Audience at the Point. Incredible open mic. Singing anime cellist, beautiful art - chick guitarist (with A CHEETAH CASE!!!), spectacular female pianist, cool sort of slap jazz harpist... great place.
Sept 4th, 2003.
Well, I must admit, I'm worried about what it all means. Last night's
open mic - we wandered about a mile through the underbelly of the gallery
district of Philadelphia, only to find that the "Lionfish Arts
Cafe" had been closed and remodeled into some sort of Italian restaurant.
Tonight, the spot we were GOING to hit had cancelled their open mic for the summer. So, we call about half a dozen places looking for an open mic that DOES exist. Find one in the Music Box - a music school in New Jersey. We drive over to that (GORGEOUS suspension bridge, lost in mist) spot only to discover that a) New Jersey really DOES smell as bad as they say, b) there is actually a posh section of New
Jersey, and c) the woman who said "why yes, Thursday's open mic is on, it's the best night of the week" was completely, and utterly misinformed.
There are no left turns or Uies allowed in the whole of the state. You have to drive OUT of the state to turn around and go back to where you came. Or they shoot you. We had eaten Philly Cheese Steaks in Philadelphia, so I tried to lick a Jersey Barrier in Jersey. Heather wouldn't let me - and we had to have sushi instead.
Sigh.
Sept. 5, 2003
There was a solid ten minutes during which
time I did not know what state I was in: Maryland, Delaware, or Pennsylvania.
But when it was finally sorted out, we were in a Villanova college-town
bar full of dim lighting and dark woods, windows of etched glass.
And I’ve already been dubbed “the organized one” because I go reaching for a binder any time someone starts giving me business cards or tells me their name. I guess it’s my way. The hardest thing for me about this trip is going to be finding my own personal creative style. Maybe it means fighting my natural inclination toward practicality and all that.
New York scares me a little and I’m more than happy to delay it. It’s huge and full of people doing what we are and places for them to do it, but not full of very many parking spaces. New York just scares me in general. The first time I went there with Jayson, on the way back into the tunnel to head home there was a disheveled, but not homeless-looking, man walking the yellow line as the two lanes of cars made their way slowly into the tunnel mouth. He was carrying a cardboard sign scrawled with, “I CAN’T RELAX!” on it.
So New York scares me. Yay for little Pennsylvania college town bars.