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Dateline: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 Ghosts of North Carolina

THANK GOD FOR DUNKIN’ MUNCHKINS!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!! OK, that’s enough. I don’t think I need to explain that outburst, especially for you regular readers of my Bob Tales.

Last Halloween, Joe and I did a Xmas caroling job somewhere near Long Beach for a retailer’s season kickoff. I recall the total bizarreness of wearing Dickensian garb, saying, "Happy Halloween!" This year we’re trying to find our hotel in Carrboro, NC, where apparently no one knows where anything is. (Richard, after asking directions from a fourth person, "Well, I know why they lost the war.")

Atomic FOB Melanie See carts us to soundcheck and then off to her house where goofy cats Loki (named for the Norse god of mischief) and Spot await us!!! I play, play, play (and take down their evil instructions) before the amazing homemade feast. Then I play again! Many thanks to Melanie, her husband, her friend who helped cook, and Loki! (I am SO cat deprived!)

We do a small but mighty show in the roadblocked area of Carrboro. Apparently MTV listed the Carrboro/Chapel Hill area as one of the Best Halloween Towns in the US two years ago and it’s been chaos there every Halloween since. (Great time for a Bobs gig!) At least the audience is dressed up so we can heckle THEM for a change! Two large bees request "Killer Bees," several aliens riot for "Purple Haze" and the stage is adorned with scary-boo props. Local singer/songwriter Jamie Anderson tells me later she does an original tune about cats taking control, but the cats are "less aggressive" in it than in "Fluffy." It figures that Southern kitties are just more polite about world domination...

Dateline: Thursday November 1, 2001 Culowheeeeeeee!

It’s a LONG trek to Western Carolina University, nestled in the Smokies in Culowhee (sounds like a sophomoric expression for whizzing), NC. The colors here are just past peak but I'm not complaining... Driving west for just about forever on I-40 I find a comfy groove, still noshing on those freakin' munchkins (miraculously still moist-n-fresh) and listening to classical music, thinking of Alex, somewhere over somewhere, flying to New York today.

After dinner, my college buddy Teri Johnson arrives. Teri's schedule rivals mine this weekend - she's driving from Memphis, where she lives, to have a voice lesson with her grad school voice teacher in Spartanburg, SC before heading up to NYC for an audition over the weekend (she's an amazing opera singer). After that she'll fly back to SC and drive to Nashville for another audition. It's SO great to see Teri - we haven't seen each other in about 6 years!

No advertising in the local alternative rag from Asheville - we are a-feared - although our own images from the Cinci PBS show greet us on campus TV as we enter the student center. Posters for the show are all over the center, with pink post-it notes attached announcing "All Music Made With Body Parts!" It is bravely attended by about 100 people in a cavernous room. (Sometimes that's how it goes at Fine Arts places without publicity machines. Hey, we get paid anyway!) There are about eight Bobs fans from the Carolinas and Georgia, where we almost never play, hiding amongst the newbies.

Teri and I catch up back at the motel before she takes off for Spartanburg. Joe and I venture into the local cemetery, across the street, watching fast clouds move across a starry sky as two local yahoos play car games on the street. How the hell did I end up here?!?!

Dateline: Friday, November 2, 2001 The Return of Der Comisar!

My weeklong headache continues as Richard winds us back up to I-40 after a Food Lion pitstop. Joe asks how the "cheese bar" of Sharp New York Cheddar I keep re-refrigerating is doing - it's processed food, I tell him. You can't kill it. I lunch on the caramel apple Melanie See wrapped up for me back in Carrboro. It's one-stop shopping for us at a Wal-Mart off of I-640 - ah, Wal-Mart - sometimes the antichrist, sometimes the savior! We pass the KFC Birthplace in Corbin, KY - I get all extra krispy just thinking about it! We also pass several Waffle Houses but never stop... I could use some "scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped and diced" about now...The BG Parkway - hey, I took that to Mammoth Caves with Alex a few years ago, laughing all the way about the Bee Gees Parkway (it stands for Blue Grass) as the smell of the bluegrass rose up to greet us city slickers.

Rainy rainy rainy. Georgetown College FOBS Sonny and Ed, who for some reason introduce themselves as "The Eds," help us inside and offer gifts of cool Georgetown tiger shirts, badly needed since we haven't done laundry. After a long soundcheck, they treat us to a Chinese feast at which Ed's son Ethan wows us with his encyclopedic knowledge of all things Harry Potter.

At the packed show, Woodford H.S. Choral Director Ben Benke's students whoop it up every time we say COASTER - they're big fans! - and the crowd eats up the old material, too. We do "Bulky Rhythm" at Ed's request - love that tune - and Nat "Der" Comisar deftly replaces Joe Bob onstage for "Leisure Suit" to his daughter Reilly's astonishment!!! (For more on Super FOB Nat Bob Comisar, see Signs On The Tube) After the show, Ben's choir, The Woodford Singers, performs their version of "A Cappella Choir in the Sky" for us in the lobby. Ben has added some cool, rockin' harmonies.Thanks, guys!

We barrel north to the Cinci Airport Marriott - a really nice hotel, of course - where we'll be spending all of 6 hours. Alex calls me at 1:00 a.m. - but I'm happy to talk to him anyway. He's in New York now, visiting his brothers. I'll see him tomorrow!

Dateline: Saturday, November 3, 2001 Practice! Never Mind, That's Carnegie Hall

4 hours after hanging up the phone, I’m up, dressed and packed (I have a system that gets me out of a room in ten minutes) at 5:30am. Good thing we got to the airport early: I’m chosen for a random lugagge search (I suspect because I have a one-way ticket to Newark). While the others breeze through security and lounge with Starbucks for the next 90 minutes, my checked bag is unpacked piece by piece (why did I even bother packing well?!), then at the gate, my carryons are dumped and I have to remove the orthotics from my shoes for inspection. The commuter flight to Cleveland is fully boarded and waiting for me to put my shoes back on... I get no sleep on board either plane until 15 minutes before we land in Newark, naturally!

The cabbie takes us a new secret way to the Lincoln Tunnel that I can’t believe I never knew after 20 years of living in Jersey...and the Millburn has our rooms ready at 11am! The day is turning around! Alex arrives around noon and we nap in air conditioned bliss for a bit before chomping on some NY pizza at Big Nick’s around the corner. We run into Richard and FOB/cinematographer extraordinaire Jeff Seckendorf on the way, who accuse us of "glowing." What are you implying?!?! I’m just happy to see my sweet!

Lincoln Center’s Kaplan Penthouse is STUNNING. Floor to ceiling glass windows, a view of the Hudson and midtown, lit by candles. An intimate venue where they hold the Jazz at Lincoln Center series as well as this one, American Songbook. Staff members Robin, Ken, the sound guys and our "hospitality dude" KC are ultra-cool. KC is an a cappella head from Texas who just finished a production of Forever Plaid - but we like him anyway! We finally meet Paul Wick, our new Office God, in the board room-cum-dressing room they give us. The hugest marble table I’ve ever seen is soon covered in Chinese food cartons and Bobs paraphernalia.

The shows are excellent despite our consummate exhaustion - it’s somehow easy to summon the energy for Lincoln Center. The stage faces away from the window, so I get to shake my butt at New Jersey! I get a surprise visit from my old friend Joy, with whom I did theater in Maine in the late 1980’s. We were roommates while I interned at Portland Stage Company ... many moons and many me’s ago... A gaggle of uber-fans from Boston say hello after the show, telling me they saw one of my first shows in Princeton in 1998 and that I "looked confused." "Wouldn’t you be?!" They reassure me I don’t look that way anymore and ask if I run the group now, to which Joe Bob responds, as he is programmed to: "Yep."

Dateline: Sunday, November 4, 2001 Serendipity

I am completely and utterly exhausted, but it's a gorgeous day. Alex and I cross Central Park, where preparations for the NYC Marathon are in full swing, and then cab it (did I say I was tired?) to Serendipity for a special treat - lunch and those frrrozen hot chocolates featured in the semi-lame John Cusack (though we still love him) movie of the same name. Yumness is achieved VERY quickly.

On the way back, we stock up on bagels at H&H. Years ago, I worked at a music management company in LA that had a NY office which sent us a daily FedEx pouch of stuff. Sometimes a pal would foilwrap H&H bagels for me in the pouch!

E-mail at Newark Airport... a long long long flight home... and our carry-on smells of garlic and onions when we take it out! Ah, New York. Miss you. Love you. MEAN IT. I'll be back.

©2001 Amy Engelhardt, goofy captions by Alex Stein