Chapter Twenty One SILVER BOBS: DECEMBER 2002 PART ONE

Hey kids, move your cursor over the photos for Bobs fun-sized captions!

OK, before I start this chapter I have to get this out of the way: I FINALLY HAVE A KITTY!!!!

Fluffy's Master Plan has lept into implementation... in the form of Sitka P. Coldfoot, adopted from the West LA Shelter in October. The Bobs continue to tease me mercilessly about the little guy. I will retaliate by training kitty to "get them" when they come to visit. Sitka is amazing! The 50% of the time I'm not at home petting him, kissing him or playing with him I'm THINKING about doing those things! So here are some pictures of his first days with me and Alex. He was once a two month old stray weighing one pound.... now he's about seven pounds of head-exploding cuteness at five and a half months.

OK, on with the Bob Tale. Anyone who doesn't think Sitka is a complete sweetie can take it up with me. OUTSIDE!

Dateline: Sunday, December 15, 2002

A marathon of sorts: Awake at 8am, off to Arcadia, California (about 45 miles) to sing the alto and second soprano solos in Vivaldi's "Gloria" at the Church of the Good Shepherd at 10am. My friend the silvery voiced Carol Stephenson is the soprano soloist and I am SO psyched to be doing a duet with her... especially one in which I get to sing higher than she does! It goes swimmingly well, then Alex vrooms us across the valley - I'm off to Burbank airport for a 1:45pm flight to Portland, Oregon. Joe and I exchange Xmas cards and food obsession gifts on the way up - he gave me In N Out Burger, I gave him Starbucks!

We whisk over to Portland Brewing Company in a downpour, just barely making an appearance at their holiday jam. MacTarnahan's, the brewery owner, is sponsoring our show. We croon some Xmas tunes then have an amazing dinner there that includes rosemary garlic fries and beer vinaigrette salads. I have to call Alex with their list of microbrewed delights - he's not home so I leave a long message about Amber Ales, seasonal brews, hefeweizens...

Our show in the Portland Art Museum's Good Music Up Close Series is small but mighty - there was pretty much no advertising, we learn. Apparently the promoter literally went bust between the time we were booked and the concert itself. MacTarnahan's stepped in to save the series. Bob Malone's friend Tammy steps in to sell our merchandise (thanks, dude!), a past promoter of the Bobs' on the East Coast turns up asking how to book us, a really rude woman repeatedly requests "A Cappella Choir in the Sky" and treats us like her personal dancing bears (that's fine but it costs extra), Joe's twelve beat countoff for the bell section of "Xmas in LA" leads to a lengthy digression and I share kitty pictures with Oregon Country Fair friends Charlie Brown (not the clown) and Zephyr.

It's still pouring as we pull into the motel, perched on a hillside with a killer but soaked, twinkly view of the city. I lug my stuff upstairs, dry off, take off my makeup and collapse on the bed with the cellphone. Alex says it's gonna pour in LA this week and I'm sad to miss that. When he puts me on speakerphone Sitka licks the speaker, looks around for me and promptly hangs up on me with his back paws. WHAT A CUTIE! Escorted to Nod by the rickety heater, gentle raindrops and of course The Weather Channel, I dream of classical music rehearsals for...something...

Dateline: Monday, December 16, 2002

You'd think we'd do promotion for our Portland show BEFORE the gig, but THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY'D BE EXPECTING!!!! Producer Rob Lloyd apparently wanted us to do his morning show "AM Northwest" in July but our schedule didn't permit it. So here we are at KATU-TV at 8:00am... booked alongside with the Portland Winterhawks and their mascot (damn, where's my camera?) and an etiquette expert. As always, the pre-interview producer asks, "Is there one of you who speaks for the whole group?", one of our favorite questions! We "Fifty Kilowatt Tree" the studio audience and provide bumper music on camera (going into commercials). During the actual interview, the host asks how I got "mixed up with these guys." I say I lost a bet!

A rainy drive up I-5 to Seattle... rainbows in Kalama...specks of blue sky and fog in Centralia...we exchange the comfy van for a small box I dub "Dae Another Woo." It's a terrible machine with many problems that barely lasts the week. We can't fit ourselves and the luggage inside, so carryons and Joe's trombone are in our laps as it bottoms out on Terry Ave. A sad sight indeed!

After dropping Matthew off (lucky, lucky to be living in gorgeous Seattle) we head for Trader Joe's for groceries. Jazz Alley always puts us up in their Eastlake condos and we rotate who gets the penthouse. Richard takes it this year and I opt for the same apartment I've had for two years running since it will remind me of Alex. He's not coming up this year, much to my chagrin. We were waiting to see if a project of his was happening this week. By Thanksgiving it turned out not to be happening but at that point the fares were terrible and flights were limited, so we decided to be adults about it and save the dinero. (Let the record reflect yet again that acting like an adult sucks.) Besides, what about the Lee-tle Kee-ten?

Eben, be-fezzed conductor of the Oregon Country Fair shows (See Bob Tale Northwest by Northwest) is a new Seattle transplant! He picks me up around 6pm and we head to the Jazz Alley Xmas party. Stellar food is served at this bash, to which we are always invited since we invariably arrive from an Oregon gig the Monday before we start our annual weeklong run there. This year we arrive in time to actually dine - and be serenaded by the staff. The place is newly remodeled since last year - expanded and gorgeous, having lost none of the intimacy. Eben gives me this wonderful circular glass bead bracelet I liken to a string of Dunkin Donuts with different glazes - I'm seriously disturbed and want to eat it. THANKS, EBEN! We scoot over to see Paul and Terri (Seattle friends also from the Fair) who regale me with tales of Sam the Robot songs (but not the actual songs) (Note to self: Paul and Terri are a tease). I tour Eben's palatial new abode, where I hope to spend more time in the future, before he whisks me home and I collapse into kitty dreams.

Dateline: Tuesday December 17, 2002

How lovely to wake up in chilly, rainy Seattle... I'm so tired already I can't get up before 11 and am trapped in bed watching Animal Planet. After crying one too many times over Emergency Room Vets (if you didn't already know that Bobs tours gradually weaken my mental state, you do now) I walk to Louise's, to coffee, bagel and Seattle newspaper myself as puddles splash repeatedly outside. I pass a quiet day answering e-mail and sleeping on and off - kind of perfect - as the rain continues. The only thing that would make it better would be Alex... and Big Chief Little Face (one of our 36 names for kitty - no, really - we counted).

Around 3pm we head for the Dory Monson show, a radio program we did last year that brought lotsa new folks to the shows. This year Dory's drunk. Washington State's Trooper Denton is on hand with a cooler of assorted libations getting Dory lit to make a point about impairment and blood alcohol levels. We joke that people often say we sound better when they drink but Trooper Denton (whose first name is apparently Trooper) isn't amused. The show is a blast I doubt Dory remembers!

Our first show at Jazz Alley is light - it's a Tuesday night. Just as well - it's always an adjustment with each new sound system, so we try out a bunch of stuff. There are a few new things in the set this week - old Bobs tunes "But Then A Week Ago, Last Thursday" (from the only Bobs album I owned until 1998), "Prisoner of Funk" (woo hoo, I get another up tune!), my relyric-ed version of our "Night Before Night Before Xmas" - about a Santa with depression - and "Eight Days a Week," my relyric of the Beatles tune - as a pyro Hanukah. (Come on, you knew it had to have a Bobs' eyeview!)

POSSIBLE NEW ALBUM ALERT: You read it here first! Our entire week at Jazz Alley was recorded by Great Big Island Records. We hope to release a live concert album (possibly featuring archival bonus tracks from Santa Cruz shows through the years) INCLUDING stage banter insanities sometime this spring. Watch this website for details!

Dateline: Wednesday, December 18, 2002

Up at 6:45am for our big promotional blitz, which begins on television at Seattle's Q13. Boy did they get a lot outta us that early in the morning! We did all the intro and outro bumpers in the 8:00 hour. And then a full song. Turns out Jay the audio engineer owns AudioLogic, a recording studio up in Lake City where we'll be doing a special project on Friday. Hopefully we'll be more awake then.

Next up: the Bob Rivers show on KZOK, which we also did last year. They play us some tunes from their Twisted Christmas CD. The m-pact guys do a lot of their parody songs. We have another great time and Bob asks me if I'm married to any of the Bobs. "What, are you nuts?" Joe rocks the radiowaves with an effect-enhanced "Purple Haze" and we head home to nap before driving to Bellevue for the other side of the radio spectrum - KBCS. I fall asleep back at the condo to the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much (sorry, Al) and wake up to a heinous E! True Hollywood Story about "Growing Pains" in which Brian Bonsall is a such a totally self-involved all grown up Hollywood monster I almost puke. And he was such a cute kid! I gotta go to soundcheck as a great Buffy rerun wraps up on FX...

A nice surprise after a fabulous dinner at Jazz Alley - my red dress, just taken in 2 inches, FITS AGAIN! THANK YOU, DR. ATKINS! Maybe our exhausting day made for a good warm-up because the show is great, including the requested "White Room" in which Joe makes up lyrics ("platform tickets, quiet starling, Trooper Denton") and I wail away on the guitar solo.

Back at home I send flowers online to Sheila and Norma, who are having a domestic partnership signing celebration in New York on Thursday. How great! (For more about Sheila, see Bobruary 2002: Part One)

Dateline: Thursday, December 19, 2002

I have only a protein shake this morning, awaiting the arrival of super masseuse Sandy, with whom Richard and I have traded show tickets for an hour of her hands (we split the other hour between us). After she works on me I can't bring myself to walk the mile up to the University District, so I drive. Having had great pho recently in Los Angeles I choose a Vietnamese place on University Ave. that's crowded but the pho is so-so (faux?). At the U Dub bookstore I nab gifts for Alex and Sitka and a cool Eddie Bauer sweater (size small!) at Buffalo Exhange, a cool second hand shop.

The butternut squash soup at Jazz Alley is unbelievable... and we cruise through our first two-show night. Duncan (Matthew's son) comes onstage to make bird noises into the mike for reasons that only make sense if you're about to turn six. Late show synapse misfirings lead to disgressions on Shabbas goyim and the use of answering machines on weekends in Orthodox Jewish homes, Richard's power tripping pitchpipe and Matthew cracking me up yelling "The bells! The bells!" during the first part of "Xmas in LA." I'll get him yet!

Alex is sick as a dog back in LA, with a cat for a nurse. And the heat isn't working. He sounds terrible, pointing out that it's a good thing he didn't come to Seattle this week because he'd be sick and I'd be insane about not catching it, which is totally true. Still, I feel so bad for him - I can't do anything to help him here... at least Sitka has been snuggling him to help keep him warm.

Dateline: Friday, December 20, 2002

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep until about 10 am, then off to AudioLogic, a studio m-pact used for part of their Carol Commission album. I wonder if they did my tune here ("Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy")... We're replacing a blues guitar track with our vocals on a tune called "Greasy Griddle." The vocalist is the late Steven Grossman, one of the first openly gay artists. Producer Richard Dworkin has hired us to rearrange the instrumentation behind his lead vocal, recorded shortly before Grossman's death in 1991. The project poses the unique challenge of working backwards - usually you get the instruments down first, then add the lead vocal. It takes all day. I have to combine my nap and shower before the show. Yes, that's possible!

More uber-soup at the club and calls from poor Alex, who says he counted 140 sneezes today. (My nose hurts just thinking about it.) It's Duncan's birthday, a veritable tradition during our week here by now. Amazing local impersonator (and nightclub sensation) Arnaldo purrs "Santa Baby" as Eartha Kitt as we improvise an accompaniment. I continue my new ritual of having a Market Spice tea before the second show. Atomic FOB Nathan yells requests from the front row. A really drunk guy wants to hear Billy Joel so we screw around on "For the Longest Time" and I announce plans to write an arrangement of "Angry Young Man." Trooper Denton jokes abound. We're selling Too Many Santas like hotcakes. People are asking for recordings of "Eight Days a Week."

Later that night, Joe is scared witless in a very 1950's way after he knocks on my door to ask for Tylenol PM and my face is entirely covered in Ponds Cold Cream. I am so missing my kitty.

Dateline: Saturday, December 21, 2002

I can't believe it's Saturday. I didn't do any of the Seattle things I always do with Alex - Archie McPhee's, the Public Market, lunch at Cucina Cucina, the Hakka restaurant up on Aurora (nomadic Chinese tribe - awesome spices!), visiting our good friends on Queen Anne. Well, I've paced myself pretty well this week, and maybe it was good Alex wasn't here - I talked less, which I really needed to do to make it through the run vocally intact. I'm feeling surprisingly OK when Alex calls at 10 to say he got a space heater and regale me with lovingly descriptive tales of the high jumping SuperKitty. I am forced to interrupt his joy to remind him that over the past 10 years when we talked about getting a cat he would always say, "You're gonna go on tour and I'll be STUCK AT HOME TAKING CARE OF THE STUPID THING." He retorts, "But I am." "But listen to yourself talk about it! You are so in love with this cat!" "Ummm.... look at the time... gotta go!" He is so busted.

Back to AudioLogic to tweak the mix of "Greasy Griddle" they worked on all night. Joe and I hit Value Village, an amazing chain of thrift stores, where I score silly Xmas candles for my LA party next month (Procrastinator's Xmas - an after-holiday tradition) and new pants (size 6!). I treat myself to pizza, try to nap while watching Postcards from the Edge and applaud Alex for abandoning his attempt to relight the pilot light for the heater on the roof while still feverish (aside from having slight vertigo). I schedule another massage for tomorrow as a reward for making it through the week as general weariness starts to take its toll.

Our great Saturday houses include my "Sparkly People," the Harris Family, who bring us gifts each year ranging from new wardrobe to holiday decorations to wear onstage. They're quite a sight themselves, lit up, terrifying the part of the crowd that has never seen us before! Gary Alexander and his wife are also there - part time northwesterners, they spend most of the year in Reston, VA, where they sing in the Reston Chorale (see Bobruary 2002: Part Two). Gary invites Alex and me to their place in the San Juans.... I can't believe I didn't take him up on it this past summer when we were here! Kat the waitress sez "Fluffy" is her favorite new earworm...Todd (sound engineer from Great Big Island Records) points out the unglamourous parts of our gig to his teenage daughter Brittany, just in from Chicago. She wants to be a singer...yeah, show her the ugly underbelly of a cappella... The second set ranges from "Bongwater Day" to "Paper or Plastic" to "My Shoes." We get home late - 12:45am . I am hesitant to call Alex but do so anyway - his fever has finally broken and the pilot light for the heat relit - he didn't fall off the roof! I am now too tired to lift my face from the arm of the sofa and go to bed.

Dateline: Sunday, December 22, 2002

I planned this to be a Shut Up Day but it doesn't work out that way.... I end up returning the car and being the complaint mouthpiece. The flower delivery to Sheila in New York was totally screwed up. I talk to someone in Sitka, AK about The Bobs coming up for a summer workshop, then total the merchandise sales, get all the credit card approvals. But then I have another long, long massage... Then I make sure I'm on a secure line before calling... The Cheese Dealer.... whose name I cannot reveal... Matthew hooked me up... The Dealer in turn hooks me up with a New Zealand Bleu, a Swiss stinkier than Gruyere, and some orange thing Matthew recommended. She will bring the goods tonight. Mmmmm. Cheese.

I gobble up a juicy halibut as my last meal at Jazz Alley this year. It's been a wonderful week. I leave tips for the incredible staff. The cheese arrives at the 6:30pm show! A gaggle of our Seattle pals arrives for the final set at 8:30pm. In a repeat performance from last year, Eben throws bananas onstage when we ask for requests, except this time we aren't confused and launch right into "Banana Love." Everything goes wacko when Matthew breaks open a banana mid-tune only to have it fall apart on him, Joe turns into a combination of Hong Kong Phooey and Magilla Gorilla and I just give up because I'm laughing so hard. I peel a banana and eat it through the rest of the song, crying. It's pretty great. Richard and I list Bach's descendants: Barbara, Triple and "New Kidz on the Bach."

We talk to Todd about plans for the new CD and listening to tracks in January and have a drink with Asst. Mgr. Bill before heading home, where I stuff my luggage to its breaking point. New clothes and a new moose, courtesy of uber-fan Christy Smith who saw too many shows this week. I'm way too excited to sleep, thinking about a pouncing Sitka (a.k.a. Sootka - Alex sez he's been climbing in the fireplace - bad kitty!).

Dateline: Monday, December 23, 2002

Of course I fall asleep around 7am... we leave at 10. I can't take all of the fridge food so I just grab the nuts, cheese, lo-carb bars and butter. Yep, that's right, butter. Oddly enough, butter is really expensive in LA, like $4.00 for four sticks. It's about $1.59 everywhere else. I don't get that at all, but I bought it, so it's comin' home! Gary the driver guy takes us to SeaTac in the bizarre Jazz Alley minibus. Think Fisher Price meets Chiat Day. A true treat at the airport (which is a zoo) as another reward - an eggnog latte from Seattle's Best Coffee. I can't believe I'm flying again at 7:00am tomorrow...Alex left me a voicemail about kitty footprints on the fleece blanket after he made the bed. I make a packing list for Colorado, wondering if I'll make it to Maria's for dinner with Alex or keel over. One thing's for sure: I WILL SQUEEZE AND KISS THE KITTEN SO MUCH WHEN I GET HOME!

To see what Amy actually does at home for 15 hours and then go to Vail with The Bobs, click here...