It’s 8am Sunday morning, October 14. I’ve just picked up my car from the Midway parking lot on the near south side of Chicago.Pulled an all-nighter, driving back from Indianapolis, but it was Mykel who did the driving, not me. I slept a good part of the way back.
Let me back up; back up to the success of the Chicago shows, not knowing what was waiting for us on the other side of the border, the state line, rather, the loathsome state called Indiana.
Back in the mid-1990s, I lived there, fucked there and practically died there, mentally that is. It’s the state that I call the asshole of America; it seems to compete with New Jersey in many ways, but that’s another story for another time.
It wasn’t the best of times for me being there during that time period, living in a tiny town of 2,000 and being one of three Jews in the town. No future, a lot of bleakness and unfamiliarity in general. Even as I moved ahead to the next town, I ran into too much trouble, too much conservatism and unemployment was my friend.
Thankfully I retreated back to Illinois and found refuge and comfort in suburbia, but only for a short while.
Since that time I had visited Indiana a few times to go see the friends I had made there and like most things, one town I had lived in didn’t change all that much, while the other city was a boomtown, quite literally.
So, when I was planning this tour back in the summer, I had wanted to go to Wisconsin and not Indiana, but it was because of Mykel’s insistence that we go and so, we went, much to my inner chagrin.
Booking the Indiana shows were pretty easy; a converted movie theater in Bloomington, a hippie-style coffeehouse in Lafayette, a record shop and a punk club in Indianapolis. What more could an old punk like Mykel ask for and want and a spoken word performance artist like me desire?
We left mid-morning on the 11th, after parking my car at a secure lot near Midway airport. Our first stop was a lunch break in Hammond, Indiana at a pizza buffet.
The city of Hammond in Indiana is by all accounts weird; this place in particular was strange. On the 100-inch TV screen was Maury Povich’s talk show presenting the usual drivel; the bar was full of rednecks. The place was recommended to us by a Hammond local, when we stopped at the tourism bureau and it was relatively close in proximity to the interstate.
At the bar sat a rather large man with white hair and a long white beard, wearing a red, white and blue USA jacket. The rest of the people inside the joint looked like locals, what with their Gimme ballcaps and flannel shirts.
Somewhere in the midst of going for my third helping at the buffet, the large man was also standing there and as I was helping myself to a slice of pizza, he manically laughed to himself, but in a way that I was supposed to “get.”
I felt uneasy.
It didn’t get any better, when I went to wash my hands and looking for the men’s room, I came upon a little old man who spoke in an elfish kind of voice, who pointed me in the right direction, laughing manically to himself as well.
I felt out of place and wanted to get away from there as quick as humanly possible. We made it into Bloomington without further incident.
We drove to our host’s home and he met us so very graciously. He served us dinner, which I think consisted of a vegetarian meal and then it was off to the movie theater. When we got out and walked up to the theater, we saw that our names were right up on the marquee. That made me smile and I felt it was like one of the greatest times I would ever see my name in the spotlight.
The trouble was when it show-time, only three people attended, two young women and a young man. Mykel wasn’t too happy with that prospect, but I can’t say I don’t blame him; still I gave a performance that I felt was pretty grand, trying out a few new throat-singing pieces and a few new poems to boot.
After the show, I was pretty far gone and unlike Mykel who had his eyes on a friend of our host’s, I decided to turn in early, write in my journal and just sleep. We left the next morning after exchanging addresses, contact information and photographs.
Along the way, we stopped off at a Salvation Army thrift store and the Mongolian studies department at the University of Indiana, where Mykel dropped off a copy of his “Even A Daughter’s Better Than Nothing” book.
From there, we drove to our next destination, good old Lafayette, home of the Purdue Boilermakers and my old stomping grounds back in the mid-1990s. Not knowing what to expect at the coffeehouse, I made the best of it, as we hauled our props and merchandise into the venue.
This show seemed to come off a little better than the last location. Seven people and a few had enthusiasm. That was a relief! And to top it all off, there was a piano I made could use of.
Mykel did his usual spoken word and I did a limited performance consisting of poetry and performance art. After the show was over and both he and I sold a few items from our merchandise table, it was off to a local pub with a local fellow and our hostess, whom Mykel had found via the website, http://www.couchsurfing.com/.
Though she was short in stature, she was dynamite in many other aspects. She was a Purdue graduate student & visiting scientist & scholar from Brazil, she seemed to be a great ball of energy, wanting to go out and stay up all night.
It was the weekend after all, so why the hell not?
The next morning, as we packed up and took all the vitals down and with our cameras, the scientist wanted to tag along with us. At the time I thought, how cool is that? My very own groupie!
So, off we flew. Us in our rental car and her in her oversized SUV. Along the way, we stopped at a few garage sales and from there, made it into Indianapolis in record time.
We met the promoter, who was most kind, considerate and congenial; a true promoter’s promoter. He took us everywhere, along the way, meeting friends of his, stopping in shops and he even took us out to dinner.
Very cool indeed.
Our first venue was the backside of a record shop, where we performed in between bands. Though the set-up seemed kind of odd, I felt like I had to be right into the face of the audience, as we weren’t allowed to use the band space and instead use a side space.
And so that’s exactly what I did; get right into their faces and perform. It paid off. I got their attention alright.
After my performance, we packed up and headed off to the next venue; the historic Melody Inn, where in fact, we would be playing in between a host of punk & metal bands.
After sizing up the crowd, which amounted to several drunken punks, I decided to do my louder and more attention-getting pieces.
After watching Mykel perform and watching his increasingly odd behavior, which was extremely unusual for him, I felt it was in my best interest to not let it get to me.
As the 2nd band left the stage and I plodded up there with all of my gear, I immediately launched into two throat-singing pieces, “Mykel Board Weasel Squeezer” and “Noam Colon Mud Puddle,” followed by “Beano,” a performance piece that utilized my shofar.
The drunken punks didn’t seem to care or weren’t amused. Then I launched into a GG Allin spoken word cover of “Bite It” (You Scum).
Not sure where I would do next, I decided to perform “Suite For Furby On Shofar In D Minor.” As I began performing it, I felt both nervous and excited inside.
Here I was in a punk club performing before a bunch of drunks who notoriously could have easily ignored me, which I sort of felt was happening anyway. But I pressed onward, kept switching my movement so I could keep on my toes and watch their reaction at the same time.
It was a learning experience to say the least. Still, the crowd seemed to like me and Mykel was energized.
“That was the punkest thing I’ve seen all year,” he later said to me.
Meanwhile, our Lafayette groupie slinked off with a dorky dancer and ended up doing who-knows-what-we-didn’t-ask-nor-cared.
It was 2:30 a.m., when Mykel turned to me and said he wanted to get out of there and back into Chicago, while I wanted to stay there and go to the place where we were supposed to stay.
But Mykel’s logic was simple; he wanted to go more than I wanted to stay and who could argue with that?
Though Mykel felt he didn’t do well in Indiana, I felt as if I had made a lasting impression and became a smashing success in process.
Touring, as I have learned in the past, can be hard and unpredictable; little or no money involved and many broken promises. But it can be an education too, in that you find out a lot about yourself, as in what works and how you get along with others.
I think I passed the audition.
Thanks to everyone along the way who we met, particularly Chris in Bloomington, Aaron in Lafayette and in Indianapolis, Bill Levin of Bling Jewelry who gave me a Furby (batteries included!) and to our Indianapolis promoter, Marvin Goldstein, who took us everywhere and was kind to us.
Sincere thanks to Mykel Board, who put up with me the entire length of the tour and my snoring.
For another look at our tour, visit this link:
http://mykelsblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/mykels-column-for-mrr-296-december-2007.html
