Come with me in the Way-Back Machine for a minute... what I have to show you
relates to this story...
It was somewhere around the time we got to Eugene, if memory serves... and I
was shocked.
Hanging up the phone, Scott said "Guys, I want your opinion on something."
This was like Patton asking if it was OK or if anyone would mind terribly if
he struck one of his own men...
Beau and I waited while Scott silently compiled both sides of the argument he
was about to present... then he let us have it...
Scott having been an English teacher in his former life, is a pretty good
debater and speaker in general... add the "Showman" in him and when he's got
a point to make he'll put up both sides, usually without too much bias, and
you can make your own mind up...
This was going to be like the Punch 'N Judy show of band-managerial decision
making!
"We gotta do the show! *thud*"
"We can't do it! *whomp*"
"But we gotta do it! *swat*"
OK... well, to be fair, that joke's funnier if you picture Scott with puppets
making silly voices. Put the picture together again and continue on when you
think you've got that one down... I can wait.
OK... so Scott was gonna tell us the whole gig situation, but without all the
silly parts...
Scott rarely if EVER wants my opinion, and when he does it usually means that
we've arrived at one of those rare instances where Scott is unwilling to
share the possible explosion he forsees coming from some faction of the band
all by his lonesome...
I hate this sort of stuff so I pretended to be watching the TV.
"Did you hear me?"
"Wha-?"
"Cameron... the television is OFF..."
Got me... oh well... Treat it like a band-aid, kid... just get it over with...
"What, man?"
"We have the possibility of a really cool gig..."
Translation: We're gonna pull one outa our -
"State Bridge. The only problem is the travel logistics... and..."
Translation: We're REALLY gonna pull one outa our-
"We're Broke and we need the cash."
"Well... no problem then, man."
Beau nodded. I don't think I've ever seen him disagree, no matter how tight
the timetable... it just means a shitload more Mountain Dew to him, that's
all...
"Knew I could count on ya, pals. Think the rest of the band will do it?"
"Not a chance."
"A trivial matter of appealing to their pauper-like condition, same as us...
We can do this, right?"
"Absolutely... Mind if I turn the tube on?"
"Cameron... you've got a room, don't you?"
I guess this was a fortuitous situation, really. When the tour was booked
originally, State Bridge Lodge was conspicuously missing after what the band
considered wildly successful as well as extremely FUN gigs in March... and
word was that Mike (the owner) was a bit miffed because of the perceived
"snub"... well, there WAS no snub and here was our chance to prove it... this
alone was reason enough for me...
... all it was going to take was selling the rest of the band... which
involved making "yet another eight hour drive out of the way" somehow sound
like a good idea... we were all pretty tired of being in the vehicles and it
was gonna be like getting the family golden retriever (you remember... the
dog that out-weighs most conventional livestock and two-wheel drive vehicles,
foreign OR domestic?) into the tub...
A wrestling match to the death, for sure... but I had a feeling the winners
AND losers were all going to State Bridge anyhow. "Times was lean in them
days..."
The sales pitch came in the form of a much-needed stab at playing acoustic,
to identify and eliminate the rough spots for the Denver show... and, since
we were set up why not do two early evening sets out on the beer garden stage
at State Bridge?
Everyone saw the logic of it.
"...and now we'd like to do a song about tragedy narrowly averted..."
I never got the Rash posted for State Bridge last time we were there, did I?
OK, just one more trip in the Way-Back Machine... THIS part ya GOTTA hear...
State Bridge Lodge is located near Bond, Colorado but in reality it's out in
the ass-end-middle-a-NOWHERE... which is why it's so perfect, by the way.
It's just one of those locations that wouldn't benefit from Starbuck's or
similar stripmall fare, believe it or not...
The lodge gets it's name from being located right at the lucky spot where the
absolute first-ever state-funded and constructed bridge across the Colorado
River is built... well, WAS built... a mudslide took out the original
structure in the late 80's and now all that is left of it are a few pylons
and some timber.
It has, of course, been replaced since with a perfectly functional bridge.
And they splurged for one o' them new-fangled STEEL ones, waaaaayyy up out of
harm's way... actually, I'm sure the present bridge has been there quite some
time, but you get a vague feeling of time travel when you get to the lodge
like you're fading back in time...
It's also haunted.
State Bridge used to be a brothel, amongst other things, back in the early
days of the railroad, and being as the route along the Colorado River was
(and still is) the busiest route for transporting coal, there was a whole
mess of traffic through the area (not all of it law-abiding) during the
railroad's construction and subsequent operation.
Legend has it that two ghosts walk the halls of State Bridge Lodge. Victims
of horrible deaths, their visages have been seen, felt, and heard by many
people, including Mike and Bobbi the owners.
One of the restless spirits is a young girl who was a prostitute at the lodge
back in the day... she was killed in one of the rooms of the main house by a
customer after or during a "liáson"... the gentleman in question was captured
on the premises, taken out to the back, and summarily lynched for his crime.
This obviously didn't help much, far as she was concerned...
The second soul is another young girl, but this time literally a child... she
was reportedly scalped and killed by two Native Americans up in the hills in
back of the lodge, a story I somewhat contest... My theory is that the girl
was killed by some of the afformentioned "rough trade" and the whole scalping
affair was designed to shift the blame to an already-not-too-popular segment
of old west society... what the status of the perpetrators was as far as
being railroad workers or what-have-you escapes me right now as does the
identity of the little girl... but both of these entities have made
themselves known to the living around State Bridge Lodge...
Ask Bobbi and she'll tell you about burners being lit on the stove in the
middle of the night, well after the kitchen staff has gone home... or the
night she actually saw a blurry physical manifestation of the prostitute at
the top of her stairs...
... an even spookier story to me was how Mike and Bobbi's visiting nephew
(age six or so) complained of not being able to sleep "because the little
girl was giggling and laughing all night in the hall"...
I really wasn't given to believing in this sort of thing lately, but there
were a few odd happenings that brought me to understand that State Bridge is
a very strong place, energy-wise... and some places you either find your
peace with or you don't...
By the following morning after arriving that first day in State Bridge I
think we all did make a certain peace, but the first twelve hours we spent in
the radius of the lodge were... eventful.
John didn't make it known at the time, but he had a somewhat negative feeling
about the place the minute we arrived, which was very contrary to the rest of
us... I thought it was strange that he should feel that way and also a bit
disconcerting, being as I know him to be a fairly sensitive person to
different types of energy...
I mean, listen to the guy's guitar playing, will ya?
We got there in the afternoon and it was a perfect day... I had had a small
episode of the heebee-jeebees driving down into the valley... it resembled my
nightmare almost exactly and I was convinced we were going over the edge
Click here top read about Cam's Recurring Nightmare
Obviously, this didn't happen... but once we pulled up in front of the place I
was so relaxed, I just drank in the day...
... along with as many beers as I could finagle, and several somethings
called a "Surfer On Acid" care of Joe the Bartender...
Side Note (Ain't been one of THESE in awhile, huh?): To Joe, a great
bartender... Wherever you are, I hope you read this... you mighta won the
fight that first night, but Beau and I partied you under the table making you
UNABLE to work the second show the next night... so I guess we win by
Technical Bar-Knockout... Beau was really looking forward to a rematch,
too... we missed ya, m'man!
OK... so as I was saying, we were all "getting the most out of our day
off"... here it was March, and we're in t-shirts, sitting in patio furniture
outside these cool little cabins watching the river and frequent two-mile
long coal trains go by in BEAUTIFUL high sixty-degree temperatures...
... notice how I mentioned the trains and specifically how LONG they are and
how OFTEN they're coming by? This is no coincidence, folks... it's a little
literary trick called "foreshadowing", see... I'm building to something with
all this PBS-style travelogue garbage...
Speaking of PBS... another little fact about the place... Teddy Roosevelt
stayed in the cabin we get when we're playing at the lodge... is that cool or
WHAT? Too bad HIS ghost isn't one that's hangin' out though, y'know?
"Yo, Ted... 'nother shot 'er what?"
"MMM-BULLY!"
... I personally think that might be kinda cool...
Anyway... as I was saying, we were all getting lit... "we had no show, an'
nowhere ta go"... our time was our own! This started with bottles of Sierra
Nevada at the cabin and led - logically - to the bar at the lodge proper...
just the right amount of stumble away, y'see... We went and got some food,
and continued to drink along with a bunch of locals who were out celebrating
the twenty-first birthday of a blushing young bride... everyone (including
the beaming father-in-law) was decked out in their finest Harley-Davidson
Wear, and all, to-a-one, were smashed as poets on payday...
As we were drinking at the bar Joe and Mike were talking up the shows,saying
that they'd gotten more phone calls than they had tickets available and that
it was going to be packed... which got us to thinking... (GASP!)...
There was a whole upstairs to the bar that never got used for anything more
than storage, and with a little work we could open it up for more space,
running cable up there and putting a separate PA up, essentially...
Hey! We finally had "Obstructed View" tickets!
Originally the idea was to charge a cheaper price for the upstairs area which
would have it's own beer bar at the very least, but finally we figured it
would be a whole lot easier on the crowd AND house to allow access to either
floor...
So while we're upstairs looking over this situation...
Downstairs, everyone in the Harley party's fuel light finally hit "F" and a
fight errupts... over just WHAT I forget, but I believe it might have been
the new groom's still-roving eye... whatever the cause, foul language an'
fists was flyin'... several guys grab the husband in question and attempt to
remove the blotto clown from the premises... all the while the father-in-law
was trailing right along, ready to clobber the guy at any chance...
We're out on this little balcony, watching the WWF antics of the
father-in-law as he kicked the Hell out of his son-in-law, who repeatedly
admonished the older man to "go ahead... kick the shit outa me... I don't
care..."
The whole scene was disturbing to say the least... and we look out to see
John walking straight into it all...
John doesn't handle violence very well... NONE of us do... does the word
"hippie" mean ANYTHING positive anymore? Hello?
So needless to say this freaks him out. He was coming over to the bar to hang
out with us, try to get into the spirit of the thing... and he sees this
going on. He wanted to leave immediately, like pack up and head to Ft.
Collins for the night... and I didn't blame him...
OK... now, see if you can follow me here because we need to shift the scene
to outside the bar which is now, needless to say, closed. John is feeling
weird about the place and Ahmer and I ended up walking out to a fire that was
going down by the river, set by a few campers who were following us all
through Colorado and had tickets for the entire tour, practically...
Hey! First "Obstructed View" seating, now Tour-Heads! How 'bout that shit, Ma?
Whoops. Sorry, Mom... I got a little carried away there...
So we're at this fire... and I see these headlights turning across the field
we were standing in and... well, if I didn't know better I'd say this guy was
driving his pickup truck on the railroad tracks.
Turns out that's exactly what the fool was doing.
As I often say, folks... I COULD NOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP.
Point Of Clarification: This was another guy who had been at State Bridge
that night, in our midst so to speak... TOTALLY UNRELATED TO THE PARTY OR
ANYTHING/ ANYONE ELSE at State Bridge Lodge... he just figured he'd end it by
driving head-on into a train loaded with coal after that last round...
nasty...
... that would be the trains I was describing earlier... the ones that are
two miles long...
We thought someone ought to know about this.
As Casey Jones' truck loped down the tracks Ahmer and I began to run/stumble
through this field to call... well... whoever it is you call when something
like this happens.
"You mean this has happened before?" I asked Mike as he came out to look over
the situation.
"Oh yeah... pretty regularly. Let's see how bad it is."
"The fight, now this... I gotta say you guys sure know how to party out here
in the middle of nowhere..."
"This is nothing... wait until you guys unleash on this place... it's gonna
go off the f*ckin' SCALE, man..."
Flashlight in hand, he went to investigate the pickup, which had now slid
down the rail embankment and had gotten the front right tire caught on a
replacement section of track... still WELL within striking distance of a
passing coal train, mind you...
"Hey man... shouldn't we call somebody or something?"
"What for? By the time the next train gets wind of this it'll be comin'
around the corner... open this thing like a tin can... it's two MILES of coal
cars - FULL coal cars - we're talkin' about here... no way in hell that
train's gonna slow down let-alone stop, man..."
"So what do we do?"
"Got me..."
Here I stood under this amazing spring canopy of stars, about to bear witness
to a horrific train disaster which could quite possibly derail the train,
sending cars into the cabins and main house of the lodge - not to mention
crippling the coal supply to the greater Western United States...
"I'm Jimmy F-ing Olson, for cryin' out loud!"
Superman turned up in the guise of two guys with huge 4x4 trucks and
winches... they hooked one then both of their trucks to the stranded vehicle
and literally yanked it off the tracks, keeping it right-side up the entire
time...
By some miracle, this idiot's chip wasn't meant to be cashed that night.
He even got his truck out of it in relatively good shape... not that he OR
the vehicle were anything BUT questionable by this point...
At this point, things got just a shade more surreal. Why not, right?
The guy wanted Mike to help him out, "considering everything, an' all.."
Mike was stupified.
"N-... Look... yer damn lucky yer not spending the night in JAIL... do you
realize that there's gonna be someone from the railroad down here ANY MINUTE?
Do you have any idea what you've DONE???"
The guy staggered once... looked at Mike.
"Well... rent me a room, at least..."
"RENT YOU A- ... No... I... no... I don't HAVE one... and even if I DID...
No, man! Get your dog - "
WAITWAITWAIT!!! He had a DOG with him? Now THAT was low!!!
"- an' get up there to the highway, thumb you a ride!"
The guy seemed to want to give Mike a sorry look, a last bid for sanctuary...
but he thought better of it and headed up the road into the darkness.
This guy's bid for the Pearly Gates via locomotive was the last straw for
John, who was convinced the place was responsible (at least to the greater
extent) for all of the bad vibrations, comparing it to Death Valley... Scott,
being the wonderful speaker that he is, got John to stay the night, which
seemed to be the end of his agitation from the place...
Over the next two days I watched that truck sit there, waiting patiently for
it's owner. The only really visible sign the truck had been in any distress
whatsoever was the disjointed nature of the lock-boxes in the bed... come to
think of it it was kind of obvious from the rear that the truck wasn't quite
"in true"... but it looked like nothing happened... we joked about the guy
waking up the next day, not remembering the whole incident, and just coming
back to pick up his truck never knowing who the Good Samaritan who drove him
home...
"Thank God I didn't DRIVE... I coulda KILLED somebody..."
Idiot.
I wanted to talk to the guy when he was sober and get the other side of this
story for all of you, but like all things you really want explained such as
Big Foot or why "Full House" ever made it on the air... I was denied. He must
have snuck in on the morning of the third day and rescued it... I couldn't
even tell you if the truck left under it's own power or not.
I'm so ashamed, journalistically speaking.
Is that even a word? (Ed note: Sure, why not...)
Whatever. It's not important. YOU understand me...
Those shows were great, by the way... we even ended up running a video feed
upstairs to the bar's big screen TV, which they had to move off the stage
anyway...
Hey! First "Obstructed View", then Tour-Heads... now projection screens for
the "Obstructed View"!
Basically, that's what happened the LAST time we were out there... so you
understand why the out-of-the-way nature of this gig when we're all getting
spent by the end of tour might be a valid argument against...
Back to present day now, Sherman...
The gig at State Bridge this time around was a real pleasure... with everyone
on the stage using acoustic instruments (except Scott, who had his small
keyboard amp) the mix was a breeze... two sets, under the stars.
The beauty of these completely chosen set lists is that you never know what
you're going to hear... The first set was mostly acoustic standards from the
Dead's songbook, but it's not very often that I get to sit back and listen to
"To Lay Me Down", "Ain't No Lie", and the EXTREMELY rare "Monkee and the
Engineer"...
It's the second set where the band gets a little more loose and you get to
hear the fun stuff... "Liberty", "Tom Thumb's Blues", "Lazy River Road"
(which should ONLY be played acoustic, if you ask me), and "Victim or
the Crime" ... but one of the highlights for me was "Tons of Steel"... this
was without a DOUBT the WORST rendition I've ever had the pleasure of sitting through,
and as luck would have it, this was one time when the PA wasn't going to
conveniently drop out saving everyone from the embarrassment...
I highly recommend getting a tape of this one... it'll keep them human in your
eyes for years to come, I swear...
I got my favorite, "China Doll"... and the encore of "Terrapin>Know You
Rider>Ripple" was really more of a third set than anything else, with the
crowd squeezing "Brokedown Palace" out of the band before allowing them off
stage...
After a show like that, what's a little drive?
COMING SOON: The Aggie Theater and The Final Stretch.
Take it easy, y'all!