March 31, part 2

continued…….

March 31, part 2

Meanwhile, back in Chattanooga, I was starting to feel human again. Now that I had a dependable car I could look to as my sanctuary, I was feeling less fucked and vulnerable. For a few days, at least.

I got back to the club and JJ the owner was opening up his place. He seemed genuinely happy that I was there and mentioned that the majority of phone calls he had been getting on the show were for me. He asked me if I’d consider playing after Exene. I let out with a slight snicker. Inside, I was giddy. I know it must sound puny and petty but after marching along in a parade of such utter shit-age for the past few days straight, little things like this feel pretty pleasant and mildly victorious for the ol’ wounded heart and ego. At that moment, I needed a little win for my goddamned soul, of any kind, and this one would do very nicely. I told him that it was up to Exene, that I would happily play whenever.

Honestly, I didn’t care where I was playing on the bill. I just couldn’t wait to rock the fuck out and let my anger, sadness and frustration melt it all down into one kick-ass acoustic punk rock set. This would be a sure fuckin’ thing.

I killed time. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on my guitar. I get like this often, where I’ll be hanging out with friends, standing in line at the grocery store, driving, etc. etc., and I’ll get this massive urge to play guitar and sing into thin air and for nobody on the planet but just me. I do this a lot after an argument, sex or an abnormally trying day. When it happens, I usually find myself far away from my guitar and it tends to put me in a complete shit mood.

Exene and Raven showed up and after I grabbed my stuff from out of the car and put it in my rental car, Raven took me aside and told me how badly she felt about everything and apologized for some of what had transpired. Like I told her then, she wasn’t the one who owed me an apology and I certainly wasn’t blaming her for anything. She had been very cool and in our week and a half of traveling together, we ended up getting along pretty well, especially considering how weird things around us were.



I talked with some people at the gig and watched the local opening performer, Bryan Hensley. His set was really great and his great attitude and old-timey folk music got me in an even better mood.

I didn’t bother watching Exene’s set that night. I couldn’t bring myself to listen to her sing and play or give her increasingly longer speeches about how punk rock was about changing the world and lives and how we all needed to help take care of one another, especially since the world was in peril with things such as Japan’s current radiation problem. Like I said, I was finally starting to feel human again and I just didn’t want her to bum me the fuck out.

I raged during my set. I loved the crowd and they seemed to love me back and I just lost all train of thought and banged my way through a chaotic yet oddly spiritual set.

At one point during my set, I commented that I may be spending a little more time in Chattanooga than I had initially planned and that I might even be in need of a job and right then, an attractive punk rock woman in her 30’s, yelled out from the sweaty crowd, “I’ll get you a job. I work at a restaurant. Come work for me!” and I actually found myself briefly pondering right there onstage, what a job like that might pay hourly.

After my set, a great folky, bluegrassy act from Gainesville called Greenland Is Melting came on and killed it good. I watched most of their set and enjoyed the amount of CDs and vinyl I was selling. Lord knows, I needed to.

The show ended and I don’t even remember Exene leaving the building. She certainly didn’t bother with a ‘goodnight’ or anything. We still had 2 more nights together. Might as well not fuck it up by any last attempts at civility, right?

As I was about to leave for the night, the cute punk rock girl (I’ll call her Trish. I don’t want to use her real name just in case this might embarrass her in any way) who jokingly offered me a job approached me and asked me if I needed a place to crash at and I told her that I did, not really thinking or caring about where it might be, what type of place it was or who else might be living/staying there. At that point, I was just eating up any and all forms of kindness and hospitality thrown my way and I didn’t give a fuck about details or conditions.

After squaring up with JJ and getting my stuff packed into my new rental car, I following her to her house but along the way, we stopped at a little bar she works at and she invited me in for a few minutes. We went inside and she introduced me to several of her friends and I thought about how nice it must be to work at a place where you see your friends on a regular basis and enjoy fun times with them at your workplace. From what I could tell, Chattanooga has a small but nicely tight-knitted music scene that I am always a gigantic sucker for. Even after all these years.

Trish had a drink of some sort and before I knew it, we were off to some outskirt-ish part of Chattanooga where the roads began winding up into hilly, nearly rural neighborhoods, me in my newly rented Subaru, following her in her truck.

We got to her place and it was dark and I could sense the presence of other humans throughout the big house. Sleeping, mainly. Per her suggestion, I brought in my guitar and bag of clothes and she lead us into her room. I asked where I would be crashing and she, like it really, truly made no difference whatsoever in her world or to anybody else, answered, “you can sleep in my bed. with me. it’s no problem at all”.

Um….uh.  Shit.

My taxed brain raced to thoughts of the last time something like this - y’know, me being offered a sleeping spot on an attractive girl stranger’s bed - had occurred in my life and, though it most certainly has occurred, I couldn’t remember when. All of a sudden, I felt like I was 15 and had never set foot out of Sacramento. I got all nervous and began stammering around with my words.

I knew I was starting to over-think this and part of me felt really stupid and un-evolved for even pondering that things could go wrong or be weird by me sleeping (fully-clothed) next to a woman (fully-clothed) in her bed. Fuck man. It’s 2011. You mean to tell me something like this is going to rattle an old road dog like me? With all the shit I’ve seen and done?!!

I felt disappointed in myself that I was even mildly freaking out, but I was.

Trish gave no sort of “vibe” at all that she had any ulterior motives to get me into her bed other than that she is just a nice person who had sat with me at her bar and listened as I spun my very condensed version of my sad tour tale and decided to extend to me, an act of genuine kindness and Tennessee hospitality.  Basically, I got the feeling that she would do this for any other nice yet aggrieved fellow human being if she could.

Still, I just couldn’t get my own hang ups out of my head and I knew that I couldn’t sleep in her bed. Not with her in it. This wasn’t a sex thing. Or an assumption of sex thing. It wasn’t even a jealous-wifey-at-home thing.  And I’m no prude. I’m not hung up on shit like this. I’ve slept next to plenty of girls (and guys) in my lifetime where not a goddamned thing occurred between us besides some snoring, dream-induced stirring and an occasional and accidental kick to the ankle.

I began feeling anxious and paranoid and the room seemed smaller than it really was. I started feeling like maybe the best thing for me to do was back in my car and drive out of the city and find a place along the road to Nashville to crash somewhere.

In the small amount of time we hung out, Trish seemed cool, funny, interesting, smart and a good listener. I enjoyed her company and our evening’s conversation. I just kept thinking about how potentially awkward it might be to wake up in a strange bed and see this girl sleeping next to me. Or even worse, her waking up in the morning, and seeing some old, bearded, tattooed chubby dude sleeping next to here. It just seemed like the worst idea imaginable at that very moment and it was more than I could handle in my brain.

Yet, there i was, 3 o’clock in the morning, really needing a hot shower, a safe place to store my guitar for the night and a quite and comfortable place to rest my dizzy head or a few hours.

What a terrible fucking dilemma.

At some point, Trish left the room and thats when I seriously pondered what my next move would be. I was now feeling wide awake despite the fact that I knew I was severely exhausted, physically, mentally, etc etc.

I decided to try and drive the 2 and a half hours to Nashville, where I knew I had a place to stay.

She came back into the room and seemed inebriated, definitely a lot more than she had minutes before. We started talking again, she picked up her guitar and began playing bits of a song, then told me that she had to get up in a few hours for work before laying down in her bed for the night. I felt very weird just sitting at the edge of the bed like I was. My eyes darted around, catching glimpses of books, records, pics and gig fliers. I pondered everything that had happened in the past week and marveled at how truly weird and fucked up my life can seem at times.

The room got quiet and before long, I noticed Trish had stopped talking and was now just breathing quietly. I looked over at her and she was sound asleep.

I knew it was time to leave. I wrote her a little note, thanking her for her hospitality and grabbed my stuff and tip-toed out of her room, past her sleeping housemates and out the front door and to my frosty but waiting rental car. I felt weasel-y but I believe I made the right decision.

I imagined that Trish would make a good friend in normal circumstances and I sorta regret not having a way to stay in touch. Maybe I could find her on Twitter or Facebook or something but then remembered her telling me that she hated the Internet and didn’t bother with any of it.

I got somewhat lost, looking for a way out of Trish’s rural-y neighborhood, along the way to the nearest interstate I could find. I called Al to say goodnight. What this poor, wonderful woman, that has shared my life for 19 years, must think of me, at times.

Jesus.

I drove a bit but the exhaustion set in and I was seeing triple in a 70 mph zone so I pulled off the second I saw a Walmart sign. Pulled into the parking lot and found the least-lighted space I could find, somewhere between an RV and a big rig.

This will do just fucking dandy, I thought.

I managed to answer a few concerned text messages and e-mails and before long…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

to be continued……