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

I like to think that I am ready for any kind of driving at any time. This comes from experience, perhaps a pride of experience. This has been a trying winter, and it’s not over yet. One thing about the kind of automobile travel that Kristi and I engage in is that we go when we must go. That means that I packed the car in driving, torrential rain last night. It also means that because we had a later starting time than usual (9 pm), it was after dark when we left. I thought about the fact that the rain might taper off at any minute, but we had to leave as soon as I could get the car packed as we had a starting time to adhere our schedule to.

The rain turned into sleet while I was packing the car. It was blowing hard enough that the sleet was eight feet inside the door of the garage that I was loading from, and beginning to pile up before I finished loading. My jacket was soaked through, and my double breasted jacket underneath was soaked through. My pants were thoroughly drenched in the back. I’m sure they were dripping by the time I got in the driver seat. The up side of the exercise is that I packed the car in record time. I didn’t forget to bring anything either. I think there’s a certain amount of mental stimulation that goes along with physical discomfort of this type. I suppose that part of it is the physical effort that is being dispensed as well.

Kristi was taking care of food as she always does. I did help make the sandwiches this time though. We also had calzones that she had fed us for dinner on Thursday night before I went to see Garrison Keillor with my cousin’s husband, Stephen. We always make sure we have lots of food to travel with. I was concerned that she would get wet like I was if she wasn’t careful. I warned her, and she managed to stay pretty dry.

This rain didn’t abate at all from our start in Tacoma, all the way to CleElum. The traffic was hellish in that the fear was so heavy on the freeways that you could feel it, and also everyone was driving painfully slow. As I said before, we were on a schedule. That makes me an aggressive driver. I pushed hard, changing lanes, passing, and getting frustrated. It didn’t take me long to relax and accept the fact that traffic was slow, and I was just going to have to accept it. The rain was heavy enough that water was flowing on the highway, and the windshield wipers, as brave as they might swipe, couldn’t get all of the water off of the windshield to give me a perfect vision of where I was going.

Kristi puts everything she travels with on the floor of the passenger side of the car. I sometimes find this a source of irritation as she will sometimes leave a mess there. It’s much easier to throw an item on the floor of the car than it is to retrieve it. She doesn’t feel that reaching over the back seat for an item is practical for her, and she does have a point. There are other considerations to traveling with a PA system. I worry that we’re going to pour a bottle of water into our PA amplifier some fine day. It rides on the floor of the car just behind the passenger seat. So far, so good. It is handy I guess. Whoever is in the passenger seat is the dispenser of foodstuffs. Kristi does a good job of keeping me fed while I drive. In the rain it was difficult to do anything except concentrate on driving as there were a lot of other vehicles, visibility was horrible. There were times when I found myself slowing down, at least once in the fast lane with another car passing me in the slow lane. I hate it when I do that almost as much as when I find other drivers driving too slow in the inside lane when I want to be moving down the highway.

I made initial psychological adjustment to the visibility, and the density of traffic that lasted all the way over Tiger Mountain and down to I-90. When I hit I-90, and the speed limit was 70 mph it changed my entire sense of driving. For one thing I-90 is grooved from the passage of heavy trucks, and the water in the grooves was deep enough that the tires began to hydroplane. I was doing 70, and my driving wheel was spinning. That was strange. The rain was heavier than it had been during the journey over Tiger Mountain, although the traffic was a bit lighter.

One anticipates going over Snoqualmie Pass. I always wonder if I’m going to have to drive in the snow, which is often no great hardship, but when the wind is blowing, and precipitation is as heavy as it was last night the anticipation may be accompanied by a sense of foreboding. As luck would have it, it was warm enough that it only snowed a little, it was not sticking to the road, and it was a pleasant change from the rain. I do know this road well, having traveled it too many times to count. It almost seemed like I was flying by radar last night. I couldn’t see the bald eagle’s nest that is at the exit to CleElum as I pulled off of I-90.

The CleElum Eagles have an easy load-in. I don’t need a hand truck as you pull up to the door of the stage and load directly onto the stage. Kristi gets out of the car in front of the club, acquires the key from the bartender, and opens the door for me. I usually would get out of the car and wait, but it was still pouring down rain, and I suppose I was suffering from a certain PTSD due to being soaked during the load up. I guess she was standing in the door for awhile, expecting me to see her. Finally she came to the door of the car asking why the hell I was just sitting there.

The CleElum Eagles were having their Sweetheart Ball. We played for this event last year as well. It includes a cake auction. One cake went for $220. I heard $110 for another. There may have been some higher prices, as we were setting up, which takes a certain amount of concentration. The $220 made me perk up my ears. It made me think we were being underpaid. After the auction, there was a cakewalk. They have a fine piano player who plays for the cakewalk. After the cakewalk, she stayed until closing time. Apparently she likes to drink too. I drank coffee while that was going on. I have an inexpensive Squire Stratocaster that I have equipped with Lace Sensor pickups that I have been enjoying. I was looking forward to playing that guitar. I picked out a real variety set, which included a few bonehead rock songs, some country, and a few pop gems as well. I had fun rocking out with the distortion setting that I had put on my multi-effect unit. It was a nice set, although I had my doubts about this crowd. They always thin out pretty severely after the cakewalk, which is the highlight of the night. I think the master of ceremonies said they pulled in close to $1900. Not bad, but I thought they would have done better, considering the money they got from the auction. That goes to show how little I know.

As far as I’m concerned, the night went well. We didn’t have any severe unhappiness about volume, nor did we have anyone harassing us about our setlist. I was having fun, as my voice, and guitar playing were both about as good as they get, and we had a nice balance. My electric guitar is always wireless, so if Kristi is singing a solo song, I can get off of the stage and listen to the mix from the dance floor. It allows me to really hear what we are sounding like, and make appropriate adjustments if necessary. It did concern me that there were periods when there were no dancers. There are some clubs where nobody knows how to dance. Cle Elum has always been a mixed bag. It is a medium sized room. It is bigger than small, but smaller than huge. They like to drink there. That is one thing that is always true, and probably accounts somewhat for their longevity as a club, if not much longevity for the members.

There is a dance group that comes out from Ellensberg sometimes to hear us, and dance to us. They weren’t there last night. There were a few dancers, but they were the kind of dancers who only dance if they hear that specific song. Sometimes if you play a couple of rock n’ roll songs, the wrong kind of dancers can get the wrong idea. They may decide that you are just inappropriate for them. I could have played all ballroom dance, and the crowd that finally stayed all night (and got falling down drunk) would have left. The dancers were only a few, and dancers don’t drink much. It’s a hard call, but in the end the staff, and the people who stayed were quite enthusiastic about us, and that counts.

At the end of the night, we just played until the end of the set, warned no one, and quit at two minutes until midnight. I put a best of Frank Sinatra mp3 file on, and we broke down the gear. Kristi went to the bar to get our check, and then out to bring the car around to the stage door. I had some breaking down, and packing to do when she left the stage, and I was surprised that it took her so long to get to the door. The rain had been coming and going during the night. It had slowed down when we loaded the car. As we were packing up one of the waitress’s told us she had a great time listening to us. I wanted to say that I did too, but restrained myself. I thanked her. Hey, she had our paycheck. One must try to be nice to the people who pay you, however much you are being underpaid.

There was snow. There wasn’t so much on the ground. What was there was dirty. Actually, filthy dirty. There was no white to be found anywhere that we could see in Cle Elum, except coming from the sky as we prepared to leave. It was a wet snow, so much so that it could barely even be called snow. I called it snow though, to myself. I knew that we would be climbing to a much higher elevation, and the odds were in favor of seeing snow face to face, windshield to snow, or whatever.

The Saturn is a small car. It’s not as small as some other cars, but is, nonetheless, small. It is a station wagon, which is necessary for us. A sedan would have no business hauling Kristi and I around. If we were in a sedan we would have no purpose. Life is already existential enough without us driving around in a sedan. We currently have the Saturn wagon, and a Ford Explorer SUV. The Saturn is a thrifty vehicle as well as being large enough, but not too big, which is a good part of what makes it thrifty. It is made out of plastic as well. We sometimes consider melting it down and making plastic dinnerware out of it. As things stand, it holds just enough gear for us to play at the Cle Elum Eagles.

The snow that was coming down was not threatening in Cle Elum. I don’t think it was that threatening for a few miles, but once we started getting on towards Easton, it got really heavy. Very soon after we started the climb up I-90 toward Snoqualmie Pass it became difficult to see the road. We were following a big truck, and he seemed to me to be going too slow. That’s a nebulous standard, but under the circumstances it called me to pass him in the slush on the road. Once I got around him, I realized that I couldn’t see the road very much more than what was immediately in front of me. I had to slow down for my own confidence, and when I did that, the big truck went around us. He had been driving behind me for quite awhile, and I was grateful to have him get out in front of me. Kristi theorized that from his high seat on his big truck he could see much more than us. Maybe he had a crystal ball that showed the road as clear as a starlit night on his dashboard. Maybe the fairys were whispering in his ear telling him to go faster, telling him that it was safe, that he was invincible, that they were with him, and he should fear no highway, and certainly not I-90 approaching Snoqualmie Pass. Usually following a large truck means that you are forced to eat his dust, in this case snow. That wasn’t how it was. Our visibility was much greater. Granted, we could only see the back of the big truck, but now he was our friend, our guide, our fairy godfather come to guide us through the mountains to our own hearth in Tacoma.

As it turned out, the final mile or two up to the pass became tedious, as our trucker friend had a heavy load he was carrying, and it would not tolerate the speeds to which we were accustomed. So we said farewell to our Fairy Godfather, and stomped on the gas skidding up the road to the summit. As we skidded over the summit of the pass, we were looking forward to blessed rain . . . which didn’t come for another ten miles or so. I put us in the center lane and lightened up on the gas pedal. I did pass whatever came our way, and it looked like the snow was beginning to build up on the road. We paid it no mind and skidded on down the mountain to North Bend, which was hiding from us in the rain that by that time was washing away the last molecules of snow from the windshield wipers. It was smooth skidding from then on. It was just a normal drive out of the mountains. I got my macho back, and Tacoma was a jewel in the night when we arrived.

It is Sunday now, and Saturday night is just another vision that passed in my dreams. Kristi tells me that we will be back in Cle Elum just before we head out for Europe. We will have no cowboys in boots and hats to entertain us there. We will have gallons of fine scotch whiskey, and the finest English ales, and, of course, stout by the barrel, ready to wash away our worst North American nightmares. Look for us there.