Thursday 11/27/08 - Smirky Turkey?
This Delta bird is bound for JFK. Back to back Law & Order, CSI (which sometimes makes Law and Order look positively subtle), and The Closer on TV. Now that a lot of airlines have TV as an option, Southwest DOES seem no frills on long flights... didn't used to! Naturally my bag is last off the plane - this is always the case when you are in a hurry... I am headed to the West Village for a wondrous feast with Uber-Bobs Fan Fred, his wife Adria and son Josh, and their extended family. Fred works with ASCAP (of which I am a proud, card-carrying member) and has supplied The Bobs with serious ASCAP swag for years, and after several offers of a downtown nest, we've taken him up on it - not just for me but also for Matthew, whose usual Manhattan roosts are unavailable. The meal is fabulous, as is the company (the jokes, not so much!). The turkey, a BMI writer, was indeed cooked to perfection. After dinner, exhausted but happy to be back in da crisp cold again, I play with their goofy tuxedo kitty Minko Minko, and get about 6 hours of sleep... eventually…
Friday 11/28/08 - Wonderful Town
Matthew and I accompany Fred on a lovely stroll downtown to do some errands on this perfect fall day... including Murray’s Cheese Shop, where, after discussing their large stock of California creamery cheeses, the counter guy declares, “Hey, YOU can stay," and Guitar Center where, amongst other worshipful dudes, Fred drools over a carbon acoustic in the humidity-controlled guitar room. Adria calls just as he begins to discuss the price with the salesperson. How did she know?
Lunch at Le Pain Quotidien (very much like the one in West Hollywood, except we won't be on any verandas today) on this crisp day, then a brief nap before Dan and Richard arrive. Must be strange for a Bobs fan to have us rehearse in their livingroom. Later, Fred tells us that, listening in from the loft, he marveled at how "you guys sound like we do in meetings!" We discuss possible new openers AND closers ("White Room" is awesome, but nearing temporary retirement) then snarf some leftovers before heading out to the first of two shows at the Metropolitan Room.
I immediately encounter a fan downstairs who brings up my lack of Bob Tales in 2008 (which prompts me to start THIS one). It's been a full year, people - perhaps not with Bobs tours, but I've been busy! I'm going to wear my new red, sparkly dress, which leaned towards "tap instructor" at first, but I will decide it works after receiving about five comments a night (and e-mails) about it... This first show is most memorable for Matthew's Amtrak-like trainwreck during "Title of the Song." We just started doing this old tune that Richard Bob co-wrote for the now extinct vocal group, DaVinci's Notebook. Matthew not only forgets the lyrics, but we must plow through it several times. The audience is laughing so hard they're crying. Afterwards, I confess to them that I had to go to a different mental place to get through it - which we've ALL had to do before in Bobs shows. I used to go to a beach or somewhere calming in order not to laugh, but this time I went to Syracuse in order to get depressed enough to not crack up entirely.
My fears of an...underwear incident in that dress during "White Room" are unfounded (I just have to fall the right way, or perhaps get some seriously stooopid HO HO HO underwear?), the Vince Guaraldi tune goes extremely well as an encore, and a reviewer tells us "That was the best trainwreck I've ever seen" as he leaves. We opt to walk home @12:30am with Adria and Fred, who are completely in sync with each other... they impressively finish each other's encyclopaedic entries about New York City history. Back at the ranch we listen to a psychedelic verison of tune called FIRE by Arthur Brown in the dark, downstairs. Yes, it could be a closer... but we really need something that... was released AFTER I WAS BORN. : )
Serious cheese ingestion ensues in the kitchen before I head to bed. BTW, Richard Bob says that if you search for "Title of the Song" on YouTube, you will find about a zillion vocal groups that do it... poorly!
Saturday 11/29/08 - I Loved the 80's 
This morning's brunch is brought to you by FACEBOOK! Those of you who are on Facebook understand why I call it Crackbook, but it has some wonderful side effects, like the kind of reunion I have with friends from high school this weekend. It's been at least 20 and in some cases 25 years since I've seen these people, all of whom look amazing! The first is Morgan, who picks me up at Fred's place with her beautiful daughter, Bridget. Over a scrumptious brunch at the NoHo Star, we catch up and I marvel at the fact that her daughter is the same age we were when she and I were friends. Morgan was one of six seniors who basically comprised the drama and music departments at Rutgers Prep when I was a sophomore. When they graduated, RPS was an artistic Dresden, save for me and about two people. My 1980's pledge to never forgive them is completely invalidated as we laugh about life, love and the paths we've taken to these lovely Eggs Benedicts.
I spend the afternoon listening to mixes of the demo I produced in Seattle last week and email notes to Peter, the composer in Montreal. I wrote the lyrics for a rock musical adaptation of Carl Sagan's CONTACT (the book, not the movie) and this is a working demo for the workshop production that goes up in May 2009. Quite an exciting project!
Dan and Richard come over for more rehearsal... we discuss doing a Journey cover and paw through Fred's many GREATEST HITS books for ideas before heading out to a Grand dinner at the Grand Sichuan! Mark (better known as Alexei Karamazov), his friend, Kate, Fred & Adria, Richard's daughter Ashley, and Dan's friend Eric (a gourmet chocolate salesperson who always brings us amazing Valrhona samples!) and his wife, and Josh and his friends have an immensely flavorful Chinese Chowdown before we cab to the show. God, I miss Chinese food. NEW YORK Chinese food. Despite what you might assume, there is no really good Chinese food in Los Angeles. (Sounds like a Bobs song...) I skip the rice but feel semi-high on the sauce sugars...
We premiere my new arrangement of Jill Sobule's "Jesus was a Dreidel Spinner" as well as the very OLD arrangement of "Bus Plunge," which is so out in the context of the Holiday Show or ANY show (which I kind of... love). "Title of the Song" is great (Matthew nails the words). And afterwards I reune with Ed and Jon, two more high school friends. Ed now lives in Puerto Rico, so this is truly a treat. In my mind, Ed is always sitting at a piano in a high school music room playing and singing Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman to Me." We hope to brunch tomorrow as I am shuttled off to sign CDs for fans and then pack us up.
Minko Minko decides to sphinx out on top of me on this last evening Chez Fred & Adra. Thank you, Minko Minko. I will tell Santa about you!
Sunday 11/30/08 - Pennsyltucky (as Grandpa Benny called it)
Ed calls to say he can't come back into the city for brunch, but we talk for about an hour and it's great to catch up. And after I think about it, I realize that Ed and I have never had any really long conversations that weren't interrupted by a bell ringing. I have a froggy voice on this drizzly day... that's OK. Sirius Radio confirms that we are coming in to tape a Bobs Christmas Special on Monday - YAY! Matthew and I lounge around with our hosts until about 2 p.m., then leave for an upper west side pickup at Starbucks, where Mark sees us off in the La Guardia-fetched rental Dan and Richard arrive in. The drive to Pennsylvania takes about 3 hours, eventually in the dark, which Matthew will keep reminding us is indeed "dark" on this trip for some reason... As we vroom down the Turnpike for the millionth time, passing the Newark Swamps, thoughts of the enviro-cleanup I have imagined here since I was 13 and riding the trains to classes in New York invade. Why hasn't someone done that? I bet that some of the garbage along the NJ Transit tracks has been there since I lived here. What a job that would be. SOMEONE SHOULD DO IT.
A Syracuse grad from 2007 (yikes) is our soundperson at the super-cool Sellersville Theater. She's ALSO super, (knowing I graduated 20 years before her... isn't). We have a superb dinner next door (tilapia, baby) and are treated to a wonderful opening act - Little Toby Walker, who is actually of normal size but of immense blues talent. The show rocks - and we hope to return to this venue, where everything runs like clockwork (which is...not always the case...). Dan drives us back to the hotel, since Matthew has determined it's TOO dark. Wish I hadn't forgotten my camera - the embodiment of the lyrics of our Fifty Kilowatt Tree was glowing radioactively at a home just blocks from the theater!
Monday 12/1/08 - Nights on the Laptop in Chantilly (that sounds vaguely... adult)
This is... technically a day off. After a rainy drive to DC it's decided that, since there's enough stuff within walking distance to the hotel, Richard will take the car out to Broad Run, where he now lives part time. Richard inherited a farm and several acres there a few years back. We all get to our rooms and pretty much collapse. I do email and Facebook all day as the drizzle outside gets colder... Dan joins Facebook but doesn’t add me as a friend immediately. What is THAT about? My good friend Eric bails on dinner… but I don't blame him - DC burb traffic is ABOMINABLE - easily as bad or worse than Los Angeles, Boston, New York OR San Francisco. So I use the shuttle to pick up a WONDERFUL French Onion Soup and Blue Cheese wedge salad from Damon’s Grill down the road… then Skype for about 3 hours. With a webcam, you are really talking to someone - it's not like sending an e-mail. Love it. Peter and I discuss the CONTACT demo (he's in Montreal), Alex shows me the Sitka P. at home in Los Angeles, and I find my brother and his wife enjoying a week together in Mantua, Italy after her extended stay there for her dissertation. It's so great to see them together after all this time. The rich irony is not lost on me as I use the crappy 2 for $10 disposable camera from Rite-Aid in New York to take a picture of our conversation in progress!
Tuesday 12/2/08 - No Reston This Town
I Slept Until 11:15. Maybe it's the knowledge that we are here for FOUR NIGHTS? That is truly a luxury on the road. I attempt to go swim in the hotel pool but it's DENIED - the pool is closed for some ungodly reason... and I realize I took not my roomkey, but my DUANE READE card from my desk. So I have to ask the desk clerk for a new roomkey, standing in the lobby in a bathing suit with no ID! Denied THAT kind of exercise, I walk to Starbucks, about a mile away, where I run into Matthew (naturally) after dodging sidewalks full of endless, galactic goose poop. I guess when you pave over their natural habitat, they get mad. (So do I, actually - I think about the hideous Playa Vista near me in Marina del Rey, and the ten-year battle to save the Ballona Wetlands. Pitiful.) At Target I snag pet toys for Sitka, Minko Minko and Peter's dog Sammy (a Canadian goose toy!), then spend the rest of the day entering "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" into Finale so I can give Matthew a midi file of his part (for next year). Vocal jazz arranger extraoradinaire Michele Weir and I wrote a great chart of this (I did the lyrics) that Shawnee Press published two years ago.
After more Facebook and Law & Order, it's time for Reston Centerstage, where we did the RHAPSODY IN BOB show in 2005. To say the catering was GREAT would be a vast understatement. (Can you believe this is still a focus of these BobTales? I guess it goes to show what's important to you when you're on the road, really. This and the fact that the Guest Laundry is right down the hall from my room. I HAVE NO LIFE, APPARENTLY!!!) I run into Fred Wygal in the hall. Fred directs the Reston Chorale, who sang with us at Wolf Trap a few years back (See BobTale Bobruary 2002). We discuss a spring visit. I meet the venue's new director, a great guy with a wonderful sense of humor. After the show, at the merch table, some folks come tell me they liked my solo CD... thanks a million, y'all. It's extremely wonderful to hear that. One of them said they didn't know how I'd react to hearing that, if it was cool to talk to me about it. OF COURSE IT IS!
On the way home (via 28 and something else) it dawns on me that all Beltway area roads have the same exits (Old Ox Road, something about a Wheel, George Washington or a schoolhouse) and it takes forever to get anywhere. I dare you to prove me wrong.
Wednesday 12/3/08 - Bed, Bath and Biondo
"We'd like to thank the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, as well as everyone nominated. But we really deserved to win." Chris "Bloodbath And" Biondo is a four-time Emmy winner. And he's engineering the sessions we are doing today at Biondo Studios for a new kids' products by Hooked on Phonics. We've done several of these (see picture, R) for Russell, the producer, a long time Bobs fan who has also hired me to write for similar projects. While figuring out how to abscond with Chris' Emmys, we spend this fun day singing Russell's fun tunes, like "The Big Pig Song." Gotta say, phrases like “I know words with E” just sound hysterical when intoned with gusto by Richard Bob. These studio days with Russell are always hilarious, and Chris' dry wit adds to the mix. Chris produced the late, great Eva Cassidy ; you are hereby commanded to check that out. 
Chris also has a serious Simpsons fetish... and tries to contain his glee when I offer to bring something from his collection to Chicago next week for Harry Shearer to sign.
A great dinner with my aunt and cousin @ Damon’s Grill back in Chantilly. It's so good to hear that Jon is happy doing web work instead of dealing with the administrative fifedoms of Florida Community Colleges, where he has taught for the past 10 years. My aunt Bette is headed back to the Virginia Legislature after 6 months off and the kitchen remodeling she's been dreaming of for over 30 years… I pore through the Murray’s Cheese Shop catalogue in bed… and am oddly boiling hot all night afterwards... maybe I have a thyroid condition? This happens to me a lot. Or maybe cheese makes me hot? WHAT THE?!?!??!
Thursday 12/4/08 - Hooked on Phonics
Another day of hilarious vocal slaving for Russell, pronouncing things VERY clearly. Richard sings a blues about trying to wake up (um...), Dan funks out a motown tune, and we add Aretha Franklin- type backgrounds to "Rhyme Time." We also briefly meet Marcy Marxer of Grammy-winning Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer fame when she lends her non-dulcet banjo tones to another tune. Marcy produced one of the tunes I wrote for Russell's other project, so it's great to actually meet her in person. Lenny Williams from The Capitol Steps pops in to say hello - he and Chris are partners at this studio. Russell’s kids come by to add Genuine Kiddery to the Pig tune, and we head to the Black Market Bistro for dinner based on Chris' recommendation (THANKS, it was awesome!). Russell regales us with stories of his days working on the Castle Infinity project at Paul Allen's studio (including the room that contained One Hendrix guitar), as three of us bacon cheeseburger to our heart's content.
Is it great or lame that the Beltway drivers we encounter on the way back to Chantilly do not dampen the flame of my laundry happiness for the evening? Cellphones were invented so that you could call fellow travelers to tell them, "the washing machine is now available." I Facebook into a world of college memories all night.
Friday 12/5/08 - You Elmer – You Brung 'Er
Leaving the Hampton Inn feels like leaving home after 4 days… isn't that sad? But my socks are dry, so I'm ready to go. Email brings frustration over CONTACT casting issues (a continuing uphill battle, actually), and Dan is bemoaning the loss of his extra 10% discount (on top of the 30% discount) he enjoys at Starbucks, as are we... His discount made Dan our official Coffee Mule, so it will be sad to lose that service! Seriously, when a four dollar coffee (which I recently gave up at home) is a three dollar or less coffee, it makes a difference. I nurse my injured thumb, a victim of the merchandise bag that has no zipper tags as we head north into the Weirdness that is southern New Jersey (being from Central New Jersey, I feel I can say that with authority), with Dan serving now as funk iPod DJ. I talk to the lawyer the creative team might hire for CONTACT and arrange for Monday lodging in New York... Wawa stores begin to appear outside with alarming frequency.
We are playing at Appel Farms – is this where they grow Macs? Dark dark roads lead us to Elmer, NJ (next to Shirley, of course) where this cozy performance space is tucked into what looks like an actual farm. Morgan, who I saw in New York, comes to the show since she lives near Princeton. We alter the set's direction at intermission - the packed audience seems... confused beneath their smiles. Some folks get us, some... don't! The Merchandise Sales Bonanza we are told to expect is a non-event. But the sound dude is a big fan. Someone asks me afterwards, “Do you hit your nose when you fall on the floor during White Room?” All in all it was a fairly conservative show for us - which often happens when we are in places where the audience doesn't know us at all. Fans in the audience help cue them in at lot of the time. And it bears repeating that being a Bob is quite an awesome way to spend my life, whether an audience goes nuts for us or not. It's a privilege. But they always go nuts at the end of WHITE ROOM. Unless they're UNDEAD. : )
It's a serious party at the Holiday Inn in Swedesboro, where we're staying... but we're pooped. I fall madly into sleep and dream that someone I knew here long ago who isn't a friend anymore is a true friend again. When dreams feel so intensely real, they can leave you hopeful, which is truly unfair. What do you do with that feeling?
Saturday 12/6/08 - Delmarva-lous Hampton Vibes
There are 18 Starbucks stores in Delaware, according to Urban Spoon (thank you, Richard's iPhone). But as we tango down Route 13 (opting to forego the I-95 corridor just this once) on the Delmarva Peninsula, we are nowhere near them. Then suddenly these huge vegetables appear, with a Starbucks behind them. Is there a connection? No. Seriously. No connection.
Wrote down some thoughts about some stuff on Route 13 while we drove down the Delmarva: "New Condo Development in a Farmette Setting!" (what the hell-ette is that?), billboards touting Joe Biden, "Christmas Drive-Thru December 8-10," "Living Bread Worship Center" (Night of the Living Bread?). As endless stripmalls give way to an Iowa-like vibe, I wonder what Route 13 looked like before it was paved. Before the railroad (we see Santa board a train in the north and crowds assembled around it a few miles south). I read a book called Twinkie, Deconstructed in which author Steve Ettlinger said that certain Mid-Atlantic Valleys and the Delmarva Peninsula are Meccas of the specific cake flour used in Twinkies and other... delicacies. (The book is about a 60% interesting read, BTW.) I wonder if the contents of the large fields we're passing now will end up in uber-processed foods some day... 150 miles to Norfolk.
I am driving now, and I am unmistakably anxious to see the sea, winding past the endless farms and turnoffs whose names hint of the Chesapeake Bay. Dan and I are acting like we're 13 (and stoopid) citing local town names (Onancock, Assateague, etc.)... It's like driving on Cape Cod - you can smell the ocean. I am jittery, yearning to break free of the land, to see what is shaping the air here. I call friends who moved to Delaware from Los Angeles years ago… they're not home, and what weird, spacey message would I leave on their machine feeling like this... and suddenly we hit the amazing Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. 
Vague snapshot memories pop up - I drove across this with my grandparents in 70’s, soon after it was completed. It was a big deal then... 22 miles long and super gorgeous as dramatic clouds cross the bay and a freighter appears to cross through the bridge ahead of us (actually it's passing over the tunnel section)... Oddly enough, GoogleMaps was right - this route took us the same amount of time as the endless, toll-ridden, boring I-95/offshoots of I-95 would have done. We're glad to have done this, even if we had to go a little slower.
Our images are plastered on the front of the American Theater … and it strikes me once again as Super Cool and Kind of Weird that our likenesses are, at this moment, displayed in towns we've never been to or have spent little time in, where people probably do not know us personally. I'm sure movie stars are immune to this feeling, but it always kind of tickles me...
But this time the tickling turns out to be on my neck. When I change my clothes for the show, I discover that I have what must be...bedbug bites! I read that people get these in hotels more frequently than you might imagine, and it grossed me out since I am in so many hotel rooms. Guess it was bound to happen at some point. Damn you, Southern New Jersey!
A marvelous fish & chips/salad/dirty rice balls/cheesecakes dinner from Market 20 precedes a great show. Liza (the theatre kitty) and I bond in the box office. Artistic Director Michael Curry tells us our show was great for the theater - "so many young people!" he said... and although he speaks of the local symphony being on the brink of ruin, like many arts professionals, Michael is hopeful about “things starting to turn ‘round in January.” AMEN!!!!
It's a party back at the Hilton, near the Coliseum... but again the no free wifi in super nice digs irony rears its head… And I can't get into Facebook on the hotel's Business Center PC! I am kind of paranoid about the bed now ... even though I know the bites came from Swedesboro...whatever...
Sunday 12/7/08 - Germantown: Surprisingly Spicy
I think I could live happily without ever going down the I-95 corridor again… but now as we pass Baltimore all I can think of is THE WIRE - watch it, people - as I look for the Pemlico Terminal.... We reach the Marriott in Gathersburg, lovely except for the no free wifi thing AGAIN, so I end up stealing it from another network... don't they know about that? It's getting VERY cold out... Matthew says it's going down to 20 tonight... yikes...
Germantown's gorgeous Blackrock Center for the Arts is like a mini-performing arts center. We did the holiday show here once before and it's great to be back! I remember the British soundguy, who is awesome... After soundcheck I duck out for dinner with my friend Jeff and his family @ Ruby Tuesday. Jeff was the instructor of the Digital Performer class I took at UCLA extension a few years ago. Turned out he was a Bobs fan. Their daughters are doing community theater – the tales of latenight tech weeks bring back serious memories of my own misspent youth... We also talk about their cats (including IKEA-found Hazl) and I promise a cat song later… little do I know I'll double that promise.
Mark, the jolly production manager, announces us on a mike offstage, standing right in front of us (what if we tickled him?) and we kick off a raucous show during which the kids sitting front and center become... antsy. At one point in the second half, one is taken outside by their mom, only to return and then burst in tears. Her parents say "She's crying because she missed FLUFFY while she was outside." So we do it AGAIN. You won't get that at any other concert, I guarantee!
Richard pimps the last copy of his solo CD (which he sells, but later confesses to having another boxload in Virginia)… the FLUFFY girl (Fiona) tackles me at the merch table, screaming with joy, and her parents stock up seriously on Bobs CDs for holiday gifts. Her mom Michelle tells me that the girls love to watch the DVD of us and try to imitate me, Lori and Janie all the time. (There's that weird, tickly feeling again...) At a reception for center donors, we are greeted by champagne, evil, chocolate-covered holiday pastries, and a post-show Bach duet request (e-mail me next time BEFORE the show!). On the way home, I ask Matthew and Richard how we're supposed to know what people think of "Bus Plunge." It's so completely weird, both on the record and in the show. Matthew says, "You won't know. That's the beauty of it." WHAT?!?!
Monday 12/8/08 - "Day Off"
9am -1:45pm we're in the car, from Gaithersburg, MD to La Guardia Airport, where we drop the car and cab into the city. With one-way rental drop charges so high, it actually made sense for us to do a roundtrip from LGA and get ANOTHER car tomorrow which we will drop at Logan Airport in Boston later... The siren call of Pizza zaps me and my friend (and host for one night) Shaynee... And I'm back out again on our "day off." Later on we'll have an amazing dinner @ a Turkish Restaurant on 72nd and discuss the Young Actor's Camp at which I'll be teaching a master class later this month.
Our second Sirius Comedy Radio Special is as raucous and fun as the first with host Mark ("Mark Says Hi")Seman. Mark tells us that we are the only live people (in terms of conversation, not standup) broadcasted on Channel 105 (LAUGH USA), which is pretty darned cool. They've been playing tracks from Get Your Monkey Off My Dog about 15 times a week since we first visited Sirius in June, especially "Tight Pants Tango," which is also pretty great. Oddly enough, we pre-tape in the Catholic Channel's studio, attempting to not riff on it. The special is already scheduled to air on specific dates, so we sing and tape some promos for it afterwards. During the session, when Mark asks us what our least favorite radio interview thing is, we say “when hosts don’t know us at all and haven’t prepared.”
...which is exactly what happens at The Joey Reynolds Show on WOR despite our having send 2 band bios and 2 cds ("lost"). It strikes me as very odd since our Assistant Brynne, told us these folks contacted US for the interview, not vice versa. You can hear the podcast here. But we had a good time, it’s national/syndicated and after all, they pretaped for us, etc. Still it is kind of strange to walk into a solicited interview and be asked to explain who we were, don't you think? Matthew and I walk to the subway around midnight through a deserted Wall Street. It's freezing, and gorgeous. 
Tuesday 12/9/08 - Rocking the Iron Horse
I get a meowy kitty awakening at Shaynee's place before meeting the potential CONTACT creative team's lawyer near the midtown Sheraton, memories of APAP conferences dancing in my head. It's slightly less freezing out. I bring home 72nd St bagels for myself and Shaynee (must leave New Carb City) before being picked up for the brief drive to Northampton, Mass. We pull off of I-91 (again, very familiar territory) and the signs for the Clarion we pricelined lead us to what used to be the Northampton Inn, and my hopes that they've gutted and refurbished the musty old place are dashed... ah well.
Our 7pm show is very jolly indeed… and packed to the rafters on a TUESDAY night. We premiere the "Coffee Song," 
a Sinatra tune Matthew recently found, and I get the best reaction yet to "How Did This Thing Get In Me?", my Immaculate Conception Investigation Tune. Dan morphs his snort laughing into a Schwarzenegger impression, we swap mics and I become Ahnold, I give a Rachel Maddow shoutout (the MS in MSNBC), and we thank the great staff here at the Iron Horse, where The Bobs have been playing for over 25 years.
Atomic Bobs fan Jeff Loonin sports his homemade 25th Anniversary shirt (see R). Funniest Thing Heard at the Merch Table: new fans young and old say they “couldn’t believe they liked it.” HA! Welp, you'd probably have to drag ME to an a cappella show too if I didn't know how good the group was... Back at the Clarion, now more populated, I fill out the survey card, bwah hah hah. "No hot water and strange stains on the curtains... " Kids, for every Courtyard you stay in on a tour, there's one of these places. Kato Kaelin is on CNN since O.J. was just sentenced in the Vegas case. I ran into Kato Kaelin on a porch in Hollywood when leaving a Comedy Central party last year. I have the same reaction now: OMFG!
Wednesday 12/10/08 - A New Buryport
Richard, Matthew and I enjoy a great breakfast @ The Green Bean in downtown Northampton, and it's something like 60 degrees today... a short, rainy drive to the next hotel in Re-veee-uh and it looks like we've stayed at this Courtyard, too. It gets dark out quickly... and we head to the cool little Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, brought to us courtesy of ex-BATTBOB (booking agent to the Bobs) Pamela Perkins (see the Salem entry in the April 2007 Bobtale,Most Roads Lead North). They bring in a great dinner in from next door (which we regret eating a little too soon before the show… I will not go into detail, but if you are reading this, you have most likely, albeit, unknowingly seen us do one of those shows!) Amy Malkoff of All About Buford comes to visit early, and we hang in the dressing room with my ole pal, bassist Jim Gregoire and rap about her possible impending move to L.A. (My advice: "Don't do it unless you absolutely have to.") Newburyportians? Porters? Regardless, they love the show. Thanks to all youse in Boston who made the drive, too! And this would be a lovely little stop for us again...
After the show, friends abound! Uri, toting some more Best Friends Cocoa for all of us (sugarless for me!), who also takes the time to lecture me on the difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate (go to the site to read all about it!), uberfans Glenn Kane and his wife (who previously gave me the Rhode Island state postcard I needed to complete my geeky collection), erstwhile tour tech Wren Leader*, and a guy holding a copy of THE BOBS, the vinyl LP he brought for us to sign. This is ALWAYS SUPER COOL.
Since I know I'll be up late anyway, I volunteer to return the rental car to Logan and shuttle back to the hotel so we can all just shuttle to Logan at 6am. The shuttle driver tells me she “doesn’t fly... If I can’t drive there, I’m not going.” I can't decide if she's foolish or wise. And I REALLY can’t believe I will be back downstairs in this lobby @ 5:45am… that's about 5 hours away.
*Wren recently sent me an email with what I can only call Best Subject Line Ever that References My Solo Album - "No, thank YOU for the albatross." You must hear my album to find that funny. So go buy it here!.
TO GO TO LOGAN AIRPORT WITH THE BOBS AT 6:00 a.m. AND ON TO CHICAGO, LA, SEATTLE, ETC. CLICK HERE!
(C)2008 Amy Bob Engelhardt
