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May 11, 2002
Awoke to sample the hotel’s
"delicious breakfast", Strolled down to the hotel restaurant where
there was some sort of Born-Again Christian seminar going on in the
conference room next to the breakfast room. Just what we all need
after a night of sauced up fun. NOT! I phoned Bob’s wife to see if
there was an update on the RV. She said that she had heard from him,
that the weather was still horrible and that the windshield wipers
conked out on him. He didn’t want to stop to get them fixed since that
might take five minutes or it might take 5 hours. Bob wanted to get
home as soon as possible and sacrificed the ease of seeing where
you’re going in order to make it to Dayton in time. Beth was expecting
him later that night… roughly around 10pm.
The fact that I’ve reconnected with Bob after all these years is very
strange indeed. I was really close with Bob’s family from the age of
15 until I moved to London when I was 24. Carrie, Bob’s sister was a
best pal in high school and also was on South Side Video with me the
first year we were on. Amy, Bob’s other sister was a best pal in
college and partner in crime after Carrie left South Side Video. Amy
accompanied me on almost all the interviews I did with SSV… she
sometimes ran camera and I interviewed the bands. We later went on to
host SSV together and were known as the Amy Love Sandwich. A sandwich
can be achieved by posing for a grip and grin photo with the rocker in
the middle and an Amy on each end. Jake, Bob’s brother was also a good
pal and one of the funniest guys I’ve known. Bob was the oldest and I
knew him the least but he was always the nicest man on the planet. I
lost touch with the whole family over the years and often wondered
what they were all up to since so many of my teenage hours were spent
with one sibling or the other. When I went home this past Christmas, I
called information to see if any of the crew were listed and got Bob’s
number. Bob was lovely on the phone and gave me the gossip and phone
numbers of all the siblings. I remember him telling me that he was a
house husband for the most part and was thinking of moving to Montana,
where Jake now lives.
When I was in Portland, I had to try and find someone from Dayton who
would be willing to drive the RV across the country, ultimately ending
up in Dayton. It was tough since I was trying to think of someone who
I wouldn’t kill on the cross country journey and who I would actually
enjoy and feel safe with…Bob came to mind. Bob’s whole family is
hilarious and Bob is no exception. As fate would have it, Bob was in
Montana when I was in Portland and was faced with the dilemma of
either driving the RV home to Dayton or riding a Greyhound 44 hours to
Dayton. He chose the RV! Initially, we were supposed to do the drive
together but he very bravely offered to drive it on his own once I
chickened out and wanted to get the hell out of there and get to
Chicago. Bob’s a man with a mission and I had every confidence that he
could drive the Cruisemaster to us and deliver it safely to the
birthplace of aviation. (that’s Dayton, you know.)
I called all my Dayton pals to see if they wanted to go play that day
but they were all busy doing family stuff (it was mother’s day
weekend). I ended up crashing Glenn’s party and went with them to
Louisville, KY where Glenn was to play at a Triple A radio conference.
Triple A is a radio format called Adult Album Alternative and it is
the only radio format that Glenn’s current music fits into. The drive
to KY is a three hour one and we stopped in Cincinnati on the way. Why
did we stop in Cincy you may ask? So Glenn could shop at a men’s
clothing store called the House of Adam. Hmmm…how to describe the
House of Adam….let’s just say that it is the clothing store to famous
rap stars and Bootsy Collins. Glenn and the rest of the male
contingent wanted to buy a zoot suit and the House of Adam offers such
suits or bargain prices. Glenn tried on a fantastic gold sparkly
number but they didn’t have his size. My favorite was the bright
purple striped suit with matching purple hat and feather…but the fit
wasn’t right. Jeff opted for a very tasteful colorful three piece suit
and Pete ended up getting a somber yet dashing black suit. My pal Andy
called me to tell me that the feedback he had gotten from the gig last
night was a hearty “thumbs up”. I forgot to mention his fantastic
website: www.bigbeef.com. He is a
very groovy musical/tv/multimedia guru and has very kindly linked to
our site. Please visit his site and then go forth and moo! He also
told me how great he thought Glenn was after hearing me talk about him
for the past ten years. I love it when others feel the Glenn love. We
then dined at a yummy Cajun place and I grilled Jeff about his musical
past. I’ve always been a big fan of the "pub rock" scene in London and
proceeded to probe Jeff about playing the Marquee Club and what the
vibe was like, etc… I think the rest of the table was amused at my
interest but it was fun to listen to Jeff talk about the London vibe
since I grew up in Dayton.
We continued the conversation in the van to Louisville, which caused
Gill to dub me the ‘waffle house’. “Waffle” is a quaint English term
for talking someone’s ear off. Another quaint English term I’ve heard
thrown in my direction is ‘gob shite’. I’ll leave the definition to
your own imagination. After sucking Jeff into the waffle house, we
arrived in Louisville with plenty of time to spare and proceeded to
sit outside in the courtyard to hear the other artists play. I was
bummed that we would have to miss Rufus Wainwright since I love
him…but was anxious to see Glenn win over the crowd. Jillian, the cool
rock chick from WAR records was there to usher us around and to
introduce us to programming folk. It was great seeing her again since
we hit it off in Boulder and her enthusiasm for the radio folks to
love Glenn as much as we do was infectious. Before Glenn went onstage,
a few very young, nervous fans approached him for pictures and an
autograph. Gill and I commented to each other how precious it was. The
poor fan was shaking, he was so nervous. I later went up to them to
let them know that we had t-shirts if they were interested and the
young guy told me how much he loved Glenn and how much Glenn inspired
him as a musician. How lovely is that?
Glenn sang a short set of about 30 minutes but quickly won the crowd
over. I must admit to having my doubts on how the set would go since
we were outside in a courtyard with a street running down the middle.
An ice cream truck had decided to park right behind the stage tinkling
some annoying ice cream truck song just as Glenn was going onstage.
Luckily, the ice cream truck moved along (one second more and I was
ready to scream for NO ice cream) and Glenn took the crowd on one of
his adventures. He hopped off stage and ended up drawing the audience
in closer to him as he climbed on top of the fountain and sang Goodbye
Girl. Luckily, the fountain had been turned off but I suspect that
Glenn probably would have jumped in regardless. After the show, we
sold a few CD’s and Glenn met some radio folk. According to Jillian,
everyone dug Glenn in a big way and she couldn’t wait to hear back
from everyone upon her return to Boulder. Glenn drove us back to
Dayton and this time Pete was in the Waffle House for most of the
journey. I was grateful that someone else got the dubious title for a
bit. But funnily enough, I’m the one Pete was talking to so maybe the
Waffle House residency has something to do with me…..hmmmmm….We made a
brief gas/restroom break once we crossed the Ohio state line and Gill
proceeded to stock up on every flavor of Mike Sells potato chips that
they had…I’ve created a Mike Sells addict! I had to laugh as she
struggled to get the 7 or 8 bags of potato chips on to the counter.
Got a call from Bob’s wife Beth, who heard from Bob around
Indianapolis. She said that he blew a tire and was getting it fixed
and had no idea what time he would be expected in Dayton. She
estimated 10pm or so and promised to call with any further news. We
decided to go to dinner and then hopefully spend the night in the RV
afterwards. Doug joined us for yummy tapas and although we were tired,
we had a fantastic time laughing and eating. After stretching out
dinner as long as possible, we were all feeling homeless and so
decided to get a hotel since it was getting late and lids were getting
heavy. We figured that Bob would get to Dayton in the wee hours and we
might as well just pick up the Cruisemaster in the morning. Did you
see the movie Almost Famous? I always (cynically) thought that the bit
where they all spontaneously broke into "Tiny Dancer" was the
cheesiest part of the movie. I’ve been on many a tour bus and I can
safely say that in all those instances, we never broke into song.
Well, in the van on the way home, someone in the back suddenly burst
into John Denver’s "Country Roads". Don’t ask me why! Just as quickly
as it was started though, it came to a very funny ending, which
would’ve made my mom blush. Oh, to have a tape recorder at moments
such as these….
Pulling into the hotel was a bit like an I Love Lucy sketch with me
behind the wheel of the gigantic van. Of course, a certain impatient
pop person thought that he could do a better job of parking the van
but I was having none of his backseat driving. As I squealed the van
around the corner, there he was in my headlights. The thought of
putting my foot down on the accelerator seemed unbelievably appealing
at that precise moment but as always, all was forgiven and I turned
the wheel at the last minute. I then said in a whiny voice "My name is
Glenn and I’m the BEST DRIVER IN THE WHOLE WORLD." He looked
appropriately scolded and said, "Okay…I’m the second best driver." And
I thought this was the key difference between men and women. I don’t
think that I’m the best driver in the world and don’t care…but
Glenn/men think that they are. When I was behind the wheel a few weeks
back in Colorado, Glenn very helpfully pointed out that I was not
keeping a safe distance between our van and the car in front of me on
the highway. I said nothing and continued driving, secretly wanting to
kick him in his one good leg. Once his injury was healed and he was
able to get behind the wheel, however, Glenn thought nothing of RIDING
THE ASS of the cars in front of us. When I pointed out the, oh, I
don’t know, slightly hypocritical nature of his critiquing, he then
went on to explain that his driving was completely different since his
tailgating was purely for ‘risk assessment’ purposes. He drives me
crazy and if he didn’t make me laugh so much, I would probably belt
him one. Of course, having said this, I never once got on Glenn’s
nerves in any way, shape or form. I may not be the perfect driver but
I’m definitely the perfect person.
We checked into the hotel and lugged all of our stuff in…the Clampetts
arrive in Dayton! Tired but not too tired for a wee party in Jeff and
Gill’s room, we had some drinks and surfed the net. Glenn and Zan
wanted to read the latest journal entry….they were suspiciously quiet
as they read about the RV rolling on top of Fred and Jeff and Gill
wanted to check the English Football scores. I tried brandy for the
first time in my life (anything more than a six pack of Gennesee’s
Little Kings is exotic for this white trash girl.)
[Blasphemy! Gennesee does not make
Little Kings! – jp] It was
pretty smooooooth and was like drinking fire so I passed on the brandy
and went to bed. We all went to bed with visions of the Cruisemaster’s
safe return in our heads.
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