Thursday, 10 April 2008

• My First Tour in Haiku / Song of the Month / Zippy, part deux

  I. In which I undertake a bipartite account of my first tour, in haiku with marginalia
  II. In which I explain the Song of the Month
  III. Zippy, part deux
  
  ***********************************
  
  It is so good to be home in the land of long days, proper Italian espresso, and excellent beer. Of course, at this writing it is snowing like gangbusters outside, but home is home. My travels were exhausting and terrific:
  
  - I went to San Diego, where I met some very laid back people and played on the beach.
  
  - I went to Hollywood for the first time, where I met some very glamorous people and did many film-related things.
  
  - I went to Austin, where I met very hip artsy people and did many music-related things.
  
  - I went to Houston for the first time, where they shot me in the head and I bled profusely.
  
  Here are some of my travel stories in haiku. I'm borrowing this idea from my stepbrother's girlfriend, because she is brilliant. It will help to keep my word count down, because my first draft of this blog was turning into a very dull novella (that's why I was taking so long to post. It sucked). Also, I've been watching lots of Arrested Development, and I'm working on punching up and tightening my exposition. Haiku helps. Here goes:
  
  I. Los Angeles
  
  Flying all night sucks.
  'Specially with more luggage
  Than you can carry.
  
  Curse the airlines for
  finally enforcing their
  carry-on limits!
  
  (I mean it. Anybody know a good curse for TSA? Something itchy.)
  
  Driving without sleep
  In a new car in LA
  Is terrifying.
  
  Pollution, traffic,
  And hot guys with sunglasses
  are everywhere -- ack.
  
  But with my iPhone
  I avoid jams and lostness
  And ward off stalkers.
  
  (Will someone please make me a shirt that says, "I'm not attracted to you, I'm just polite"?)
  
  Film nerd paradise
  Is pretty much my feeling
  About Hollywood.
  
  I got to hang out
  With cool writers and witty
  Indie filmmakers.
  
  Saw 2001
  In hi-def and surround sound.
  I can't do that, Dave.
  
  I squealed when I saw
  Nathan Fillion's weapon.
  Yup, this girl's a geek.
  
  (No, I can't tell you where that collection of goodies was. I'd have to kill you.)
  
  Poor Joel's shampoo broke
  And my Alaskan beer leaked
  All over his clothes.
  
  Which was a bit hard
  To explain to my grandma,
  With whom we were lodged.
  
  But the worst part was
  Our emergency beer stash
  Was gone. How I wept.
  
  Husband flew south via
  Yakutat and Ketchikan.
  Viva la Mud Hen.
  
  He was almost dumped
  In Juneau, but our pregnant
  Governor saved him.
  
  (The slightly longer version of this story: my husband, flying standby, wound up puddle-jumping his way through Alaska on the "Mud Hen" to join us. He was kicked off for weight restrictions in our state's capitol, but he got the seat of America's Hottest Governer, Sarah Palin, at the last second. She was held up in TSA and wouldn't make the plane wait for her, because she said she "wasn't that sort of governor.")
  
  We played at the beach.
  Music, not swimming. Ocean's
  Too polluted. Darn.
  
  (Joel almost jumped in, too, until I said, "Hey, Joel, shouldn't we maybe read that sign over there -- the one with the caution tape all around it?")
  
  Singing far from home
  Was the easy part. No sweat.
  La la la! Thank you.
  
  Cafés, house concerts,
  Church auditoriums, and
  One sweet standing O.
  
  (Ovation. Don't even.)
  
  San Diego rules.
  Browncoats built a huge fire and
  Gave me a rain stick.
  
  At Kulak's Woodshed
  I met Tom Begich. Beware
  Alaskans abroad....
  
  (Tom was shocked to see me so far from home. The folks at Kulak's were joking that the Alaskans were gonna take over the venue. And we most certainly did.)
  
  I heard Shaun Cromwell,
  Then Sheri Miller at the
  Hotel Café. Sweet.
  
  (Shaun I heard at Café Bellissimo, Sheri at the Hotel Café, to be clear. Both venues and both artists are great. And I had tiramisu to die for at Bellissimo.)
  
  Funny, they told me
  I would hate LA, but -- wow.
  Better than I thought.
  
  Seldom have I slept
  So little, driven so much.
  L.A., I love you.
  
  For it's only here
  I can put on sunglasses
  And turn people's heads.
  
  (This works especially well at night. If you're wearing sunglasses in the dark, you can hear the necks snap behind you as folks do a quick over-the-shoulder celebrity check. Of course, I must admit my own neck was a little sore, too.)
  
  II. Texas
  
  To Austin, Houston,
  And San Antonio, ho!
  (Don't call me a ho.)
  
  Strawberries galore --
  Inexpensive clothing stores --
  Locally owned pubs --
  
  Live music nightly --
  Farmers' markets with fresh cheese --
  This must be heaven.
  
  But still no good beer.
  Only don't say that too loud
  In front of Texans.
  
  (It's obvious they're
  compensating for something.
  Chill, Texas, we're cool.)
  
  Also don't mention
  That Alaska is bigger
  And less obnoxious.
  
  Just sip your Shiner
  And quietly kick their ass
  At darts and Scrabble.
  
  (Three triple bullseyes -- bwah! I tried to make a Shiner Bock / shiner (black eye) joke, but couldn't get the syllables and the pun to coincide without sacrificing comprehensibility. So imagine a joke of that nature here. Or submit your own haiku in the comments.)
  
  South by Southwest rocks.
  But it's intimidating.
  Oodles of rock stars.
  
  There's a high ratio
  Of Utilikilts to men
  Down on Sixth Street.
  
  They all look ready
  For Rolling Stone photo shoots.
  I feel corporate.
  
  (But later I shopped
  At the Buffalo Exchange.
  Who looks indie now?)
  
  Heard some killer bands --
  And some not-so-killer bands,
  Which encouraged me.
  
  Favorites include
  Lindsay Jane, Raina Rose, Graham,
  Second Grace, Cory...
  
  (...Branan. And that's Graham Weber. They're visiting Alaska soon. Go see them! And see me, if you're in Alaska. Also, Browncoats and others may enjoy the energetic and ebullient S.J. Tucker, the Skinny White Chick. Though she has famously refused to see Firefly.)
  
  I missed the Whipsaws
  Only by inches. Sorry --
  Seeya back home, guys.
  
  Bob Schneider and the
  Texas Bluegrass Massacre
  Blew my freakin' mind.
  
  I sang, too, nervous
  In a sea of musicians,
  And I did just fine.
  
  I thought that driving
  In LA would be hard, but
  Texas kicked my ass.
  
  Twenty minutes spent
  Trying to find the on-ramp --
  Go fish. Signage, please!
  
  Now, the Bedlam Bards
  Are no gentlemen, but they
  Accompanied me
  
  Despite the fact I
  Use too many chords and shake
  A dead cat sometimes.
  
  Visited Browncoats
  In two cities -- shimmer wine
  And mangoes. Shiny.
  
  We played some airsoft
  In the yard, which later seemed
  A bad idea.
  
  I got shot. Right there.
  In the forehead. That's Houston
  Hospitality.
  
  But the gun owner,
  Morgan, was even worse off.
  He lost a tooth.
  
  (I was inordinately proud of my injury. It bled all night, and I made sure everybody knew it. At the concert later that evening I serenaded Morgan with "The Hero of Houston," a filk of "Hero of Canton." Except it was about real life, and the song was fictional. Does that make it rilk? We were hoping to give him a purple heart or some kind of medal, but I think the closest we could come was a poker chip.)
  
  Last but not least:
  I sang at the Cactus.
  Won't forget that night.
  
  III. Epilogue
  
  Flying home sucked hard:
  Austin > Phoenix > OC > then,
  Drive to LAX
  
  Fly east to Salt Lake
  And finally home. The score:
  Six airports, one day.
  
  (The airports won. I've revised "Flying Feels Like Falling" to reflect my New Worst Itinerary Ever. Oh, I saw Men in Trees for the first time on one of the planes and miserable as the flight was, the show made it worse. No, it's nothing like that, for those of you who asked. Even Alaskans are sharper than that writing was.)
  
  I wish I could list
  All the people that I met,
  All the bands I heard,
  
  But especially
  All the food I ate, cuz, damn --
  That was a gooooood trip.
  
  I still haven't slept.
  There are deadlines and taxes
  And stuff to see to.
  
  But despite the pace
  I like my new profession.
  'Cuz I get to sing.
  
  ************************
  
  The Song of the Month summarizes this trip in even more concise terms. It starts with a flashback to my first day in Tok, Alaska (their slogan: "We've never heard of you either."). That was not only my first day in Tok, it was the first day of my brand-new residency in Alaska. And what a welcome. It was forty below zero, I got sick from the dry air, there was a blizzard warning, and we had to drive several hundred miles to Anchorage on solid ice. And we were the only out-of-towners. You should have seen the look I got when I asked about a latte. I expect I deserved it.
  
  That same Tok-ish feeling returned to me as I was traveling on this trip, looking very much the outsider everywhere I went. My inner monologue was "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." I'm a medium-insecure person, but I'm finding that if I state my insecurities up front, as a sort of disclaimer, then they're not so scary anymore. I can acknowledge them, step over them, and get on with life. And enjoy myself.
  
  So do enjoy this song -- usually I'd save an original of this quality for the next album, but it was pertinent to the tour I just finished, so I decided to post it now. It might make an appearance on a later album, though.
  
  
  
  Also, next time I travel, I want Brian Adams to come with me. You hear that, Brian?
  
  ************************
  
  When we left Zippy, he was held captive by the church secretary, who planned to put him in an unnecessarily slow and easily escapable killing machine which involved irate overgrown guinea pigs and full cheese knives. Only our hero was already dead.
  
  If you're just joining us, this is my cat Zippy.
  
  
  
  He's cremated. And he's a celebrity. The beginning of this story is in the February 18th blog entry. N.B.: Zippy's legend has grown with the retelling, so though most of this is true, some has become legend, and been slightly exaggerated. I will not take all the blame for that, however.
  
  So Zippy became a fixture at the office Christmas party white elephant gift exchange. After the first year, the church secretary brought him back -- but they brought him back with a sweet little poem they'd written in his praise. He went home with another family. A year later he came back, accompanied this time by a Shakespearean sonnet. Again he went to live with strangers -- and a year later he showed up at the party again, this time with a very impressive Walt Whitman-style free verse piece. Like so many martyrs, Zippy's virtues were more apparent in death. The last year he came back with a song which had been composed in his honor by one of the music staff.
  
  Eventually Zippy came back to live at my house. Only he occupied a place of honor on the mantle. He had become part of the family at last.
  
  By this time I was in college. And I'm not sure exactly when it started, but at some point Zippy became a fixture at family gatherings. We brought him to parties and graduations and weddings. We brought him on family road trips.
  
  Things started getting a little extreme when my Dad decided to bring Zippy to Europe (no, we don't know if that's legal, and we're not asking, so don't tell me). He was quite the good little tourist. Zippy was photographed all over the continent -- at the Mozarteum in Vienna, at St. Peter's, the world's oldest restaurant in Salzburg, on the mountains of Switzerland, in Amsterdam and Gouda, in Paris, everywhere they went.
  
  And they got into the (bad) habit of handing Zippy to a local and asking, "Can we take your picture with this?" The unwitting subject would generally pose, smile, and say, "Ja, schön. What is it?" "Our dead cat," my father (or some other Zippy handler) would answer. Then he'd wait -- and count one, two, and three -- and on three, the subject has begun to register what he's said. That's when he'd take the photo. The results were terrific on this French flight attendant:
  
  
  
  Zippy's fame continued to grow throughout our hometown and around the country, even around the world. He toured the Western U.S. with certain members of my family and flew east with others. He was at my brother's wedding as well as my father's. He even helped cut the cake. He's a very cosmopolitan cat.
  
  My father, a teacher, introduced Zippy to his middle school students -- he was a big hit with about 500 kids. At one point he was catnapped, but he returned when my father promised a field trip to McDonald's for lunch on the day of his return. Peer pressure is a useful disciplinary tool for a middle school teacher. At the end of the year, all the kids wanted Zippy to sign their yearbooks. I believe this got my father in some trouble when he had to explain to the principal...
  
  This blog is already longer than the legal limits in some countries, so mercifully I'll end here. In the next installment, Zippy decides that what he's always wanted to do is direct.
  
  Slainte --
  
  Marian

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