June 3rd, 2004.

Walking into the Common Grounds Coffee and Tea House of Arlington, Virginia – at first glance it’s kind of comical. Laptops have sprung at every table like mushrooms, and the outdoor sunshine is almost drown out by the blue-white computer LCD glow. Even upstairs, where the doors haven’t officially opened yet, there are already three machines churning out their silicon essence.

Jake Stephens with his yellow guitar in a yellow room. I realize now who his voice reminds me of - Will Schaff... and if you don't know who THAT is, you bloody well SHOULD!
Jake Stephens with his yellow guitar in a yellow room. I realize now who his voice reminds me of – Will Schaff… and if you don’t know who THAT is, you bloody well SHOULD!

Most of the time, I feel pretty confident when it comes to the size of my laptop. My screen’s pretty big, and even when I see something that’s obviously got a couple of inches on me, I can walk tall with the confidence that mine works harder. But there’s this Dell in the corner, built on the scale of James’ machine back in Catonsville… big and blocky – and it looks too sleek to be an average performer. I’m feeling a bit of anxiousness, a little bit of Dell envy. My Alienware is worrying that it might not compete with the creature in the corner.

A beautiful girl in the beautiful light.
A beautiful girl in the beautiful light.

Jake starts up, yellow guitar and deep voice that begins to remind me more and more of Will Schaff’s old Noel the Coward voice – and it looks like it’s going to be a rough night. I don’t see anyone we know, and the night’s “filling in” with about ten people here to see Jake.

I started out the night kind of annoyed, since we couldn’t find any of our posters up (we eventually found one – not on the front door or on the bulletin board, but in a darkened stairwell) – not that I’m a great believer in the draw power of posters… I think I’ve only had one person come up to me and say that they’d never heard of us, never heard us, but that they HAD to come because of the poster… I met Rowan Corbett because he “had to see music that sounded like what those posters look like”.  But every bit helps.

And every little hurt… hurts.

Hehe – Jake has a song called “Take it Up the Road Again”. It’s probably only me who finds that amusing, isn’t it? I guess my head has been in this sort of mood – as I’m going through my skull, exploring my stage banter options, I keep coming back to the fact that there are two big reasons why people should buy our CD. Those two reasons are hairy and I’ll show them to people if they ask, but really, let’s just say I need new pants.

My Dad’s going to just shake his head with shame when he reads that.


And of course, whenever I get overconfident, the world cuts me down – but in the same fashion, whenever I’m worried about a show, it goes spectacularly. We got rave responses from all of Jake’s friends, as well as passerbys and the woman who does booking at Common Grounds. We made our quota, and surpassed, and Julia Rose showed up out of nowhere and complimented my eyes.

Sigh.

Life is, indeed… very good. Also, we’ve got the right car adapter for my laptop, and I can either write to you… or play Starcraft alllll the waaay home. Ah – Full moon and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” on the radio. I gotta kill. Sorry.

A FALLING STAR!!! Driving home, north on 95 – meteor streaking down, creating a path down the sky. WISH WISH WISH!!!

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