Last night was another of our disappointment moments. The Desert Rain, or wherever we were going last night… two addresses, one from openmikes.com and one from their website. Relatively close together, we couldn’t get a person on the phone, but went on the basis that their website was very very up to date. – Sigh. One address didn’t exist, and the other was some sort of burnt out steely bike shop. Add that to the list:
Rules of the Trip:
1) NO HOT DOGS.
2) NO BACON MUSHROOM CHEESEBURGERS
3) ALWAYS CARRY A CAMERA
4) ALWAYS CALL AHEAD, AND IF YOU DON’T GET AN ANSWER, DON’T GO!!!!
Oh, and this morning, rule five… I came up with it during possibly one of the best showers of my LIFE (Will’s water pressure is spectacular!) – but he’s got these little net things in the shower curtain sort of like shelves but they don’t hold everything up at a solid angle so they sort of splay everywhere, which really was the impetus for rule five…
5) ALWAYS ASCERTAIN THE LOCATION OF ALL BACKSCRUBBY STICKS, RANDOM POLE-THINGS, AND LOOFAH DEVICES BEFORE BENDING OVER IN A NEW SHOWER.
Sheesh. Nothing too bad, just… definately a wake-up call, and a bit more intimate of an experience than I was ready for.
Strange to be sitting in the next room – listening to Will listening to me. Will started i love you and I Miss You. In Baltimore, he was the one inspired by the stickers, I was just sort of contemptuous when I found out who it was. They caught my eye, but when I heard it was GREG… well…
Anywho, I was already smitten with some sort of level of fanboy sickness when Will approached me about i love you And I Miss You, and asked me to be a part of it, I just about died in a little wriggle of joy.
So, I come back to him every couple of years with my music on my back and place them on a little sacrificial altar to Will Schaff – the writer I Loved in college. And now I listen from the next room and wonder what he’s hearing, wonder what he’s thinking about what he’s hearing. I remember at one point he thought I was going in too “poppy” of a direction – and mortified though I was, I know I haven’t really turned around. I know my tastes are much more conventional than his… It’s funny how I criticize Heather for only ever taking into account one person’s opinion… and here I am, knowing that no matter how much really good feedback we’ve gotten on the album, if Will shoots it down – well, it’ll take my pride down a notch or two. It’s the danger of admiration, I suppose.
WHOA – now there’s something I NEVER thought I’d hear… Will’s playing accordian along to Deep in the AM. I’m just about ready to die… TWEE!! And dear lord, I think he’s going to do the whole album now. Sever’s just a little strange with that addition.
Anywho, between the dancing and the dogs, I’m trying to sort photographs… here’s the sleeping bags in the Saturn back from day One – we’ve since given up on carrying two of the damned things, and hence regained that whole rear-view mirror thing.
The second photo is the now packed interior of the College Perk in College Park – it’s amazing what the owner, Chris, has put together in the past couple of months.
Will goes to the park… with all of the dogs. The owners don’t know one another’s names, they just know one another by the dogs’ names (presumably cause that’s what everyone’s screaming all the time)
Will and Corinna (not named for the DAMN DYLAN TUNE!)
Providence, Rhode Island seems pretty idyllic in a lot of ways. Late-night sushi restaurants are always a sign of true city class, as are dog parks.
The dogs came as a surprise.
Back in Baltimore, I knew Will as the owner of many dead things. The one Live creature, Fallsway (the cat – also a superhero) was an anomoly. Here I find him surrounded with two dogs (Freddie and Corinna) and… I think it’s four cats. Lemme see – there’s Stryker (insane foot assassin), a big fluffy black one with a limp that I haven’t caught the name of, aaand… and there’s Little Cunt (L.C.) who apparently pees on things that smell of Will. Maybe there’s only three cats. Oh yeah, and there’s Joelle, but she’s human and owns the apartment.
Comfort levels? Well, Freddie now feels free to ask us to root around in his ear so he can lick his earwax off our fingers, Corinna just wants to lick us, Stryker wants to kill us, but is still pretending to want belly rubs to gain our trust. Mostly I think he wants to render us incapable of keeping him away from our bananas, which he seems to desire. Oh, the fluffy one just wants Love, and L.C… well, she’s lying in wait to pee. Ah, pee.
Will sits on the floor, inadvertantly gluing dog-hair tumbleweeds to his art. It is a difficult environment.
So, the dog park. A place of energy and freedom and occassional unexpected poo. Dog feces, though a rarity, shared its joy with us in mounds of many sizes.
A sunny day with Sonny – he’s also one of the original members of i love you And I Miss You, and has continued to release music under that moniker. Here he is being ravaged by Mischief. (he also has a Japanese name, I think, and only responds to commands in French).
Will and Jolene and Freddie and Corinna, off to the dog park.
