I am sitting in the back seat of a van in the driveway of my childhood home in Yakima with my two estranged stepsisters and one’s husband, drinking a concoction that the younger stepsister made from lemonade, vodka and whiskey or something.  We are sitting and talking awkwardly, and the husband calls me by a different name, so I say automatically, “You mean Todd.”  He gives me a little laugh and shrugs it off.   I set down my mostly full glass, stand up, climb out of the van, and walk across the front yard into the house.

As soon as I get inside, the dream’s location changes to that of a busy office setting.  I duck into the bathroom, pull down my pants, and start to. . .um. . .go Number Two.  As I’m doing that, the door starts to open.  It’s C, one of my real-life friends, so I tell him, “Hey, I’ll be out in a second.”  I reach over to lock the door, but the lock is broken.  I stand by the door, pants down, and try to  maneuver the door into position in such a way that it will latch and lock.  C says, “Oh yeah, I think they said something about the lock being messed up.  Here let me just [he opens the door enough to reach through] try and jimmy it.”

I say, “Just. . .hang on.  I’ll be done pretty quick.  Let me finish up in here first.”  C ignores me and continues to fidget with the door.  Pretty soon, there are five or six people walking around in the large bathroom, which turns out to be sort of a hallway that leads elsewhere in the building; a very high-traffic area normally.  I tug at my pants and tell everyone that I’m almost done, and that they should be patient for just another minute.  I finally get them corralled out the door, when a co-worker of mine runs into the room, smiling mischievously, knowing that she’s consciously disturbing me.

I make a sort of growling noise under my breath, and she asks, “What?”  She has her hand over her mouth, and is clearly trying not to laugh, which makes me totally furious.

I can’t contain my anger anymore.  “I’M WIPING MY ASS, EVERYONE,” I say loudly and exasperatedly.  “GO AWAY.”

She runs out the door, and I wake up, laughing at another crazy ending to another crazy dream.

A five-year-old boy had an accident in his classroom, and it may have happened a few times before.  Let the record show that the boy spends part of his day in special education and the rest in normal kindergarten.  So what does the teacher do upon finding the accident?  She picks up the poo in a paper towel, stuffs it into the poor kid’s backpack, and sends him home with this note on it:

Nice, teach.  Way to be the adult in the situation.  Oh, and thanks for putting Yakima back in the spotlight in such a poetic and brilliant way.  My previous favorite Yakima Moment, which I’ve written about before, was the upholding of the ban on Ralph Ellison’s book Invisible Man by the Yakima School District.

It absolutely made my day to find such a hilarious picture of what appears to be one of the school board members holding the actual note in the Yakima Herald-Republic’s coverage of the story.  Here’s the story on CBS News, too.  Better yet, do you want to watch a video about it on CNN, in which the kid’s father is trying valiantly not to laugh?

Priceless story.  These things can’t be made up.

Okay, here goes.

NUMBER ONE:

I love Bach’s organ music.  I mean LOVE IT love it.  If I could marry it, I would.  I love it so much that if it’s playing, I can’t do anything else because I get absolutely sucked in by its perfect structure and beauty. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  E. Power Biggs playing “The Jig.”

One of my favorite memories of my dad (How many times do you hear me say THAT?) is when the two of us were attempting to play this particular piece on a beautiful pipe organ in Ellensburg, Washington. I was sitting on the bench, playing the manuals (that’s organ terminology for keyboards) and my dad was on his hands and knees underneath the bench, playing the pedals with his fists. It was hilarious and touching, even moreso when I think about it now. I’ll never forget that moment.

NUMBER TWO:

Speaking of Number Two, I find it absolutely repulsive to have to listen to someone go Number Two in the bathroom (I’m thinking of the bathroom at work, by the way), especially since most guys are notoriously disgusting and loud when it comes to this particular activity.  I’m so disgusted by it that if there’s someone else already in the bathroom when I walk in, I’ve been known to go downstairs so that I don’t have to listen to that happening.  I mean, really.  The sound, the smell, everything.  Ewww.  And if they’re sitting there tapping away on their cell phones, that grosses me out even more, because I imagine them wiping their asses and then grabbing their phones before they get the chance to wash their hands again.  NASTY.  I hope no one ever has to borrow their phones for any reason.

NUMBER THREE:

I used to have two mullets.  No, not at the same time, but consecutively.  I liked them so much that I grew one out until it got all scraggly, and then I cut it off and grew another one, which was only a slight improvement over the previous one.  Here’s a picture of the first one, in progress, in 1988. . .

. . .and here’s a picture of the second one, in full effect, not long before it got cut (THANK GOD) in 1995:

I know; I was hot.

NUMBER FOUR:

The longest time that I’ve ever dated someone was five years (on again/off again).  The shortest time was three days.  Does that count as two things?  I don’t know, but I’m counting it as one two-part answer to one two-part question.

NUMBER FIVE:

I have no tattoos or piercings of any kind.  I used to have my left ear pierced, around the time of Mullet Number One, but I only wore an earring in it for about a year, and I haven’t worn one since then, so the hole has long since closed up.  No, I don’t have any pictures of that.

NUMBER SIX:

I’ve made more money playing the accordion than any of the other instruments I play.  It’s paid for itself many times over.  The cello is in second place, then probably the electric guitar.

NUMBER SEVEN:

There is NO Number Seven.  Thank you.

So, which six people would I like to tag and to see respond to this in kind on their own blogs?

Andrea

Josh

Emily

Sarah

Jo(e)

BoringFish

Thank you to Carolina for including me in this, thank you to YOU for reading, and thank you six participants (or anyone else who wishes to) for lending your metaphorical voices to this endeavor.

OneYearAgo

Great.

With all those posts I’ve written about Satan and feces and third grade memories, not to mention all the copious amounts of premarital sex weird dreams and my judicious but regular smattering of naughty words, she probably thinks that her real baby son must have somehow been swapped in the hospital for this devil’s spawn.

But the most egregious thing of all (for her, anyway) has to be my non-stop trash-talking about Yakima, which is decidedly well-deserved, but she can’t stomach it.  I have a kinda funny story about that, actually, which involves my niece’s favorite TV show, which we all couldn’t help but watch with her while we were at the beach a few weeks ago.

It’s a national show, which you probably haven’t seen, let alone enjoyed, if you’re over the age of ten.  It’s about PrecociousTeenageGirl, and it’s set in Seattle, where Niece lives.  The grandparents on the show even live in Yakima, where one set of Niece’s grandparents live.  The hijinks ensued in one episode when it looked as if PTG was going to be sent to live with her grandparents.  She didn’t want to go, and she kept making all these lame jokes about Yakima and how bad it is (“oh, the sweet smell of Yakima”, et cetera).  I kept waiting for them to actually take her there, and have some scenes set in the town, which I’m sure they would have filmed in Salinas, California instead, anyway.  It has the exact same feel and look as Yakima, except for the fact that Salinas has the brilliant John Steinbeck rooting for it.  Raymond Carver and I are Yakima’s vox populi spokespeople, and we have nothing good to say about the place.

But that’s neither here nor there.

I found that episode surreal and hilarious.  No wonder it’s Niece’s favorite show; the writers practically frickin’ wrote it for her, and set it in the two places she knows best in the world.  I couldn’t stop cracking up at the irony of the situation, so between my incredulous laughter and the show’s cloying laugh track in response to every generic joke, my mom got angry and had to go upstairs to get away from it all.

I couldn’t tear myself away from the stupid show, and I actually watched the thing in its entirety. You’ll be glad to know that PTG did not, in fact, get sent to live in Yakima, because GenXGuardian (her older brother?) came through in the end to prove that despite his slacker appearance, he really was quite the responsible young gentleman when it came to raising her.  Awww.  Wipe my tears and cue the organist.

I suppose I don’t have a real reason to feel weird about my mom reading all this.  She knows (pretty much) what I’m like, this is all real stuff, and I feel like it’s a good representation of me, slightly-glossed-over warts and all.

But it still does feel weird.  I’m sure you understand.

Blahblah life blahblah me blahblah Mark & John. Food blahblah music blahblah drinks with friends. Isn’t this funny/exciting/wacky/dangerous?

I went NumberTwo today. Here’s a picture of it. I’m just kidding. Isn’t that funny/wacky/crass? I’m such a kidder. Blahblah.

I like movies. I mean, really. Aren’t they good and stuff?

Blahblah JennyOrganCaseyMichaelMatt. Good times.

Blogging rules!

by Todd
the end

Yeah. . .I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description of our dinner last night. It’s too bad, too, because when you read between the lines, the night was very fun, and surprising, and long overdue. Here’s to many more nights like it.

When I returned, everyone else was up, and getting their stuff together to load up the van and head out. Wendy gave us huckleberry pie (or was it loganberry? Can’t quite remember. . .) and muffins, and then we raced off into the morning. We stopped at a truck stop along the way, where I saw two T-shirts that made me feel very disheartened with our society. They were marriage-related. One had stick-figure drawings of a smiling bride and a frowning groom above the caption, “Sentenced to life.” The other simply said, “All men are idiots, and I married their king.” Those made me really angry. I tried to imagine if I was married, and one day either my wife or I was wearing one of those shirts. Is the other person just supposed to laugh, or look away? I mean, if my theoretical wife wore a shirt that said, “my husband is the king of idiots”. . .well, actually, I don’t even need to finish that thought, because I’m NOT the king of idiots, and everyone who knows me (certainly anyone who’s likely to marry me) knows that very well.

Something else we found at this particular truck stop was hard-boiled eggs. We each bought a pack of two and devoured them, only to regret our decision about an hour later, when we all started to have stomach issues. We pulled over, ran inside, and absolutely destroyed the bathrooms at that next truck stop we arrived at. I hereby apologize to anyone who was in those bathrooms at the same time the three of us were.

But it wasn’t all eggs and poop. This was Utah, after all, so the scenery, even in the not-special areas, is breathtakingly beautiful. Breanna and I each took a lot of pictures just by rolling down the window of the van.

I’m sure there’s a way to get rid of those stupid power lines using Photoshop or something, but I don’t know how to do it, and the picture is pretty enough that I figured I’d include it nonetheless. Most of the pictures didn’t end up looking very good, but I managed to keep a few of my friends updated through pictures sent by text message also.

So finally we arrived in Cedar City, and we weren’t even very late. The sound crew had been working out some technical difficulties, so they were running a bit behind also. This bought us a little time to walk around, take pictures, get souvenirs, that sort of thing.

Each of the participating musicians got a T-shirt, but I splurged for a second one in a different color, and then I got a pin and a kazoo also. Breanna and Justin bought a frisbee, and a pin, and a nice little cloth bag. I walked around the grounds and talked for a while on the phone until Justin motioned for me that the group before us was almost done. We were the second group in the entire festival, so we watched the first group, tuned our instruments, and paced around the grassy backstage area.

Finally it was our turn. We were pretty nervous. We didn’t make any mistakes, but we just felt like mimes or something up there. There was one guy in the audience who kept yelling things to us. He wasn’t heckling us, but he was extremely drunk (incidentally, it was well before noon) and it was obnoxious. Luckily he liked us, or it could have been much worse. He clapped extremely slowly and out of time with the songs, on purpose. He also pointed at each of us in turn and yelled things like (to Breanna) “You have a really good voice!” and (to Justin) “Dude! You’re a really good guitar player!” and (to me, after I’d played a song on the melodica instead of the cello) “You’re good at. . .everything that. . .you do!” See what I mean? It was nice enough, but he still affected the flow of the show, and made us nervous.

So we finished our set and got off stage by about 1:30. We found the photographer guy who we’d been talking with earlier, and asked him to take a picture of us as soon as we put away our instruments.

It was really hot, and we were planning to be out and about for quite a while, so I wanted to go looking for a hat to protect myself from the sun. Breanna suggested that I wear her cowboy hat, which ended up looking really cool, so I wore it for the rest of the day, and actually got lots of compliments.

I know; I’m hot.

We were very relieved by the fact that we now had the rest of the day to ourselves. We went and checked into BestMotelInTheWest. There was an older couple checking in at the same time, who kept making jokes like, “Oh, we didn’t know that there would be live music in our room.” Ha ha. “Hey, that’s really great that we have musicians playing a free show just for us.” Ha ha. “Want to play us a song right here?” Ha ha.

After checking in, we went to our separate rooms and collapsed for a while. I unpacked my stuff and took a little mini-nap, and Justin and Breanna presumably did whatever young couples do when they’ve been cooped up in a van, or a house, or a studio apartment, for days on end, being constantly surrounded by at least one other person, then finally get some time to themselves. We met up afterwards, and walked over to get our complimentary meal at PizzaPlaceNamedAfterMafia. Naturally, our next plan was to find a bottle of wine or something for later.

That takes a bit of doing in Utah, where anything stronger than beer is controlled by the state, and has to be purchased at a liquor store. We were so sick of driving around in the van by this time that we were prepared to walk anywhere in Cedar City, no matter the distance or the heat. The nearest place was about a mile and a half away, and it was ninety-five degrees. Perfect.

Hey, look, it’s the Village People!

Nothing like a little shock value for the street full of locals driving by. But as you can see, I’m all about da ladeez. Howdy, ma’am. Much obliged.

So the three of us got what we wanted at the store, and then we walked the mile and a half back. We left our bounty in our respective motel rooms, and then went across the street to the festival to listen to some music and just check out The Scene a bit. We must have been there for a couple of hours, buying gifts, watching bands and getting more food, before we decided we were completely exhausted and done for the day. We headed back to the hotel, took some pictures. . .

. . .and then went our own ways. I can only imagine what those two ended up doing, but I talked on the phone with my friend again for about an hour and a half, and then watched cable TV shows, like Home Movies. The movie War Games also happened to be on, so I kept an eye on that while I wrote in my little notebook about the things I wanted to remember about the day. Things such as this; there are Gideon Bibles in just about every motel room in the country, but if you’re in a motel in Utah, you get a special bonus.

Hey, it’s a rock star’s life for me. Phone calls, Home Movies, War Games, the Book of Mormon. . .the debauchery just never ends.

Or DOES it? Find out for yourself in the next edition of. . .ON TOUR.

OneYearAgo

I was the first one up, at 5:45 in the morning. I took a shower, got dressed, and then took some pictures of the hazy morning street scene of Reno. The haze is actually the smoke from the California wildfires. It didn’t clear up until we were well into Utah, by the way. Incidentally, all of these thumbnail pictures expand to full size if you click on them.

While I was packing up my suitcase, Kate woke up. We talked for a while, she in her makeshift bed in the windowsill and I on her papasan chair. I took pictures of the cats, and of her place, and out the window, and even some of her. The best ones were of her, waking up and snuggling with her cat Samantha.

From there, it was time for breakfast and various morning activities, which on that particular day meant more picture opportunities. Here we all are.

The water-drinking one actually has a little video too, as if by technology.

I would be remiss if I didn’t post a picture of Kate’s other cat, Secret. She and I became instant friends, and she actually slept on my sleeping bag for a while during the night.

Suddenly it was time to say our goodbyes, give hugs all around, and hit the road. The scenery in the rest of Nevada was uneventful. If you haven’t driven through it, it basically consists of many hours of rolling hills covered with sagebrush. There are only a couple of sections where it’s beautifully desolate in a good way, and the rest of the time it’s pretty much God-forsaken wasteland, broken up only by the occasional bit of run-down machinery or mining equipment, or even a power station out in the middle of nowhere. At one point there are even a couple of tunnels. Wowee! Breanna and I both took pictures of the tunnels, in fact. That’s how exciting it was. Nevada is a very strange place. Luckily, we had an especially deep (and private) conversation that day, with which to while away the hours.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. We stopped at the same rest area that Stephanie and I were so horrified by when she and I played in Elko last summer. This time was not nearly so eventful, but I should mention that each of the rest areas we stopped at in Nevada had neither soap nor running water, so we weren’t able wash to our hands. Pretty sexy, huh?

Incidentally, and apropos of nothing, the lasting inside joke from this day was when I told Justin, “I’m gonna punch your mouth right in the face.” That would have been the name of this entry, if I didn’t have the more plebeian title so firmly established already.

This trip, for all its amazing qualities, was not without tragedy. Justin realized at some point along the way that he had left his pillow behind in Reno. This was not just any pillow, either, but a super-special pillow that was bluish gray in color, weighed a ton, and was apparently the most comfortable pillow in the history of pillows. He was seriously distraught about it. I imagine that he’s gotten it back by now, because he offered to pay Kate a bunch of money to ship it overnight that same day.

Utah is as beautiful as Nevada is barren. Almost from the minute we crossed the state line, the landscape became more interesting. We drove through the Bonneville Salt Flats, which are gigantic, and a bit eerie too. We kept expecting the weather to be cold, because we were seeing what looked like snow on the ground everywhere. Very strange.

After that, the landscape became more green, the hills became more steep, and everything seemed more inviting somehow. In the immortal words of the Lewis and Clark journals, ‘we continued on.’

As we got closer and closer to our destination of Torrey, the landscape just kept getting more and more beautiful. The hills turned red, and the sun started getting lower and lower in the sky. The Picture of the Day Award definitely goes to Breanna for this lovely, cinematic shot. My pictures I had to touch up a bit with Photoshop, but this one is perfectly fine without any so-called enhancements.

We arrived at the venue and met Wendy, who was very sweet. She opened for us, and also took pictures for us during our set. At first we thought we’d play unplugged and unmic’ed, which ended up being too quiet, even for the smallish space we were playing in. So we mic’ed everything and played a normal show.

Can I just take a minute to say that while Reno was definitely the place I had the most fun, the gig in Torrey was by far my favorite venue we played. I mean, here’s this tiny little venue in the middle of nowhere, with these amazing red cliffs all around. And I’ve never seen as many stars as I did that night. We kept looking off into our surroundings the entire time. It’s a miracle that we didn’t play any wrong notes. Here’s what I’m talking about. Justin was singing, and Breanna and I were totally staring off into the distance. And yes, Justin and I did the same thing on Breanna’s songs too.

Between the cliffs and the stars, and the interesting people, we had a total blast. Afterwards, Wendy put us up at her place. We all stayed up for a little while, and then Justin and Breanna went to bed. Wendy and I stayed up talking, and she asked if I played with any other groups. I told her about the people I play with, and the various instruments that I play, and when I mentioned the accordion, she said, “Oh, really? I have two accordions. Maybe you could show me some things.” I agreed to do that, and we pulled them out. So after getting up at 5:45, driving twelve hours, and playing a gig, I stayed up until about 1:30 giving an impromptu accordion lesson. After a while, exhaustion got the better of me, and I had to give in and go to bed. The room I stayed in was very warm, so I opened the window and the blinds, which meant that I fell asleep staring at the huge canopy of bright stars, in which the band of the Milky Way Galaxy was clearly visible. That’s a nice way to fall asleep, by the way. I totally recommend it.

More to come in the next installment of. . .ON TOUR.

OneYearAgo