The phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Got a news letter going out in days... waddaya got for me?" came Eddie's reverbed-like
voice. This is why I don't answer the phone anymore. It's MORE than a distraction... nothing
breaks the flow of concentration like a phone... I unplug the damned thing when I'm home,
usually.
"What do I have for you? As faaaaar aaaaaass... uh... writing?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know Ed... I've been kind of busy," I told him, putting the Playstation controller down
on the coffee table.
"Well, send me something."
Ugh.
I've started to write several things, but I've had a hard time keeping my sense of humor given
the world being turned on it's ear... and for a time I wasn't sure the world needed jokes or
amusing observations... in the last few weeks I've written several paragraphs of sermon-like,
not-too-entertainin' stuff, and I've written some stuff with jokes I will never repeat to anyone for
fear fo getting strung up... but in the aftermath of New York City, with the mail turning deadly,
I've come to the conclusion that now more than ever we need to keep our sense of humor
going, and remember the messages in these songs we shuffle around so blissfully to.
We need to listen to the words, and with renewed purpose put those sentiments into action...
in a nation that's buying up "These Colors Don't Run" T-shirts, we need to remember that it's
not just three colors that make that flag - many colors, shades, and hues have built this
country... many different beliefs, creeds, and nationalities have made it great... we can't let
the horror that happened in New York City and now the threat of bioterrorism around the
country close us to each other, nationally or globally...
OK, soap box kicked to the side.
In order to fill a little space, I'm going to tell you all the tale of Tempe Arizona if you've got the
time... it has acts of God, near-death experiences, and of course the usual suspects...
Before we leave on a given tour I make a lot of phone calls to make sure that each venue has
the proper PA gear we need and such... one of the things that I have to check into for an
outdoor show is that staging is sturdy and that the stage is sheltered from the elements. It's
in our contract, but I still need to confirm these things because you'd be suprised how easily
a thing like a roof is over-looked when people are trying to keep to a small budget...
But when I called out to Tempe Arizona to talk to the people who were supplying the staging
and I inquired about a roof on the stage I was basically met with some laughter and "You
don't need a roof, it never rains in Tempe".
NEWS FLASH: It rains about a good seventy-five percent of the time we do an outdoor gig (I
would personally say it was a little LARGER percentage than that, but John would jump my
case...) no matter what the average rainfall of the region we happen to be booked in...
Seriously - In the history of this band, when we have set up outside to perform there has been
some form of precipitation (whether temporary or sustained... solid, liquid, and/or vapor) AT
LEAST three-quarters of the bookings in four years... it's happened so much that we joked
around calling ourselves Dark CLOUD Orchestra... until we learned that we can't even JOKE
about the rain without bringing it down in buckets...
So I asked again, and again I got the "Never Rains In Tempe".
This was obviously going nowhere fast and the guy wasn't going to budge, so rather than be a
jerk and start waving a contract around and threatening no show, I agreed.
Against every fiber of my being, I agreed.
"It's the desert, how much rain could POSSIBLY fall?" I asked my cat, who just stared back
at me, struggling to form a thought. Flash forward.
We had played Vegas prior to Tempe AZ. and I should have noticed the heat and the toll it
was taking on me, but like a lot of things out there in the desert I never saw it coming. The
sun out in the July desert is more than intense, and my Scottish blood is just a bit too thick
for climates like that... we were about two blocks from Nita's Hideaway when I woke up in my
bunk with a pounding headache, the whole world focusing down to a pinpoint of light.
"Debbie, wooja pull over fer a minute?" I sputtered.
"What, NOW? Are you kidding?"
"I wish I was."
"Do you have to pu-"
"Yesnowgodjustpleasepullover."
As soon as Deb had pulled the rig off the road I was rolling out the back door and getting
sick... I should have known it was bad when I didn't feel weird at all that this was happening
with Rush-Hour traffic going by catching my act. I usually maintain a bit more decorum under
those circumstances, y'know?
Anyway, at Nita's the world got all woozy again and within a few minutes of my walking
around the back lot of the bar where the stage was set up I was "performing in public" again.
When my vision cleared, Scott was half-carrying me into Nita's to flop me down in the bar.
"Dude... you're NOT ok."
"Not sayin' I am. How long have we been talking -"
"Just sit down, alright?" he said dropping me into a well-worn living room chair just inside the
door of the tiny bar.
They put a towel filled with ice on my head and gave me a bottle of water which I had no
desire to drink even though my mouth tasted like I had licked the parking lot... later, Scott
told me he knew I was in trouble when he saw me puke and black out the second time -
"When a guy pukes and then doesn't move away from it, you know it's bad."
I wanted to relate my story about the Rush-Hour traffic going by earlier, but I didn't have the
strength.
While I was recovering, the local techs proceeded with the set-up with instructions to come
and get me when it was time to start sound check. To make a long story short, I never made
it.
The heat had bested me, and I had no choice but to lay in the airconditioned Airstream trailer
they had set up for our backstage room and listen to the show. While laying there in the
trailer I had hallucinations, as well as the feeling that someone was sitting on my chest and I
couldn't breathe. Repeatedly, I was asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, but my dread fear
of needles combined with profound distrust for the AMA kept me in the trailer.
"It'll pass."
"Dude, I don't mean anything by it but... you look like Hell."
"Thanks. That's better than I feel, at least."
"No, seriously..."
Rright after the set break (a set that included 'Cold Rain & Snow' and 'Looks Like Rain'...)
while the band was getting started again I heard it... the wind whipped up to hurricane force
without warning, causing the crowd to give up a 'whooop!'... and then it started.
"Plunk.”
It was like someone through a spit-wad at the top of the trailer.
"Pi-Plink.”
"Tink. Tunk.”
Pete and some of the other crew looked at each other silently, sharing an unspoken thought...
PLUNK.
"Let's MOVE!!!" Pete yelled, already half out the door of the trailer.
Suddenly it sounded like a thousand drummers were beating on the trailer... the rain had
finally come to Tempe. "My mics were... John's guitar was... Dino's kit... all of... everything's
going to be destroyed", was all I could think, and it was pretty squarely MY fault for not
getting the roof issue met.
I felt like I'd failed on all fronts.
And here I was laying near death and unable to aid the crew in getting our stuff stowed, let
alone make sure that my own stuff got put away properly (which is no fault of the crew as I
tell them to keep out of my gear most of the time so they had no idea what mic goes
where)... it was just about as bad as it could -
That's when the power in the trailer went out. So now I'm in the dark, the heat rapidly claiming
back the small supply of cool air in the trailer... and I think, NOW... NOW it's about as bad
as it -
That's when the mosquito began buzzing in my ear.
"OK... I'm officially in Hell."
The mosquito got a few feedings in, for those who're interested. The crew used every towel
Nita's could come up with to dry as much gear as possible before puting it in the cases that
weren't soaked or ruined entirely onboard a nice local's school bus (sorry about messing up
your ride, man!) and then as we squished into our vans to leave, some minorly upset Arizona
folks asked if we wouldn't set up inside and finish the show... they had no idea what shape
our stuff was in, and John made an effort to explain but I don't think they understood. In the
end, all we could do was drive off silently into the rainy night and hope Tempe didn't hate us...
Tempe got the most rain they had seen in twenty-seven years that night... in a climate that
gets about 6" of rain or so in an entire year, they got 5" that night in just a few hours. The
Dark Cloud Orchestra strikes again.
But I learned my lesson on this one... I will never, EVER take "It doesn't rain" for an answer.
So there you have it... our stuff has been dried out and the broken stuff has been replaced.
Tempe was the third gig I've missed in the history of the band and it's still the only date that's
taken me that close to death... I mean, the light-headed, disoriented, spacey feeling was
about the weirdest experience I've ever had.
To think I wasted years of my life taking drugs when I just could have gone to Tempe.
Have a good time all the time and I'll see you around the playground, folks!