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Chapter Twenty Six Travels with Yum Dum Dip, Div Gan & Virtual G Part One April 2005 by Amy Bob

April 4

My colon is lodged somewhere in my skull. This United flight is having descent difficulties we thought were due to high winds at Newark. The flight attendants announce that no one is to get up unless it's a medical emergency. When the yo-yoing continues and we endlessly circle Manhattan, they say the flaps aren't working, so we'll have an "unusual landing." They clear the runway so we can use all of it - we'll need it, coming in at such high speed - and emergency vehicles will meet us on the tarmac as protocol.

The plummeting continues as I read Entertainment Weekly one word at a time. The woman across the aisle from me, previously hocking up lung tissue between Koran readings, starts barfing. Someone rings the call button. Two flight attendants brace themselves somehow in the aisle, equipping the woman with an oxygen tank. I grab her coat from under her feet. We drop and drop. I am not scared - it just REALLY SUCKS in an "OK, we all have adrenal glands, now stop" way. The landing is no worse than any windy landing needing mega-brakes. Everyone applauds. I hand the sick woman the last of my water bottle as the flight attendants run up the aisle with large garbage bags - to collect barfbags.

My friend Michael, a nervous flyer at best, meets me at baggage claim. I sheepishly ask, "So, did you see all those emergency vehicles?" We head out to his place, stopping only for Dunkin Donuts (I only ate one!). Dinner at a diner. Nothing could be finer. The surly waitress is a welcome reminder that I'm back where I started, New Freakin' Jersey! Later on, his daughter Sandy shows us some karate that she learned, then promptly attacks the Bobs poster I brought her and her sister with magic markers, proclaiming, "I'm going to try to make you pretty."

April 5

Michael drops me at my friend Joe's place on the Upper West Side and I rush off to rehearsal, literally around the corner. Matthew's host Tony shares my passion for cheese and we discuss Artisanal at length. The Bobs plunge ahead with my "Giant Robot Store" chart, cracking up over its inherent silliness. A very productive rehearsal follows - a nice thing after a two month hiatus.

That night, Joe and I head to ARTISANAL, where our eyes roll upwards as Brillat Savarin, aged Gouda, Spanish Pau and Valeon Bleu escort us to Yumdom. I am planning to double dip, as it were, on this tour since we'll be back in NYC twice more! As we leave, a fairly toasted guy follows us out, extolling the virtues of the place and nudging Joe, saying how lucky he is, and that he hopes we go home and make love. It's a kick to both diffuse the situation and de-throne the man's control of the conversation by telling him that would be a great idea if only Joe were not my father (Joe is around 70). His subsequent blustering and apoplectic apologies are priceless!

Back at the ranch, I hardly sleep despite the quiet of the apartment... of course I float away during The Daily Show - the only thing I WANT to see - then am up for hours. Ah, the fun first days of being back East....

April 6

The Flying Karamazov Brothers are meeting us at a church up near Columbia for a rehearsal on this gorgeous, April gift of a day in New York. We're reviewing some of the pieces we did in our workshop of THE COMEDY OF ERAS two years ago for an upcoming double bill this May at Tucson's Centennial Hall and the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. Although some of tunes are simple, we also have to do some restaging, done in the basement gym all afternoon. It's fun to see the K's again - more goofballs to play with. And we are so glad to have had this day together to rehearse, what with the touring schedules of both groups and the fact that eight of us live in five different cities on different coasts!

The not sleeping is already getting to me, sadly, and I'd love to do something cool on such a glorious weeknight in Manhattan. But tomorrow is a hellishly long day, so after a nap I hop a train downtown to catch Bob Malone's 7pm show at the Living Room, a cool little hideaway in SoHo. Bob is fabulous as usual - and has apparently cut his famously shaggy hair and looks great! After a funny intro in which he talks about our showcase this past January at CAMI Hall ("It's always been my dream to play ACROSS FROM Carnegie Hall"), he invites me up to sing. We do the tune we wrote together for Meat Loaf's last album (which, after we did several revisions he and his peeps requested, was not chosen to be ON the album, which subsequently tanked in the U.S.) and alles gut until he screws up the last chorus. We laugh and he apologizes in front of the audience. I tell them when he knows the song better we'll do it AT Carnegie Hall.

I must have my slice of NY Pizza!!!! Famous Original Ray's on Houston, baybee!!!! Someday I'm going in search of The Pizza Line. That meridian west of New York past which the pizza starts to suck. Chicago won't count since it's such its own thing. Wanna come? I call Alex and read the Village Voice before heading uptown.

April 7

Matthew cannot possibly have missed me, standing outside the building with all my stuff. But when he calls from the cab, I realize I told him Amsterdam and 93rd, not Columbus! Oy.

Eventually we reach the studios of ABC News, where Matthew's host Sarah (and seeing her "I am the Slayer" T-shirt on the wall, I briefly bond with her over Buffy) has secured us a studio for a BBC Radio Two interview. Graham Pass and Russell Davies are recording us for their six hour series, LIVING IN HARMONY, which will air all over Europe in May. Jolly good, eh? It's a wonderful hour spent laughing and singing - can't wait to hear what they use from it!

We van it to Newark Airport to pick up our Bobmobile, (a.k.a. Home for the next 2700 miles). Apparently no one wants to go to Great Adventure (where you're part of the fun) so we head directly to Trenton's War Memorial. Tech director Bill tells us the place was flooded by the Delaware Monday and Tuesday. Yikes! The ON PATRIOTS' STAGE series we are playing is literally that - seats are up on the stage facing the huge, beautiful theater. A platform stage sits just past the proscenium atop a built-out portion over the orchestra pit. At first it's odd having our backs to the auditorium, but the intimacy of the stage setting is really wonderful. (Naturally we'll bow to both sides at the end of the show.) The tech staff is a hoot - sarcastic as all get out - it's SO good to be back on the east coast! But they must have gone to town when I got a mammoth case of the giggles during soundcheck and couldn't continue because I was crying too hard. It was really bad - hearkening back to the "It's like when there's a Robot" incident (See the March 2000 Bob Tale, I Bob, Therefore I-95). Dan almost got sucked in. I blame the donut I had in the car on the way. Sugar is professionally hazardous, kids!

The show is great. Guitar great Woody Mann, who flew in from Frankfurt just hours before, hosts the series, opens, and sits in on "Unchain My Heart." We premiere "Giant Robot Store" and even get through it without cracking up (I am not just referring to myself here). "Beluga" is also great in its second outing. Such a creepy tune, so atmospheric and non-Amylike - super fun to do. Ever applause whores, Matthew and I get props for reciting the exits for places we lived in NJ.

After the show we head for Newburgh, NY in a downpour, up Route 206 through preppy Lawrenceville and up to 87. I reconsider writing about Night Clerk Hell when we reach the Howard Johnson's at 1 a.m. but am distracted by my own miraculous sleeping through the night.

April 8

The Gateway Diner glowed like a beacon when we pulled in last night, and the parking lot is crowded (a great sign) this morning. Matthew says something about "Charleston Heston," prompting Richard, Dan and I to dance spastically in the booth, singing things like "Won't You Shoot-doodly-doot with Me?" Dan tells us about his new house in Seattle (Congratulations!) and confesses that he seems to have left his loop pedal in NJ. Thus begins his descent into a wormhole of calls chasing it down. Is this a vocal percussionist thing or a tenor thing? Joe used to forget things constantly...

We do a master class/vocal workshop for the chorus and some stray instrumentalists at Newburgh Free Academy. Teacher Rick McCurdy, who brought us here, has made goofy posters from the power tools shot and even goofier radio promos using clips from the CDs. The madrigal group, run by Rachel Merrill, sings a few great tunes for us. The kids are having fun and it shows. Often we see groups where the kids look pained while singing. The kind of thing where you want to say, "Sweetie, why are you doing this?" A trio of young men also croons a tune that's particularly cool. We talk about stage shyness and Rick notes that, if there's a live microphone onstage, "Next thing you know there are five or six kids around it like a crabtrap." We have the new band name: Crabtrap!

The show that night is odd but fun. "Giant Robot" is improving, although I do start to laugh in the middle when Dan and I start doing robot moves whilst crooning "bleep, bloop, bleep, bloop." Matthew has his eyes closed during this section, otherwise I'm pretty sure he'd have been gone as well! "Naming the Band" works even though Richard makes all the 6/4 measures into two 4/4 measures! "Fluffy" is back in the set.

Back at the hotel, a ton of e-mail, some documentaries (welcome relief from the nonstop Pope-a-thon), and my best sleep yet!

April 9: Some days you don't go anywhere. And some days you TRAVEL FOR 7 HOURS.

Matthew and I hit the diner again and discuss Seattle's new Moisture Festival, apparently a huge success. Friends of The Bobs put together this awesome Vaudevillian smorgasbord that has been selling out all month. They asked us to be a part of it but we were already booked solid on the opposite coast. Maybe next year.

The drive all the way to Williamsburg includes a fruitless stop back at the War Memorial to attempt to find Dan's loop pedal. We end up buying one at a nearby music store and I take over driving, steering us down 295 towards Delaware. Crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge I'm on a conference call with my pals Mark and Treece in San Francisco, shaping a show opening this July at the New Conservatory Theater. We discuss form, content, musical choices as I intermittently ask Richard, in the passenger seat, for toll change.

Endless 95's later we are tunneling East on Route 64 from Richmond as Richard steers and sneezes. It's about 6:30 p.m. and we are stir crazy. Thank god we don't have a show tonight. Just as we pull into the Courtyard by Marriott (one of my favorite chains - free hi-speed internet and nice mattresses), the conversation about hiking in the Grand Canyon ends with Richard's pithy summation: "There nothing worse than a bald donkey on a steep slope."

Slacker Dan's having another pizza night. Matthew, Richard and I head for The Whaling Company for fine steaks and seafood. Walking is a circulatory revelation after what will hopefully be the longest drive of the tour - but I have a sad suspicion that DC to Sag Harbor will be worse - AND we have a show that night. (Please make me wrong, O Gods of the Northeast Corridors!) Matthew and I pore over the "Welcome to Colonial Williamsburg" guide. When did this historically significant area turn into a pancake and waffle mecca? Richard deftly observes, "Look around you." Laughing all the way back to the hotel, Matthew and I decide that, since I don't have a "Do Not Disturb" sign in my room, I should make a Colonial Williamsburg one that says "Ye'd best not wake me, or I'll tan your arse." We pass up an excursion to "Rosie Rumpe's Dinner Theater" to turn in early.

Back in my room I run a bath. I am so not a perfume-y chick, but I like specific product lines...and Alex gave me a basket of the foofy Gilchrist & Soames Spa Therapy products I dig for Christmas, so I brought most of them along as a treat for the long haul. Mmmmmmmmm. As I recline in the tub, surrounded by candles, with classical music piping in from the other room, I think about the last time I was in Colonial Williamsburg. About 30 years ago, Grandpa Benny and Grandma Charlotte, brave souls indeed, piled four grandkids into a car for the trip here from NJ. We stayed at the Williamsburg Inn. I wasn't crazy about the edumacational part of the trip, but boy did I like running up and down the halls of the hotel. (Please don't tell The Bobs I still do!)

April 10

Nothing is open in this town on Sundays! Well, Starbucks... and Subway... What is up with that? On the seventh day, they ate, too, ya dorks! I drop Matthew and Richard at the movies and head for the Candle Company. Way less interesting than the Yankee Candle Company in Greenfield, Mass. (where we'll be in 10 day's time). Endless Carbo Castles on Route 60 - "Williamsburg's Retail Highway" include "Stack 'Em High," and "Belgian Waffle Kingdom." Spotting a poster for our show, I discover it's not at the location we thought. Good thing I looked!

Gorgeous day, really. The summer ugh doesn't set in here for another month or so. I don't recall this being so strip mall-y. This part of the country would not be my vacation choice, but I still find it disturbing when forests start to not look like forests anymore. The WalMartification of America.

The show, part of the Dewey Decibel Series at the Library Theater, is great fun (and yes, geeky jokes are made by all). Richard speaks to his Virginia peeps from the heart. Matthew continues to crack us up in "Lonely at the Top." I realize I am singing "Boy Around the Corner" with a guy wearing a kilt. A lovely couple tells me afterwards that The Bobs' "Particle Man" played a role in their courtship years ago (WHAT?!) Folks thank us for coming all the way down here.

Oh - special thanks to FOB Jessica Lawyer for the concert photos I used on this page.

Plans are made to hit a castle-o-carbs in the morning. Yes, I am spearheading the effort - one supreme dive will not hurt me...for long...

April 11

I know I've spent too much time with Matthew: I dreamt about his son not wanting to eat vegetables... and although I am pretty tired it's Matthew who bags out on Mama Steve's! Richard and I blow past "The Gazebo Waffle House," "The Original Pancake House," and IHOP (why bother?) to the plumpy paradise. Don't know if Mama herself was our waitress... her makeup was thicker than the syrup. The Bacon Yummies (pancakes with bacon in the batter) were, sadly, excellent. As I type this in the backseat, headed towards DC, my dizzy extra strength Tums regimen has already begun. TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!

We reach Lorton, VA in two hours or so on this beautiful Monday, our last day off until Sunday. Our hotel reservations are a mess - no surprise there. The next two days we're doing workshops for a school district and those are notoriously disorganized. At least we're not arriving after a 7 hour drive - those desk clerk encounters are beyond description!

We meet to rehearse a bit in Matthew's room. Nothing major as we are all still tired and Richard is just getting over his cold. My new tune, "Sandwich Man," is shaping up - we might try it in a school show to get it on its feet. "Alabama Song" is still a bear. "Freefallin'" is almost there as well and should be thrown in this week. There's always a first first time and no matter if it's shaky it's important to throw things into the set. And frankly it's a luxury to be in a band like The Bobs in which we can actually say, "Hey, this is a world premiere!"

After a brief stop at the Potomac Mills outlets (Richard get shoes, Dan gets a particularly Fruit Stripe Gum shirt, Matthew a belt - THANK GOD - and me a cool-o laptop case I will sadly return later 'cuz mah compuder don't fit), we head for Hard Times to meet Fred Parker for dinner. Fred updates us on this year's Halloween time machine. (See Bob Tale MATO) Apparently a neighborhood kid questioned its integrity this year, telling him it couldn't be real since it only went into the past. So this year, Fred took them into a future era in which humans lived underground and giant cicadas attacked with shocking regularity! That'll show those whippersnappers.

My friend Nick DeGregorio meets us at Hard Times in Alexandria (you MUST look at the picture on this page!). He's conducting the Big River tour, parked in DC until June. Nick and I are pals from way back - 20 years ago - in Jersey summer stock. A total goofball with a heart of gold and a permanent case of potty-mouth that even rivals mine! When Nick lived in LA, he and I and our friend Bart (also from NJ) just let it all rip over a couple beers, laughing until it hurt, cursing up a storm. Things haven't changed - he's all goony about his new scooter ("It's a real chick magnet, Aim - I'm tellin' you." On his way to the restaurant, Nick snapped a picture of the headquarters of the Snack Food Association. "Crabtrap and the Snack Food Association" is the official new band name. And maybe I should explain the second picture to the left... Nick and I met in "Pirates of Penzance" in 1985. One of the promotional events for the show was an appeareance at a mall. Needless to say, I took the opportunity to shop. Nick was, apparently, still a pirate.

Matthew says we're meeting in the lobby at 8:45 a.m. I didn't even know there were two 8:45's in a day!

April 12 and 13

These two days are spent doing eight workshops at four different Fairfax County Elementary Schools. (Thankfully there were no concerts at night - like we have ANY energy after a 4 workshop day!) The music teachers prepared the kids ahead of time for our visit, so they were familiar with us and knew some of our songs - a little TOO well! There's nothing quite like the sound of 200 kids doing The Wave to The Druid Song. Or chanting "Fluffy's Master Plan For World Domination" back at you. Teachers tell us they yelled "Fluffy Rules!" in the hallways. I felt this weird combination of awe ("That's my tune!") and bemused terror ("What hath I wrought!?"). We were blown backwards by the roar that went up after the final choruses. Too funny. To see some of the pictures and letters given to us by kids in these schools, click HERE.

Best questions from the kids (in grades K-6):

Do you lip synch? (They knew the term but not necessarily what it meant)

Have you ever sung for a real audience?

Did you go through a lot of hard times before becoming the stars you are now?

Do you play smooth jazz? (this from an 8-year old)

I can be a xylophone!

Is it over? (Matthew turned this one around by asking, "What, you want to send everyone back to class?" The smartass kid was subsequently booed until he turned green. Pity.)

Selected Shorts:

Young girl, to Amy: "Where did you learn that song about cats?"

Amy, to young girl: "I actually wrote that song."

Girl's mouth drops to the floor in amazement/terror?

Young boy, to Dan: "You're more social than the other Bobs."

Dan, to young boy: "Matthew's just trying to cultivate a mystique."

Amy, to Dan: "So that's what that smell is." A-hahahahahha.

April 14

Apparently it is futile to do anything else while on the road. I brought materials to review for the Frances Faye project (the one I had the conference call for last weekend) but cannot wrap my head around it. Concentration is just not on the list of available brain uses. You'd think that, with lots of downtime in hotel rooms, I'd be looking for ANYTHING to pass the time, but strangely enough it's not the case. I usually turn down social invitations, too. Eating, sleeping (or attempting sleep), drinking tons of water and vegging out with the TV on are about all I can muster. I write an e-mail apology to my colleagues on the project and they're cool with it. Treece is coming down to LA later next month so we'll hash it out then. Still, I am disappointed in my lack of focus. I am Super Amy! I am a multi-tasker! I am... napping...

I do manage to drag myself out on yet another beautiful afternoon to see a movie. I reach the mall late thanks to Mapqworst. "The Upside of Anger" is pretty good. Joan Allen's amazing but so thin she kind of looks like a Pez dispenser. And if she's that thin on film, she's worse in real life. Eat something, will ya? Kevin Costner is great in the film - some of which rings very true.

Alex calls to say my good friend Valli's dad has passed away in Massachusetts and the memorial is on Monday. If our Worcester film festival plans had panned out (they didn't - this week was supposed to be the premiere of THE BOBS REMAIN THE SAME - see Bob Tale Worcester? I Hardly Know Her!) I could have attended. Instead we'll be in NYC that day. I'll try to get away to see Valli while we're in Northampton. I also find out that my grandma's taken a spill in Florida and needs eye surgery. Yet another event I can't be there for. I have often wondered about what will happen if one of us has a personal emergency on the road. Hope to not find out.

Bob Malone is waiting at Wolf Trap - he drove down from Albany. We rehearse and plan the official RHAPSODY IN BOB set, experimenting with a 90-minute format instead of two 45 minute sets with intermission. This way we build towards the end of the show - The Rhapsody. It turns out to be a great plan, even though we only get to do 11 Bobs tunes (and that's hard to agree on!). Rhapsody takes up 20 minutes, and Bob's two songs before it use 10 more.

The show is great (save for mike troubles for Richard). We record Beluga to send to Trenton radio stations - a lost Beluga Whale is swimming up the Delaware these days and we've been inundated with emails alleging our chanting of the song brought it there! Witness the Awesome Power that is THE BOBS!!!

TO DO LAUNDRY WITH AMY BOB AND CONTINUE THE TOUR, CLICK HERE...