Shit. I waited too long to write this. It’s only Friday
morning and this was Tuesday but it feels like another life. Oh right, we were
in the beef smelling hotel. (Chuck says it was a yeasty smell and it’s only
because I’m a vegetarian that it smells like meat. The man’s a fucking idiot.)
After a little experience it’s pretty easy to look at how much shit Lisa has
spread around the hotel room and gauge how long it will be until we leave. I
figured I had a good hour at least, so I went for a walk across the street to a
bunch of homogeneous 1960’s looking buildings. Turns out it was the University
of Albany. The entire campus was designed by Edward Durell Stone and most
people hate it. Most people have a point. It’s a big lifeless chunk of ice in
the middle of a field. When you get up close however there are a some lovely
details, so I’ll post some pictures of those, but in general – blech. While
there I went to the University Art Museum where they had an exhibit by Lamar
Peterson called Blue Plastic Bubbles, which was awesomely weird. I took a
picture of Jimi Hendrix with a deer, which is maybe the most sane one, but still
featured Jimi Hendrix with a deer.
We took a state route route up to Vermont because Rene’
wanted to stop at the Saratoga National Park to see the only remaining
honorarium to Benedict Arnold in the states, (they were all destroyed by decree
after the ah, incident Rene’ said) because he is a direct relative of hers.
National Park? Yes, thank you. I got to try on period costumes meant for
children, and watch the battle of Saratoga unfold on a big piece of painted
wood with little lights signifying the troop movements being described in aching detail by a deeply serious, sonorous voice. The statue of traitor Ben was covered
up for winter so Rene’ was pissed, but my day was made. (Not because Rene’ was
pissed- that made me sad.)
It turned out we were playing in Winooski, a little ways out
of Burlington. It was a funny little town along a river that looked like it was
probably an old mill town, but at the same time everything looked brand new. I
asked the bartender, and he said that a few years ago the place had been full of empty buildings and beset with serious generational poverty. But
they’d converted the great old high-ceilinged buildings into condos and
everything else had been torn down and built anew. So now it’s kind of like an
upscale strip mall with just a skosh of human suffering.
We loaded in to the Monkey Room or whatever it was called,
right before the open mic storytelling was to begin. It was a close call but I
managed to learn nothing of anyone’s internal life. I went down to the river,
frightened an otter, and discovered they had converted their bucolic river into
a hydro-electric plant. John and I climbed over a wall far too low to be meant
as a serious impediment, and went out to the edge of some rocks that jutted
into where the outflow from the plant re-joined the river from the spillway. It
was a very starry, classically Vermont-y, wintery, gorge scene with the gentle water sounds
giving John and I a nice chance to share each other’s strength.
The last time we played Vermont was
years ago in Montpelier, and we played this theater space which was attended by a whole community of
people who knew each other and supported the place. We had a wonderful time and
these two people, Scott and Nora, whom me had never met, gave us their house
for the night. They showed us where the food was and then left. Like we
could’ve smelled their underwear, (lavender) hung dong willy-nilly, but they
left anyway. They’ve become dear friends regardless and we got to play for them
again, which was sweet. We played well (two nights in a row!) and people really
seemed to enjoy themselves. Awesome person in general and superlative bass
player Mike Donofrio got us to play an entirely unrehearsed version of Crooked
which was fun if also refreshingly unlistenable.
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