To San Rafael & Back

I woke up before the alarm went off at 6a this morning. Just laid there staring into the dark. I figured I might as well get up and get on with it. So I headed for the coffee pot. 8 minutes later I had a frothy cup of heaven. It was still too early for the sunrise but by the time Heidi got up a few minutes later there was a vivid strand of deep reddish orange all the way across the sky in back of the house. A very dramatic effect. The rest of the next hour was all about the usual checking lists and making sure I brought what I needed. By 7:20a I was at the airport.

Checkin and security were a breeze. I made it through all that in about 15 minutes. There are at least some advantages to being at the airport early. I made my way on down Terminal C and went up to the Admiral’s Club and got my usual two boiled eggs and a bagel. I checked in with the lady at the counter to see if I stood any chance getting an upgrade to something beside ‘cattle’. Not a chance, not for the lowly gold level. We got the American Airlines credit card a few years ago because it was a decent rate and we could get air miles for everything we buy with it, but the airline has been steadily rewriting their policies to the point where my $500+ a year to maintain the card and a membership at the Admiral’s Club is buying less and less. Now they won’t let people even use the club even if you are a member unless you are carrying a ticket bought from American Airlines. Otherwise you have to pay a day rate to get into the thing that you’ve paid a membership to be in in the first place. If you say anything they blame it on United and say that United started it first. Last time Heidi flew out of Nashville they wouldn’t let her in because her flight was on another airline and they told her that United excuse. She asked them if United were to jump off a cliff would they do that too? Of course they all just used up their quota of “I’m sorries” for the day and said they have not control over what the company does. Another example where no one is to blame.

Like I said, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I would get a seat in first class but I did see my name on the board though, seems like at about 21st on the list. So if 20 people drop off the list for an upgrade to first class I’m in. The first flight out to Dallas was okay. No drunks or kids completely worn to a frazzle that early in the day. There was an American Airlines stewardess who looked about my age sitting in the seat next to me who kept squirming around trying to get her nest built before we took off. She whacked me with her elbow a few times and I finally looked at her and said, “Ma’am, you’re just gonna have to settle down, now” and grinned at her. She laughed and said she knew it. I asked if this was her first time flying and she said, “Well, the way I’m acting you’d think so”. Then she said that she couldn’t remember just how many flights she’d been on over the years. I can’t imagine doing the job these stewards/stewardesses do. I just don’t have the patience and I’m sure my morning face isn’t nearly as pleasant as it needs to be.

So off to Dallas we went. I slept all but about 30 minutes of it and then off the plane and on the skyline shuttle to Terminal C with 15 minutes to spare before the next leg to San Francisco. Pant, wheeze…The next flight was okay. Actually an open seat between me and the guy on the aisle. A few strollers on this leg but nothing crazy. No kids screaming like their hair is on fire I know parents have a hard time of it. I am one. But some folks just don’t make an effort much to supervise the youngsters. The only thing I saw was a husband and wife get on board, each with something that looked sort of like a poodle with a bad trim. Ticket in one hand, dog in the other. Nobody said jack. I was under the impression that animals had to be in some sort of carrier. Apparently I’m behind on the doggie times. Once I saw there was room to spread out I reached in my backpack for my headphones and decided I’d watch a movie. Wrong. I know I must have several attachments for these Apples headphones but I didn’t have the adapter that would let me plug into the plane jacks. So I napped as much as I could in between the little girl behind me banging on her tray table and her mother very generously saying, “I’m sorry” every few minutes. By the time we got to SFO I was tired of sitting down and ready to get out where I could spread my arms out and stretch out the kinks.

It took almost an hour for the luggage to come. I don’t know what they were doing back there. Once I got my bag it was back on the another skyline shuttle to the rental car complex. I got my car in about 10 minutes waiting and all. Enterprise makes quick work of it all. That’s why I keep coming back to them. Always a good experience. Another 10 -15 minutes and I’ve done the final walkaround with Ivan and I’m headed off on ‘the 380’ as they call it around here. It was a reasonably pleasant drive up to Marin County. Lots of folks walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. By the time I got up towards San Rafael the sun was low in the sky and the light was a lot more a friendly glow. I found my AirB&B, met the hostess and exchanged pleasantries and asked where I might find a good sushi restaurant. She told me of a place that was just back down the road called iKoi right across the street from the locally owned grocery named Scotty’s. Both were just what I wanted. The Japanese restaurant was staffed by 3 youngish Chinese. We had a laugh about that and it went through my mind that if we don’t watch it this is the way it will be everywhere. The Chinese will own us all. But that’s another conversation. I noticed that there was tonkatsu ramen on the menu. I might have to go back tomorrow night. But for now I’m going to watch a little bit of Netflix and call it a day, I’ve gotta get up early in the morning and refresh my mind and hands on these tunes. More tomorrow…

Monday. I woke up at about 5:30a (7:30 at home) and hit the Keurig. The B&B has two huge drawers full of coffee fixins. When I met the owner yesterday she asked me if I’m a coffee man. Of course I’m a Peruvian organic man at home and here there’s the “donut shop” roast. I’ve had worse. After a cup I decided to go get a decent breakfast and wound up at a theme restaurant right down the street that had bears in front of it that looked like they had been carved with chain saws. Should’ve been the first clue to drive away. I went inside a huge room with one man sitting at a counter in the far corner. I was seated by the waitress at a booth and decided to get some hash and eggs. In about 5 minutes the waitress seated two ‘stout’ young ladies wearing long false eyelashes and light blue scrubs in the next booth. Really? There’s an entire room a third the size of a football field here and she has to put us right next to each other? Needless to say the morning stopped being peaceful with the constant loud giggling and two different radio stations playing inside the restaurant at the same time. When my food came the plate was enormous. The biscuit was bigger than what Southerners call ‘catheads’ and there were enough potatoes on the plate to feed three people. I just played in it all and came back to my room and warmed up a while.

At least today there was sun. It seems that there has been a long streak of gray clouds and drizzle most everywhere I’ve been lately. It was nice to see the sun. The drive over to the new Peghead studio was only 11 minutes initially, but when I got close the GPS starting having conniptions and routed me through a hispanic grocery store parking lot and around a maze of what looked like one-lane alleyways with very generic industrial office buildings on each side. It seems like I drove down every street and didn’t see anything that resembled what I was looking for. “Your destination is on the left”, said the voice. I looked left to see a tall wooden fence. Must be on the other side. I finally gave up and went back to the grocery parking lot and called. Turns out there are two ways of getting in to where I needed to be and the GPS took me on the wrong one.

The new studio isn’t large, say about the size of a large living room, but has all the necessary gear to set up a video shoot or audio mixing/mastering session. Comfortable and very quiet which is one of the biggest pluses. We didn’t have to stop one time to let the neighbors get done weed whacking their lawns. Scott and Teja manned the cameras and Dan sat off in the back corner doing something on a computer. I couldn’t really see anything save Scott and Teja’s feet due to the bright lights in front of me. My eyes watered so much during the first couple of tunes that I could barely make out my notes nor the notation. Fortunately I am familiar with the material enough to do those without the dots (On a side note, I think my eyes are getting generally fatigued and more sensitive to bright light recently. It’s really difficult sometimes to drive at night with all the cars and trucks sporting 4 headlights on all the time or halogen bulbs and fog lights. I can’t look at a computer screen turned up bright for long, televisions look blurry, etc. Maybe I should just start wearing shades all the time). So in between fighting keeping the Gil in tune and remembering little bits of amusing info during cutting the tracks I pounded out the better part of eight tunes and a couple of alternate cuts. Four more tomorrow, I think “Roanoke”, “Tall Timber”, “Used to Be” and something else. Plus I’ve promised myself I’d go ahead and take a stab at Monroe’s version of “The Prisoner’s Song” and do what I can to convey that wild solo he played on it back in ‘50 or ‘51. There’s NO way I can write it down. But I feel confident I’ve figured out most of it and that will have to do.

We left the studio today between 3-4 and I came back intending to practice and do some necessary reading but as soon as I sat down I was down for the count for about an hour. I woke up close to 5:30p and the room was full of food smell coming from upstairs. Whatever the folks were making smelled great and I couldn’t think about anything but going for supper. I went back to the small place I went yesterday hoping for another good meal and a relaxed mind. Once I got seated I placed my order and leaned back. A family of four came in and sat in the opposite corner and proceeded in very animated fashion to swap phones and compare photos. Their daughter could only get attention by yelling above the adults (she also choked pretty severely on her meal later but finally coughed it up). Then a group of four young ladies came in chattering loudly. All had at least one inch fingernails and long fake eyelashes. I didn’t realize the eyelash thing was such a hit. I’m so far behind the times. An old Chinese man and what looked to be his grand daughter sat to my right. It appeared he was a little hard of hearing due to the volume of their conversation. The small space was now pretty much in a dull roar. The waitress appeared back after an unreasonable wait time with some sort of sushi roll that looked like a cross between a snake and a spider. I told her that it wasn’t mine and she looked at me in disbelief. She finally took it away after I told her again and again that I didn’t order it. She got a lot less friendly and attentive after that. So this whole plan has gone haywire. I wonder if there’s still a place in the world where a person can sit down and have a quiet meal?

I think I’ll watch “Chernobyl” on HBO and go to sleep. It should be a good day tomorrow and a short one. I’ll get back to “In the Mood” tomorrow afternoon so hopefully I’ll have something that sounds bluegrassy and jazzy too by Friday. I’m gaining on it but not there yet. More tomorrow…

Yesterday (Tuesday) went smoothly enough and we were done by a little past lunchtime. I woke up early again and started thinking almost right away about pancakes but I waited around too long so I grabbed a biscuit at Burger King which was close to the studio. Two things I promise now in front of everybody, 1) I will never buy a fountain Coke again from a fast food chain and 2) I will never go to Burger King again. Sayonara, so long, over and out. I think I showed up before the rest of the guys and caught up on email while I waited. Scott showed up late because he’d dropped a jar of honey (glass jar) on the floor just as he got ready to leave and had to clean up the honey and shards of glass mixture before bar feet got in the mix. It was concluded that that was the reason why the plastic honey bear was invented. We got rolling on the videos between 10:30-11a. I did my best to crank out two versions (one studio cut and one live) of “Roanoke”, a version of “Used to Be” and two versions (again, one studio cut and one live) of “Tall Timber. I knuckled under and gave “The Prisoner’s Song” a shot. Not too shabby. I hope I got the point across, Then Mr. Nygaard got out his dreadnaught Bourgeois guitar and we ran through “Tall Timber”, “Happy on My Way”, and “You’ll Find Her Name Written There” for strictly educational purposes, I promise.

It was a little less busy yesterday and the vibe was more relaxed. I mentioned watching another episode or two of “Chernobyl” and Teja related that that disaster was the reason his family moved to the US. He is originally from Germany and he said once they realized just what a close call it was they packed up and moved within I think he said a few weeks. I’m not sure I remember that correctly but after seeing the movie I’d say I sure would have. Maybe just drop everything and run like hell. Anyway, I had never thought of it that way before and certainly never met anyone who had come so close to being effected by it. Nasty business, that. Of course, I went back and finished watching the rest of it, but first a trip to the Hulu Wa restaurant for an order of pot stickers and twice cooked pork. A very modest, small and unassuming place this is but very good food I thought. If it’s escaped everybody so far, I’ll go ahead and say it, I like to eat. Of course one look at me will tell that tale easily enough. Finding good food on the road is oftentimes very difficult and when you come across a place that does it right it’s such a refreshing change and sometimes a highlight of the day. Life is too short to eat crappy food. I found that out earlier in the day, right? So chinese for lunch, chinese leftovers for supper and early to bed. The clock is set for 4:30a. I went out to the car to get my power cord and saw four of the biggest coons I ever saw standing in a group in the middle of Montecillo Road. They looked like they were talking it over, checking notes, who’s got the best garbage, who’s got a stash of dog food outside, who’s got a pet door big enough to crawl in, etc. Better just mind my own business and leave ‘em to it. Goodnight…

Wednesday. I woke up wide awake at 1:40a thinking it was time to get up. I forced myself to go back to sleep and woke again at 4:15a. Up. It was nice to have a little time to have a cup of coffee and open the door and just look at the night sky. It was still quiet and very clear. I got all my gear in the car by 4:50 and took off down the road. About 45 mins of driving like a bat out’a hell to keep from getting run over and I was at the airport again. I got a cup of Peet’s coffee in the airport, took about 4 sips out of it and threw it in the garbage. Peet’s has really gone downhill. My first flight left at 8:03a. To Dallas by 1:30p and off to Nashville at 2:55p. I made it to BNA by 4:30p and home by a little before 5:30p. The flights were uneventful thankfully. I watched a movie and napped. Not room enough to do anything else. Heidi took a break from her errands to give me a lift and took off again once she’d dropped me off to finish up. I’ve got my suitcase unpacked and am going to sit down to a simple bowl of beans and rice and figure out what I’ve got to do in the next few days. SPBGMA starts tomorrow and I’ll probably see a few people out there, but I’m not planning on staying long. Got the “In the Mood” session on Friday morning and at the crack of dawn on Monday we leave for the Cayamo cruise. Shifting gears and headed for big musical party on the ocean. Should be interesting. But right now I’m just thankful for getting my work done for the next Monroe style mando installment on Peghead and soon to be sleeping in my own bed.

Life is good. MC