 times. This apparently has some affect on his sense of balance, and he backs away, looking stunned and dizzy. Dog owners enter the room, confused. I avoid the randy mutt for the remainder of the day. True story.

Strangely, I’m leaving out tons of story-worthy stuff, including a life-and-death whitewater canoeing incident on the Rio Grande, a fistfight at a funeral, a massive river rat fought – but not killed – with a tennis racket in my first apartment, a mouse in my bed (and on my back!) in my second apartment, a front-end loader bucket landing on my head, and getting kicked out of a Baptist camp for defending a preacher’s from-the-stage use of the word “penis.” All true, all random. I’m living la vida loca, for sure.

I won’t officially “tag” anyone, because I’m too cool for such nonsense, but I will say that I’d love to see what kind of hilarious fun Thad could have with this. Thad, do what you want with that. The rest of my blog pals are off the hook. Johnny, tell Jenni that I’m “breaking the chain,” and please pray that bad things don’t happen to me because of it. Isn’t that what usually happens here?

spittin' distance

That's how close I am to finishing this crazy record. Kids, I've somehow worked myself into a summer that had only 3 normal "camp" weeks (I usually do 6-8 weeks), and is still as busy as ever. Between finishing this project and planning this tour, I'm feeling a little looney. But we're on the home stretch.

In fact, this past week has been kind of a clean-up time. I've been finishing up vocals and acoustics. Below are some pics from a couple of sessions:

My friend Greg Smith gave me a free guitar last year (this isn't it). Now he just shows up every once in a while with something really expensive and says, "try this one out for a while." The above pic is me tuning the limited addition Breedlove that he's trying to sell (it costs more than my car, and isn't as comfortable to sit in). It's really a finger-style guitar, so it actually didn't mesh that well with my basher-smasher style of playing, but I used it on a few of my slower tunes. Guitar nerds: begin salivating!

Look at the above pic, if you dare, and gaze upon the razor-sharp intensity of a 4-chord-playing, super-fast-strumming psycho-genius of indie soft rock.

This is my hottie wife rubbin' the funk on it. All aformentioned salivating must now cease. Cease, I say!

Keith Sewell, my studio partner at The MixLab, editing some of my vocals, probably trying to figure out how hard the AutoTune plug-in is going to have to work to keep me from sounding like William Hung and Stevie Nicks' illegitimate lovechild.

All in all, good sessions, good results. I keep saying I'm going to get you guys some rough mixes, and I really intend to, but forgive me for being a little nervous about showing my unfinished work. OK, I'll make this promise. The people who frequent this blog will have first chance at hearing some of this stuff. Deal? Deal.

And I really will have the tours worked out soon. I'm on the very cusp (the cusp!) of finalizing the first PA/NY/MD leg, the OK/KS/MO leg, and the San Antonio shows. I'm ready, but I'm waiting on contacts from a few folks (Lance! Rob!) to get back to me.

That be all.

trying out some stuff

Don't know if this blog template is better or worse than the black. don't know if there's anything less important in life than that question. just trying to keep things interesting around here.

Also, waiting on one phone call and one email to have the OK/KS/MO and PA/MD/NY tours finalized. I'm definitely going to have to go to the northeast more than once, unless I want to stay for like 10-12 days at a time. As a husband of a hot wife and a father of two squishy dudes, that option es no bueno.

Finally, check out the pic. This is from my photo session with Ari (see older post to read about my diva-like antics in front of the camera). Staci brought the kids along, and after we were done getting 100's of shots of me looking cool and ripped, Ari offered to get a couple of me looking cool and ripped while my kid is on my shoulders. I won't use this one for the CD cover, but i thought it was cool anyway. We did something like this with Sam on Famous 2, so my wife thought it would be cute and all.





Hello! She was right.

File under "Juicy Details of the Rock Star Life"

Here's something I wrote today while trying to get home. I don't promise that it's interesting. Only that it's true.


Picture this:

It’s around noon on Monday, and I’m in the Tupelo Regional Airport. I’ve been here maybe an hour. The airport, that is. I’ve been in Tupelo since Saturday afternoon. Too long. Not because of Tupelo or the work/ministry I’ve been doing here. That actually went really, really well. Just too long because Tupelo isn’t home. Too long because I stayed in a hotel room by myself for a couple of nights. And too long because I missed my flight going out this morning. I was scheduled to be landing in College Station around 12:30 in the afternoon, and instead, because of a couple of dumb mistakes on my part, I’ll be flying out about that time and arriving home tonight.

So, too long in Tupelo. Make sense?

The airport is under construction, so it’s kind of a mess. After going thru security, I found myself in the “waiting area” (conveniently marked by a sheet of 8x11 paper with “waiting area” written in Sharpie), which is a essentially an oddly shaped temporary room with unfinished sheetrock for walls and some kind of net for a ceiling. I don’t know what the net is for. The real ceiling, which has a surprisingly lovely skylight, is a few feet above it. The net, held together by plastic ties and green nylon cord, does not help the look.

There are maybe 30 chairs in the waiting area and, including me, 11 of them are occupied. Here’s the demographic breakdown, just because I’ve got some time:
4 elderly (65 or older), 7 non-senior adults, no kids.
3 women, 8 men.
8 white, 3 black, no latino, asian, or other.
1 cliché redneck-ish dude (see below), 1 member of the armed forces, 9 people who could be anybody (unless you single out the 1 self-indulged, wannabe-celebrity goofball typing on his computer, judging people without their knowledge).

Decent cultural breakdown. Considering the image that Mississippi has been known to have (fair or not), I’d say one possible redneck out of 11 isn’t bad. Go Tupelo.

Directly across from me sits the poor fellow whom I have unfairly stereotyped – though not unfondly – as a possible redneck. He is significantly overweight (just a fact, kids, not a criticism), and he sports a camouflage cap and mirror shades with that "someone spilled oil on these" look (fact and criticism). He is asleep and, I’m not kidding you, he is snoring as loud as any snoring I have ever heard. Every few minutes, one of two things is happening. Either his snoring wakes him up, at which time he looks around and sniffs a little (Why? What does he smell?), and then he promptly goes back to sleep. Or, and this is where things are getting really fun, he has these short bursts of what I will now call Super-Duper-Sonic-Rain-of-Death snoring. It’s a long name, I know, but you’d have to be here to understand. This dude sounds like he’s trying to cut down a sapling with a push mower on a wet day.

It is, in a word, awesome.

Nobody wants to talk about it, by the way. The snoring, I mean. Several times, I have burst into laughter, quite loudly. People look at me when it happens, as if that’s the weirdest loud noise that they’ve heard all day. As if mega-loud snoring in public is apropos, but noticing it is faux pas. Far as I can tell, the only other people free enough to laugh are the black people. This only goes to support my longstanding theory that, at least in America, the black culture is a great deal more liberated, honest, and fun-loving than we whites, who tend toward an over-emphasis on pretense, phoniness and unnecessary manners.

So, every so often, 4 of us are having a good laugh. Since I have no control over how long I will sit here, and since Camo Cap shows no signs of nasal wellness, I have hopes that before it’s all over, the laughers will convert the non-laughers and all will be one, united in our humorous enjoyment of one poor soul’s public sleep habits. It’s a cruel world, indeed. But when you’re stuck in Tupelo, you gotta laugh to keep from crying.

Okay, time to board. That concludes our discussion of the mundane.