Chapter Twenty Seven MidWestward, Ho! by Amy Bob

Thursday 2/9/06 - - - - - - - The Road to Carbondalay

Alex sneezes down the 405, racing me to LAX, where Richard and I shall Southwest together to St. Louis (no direct flights from Oakland) this afternoon... Sadly, Alex now has the Blivet Monster (a Bobs term) that I have had for two weeks. I don't know who I feel worse for - him for getting it when it's going to be 85 degrees and arid here all week or me for still having it, about to board a 3 hour flight and go Bobbing for two weeks in the frigid Midwest. More of that glamour I'm always alluding to, kids!

Curbside at the van in St. Louis, Dan announces he's taking Nyquil - apparently the Blivet Monster also hit Seattle. Either that, or he was weakened by the Matthew Stull Teen Years Memorial Tour of St. Louis (Matthew said they flew in early because the flight was cheaper...). Happy to have survived the plane with intact eardrums (and not to have taken the tour), I drive the 2.5 hours to Carbondale. Snowy fields give way to darkness. Alice Cooper hosts a bizarre syndicated metalhead radio show. I'm calling this town "Carbondalay" in order to spice it up a bit. Matthew wakes up near the end, bleary-eyed. "Is it Carbondialy yet?"

After checking into the Ramada (a.k.a. the Ramadan, the Radrama or the Ramadalamadingdong, depending on who you ask), Richard and I dine at Panera, discussing sound editing for the DVD we're making of the Bobs' 25th Anniversary Reunion Shows. Alex filmed them with a three-camera crew last month in Berkeley and they look great.

Friday 2/10/06 - - - - - - - Illinoise

Wren Leader, our Fearless Intern is waiting in the lobby. He's getting college credit back at Bennington for working with us (Senior Tour Tech is his official title) on the road. The guy's got serious commitment - he asked us back in November if he could do this - even drove down to New York City from Boston to meet us at 11:00 pm the Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend, for pete's sake! He was indeed quite a help in Berkeley last month when we had seven people to micromanage in terms of scheduling, travel, food, etc. Maybe we should start some kind of Rotisserie Bobs Roadie program? Wren also drove across the country and on both tours, which in the long run is worth a lot more than college credit, if you ask me.

We stroll into radio station B106 in Benton, IL only to be confronted with an autographed picture of The Diamonds, the band that Joe Bob now sings with. He signed, "Love, Joey." Whilst Wren is agog at the coincidence, we quickly get this photo and beeline the coffee room... Becci Berglund and the staff laugh their B106's off and we give away a pair of tix to the show tonight at SIU.

Well, kids, I don't have to tell you that we Bobs rock hard. We take-no-prisoners metalheads live hard. We'll probably die hard. But first we'll colonize a strip-mall planet called VITAMIN WORLD, where we'll unanimously deem two boxes of Emergen-C a band expense. YEAH, BABY!!! This will also make for endless stage banter tonight... We also cruise the Blue Moose, a cool espresso hut on the town's main drag. It's great to see that, in towns where Starbucks hasn't yet invaded, these Fotomat-like stands have cropped up to feed the beast. Very Northwest, actually. Matthew's groovin.

I'm not sure what all the iPodded slackers are doing backstage, but they aren't helping the one sound guy, working from a 15-year old Bobs sound plot he was mistakenly sent! Soundcheck is delayed about an hour, which we could have used in this large hall, but sometimes that's how it goes. Matthew says The Bobs played here with the ISOBOBS show (later confirmed with the burgeoning sales here of our new ISOBOBS DVD). It's nice to be doing Rhapsody again.

Saturday 2/11/06 - - - - - - - Chicago-ing

We Blue Moose again, served by a decidedly morose teen, thrilled to be spending her Saturday morning in a hut serving espresso to weirdos. Wren drives Richard and me back to the St. Louis airport. WIth a couple days off, Richard is headed to DC to see his family and I'm headed to Chicago to see old friends and my cousins. As we veer northwest, the dull grey browns get magical with a snow sprinkle that at one point turns into full frontal flurries, but by the time we get to St. Louis we have clear blue skies. Richard gets out, I'm delayed an hour, and I land at O'Hare in more flurries. Fun.

Whit Spurgeon and I dated from the beginning of freshman year to about mid-sophomore year at Syracuse University in the early 80's. After that we became great friends. He and several other massively talented folks I went to college with migrated to Chicago to flourish in the arts. He picks me up, we cruise through this beautiful, snow-covered preserve, drop my stuff at his place and head for dinner and some live music - from yet another college buddy...Chris Walz is playing a set of old school acoustic blues at Buddy Guy's Legends downtown. Chris' preferred style is so old school that, after a long stint touring with bluegrass wizards Special Consensus, he now teaches at Chicago's venerable Old Town School. Chris is AMAZING as always. I remember driving out to some Central New York coffeehouse (also freezing my butt off) to see him play mandolin, piano and something else one night my junior year in Syracuse. It was a tossup, whether Chris would end up acting or being a musician - he was so great at both. It still is a tossup...

Afterwards, Chris' wife joins us for coffee (Hey, congratulations again, you two!) and we yak and yuk about what old friends are doing and the new times we're all having. It's kind of like looking back through a short tunnel, sitting here with them. All the drama of the college years has been completely replaced by a calmness, an acceptance. Lately I've theorized that if you are going to deal with your demons, sort yourself out and come to any kind of peace with your personal skeletons, you really have to do so by your 30's - or you're probably not going to. Which is very sad for, oh, ANYONE who has to deal with you on a personal level... We here now are smiling adults who met as seedlings, deep in the snows of Upstate New York. Individual theatrical messes attracted to each other's energy, spirit, determination. What remains is the core of those wacky kids, but we've become who we were fated to become. It's a warm night all of a sudden.

Sunday 2/12/06 - - - - - - - Heart to Heartland

Brunch with Whit at Fireside. He's "scouting" for the place he's currently helping manage (more on that later) - we are essentially spying, gastronomically, as Whit's place wants to add a brunch menu at some point. Someone's gotta do this, so it might as well be us, dontcha think? Over good food (but surprisingly bad service), Whit elaborates on his plan to write a book called, The Power, The Money, The Women: Lives of the Pseudo-Famous. It'll be an amusing compilation of weird things that have happened to Whit,often recognized from his many regional commercials and print ads, and a growing number of his friends who are kind of Q-list celebs....like, say, ME! I can't tell you how many cool/weird/unnerving/excellent incidents have unfolded due to my association with The Bobs. No, I really can't, because apparently I'd be depriving my good old pal Whit of book sales!

Later on, my cousin Julie picks me up and we whisk off to the burbs to visit her sister, my cousin Lorie and her family. Usually I don't have the time or energy for visits like this during tours, so it's a real treat. Yet again, spending calm, adult time with folks I've known for ages, sans the drama of our pasts proves to be enlightening, moving. Lorie and Nate's kids are adorable. Baby Lily sat in a "Saucer of Distraction" - I think they called it the Ultimate Babysitter or something - and I want one. She was in the middle of a round desk type surface, surrounded by learning and developmental toys that were attached to it. When she got bored, she moved on to the next plastic challenge. Sounds pretty whee to me!

Monday 2/13/06 - - - - - - - Pasta and Politics

Holy CRAP it's cold!!! I almost freeze to death just walking two blocks to hail a cab to meet Whit for lunch! How he rides a bike in this ridiculousness I shall never know...I do know that the lasagna at Ranalli's is totally worth the carbo-ecstasy. I met the owner, Mark, and his daughter, the other night. A really, really nice guy who runs a funky, cool establishment with kickass food. Go there now, Chicagoans! I'd planned to get some writing done today (since I am so successful doing that on the road - see April 14 of BobTale Three Weeks on the Road) but forgot what happens now when I eat pasta. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... I wake up when Whit calls my cell and it's dark out.

Tonight I get to see Whit perform again - I think it's been 20 years... Whit's a character actor, the kind of guy who'll work more the older he gets. He was already playing old guys in his 20's. Tonight he's in the Prop Theater's world premiere production of HIZZONER, based on the term of Chicago's iconic Mayor, Dick Daley. It's the theater's 25th anniversary, so they're having a kind of glorified rehearsal/performance. Whit has to be at the theater early, so I coffee at an Irish Bar down the street (but not in tribute to Da Mayor in question) and do some writing.

What am I writing? (And will it come out all Gaelic and caffeinated?) FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK! I'm finishing lyrics for a new musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' NICHOLAS NICKLEBY for CenterStage in Seattle. I'm not composing the music, just writing the lyrics, which is a new experience for me since usually I do both. The theater's artistic director wrote the book (adapting the novel), which is (hopefully) about a two and a half hour show, unlike the marathon, award-winning RSC production that toured the US in the early 1980's. This show opens May 5, 2006. Come see it!

As Whit and I attempt to hail a cab home from the show (he was great - the play, well... you have until mid-June to see for yourself!), I realize that I'm so happy this lengthy break gave me a great opportunity to catch up with him and my cousins FOR REAL, instead of the usual "Hi, How nice to see you seeing me" after a show... BUT... I've been traveling so much in these past few months I have this nagging feeling that, if I have to be on the road, I should be working, whether I'm sick or not (and I still kind of am). So I will be glad to get back to The Boyz tomorrow.

Tuesday 2/14/06 - - - - - - - St. Valentine Vs. St. Ambrose

Wren and I crawl towards the highway in urban Chicago, then VROOOOM out on the Tollways towards the cornfields. He's finishing his Bobs-O-Rama tonight with a workshop we're doing at St. Ambrose University's vocal jazz ensemble, STAMVOJA in Davenport. He was going to quit us after Carbondalay, especially since we had a four day break, but I convinced him to stick around to see us do this. It's another side of what we do that folks don't necessarily know about or think of - yes, we're also edumacational! I encourage Wren to ask us anything he's forgotten about thus far, or wanted to ask but didn't for whatever reason... I hope he got what he wanted out of the experience. I know he wrote a journal that is now about 55 pages long, so I only hope he's kind when he publishes it! Wren's iPod contains wildly eccentric tunage that keeps us entertained along the interstates... Apocalyptix... Journey... weird flute music his friend in Vermont composed... Swedish thrash metal... Dan Fogelberg... We cross over into the Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area...

...and pull into the Davenport hotel about five minutes before the other Bobs... An exhausted Richard flew back to St. Louis from Dulles this morning successfully (we'd feared weather delays), then they all drove up. Dan's Wyoming blood sure is an asset in these cases. When he was a college kid in Cheyenne, his then-girlfriend was at school in Powell, and he tells us he made the 8 hour drive almost every weekend in much less time... I offer that this Pavlovian conditioning must have made him associate long drives with a carrot of Good Lovin... it certainly works out pretty well for The Bobs!

Marti Dunn-Hall's current STAMVOJA ensemble is great. We did a workshop with them back in 1999 when we played the fine arts series at St. Ambrose, so it was a no brainer to come back when we were going to be in Iowa again. Fresh young minds to corrupt, bwa ha ha... One of the charts they do for us is "Sitting Here in Limbo." Sounds familiar!

Back at the hotel, I fill out Wren's Bennington paperwork and wonder when we'll meet again, if he's disillusioned, or even more seduced by the below-the-radar traveling musician's life... if our crazed bulletting through the country was dizzying or dazzling to him... if our casual profanity and extreme candor dealing with life on tour was refreshing or annoying, fascinating or boring. Sometimes he'd just start laughing out loud in the pregnant pauses of a long drive or lapse in conversation. But I do that... usually at dumb jokes involving robots, but... Wren disappears down the hall and I call Alex. Happy Valentine's Day.

Wednesday 2/15/06 - - - - - - Doin' Things the Ioway

What?????? The Iowa Machine Shed has got to be serving breakfast at 11:30 a.m. What a ripoff! Yeesh. Sorry, Roadside America-obsessed Alex... and Amy... and Allison... and Dan... OK, whatever... we're off to Waverly, where we'll beat the blizzard into town by about four hours. Stuff we see on the way: alternating billboards for Jesus, IHOPs, Holiday Inns and the Exotix Adult Superstore. Cows. The Grout Museum (I kid you not). And the godawfullest, ugliest-assed industrial/office building I have ever seen in my life somewhere in Waterloo. I swear it's the Gulag of Iowa!

Later that night, we do a workshop that's more of Q&A and vocal demo session for the general community and one of the choruses at Wartburg College's cavernous Newman Auditorium. We'll be doing RHAPSODY here tomorrow. A tour of the campus follows. It's got this cool-o system of indoor pathways - no fools, these hardy midWesterners - so you don't freeze your buns off all the time.

Promoter Myrna Culbertson treats us to dinner at Martin's Brandenburg (Waverly's sister city is Eisenach, Germany), where we fest on spaetzle (just like Alex used to make!), fried cheese curds (yum) and assorted Bavarian treats. Local vocal music instructors Drs. Paul & Suzanne Torkelson, Jane Andrews and Karen & Dan Black join in the festivities. I end up deep in conversation with Myrna's husband... their son lives in Barrow, Alaska, up on the Arctic Ocean - high up on the list of places Alex and I "Must To Go." Who'da thunkit? Feeling full and fat as the flurries start to crescendo outside, we head back to the Red Fox Inn (cue Sanford & Son theme). How come the Olympic games are always on when I'm not home to watch them with Alex? Why doesn't the IOC check my freaking schedule?

And why is Matthew STILL not excited for me when I tell him I have yet again timed my underwear to run out at the halfway point of the tour so that after I do laundry tomorrow I will have exactly enough clean underwear left to get me home AND wear whilst doing the laundry? No sense of adventure, I tell you!

TO DO LAUNDRY WITH THE MIDWESTWARD HO AND CONTINUE THE TOUR, CLICK HERE!

(c) 2006 Amy Bob Engelhardt

Performance photos at the top from Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas

Workshop photo by Myrna Culbertson, Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa