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Dateline: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 Fall Back There

My eyes open at the Red Roof Inn in Deerfield, MA at 11:00am. Yesterday is gone, thankfully - back in Los Angeles, nightmares had spilled into a day of airport hell and totally packed flights through Chicago to Providence. The Weather Channel here is the satellite version - you know, the one without "Conditions at Teterboro" or Fargo or wherever you locally are listed in the tall info font, with humidity and barometric pressure, etc. Local cable feeds still carry that, but satellite feeds only show the big cloud images and list cities and forecasts. I miss the stark visual announcement of where I am and its Current Conditions. And then there’s that music... more on this later (I know, you can’t wait!).

My mother in law (from Amherst) picks me up for lunch and I’m lost in misty reverie cruising past brilliant yellows and patches of orange exploding on green green lawns. Ridges of color whiz by. I’m think how much the Pioneer Valley looks like southern Germany, my mother in law’s birthplace. Back at the hotel I phone in an interview with The Star Ledger, the big northern NJ paper, for our Lincoln Center gig next week. They’re taking the "local girl" angle. I laugh, outgeeking the interviewer on musical theater trivia.

Later on, Orlando Pandolfi, music director at Deerfield Academy, leads us through the Dining Hall for pre-show chow. Orlando is a terrific guy who plays french horn, vibes, and more. He toured worldwide as a professional musician, now imparting his wisdom to Deerfield’s lucky music students. The show goes well - and "Fluffy" is back in the set (after a weird reaction in St. Louis last month - too close too 9/11 even though hello, it’s about cats).

Back at the hotel, I read a draft of Alex’s upcoming article for AAA’s Westways magazine via e-mail- he wants some comments. The Museum of Neon Art’s Night Tour of LA that he wrote about sounds fantastic. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to take it with him - kids, there’s good points and there’s bad points about life on the road! I set up some NYC visits via e-mail, lament my accumulation of more stuff already (Yankee Candle and mom-in-law loot) and can’t believe I forgot to pack cold cream!

Dateline: Thursday October 25, 2001 Iron Horsing Around

Orlando and several other Deerfield profs treat us to wonderful lunch at the swank Deerfield Inn, where our stressed young waiter’s brains are just barely kept inside his head by a small bandaid and the Indian Pudding goes sadly unsampled. (Hey, we took everything else - leave them their damn pudding!) Our workshop with the chorus is GREAT. When the women sing "The Lady Is A Tramp," Melody, the alto, is understandably confused as we give notes on bringing out the melody. And as preppy, shorts and ties guys croon "16 Tons," I’m suddenly back at prep school myself, swooning at the Princeton Nassoons...

At the Iron Horse, Matthew somehow wrangles me a lasagna dinner instead of the usual "band curry." (This is indeed great due to The Curry Incident of 1988 in which an unsuspecting Amy Bob befriended two Indian gentlemen at UConn during her summer stock years, and they burned the bejesus out of her intestinal tract with their cooking whilst she politely tried not to vomit!). I procure a NY Times, which has a huge ad for our Lincoln Center gig. The show is once again a full-on blast. Even on a weeknight we never fail to pack this place with rowdy intellectuals! Vancouver’s Be Good Tanyas open, serving up haunting folky melodies whose sweetness is quickly obliterated by our hilarity... And, due to relentless audience requests for "Strawberry Fields Forever," we finally agree to do it despite my up frontedly admitted massive lyric not-knowingness! (Let’s just say the audience learned their lesson.)

Matthew and I barrel down I-91 and I-95 for the next 3.5 hours to the New Brunswick, NJ Hyatt, where bigass, comfy rooms await.

Dateline: Friday, October 26, 2001 Prep-A-Porter

I’d forgotten how loud downtown New Brunswick can be and am awakened at 6am by lots of traffic and sirens. After I change rooms, we head out to my alma mater, Rutgers Prep! Strange but true! I’d been donating signed Bobs items to their auctions for years, so when the dedication of their brand new, multi-million dollar Music Building came up, an alum who’s a musician is who they chose to invite!

As we do mini-concerts and brief Q&A sessions for the Lower, Middle and Upper School kids in Baldwin Hall, I ponder the endless hours I spent in this room in the 1980’s, for daily morning assemblies, concerts, my SAT's... the tests I crammed for, the carnations ("Carnation Day" was a class fundraiser), the friends, etc. Back then the music department faced an uphill battle, bravely fought by Blue Note jazz pianist Harry Pickens. (We had a great madrigal group - until the men graduated!) Now, well, wow. Hundreds of kids clamoring for vocal and instrumental instruction.

Later on, I tour the new buildings at Prep (I hadn’t been back in years) with PR Director Jim Anderson and Fred Kaimann, a writer for The Home News Tribune covering my return to Prep as publicity for Lincoln Center next week. It’s kind of odd to be followed by a journalist as you re-une with your past ("Hey, don’t you know I’m no big deal?!") But I finally got to tell Dave Masza how much I really enjoyed his Biology class even though I chose not to pursue genetic research! Fred drops me back at the Hyatt, pausing only to ask for my SAT scores!

When local friends bag out on dinner, I hop a train to NYC for dinner with my pals Sheila and Norma. We search in vain for that fish and chips place I loved from my last trip until I realize it was very near the World Trade Center... and the smell of downtown is overwhelming. We catch up over soups and salads. At one point, to Sheila’s embarassment, Norma leaks to me that she has always thought that Weather Channel Dance Party would be a club sensation - using only the music that comes on with the local forecast. IS THIS KISMET OR WHAT?!?! We occassionally become lost in thought, distracted, sad in the middle of the conversation. It will be this way with everyone I see in Manhattan.

Dateline: Saturday, October 27, 2001 Prep Cats

Dry dry dry... I thought LA was dry... I have a nosebleed in the morning, not surprising considering I can feel the lower Manhattan chemicals in the back of my head. The temperature has also dropped 20 degrees. My friend Carol picks me up for brunch... lo and behold, the former DC think tanker is driving a minivan! We end up at an IHOP, where we laugh about old friends ("you know, if X weren’t so strange, she’d be totally boring!"), our parents ("does your dad still know every line from M*A*S*H*?" ), being parents (she has an adorable daughter), and why, looking at her injured wrist, doing gymnastics in your mid-30’s probably isn’t such a good idea ("I tried to do a handspring but... I miscalculated.")

Many laughs later I’m back at Rutgers Prep in a packed Baldwin Hall as the madrigal group performs (I want to grab a black music folder and jump in), followed by a small string ensemble led by sniffing conductor Todd Van Beveren. Our dressing room is the classroom where I had both Spanish I and French III (which approximately equals Italian IV). Dinner break is at the Field House Cafeteria, where Jim points out plaques bearing the names of fellow classmates who later donated to the school. My friend Michael and I are stunned, amused, old... The show is great fun, although at one point I realize during "Vapor Carioca" I’ve triumphantly returned to my high school only to sing about farts... I joke of detentions, forgetting to ask the audience to seat themselves one chair apart from another to prevent cheating, and see familiar faces in the crowd.

Michael and I dine at Rafferty’s in New Brunswick, but, exhausted and still feeling ill effects in the nasal arena, I detour us to the drug store before conking out early. Unfortunately it’s not an uncommon thing on tour, to really want to see your friends but have limited energy, and if you feel illness coming on, you gotta be vigilant. I call Alex and say, "Bleaaaaaaaaaah," to which he responds, "Who is this?"

Dateline: Sunday, October 28, 2001 Juggle, Juggle, Pasta and Trouble

Back into New York City... Joe tags along to the Battery to meet my sister in law Pat at her office on this beautiful day. As I lead us to the S Train, he says I just act like I know NYC - jealous, jealous - this bridge and tunnel kid knows a lot more than San Francisco Bay Boy! The smell is overwhelming as we exit the Bowling Green station. It’s scary and weird. After Joe takes off, I head into Brooklyn with Pat for a nap and an extended visit with my friend Nicky, their cute cute cute cat. Mrrrrow!

Later on, I head back into town for tea with my pals Damien and Jamey, who just got an apartment in Manhattan Plaza - they’d been on a waiting list for years. (Oddly enough, Sheila and Norma just got in, too. Guess the great Manhattan exodus can be a good thing...) Out on their gorgeous balcony, we discuss our various projects - Jamey’s Black Market Marlene and Damien’s semi-autobiographical piece, Tutu. After relating their own tales of New York now, they tell me the new term for those who can’t sleep because of 9/11 nightmares: Osamnia. Looking out at the vibrant glow of midtown, I’m deeply laughing, deeply sad, and deeply angry.

Off to Carmine’s, a mecca of industrial strength Italian food on 90th and Broadway for dinner with Flying Karamazov Brothers Paul and Howard. Although Matthew worked with the Ks several times and I wrote tunes for their last Oregon Country Fair show ("The Road to Uranus," at left, too weird/fun to describe!), tonight we’re discussing possible collaboration on our History of Vocal Music: Survival of the Loudest. Over the hugest pasta dishes on the planet and garlicky garlicky yummy Caesars we plot an evil, twisted theatrical experience - or at the very least agree to have germination sessions early next year in Seattle.

During a long cab ride to Park Slope, the cabbie tells me about three friends he lost in the terrorist attack. He’s the second cabbie who just starts talking about it while we ride. He’s Pakastani. He says he may move out of the city to Edison, NJ, home to a thriving Pakastani community. I don’t tell him that’s where I grew up. Back at Pat & Geof’s, Alex sweetly tells me he had another three-movie day (complete with Advil and bottled water to prevent dehydration!). I blow my still-bleeding nose and pray I’m not sick for Lincoln Center.

Dateline: Monday, October 29, 2001 Alex, I SO Need A Cat

It’s a total bummer to be sick when you have free autumn days in NYC. Really. I do e-mail, setting up more tour stuff for the coming week, and call friends I’m just not gonna be able to see. I treat myself to lunch at the Park Slope Chip Shop in lieu of A Salt and Battery but it’s just not as good... damn you terrorists... And before I head back into Manhattan, I lean back on the bed, fully clothed, including a jacket. An hour later I wake up in the same position. Jeez!

I feel obligated to go see Ground Zero, or "GZ" as Norma called it. Getting off at Chambers Street, I circle the perimeter of the scaffolded area and eventually head down West Broadway, past the memorial walls and flowered fences. It’s both bigger and smaller than I expect at the same time. Smoke rises from the site. The smell is bad. Ash dresses the corners of the subway stairs. They wash and re-wash the sooty windows of nearby buildings. People have cameras but are somber, lining up silently to bear witness through a hole in the scaffolding. I am looking at something that isn’t there. It doesn’t compute. Two blocks away I treat myself to hot tea at Starbucks and everything looks normal. It’s not. I head back to Brooklyn as three friends killed by a terrorist bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 stare at me from across the traincar.

Later I dine with Pat and my other sister in law, Arpine, on amazing Chinese food from the neighborhood place and their husbands (Alex’s two brothers) show up later for a brief visit. We’re all too tired for anything more and it’s a school night. Before I go to bed, I ask if Nicky can come with me and be my cat. He purrs enigmatically. I had a cat when I was a kid. I really need one to hold and pet tonight.

Dateline: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 Reston for the Weary

After a Laurel and Hardy-esque, luggage-laden mixup about where we were going to meet in NYC, we finally find each other (what did we ever do without cellphones?) and head south on I-95. It’s a long drive and I finally doze off in the backseat as we snarl in DC traffic.

When we played the Birchmere last year in Alexandria (See Illin’ While Trillin’), someone from the Reston Chorale swiped the set list and bought some other merchandise she had us sign that was sold in an auction they held. Tonight we’re headed for a lecture/demo/Q&A session with the 105-voice adult chorus. Turns out that Richard’s high school chorus director is the head of the organization. Somehow it cracks me up that he calls our jumbo bass "Rick." (He is SO NOT a RICK!) Our "band hang room"at the Community Center is a classroom into which different people keep barging and claiming as their own as we try to catch some Zs. At one point, Joe is reading intently when a middle aged woman enters and does jumping jacks three feet from him without explanation.

Bernie, from DC area a cappella prankster boy band extraordinaire Da Vinci’s Notebook, meets us at the gig, regaling us with tales from their last round of songwriting. Apparently unsatisfied with selling 10,000 copies of the single version of "Enormous Penis," tenor Storm has cranked out "Enema Countdown." Later, Bernie Carol Merrills for us at the merchandise table, elegantly modeling the care and feeding of our new DVD. The chorus is a wonderful group. very enthusiastic and welcoming, asking great questions and singing along.

Afterwards, another haul to Richmond (no Brunswick Stew this time, unfortunately...see Illin’ While Trillin’ again!) stocked with 3 boxes of sugary treats from the Chorale, and another visit to night desk clerk Hades. Half an hour later, I’m trying to power down in the Red Roof room but end up with a retarded TV remote, a phone line too crackly to check e-mail or hear the person I'm calling, and a monstrous bout of re-packing. The stress of this particular tour is somehow overwhelming and I call Alex for a long, long, comforting but annoying (due to the lame ass phone line) conversation in which he gives me sad family news to accompany all the sad TV news. It’s a long, lonely night and I feel very far from home.

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