Night Driving in the Twenty-First Century

     First of all I’ve never had to wait for a paper tablet to open.  I could just simply take out my pen and start writing.  On the other hand this is much more legible than my handwriting as anyone who as ever received a handwritten letter from me will attest.  Here I am wasting more time on writing about the computer instead of just getting to it.

     Last night and into this morning we drove back from Cle Elum.  The roads were bare and dry (as they say on the pass reports), and travel was somewhat unremarkable.  That is, the same or similar to what the experience has been in the past.  On the third hand (the other other hand) it occurred to me at some point that being in a vehicle moving at 70mph through a pitch black night over a mountain pass could be considered remarkable.  How scary would that experience be for someone who had never experienced anything like it? 

     We finished work early.  I think it was around 11:30 pm that I picked Kristi up from the front of the club in the dark, the cold with only the lights from the building illuminating the Cle Elum street.  She had locked the back door of the club that we loaded in from, returned the keys to the bartender, and come around to the front where I had driven our car loaded with our gear.

     We drove out to the Cle Elum main drag and slowly left town.  I’ve had experiences with the local gendarmes late at night there and know that one must drive the speed limit (25 mph) or risk a ticket, and probably some humiliation as they will assume that you have been drinking.  It was a low traffic night on I-90 and I hit the gas and very quickly we were moving at 75 mph through the wintry night.  I asked Kristi to get me a piece of “tortarustica”, which she did and I had a bite to eat.  After the tortarustica she gave me a “carmelita”, then another carmelita (dessert bars).  Tortarustica is a pastry filled with sausage, and spinach plus other stuff.  I don’t know exactly what the ingredients are, but it’s a hearty meal, and excellent served cold in an automobile speeding through the black Cascade Mountain night. 

     I-90 is changing.  I guess it always has been changing.  The mountains are unforgiving and drop tons of snow on the roads over the passes, and sometimes tons of rock as well.  We had a conversation with a retired snowplow driver who had been buried in the snow a couple of times.  He was in his snowplow and was dug out soon enough, but it was interesting talking to someone whose professional life was dealing with the snow, rocks, and weather of Snoqualmie Pass. 

      On this particular night it was freezing, and that led to thoughts of ice on the road.  I even thought I saw a couple of snowflakes, but there was no serious snow during our drive.  You follow your headlights through the dark.  You follow the white lines on the road.  You turn on your brights when there are no other vehicles ahead of you, then you dim them again, watching the road disappear in front of you when the lights go back to dim.  I don’t know how much of the driving is intuition, but there has to be some.  I can remember nights when it was white knuckles all the way through the snow, ice, cars sideways in the road, or in the ditch hoping you would not join those “losers”.  You see familiar landmarks and note your perceived distance from the top of the pass but last night it was all topsy turvy as the landmarks are not the same after the most recent road construction.

      There are signs about the road construction – “left lane closed ahead”, “construction zone”, “slow”, and now in the 21^st century they have digital readouts over the road in several places that give you the varying speed limits.  You slow down, but they very seldom tell you that the construction zone is over and you can speed up again.  I didn’t see cop one for the entire trip.  I guess they were all in the little cafes along the route eating donuts and drinking coffee waiting for their shift to end.

     I’ve always thought that it was somewhat of a miracle that we have never been in a serious wreck.  We haven’t even been in spinouts, or sliding sideways incidents very much, and those that did happen happened at very slow speeds.  We have driven many, many miles through serious blizzards, across roads that were covered in ice and so slippery that you could barely stand on the ice if you were to find yourself outside your vehicle in the black ice night.  We have seen roads washed out so there was only one lane, landslides requiring detours, roads with the flood waters up against the edge of the surface we were driving on.  I wonder when a tie rod will break, or a tire blowout, or a tree fall from the side of the road, a particularly severe wind will send us sliding out of control down a bank, rolling into and icy river or off of a precipice ending in a ball of fire on the rocks below. 

     Before we were even packed up Kristi was telling me that she was wide awake and could drive.  I drive faster than she does, so when I can I try to do the driving.  Also, I fall asleep in the car and Kristi is an excellent co pilot as she is always awake.  Certainly that is part of the reason that we haven’t been involved in a major car crash.  Many times I’ve had her caution me to look out and had my fat pulled from the proverbial fire.  I only wish she didn’t alarm me with such an intense sense of alarm, although I suppose it is justified considering what the price of no alarm at all might be.

    One more thing . . . we played very well last night and given that we do not work as often as we used to, it was very satisfying.

Day of Gigs

We had a busy Friday.  I have to admit that I am a little intimidated by really busy days as a musician.  We played a nursing home which we play once every month, or is it every other month?  It is in Burien, and interestingly enough we play mostly my songs which the residents there now recognize, and we even had a request for one of my songs from a resident.  She is a woman who I know nothing about except that she always used to wear mouse ears from the "Mickey Mouse Club" which gave me the impression that she was perhaps developmentally disabled, or she could be a stroke victim but that is all conjecture on my part.  She always tells us she loves us which is sweet.  I have a difficult time sleeping late these days.  If I manage to sleep until 8 am I feel lucky.  I believe I was out of bed around 7 am yesterday, which meant that I was going to have somewhat of a long day.

I wake up thinking about the day's activities, what we need to do, what we will bring with us, what our schedule is.  Kristi sleeps, or at least pretends to sleep at least an hour longer than me.  She got up around 8 am, early for her.  I like to bring an audio book with me when we are going on a long drive, and so spent the morning looking at what audio books I have on my hard drive and transferring them to my mp3 player.  

Our other booking was at the Conway Muse in Conway, Washington.  That is just outside of Mt. Vernon.  I think it's about 4 miles south of Mt. Vernon.  It is one of those really small places.  The last time we were there we visited their local tropical fish market.  It is a pretty big store with a lot of different fish and it was fun to look around there.  This time we got on the road after playing the nursing home in Burien.  I drove the first leg of the trip.  I got sleepy though and Kristi had to take over the wheel from me just before we got into Everett.  

Of course I tried to sleep.  I believe I did drift off for a moment or two, but we were listening to an audio book and that kept me from having any significant sleep.  When we got to the turn off to Conway it was about a 1/2 hour before The Muse would be opening so we drove out to Lake McMurray.  I grew up in Arlington which is on Highway 9.  Highway 9 is the artery that has Lake McMurray on it as well.  When I was young, probably about 13 my mother took me fishing with her.  We went with Albert Bundt, a local school teacher and we fished for crappie.  At the time I didn't even know there was such a fish, but we caught quite a few as I recall and I got a lesson in how to filet a fish. I didn't really know it at the time but I know now that I was a chaperone for the two.  Making the trip over there reminded me of that day.

We stopped at a little store at a 90 degree turn in the road above the lake.  I used their port a potty and we went in the store and impulsively bought some candy.  I bought "Lifesavers", which I don't recall having bought in  many many years.  I also bought a Kit Kat bar.  Kristi wanted jawbreakers, but they didn't have them individually wrapped as penny candy like she wanted them so she was forced to forgo the pleasure.  We were just killing time, and shortly after we left the store we turned around and drove back to Conway.  It was very pleasant driving through the countryside.  I know that there are housing developments just off of the road, and I don't know how long there will even be any countryside to drive through.  I considered mentally what it would be like to live there.  I know that in my day to day life I would enjoy the quiet, and the green.  As I write this I see the trees on the hillsides and the houses with their large yards, and gardens that we drove by.  I see the stone pillar with the sign pointed to a place that is "private" and I know that it is simply a housing development, maybe with a gate and a guard a little further up the road.  It is not the same place where I grew up.

I didn't take a camera with me, or at least I didn't take a camera that I intended to use.  I had our video camera which I half had it in mind to record our performance with but decided that it was too much trouble to do that.   We were playing a gig with another duo.  They are songwriters as well and we had met them in Tacoma last year at Dickens Festival where they were playing, and we were almost playing.  I was providing PA for them at that time.  They are called the Ginger Ups.  They are Jennifer Spector, and David Tieman.  I think they are a very good and saavy duo.  We didn't really know what to expect except that my sister told me she was bringing a bunch of people, which she did.  She brought one of my other sisters, Mary, and Mary's partner Linda and friends from Arlington.

I should say that the Conway Muse fed all of us from a buffet in the back room.  It was simple fare, pasta, sauce and salad.  It did take the hunger off though, and of course, I had already consumed a Kit Kat bar and a bunch of lifesavers.  We discussed what the format would be.  Jennifer thought that we would each play a set, which wasn't how I understood it would go.  We talked to the booker who explained that we would trade of playing songs.  I wonder even now how that came off as we are radically different kinds of songwriters.  Jennifer and David have somewhat of a jazz approach to music.  He is a very fine jazz guitarist, and she a fine vocalist.  Actually both of them are accomplished singers but Jennifer does all the lead singing.  David adds harmony to most of the songs.  Jennifer often just holds a guitar in her lap while David does all the accompaniment and once in awhile she plays guitar . . . does more when David plays bass guitar.

My sister took the picture at the top with her phone.  There were only a couple of people who were in the room who weren't with my sister's party.  It's a very nice thing she did as it would have been a monumentally lonely night at the Conway Muse without her help.  The sound guy got his channels mixed up and kept implying that I didn't have my guitar turned on or that it wasn't working, which I felt was very unlikely, but I went along with him and checked my battery, plugged my guitar into Kristi's amp and it worked quite well.  I should be empathetic as I have made mistakes like that.  As a matter of fact, I recently made a mistake like that when it was only Kristi and I setting up for a dance gig.  It took about fifteen minutes for him to straighten it out.  I guess that means we played less than we were booked to play.

All in all it was a good night and I really got to listen to the Ginger Ups.  They gave us a copy of their CD which we played in the car today.  We traded a copy of "Tandem" for their CD.  We spent the night with my sister in Anacortes.  She fed us breakfast this morning, and we had a long talk with her.  We'll be going there for Thanksgiving this year.  We have a gig to play in Bellevue on the way.  I told David of the Ginger Ups that being a musician at this point in my life is a serious part of who I am.  For better or for worse.  

Steve and Kristi in the Twenty First Century

                             

Pressure Ridge

                                                    
     Kristi and I play several different kinds of bookings in order to be able to play my songs.  We don't play any original material as "Pressure Ridge".  There was a time when we would play a handful of my songs as Pressure Ridge, but we stopped doing that entirely when our drum machine broke, or maybe before then as I began to see my songs as a liability with that act.  At the very least, it was disconcerting when we would play one of the many excellent songs I have written and you could feel the enthusiasm of the audience die . . . immediately.  I don't think we lost any work over it, and there was often someone who would be appreciative of the work I had done, but not always.
     If you book us for an event, and don't pay us any money we will almost certainly be mostly, if not all original.  We don't EVER play as Pressure Ridge for free, or even remotely free.  That particular configuration is definitely the commercial department of Steve and Kristi Nebel.   Also, you will never see me playing an acoustic guitar with Pressure Ridge.  Consequently, the truth is that I've logged many more hours with an electric guitar strapped to my shoulder than I have an acoustic guitar.  Enough on this subject.
     As "Steve and Kristi Nebel" things have developed so that the less you pay us, the less likely we are to play anything but my songs.  You won't get a show that is worth any less, as we will always do our best to entertain you, and play well, but you will only get the show that we "want" to give you.  We play nursing homes, retirement homes, etc. where we are paid a little bit of money to enough money to actually make it worth our while and at those venues we play a mix of original and cover tunes, mostly folky kind of stuff.

    

Steve and Kristi Nebel

     On the other hand, four fingers and a thumb.  We have gone through various configurations over the years that played pubs, and coffee houses.  These places are businesses, and I would expect them to pay me for playing, but these days I'm afraid, they don't.  Some coffee houses will give you a latte, and a free cookie for playing, but no money.  They will put a tip jar out for you, but it's up to you to get it filled.  Many of them don't even create an environment that is at all friendly to live music, such as the Mandolin Cafe in Tacoma.  If you drop in there to see an act you will see everyone struggling to talk over the performers, and doing their best to ignore them, often regarding them more as an annoyance than an entertainment.  On the other hand, some of the best acoustic and folk performers in the Pacific Northwest have played there on occasion. 

     Last night we played in West Seattle at a place we have played several times before.  It is the C & P Coffee Co.  They are a mom and pop business, and a neighborhood institution.  They serve desserts, coffee, soft drinks, high quality beer, and wine.  We like playing there because they make an effort to set up the room appropriately for entertainers.  There is a small stage, and they set up concert seating.  The people who come in are polite to the performers, albeit not always very attentive.  As I say they are a mom and pop business, and the proprietor Pete is always welcoming, and more than polite.  We play mostly my songs for this venue, but we did play Hobo Jim's "Iditarod Trail" for them.  

     We do our best to publicize our performances, but last night there was not a single person who came in who was off of our mailing list, or as a result of our publicity.  I suppose that, once again, speaks well for Pete, and his wife Cameron (who books the "bands").  It speaks to their commitment to having live music, and their appreciation of high quality performers, for instance Jim Page plays this venue.  If I'm honest, I have to say that we don't go out to see/hear live music very much.  If we do, it's likely to be at a major venue, and we're likely to be going to see/hear a big name performer, and we don't do much of that either.  We do get to see a fairly large number of acts over the course of a year as a consequence of playing open mikes, and festivals which have several acts playing them.

     When we arrived last night I can't say that anyone was actually there to enjoy the performers.  They were just there, and they were polite enough.  They actually didn't even applaud for much of the first set.  It seems to me that they only applauded songs that rocked.  Even at that, I'm not certain that very many people regarded us as "real" entertainment.  This is a subjective evaluation of what we saw last night, and I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be wrong about how the audience "felt" to me.  I don't know if I'm becoming an anachronism, but I do know that's what it feels like.  I suspect that I'm not folksy enough for the folksy folks, and I don't rock enough for the rock folks, am not country enough for the country folks and have too much "high falutin'" content for all of them (not enough love songs).  That would be one way to look at it.  We often get complimented on our "quality" of performance these days.  One would hope that performance is improving.  We work hard to be more than just wallpaper when we do this act.  

     I hadn't had an opportunity to play one of these venues recently, and was much up for the opportunity.  I still am, although it may seem I am not making all that many positive comments about these kinds of venues.
Ironically, even though they don't pay anything, it's not necessarily like falling off of a log to get a gig at one of them.  There are many, many fine musicians willing to play for a cookie, and a cup of coffee but more, for a chance to play the style, and selection of material that they want to.  We actually have gone even farther afield than Seattle to play this kind of gig, and have been playing them for years now.  I will look for this kind of booking to play on the days that Pressure Ridge isn't working.  If Kristi comes up with a paying gig, well gotta pay the rent somehow.

     We will be working with Kristi's band, "Cowgirl's Dream" more this summer, and I hope we'll be increasing the number of bookings with that band all the time.  It is a good sound, and it is one that is familiar to many people.  The band plays both originals, and cover tunes with a preponderance of covers.  It is an Americana band that plays some western swing.  I am the lead guitarist and junior musician in the band, which is a challenge for me.  I am constantly having to learn new guitar parts, memorize them, and practice the ones that were memorized before to keep them happening.  Toby, the accordionist and I do a lot of improvisation.  I am learning from listening to Toby, and from my practice.  I love my red stratocaster guitar. It sounds great, and is a lot of fun to play.  More later.  Steve Nebel

Kristi in the 2007 Ford Escape.

This has been a challenging weekend, and it’s not over yet. I should qualify that statement, as it is more, or less over. It is Sunday, and I have gotten out of bed sooner than planned, and sooner that I think I should however at this point it’s done. I’m up, and it looks like I’m not going back to bed. There were three days of dirty dishes in the sink this morning. We were almost out of water glasses. As I washed them, listening to NPR reports about Moammar Ghadhafi, and our response to him.

This weekend we have a new automobile. We are firmly in the 21^st century now with a 2007 Ford Escape hybrid. It will be even nicer once the vehicle has a place to plug in an mp3 player. I put an mp3 book on a CD and used the CD changer to listen to a James Patterson novel. The story is ending badly, and I’m not sure I want to listen to the rest of it. It worked nicely doing the weekend driving though.

It was Friday. We had a gig in Moses Lake. We left about a quarter after 2 pm. Kristi had made a lunch for us. I loaded the Escape, which was a challenge as it was the first time I’d put our gear in there. The car finally has room for our light boxes, and everything doesn’t fall out on the ground when we open the back door. We start eating almost immediately when we leave home. Friday I had eaten before we left, and didn’t get into the food until I was on Snoqualmie Pass. We’ve been to Moses Lake many, many times and although it keeps changing a little, it is very similar to the Moses Lake that we visited all those many years ago (I can’t remember exactly how many). It is almost exactly a 3 hour drive to Moses Lake, and this time it didn’t snow the entire drive over. There was snow on the pass, and the ski areas were open, but we didn’t have any fall on us.

I was getting used to the Ford Escape. Did I say this was the first time we’d taken this car out on a long drive? It was. The car is comfortable with seat adjustments up, down, backwards, and forwards. I sometimes have difficulties with my back on long drives, but this car doesn’t make me notice my back at all. It has a four cylinder engine, and is an SUV. We had it loaded down with gear, but it ran the speed limit over Tiger Mt., and 75 mph up Snoqualmie Pass until the traffic got too heavy, and I had to slow down to 60.

It is exactly an hour and a half to Cle Elum, and about 5 minutes from there to the rest stop on Indian John Hill. I’ve often wondered what is the story with that place. I mean the “Indian John” part of the place. They should have a plaque there with the story of Indian John, even if they have to make it up. It seems like there should be a “Battle of Indian John Hill”. It would be bloodless, of course, and Indian John would be credited with keeping it that way. I found this poem last week. I’ve been putting my poetry website back together, and consequently looking for the variety of writing I’ve done sporadically over the years. I don’t know when I wrote this poem. When I found it last week, I didn’t remember it at all.

Broken

Broken

Torn up

Busted

Shattered in pieces - lying on the ground

I’m - - -

Under the weight of stones

I feel the shards of sharp rock cut my skin

Today I found out - I’m one of “them”

One of Hitler’s ss

I’m Napoleon’s generals

I am Richard Nixon, George Bush, Theodore Roosevelt

I am a part of the Ku Klux Klan

I stagger under the weight of my new knowledge

I reach out to my victims, ask them for

What?

Forgiveness?

There’s none of that

I struggle to escape my chains

I try to lay my burden down

But I find the stone is in my heart

And cannot be moved

Then I find that I am one of Custer’s men

Committing genocide at Little Big Horn

Blaming my victims

I am a white settler stealing land from the Iroquois

A Virginia planter selling your slavery to myself

Standing on the backs of slaves

Telling myself how brave I am

Not seeing the cowardice of my actions

I am stealing the lifeblood of the planet

I am corporate Amerika

I rape, steal, murder indiscriminately

I am the criminal, calling myself the liberator

I break your spirit as I remove your chains

Don’t you see your invisible chains?

Where was I now? Oh yeah. We were driving to Moses Lake, and had gotten to Indian John Hill. The weather wasn’t bad. It was raining on Indian John Hill, and as I recall it was raining sporadically all the way to Moses Lake. The next major town after Indian John Hill is Ellensburg. We have spent many a night there. Our nights are pretty much the same no matter what town we’re playing in. We check into a motel before we go to work if we’re working two nights, and motel rooms look the same, or same enough any place you want to go. Ellensburg is exactly two hours from home. The state patrol has its’ local office there. I always try to obey the speed limit when I’m going through Ellensburg. I mean, I always obey the speed limit, and other traffic laws wherever I drive. What I mean is that I try not to get speeding tickets, as they have gotten really expensive. I know because I’ve gotten more than my share of them. It may be just part of the package when you do as much driving as we do.

Did I tell you it’s almost exactly 3 hours to Moses Lake from Tacoma? It is, and it was just about 5:30 pm when we got into M.L. That gave me time to purchase some gasoline for our return trip before we went to work. We were playing at the Moses Lake Elks Club. I like that place because they have the stage all the way across the room, and, believe me, those old white folks can be scary. I like being as far from them as I can get, and I hope that none of them are computer literate (mostly they aren’t). There are a few of them who I remember, and who remember us from many years ago when we played at the VFW there. The VFW has long ago gone broke, and is no longer having live music if it still exists as an organization in M.L.

My favorite person in Moses Lake is Mary Warden. She is a native American, and although she is actually a very sweet person always acts like she could kick anybody’s ass. For all I know she could. She has told me about going to Indian school, and sleeping in the back of a cold automobile with her siblings. She is a 7 Day Adventist, and she’s not supposed to dance, but she does it anyway. I remember the first time I saw Mary. It was at the old VFW hall, and she was sitting alone. I don’t like to sit with people usually, but I went over and sat with her. It just got to be a habit, and I guess it still is.

We had an exceptionally large crowd at the Elks on Friday night. The Elks who came really seemed to like us, and they stayed around and danced almost to the end. The guy who gave the nightly “Swelled, and Throbbed” talk forgot his “Absent Member” until I reminded him. He was mondo embarrassed, but I hope grateful to me as well. Maybe we’ll get a raise the next time we play there.

As we were leaving Moses Lake there was a big readerboard over the freeway with the words “Snoqualmie Pass Closed”. That made our little hearts go pitty pat. Oh yes it did. I wanted to just get off I-90 and head straight for Stevens Pass via Wenatchee, but Kristi was having none of it. She must have been tired because she started immediately talking “motel room”. I didn’t want no stinkin’ motel room. I can tell you that. I had it in my head to get back to Tacoma, and I was getting. I did do as she asked me though, and drove to Ellensburg instead of running cross country as my inclination was inclining. In Ellensburg it looked like the pass was open now. They have these little radio stations along the freeway with road conditions on the pass, and they were trying hard to scare us. They said the pass was now open, but we should have snow tires, and it would be snowing, and there would be snow and slush on the road, and the boogie man would be jumping on top of the car and screaming his lungs out all the way over the pass. I’m not one to be easily frightened by idle words about road conditions. Besides, the novel we were listening to on the stereo was pretty good. I was enjoying my ride. I had figured I’d be falling asleep by the time we got to Ellensburg, but I wasn’t. It had been snowing on the pass, and I suspect that Kristi had a pretty good view in a few places. It was kinda pretty even for the driver with the trees all covered with a new sprinkling of snow. Out of Easton the road began to have slush, and snow on it, and got worse until we were well over the pass. The Escape ran right over that pass though like a champ. I passed trucks, cars, vans, and all manner of vehicles both coming, and going. I drove, and I drove, and by a little after 3 am we drove right into our own driveway, unloaded our car. I was crabby by then. I’m grateful that Kristi usually isn’t as crabby as I am.

When we went to bed, we went to sleep. I can certainly speak for myself on this matter. Kristi tells me I snored more than usual. That doesn't surprise me. The phone rang at 9 am the next morning. That means we only had a half hour remaining to sleep anyway, but we knew we had to work Saturday night, and although it was in Tacoma, it was still likely to be a challenge to get through the night.

Three Friends

Steve Kristi Marilyn

We went to the anti-war rally that was the anniversary of the Iraq War, giving a ride to our good friend, Marilyn Kimmerling. The event was in Seattle, and started at the Westlake Mall. It's a convenient place to go, as there is good bus access, and for those of us who are using up the planet by driving, there is a parking garage. It's a funny thing to walk through a mall with anti-war signs under your arm. They have rent-a-cops everywhere, and they have instructions to not let us pollute their hallowed place of commerce with residue of anti-war messaging. They stop you, and instruct you not to let your sign be seen on the message side of it while you are transversing the mall. Even when you get outside, it is still their property. There were police everywhere. If you ever need a cop, just let the local police know you are protesting something. I guess if you're a policeman, you are by default a militarist. It must come with the territory.

Out in front of Westlake mall there were policemen on horses, policemen on bicycles, policemen on foot, and I'm sure there were virtual policemen hanging around in the air like smoke rings produced by the proverbial caterpillar.

I've got to admit, I like the horses. I don't feel the same way about the policemen, but the horses look friendly. They looked like they could stand to take a nap actually. They seemed to be different breeds of horse. One of them had long hair on his legs. Don't get me wrong. I've been around policemen who knew how to behave themselves, and probably were not bad people. On the other hand there seems that there is a preponderance of assholes in most police departments, but I could be wrong having never actually hung out in their locker room. I guess they were there to help us. That's what Kristi says. She hasn't ever been arrested.

It was a pretty small turnout for the rally. We did get to hear Jim Page sing, and Bill Bichsel spoke. There were a lot of other speakers, and quite a few of them were very young, and seemed to be enjoying the event way too much. Those of us who have actually seen war up close and personal tend to be a more somber crowd. There were quite a few VFP people there, and some IVAW folks too. I think Tacoma was well represented in the crowd. Linda Frank was there, and that by itself makes a pretty good event.

Interestingly enough there were quite a few signs at the rally opposing the establishment of a "no-fly" zone in Libya. UFPPC had just released a statement supporting the citizens of Libya who oppose Moammar Ghadhaffi. This statement does acknowledge that there is a danger of this action on the part of the United Nations turning into something besides what was set out to do at the start.

It was a good event, and we were glad to be part of it. It was a pretty long walk around the downtown of Seattle. There is a guy who comes to all of these peace events and videos the events. He stays outside of the march on the sidewalk, and has good natured debates with the participants as they walk along. There were a lot of police there. I guess we gave them some good employment.

Kristi and I were worried about getting back to Tacoma too late. We knew we had to go to work, and we wanted to be able to take a nap, even if it was only a short one, before we went to work. The march ended on time for us to leave Seattle before 2:30 pm, and we were home a little after 3 pm. It was an easy, and pleasant drive with Marilyn K. there to chat with.

The Smith Tower with anti-war flags.

The night was at the #3 Eagles Club in Tacoma. Kristi is a member, and it was the night after a bowling tournament with Eagles Clubs from all over Western Washington and the joint was jammin' . We played a couple of quiet sets, as folks were eating dinner, and anyway there were tables and chairs all over the dance floor. The crowd was very enthusiastic about our music, and I think we'll get some work out of it in the long run. We were satisfied too, but when the last set ended, we were ready to call it a night. We attended the Conversation today, and tonight we'll watch a movie and get to bed relatively early. Until next time. Steve Nebel

Close Encounters

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Somehow a quote from Charles Dickens seems appropriate these days. For almost a week now I’ve been listening to the reports from Wisconsin concerning the battle between the new Wisconsin governor, and the state’s teacher’s union. The governor wants to break the union, and it looks like part of his logic is that they didn’t endorse him in the election. I think they had pretty good instincts.

I am just a political voyeur. The only problem with that is that I never get off on any of it. It just leads me on and never gets me where I want to go. I’m not certain where that is anyway. Wherever I am going, I am getting there at a snail’s pace. That is excluding the final destination, which feels like it is racing up on me at a pretty good clip. Being a baby boomer, I know that I have lots of company. But, I digress. Let’s get back to politics. I have immersed myself in wartime politics for the last several years. It is strange to me that I have reached some level of acceptance of the misery in the world, and my portion of responsibility for it. It disturbs me that most of the people in the United States acknowledge virtually not responsibility for their share of the mayhem taking place all over the globe. I guess that’s judgemental, huh?

A friend turned me on to a 3 hour movie about “destination utopia” last week. The name of the movie is “Zeitgiest, Moving Forward” and if you look around, you can find it on the interweb for free (or so I’ve been told). The movie begins itemizing reasons to believe that we (humans) aren’t really inherently violent. There are several pontificators (psychologists I presume) handing out reason. It did seem reasonable to me. The next part of the movie was on the evils of our current economic system, and the very ghostly nature of the rules that economists lay down. I guess that was essentially an attack on free market capitalism. When it got to the part about what the movie wanted, it was a brand new day, and you’ll have to watch for yourself to understand it. I thought that the smart part of a description of an economic system was that they didn’t use traditional “capitalism”, “socialism”, “free market” language. Eventually the movie comes around to a global system that feeds everyone, and gives them the material comfort needed to sustain life. The system is equitable to everyone on the planet, and we apparently live sustainably, and reasonably happily ever after. We all love happy endings, even if we don’t believe in them. My friend, Terry, says it’s definitely too good to be true. He says that what is portrayed in the movie will never happen. Most likely he’s right.

Well, that’s OK. Kristi and I drove to Bremerton this last week. Not only did we drive there, but we drove there and back . . . three times. We played at the Bremerton Elk’s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We had a good crowd all three times (it was one afternoon gig, and two night gigs). It didn’t snow, and traffic was tolerable. Also, people were reasonably nice. We played dance music. They have a pretty big dance floor, and a variety of dancers, some who know how, and some who don’t. Every night around 11 pm the great heart of elkdom swells, and throbs, we played “God Bless America”, and everyone went home afterwards. I’ve been having fun playing my cheapo Stratocaster. It is just a nice sound, and the guitar is well balanced, and has a good action as well. I put the Lace Sensor pickups, and the pickup switch in it. Now I guess all it needs to be a pretty deluxe electric guitar is new tuning machines, and I’ll probably do that, although I’m not certain why I would as it stays in tune just fine as is. After playing three long dance gigs in three days we played a retirement home in Lynnwood on Sunday afternoon. Now there was a drive. We hit big traffic right smack in the middle of Seattle. We gave ourselves an extra half hour to get there, and we needed it. We got there just on time to set up and play. I’ve got to admit, I was a little tired after the previous two nights. I hadn’t necessarily treated myself that well as I was having difficulty with another business that we have gotten ourselves into, namely the apartment rental business. I suppose it’s a good thing to learn a new business. I’m told that keeping the mind active keeps it from rotting away quite so fast. We can all hope that’s true. I woke up after four hours of sleep after hearing from the father of a prospective tenant in a phone message. I had myself wound up pretty good. I was ready for a nap by the time we got home from Lynnwood.

It has been President’s Day weekend. That means that the post office was closed today (Monday). It also means that Sunday was possibly another party night. We went to dinner at the Philbrook’s house. It was fun. It was a relaxing time, as I’m getting to know everyone over there pretty well now. I didn’t talk much politics, just a little. Tomorrow will certainly be another day, and I have work to do. That’s probably a good thing, as I need some motivation at times these days.

Today Kristi and I put the final touches on the big apartment at the new house. We signed a contract with a new tenant, meeting his two youngest children, and his oldest daughter from a previous marriage. I feel like the house is coming along, and that we are approaching the end of the most serious work. I do have a wall that needs repair tomorrow. I think that will be it for awhile. Next weekend we go to Everett and play at Club 170. It is a Naval Reserve club (I think). All of the places that we play seem to be bastions of militarism. It is such a lot of foolishness, based largely on mythology, and propaganda. I have to bite my tongue a lot. People at this club have asked why I don’t say much. If I did say much, they would certainly understand, and I would be even more unemployed than I am keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes you can’t win, and most of the time I’m not interested in trying. It’s supposed to snow later this week too, so maybe I’ll have a more exciting blog after the weekend. In the meantime, if you have the time, energy, and money you might make a trip to Wisconsin. I certainly think that they are fighting a battle worth winning. Steve Nebel