There’s a time in everyone’s life when you learn a new skill. Mine? Booking a spoken word/performance tour! Never did I think that I would do that, but here I am on the road, somewhere on the road, touring with Mykel Board, headed toward our first destination tonight in Bloomington, Indiana, after having spent the first half of the week performing in Chicago. But let me back up a bit, tell you a bit of history between Mykel & I, tell you about our performance history, a bit of booking experience and a bit of everything else in between!It’s spring, 2007 & Mykel…no wait, let me back up even further to last fall, 2006, when I arrive in New York City to do a few gigs. Mykel meets up with me as I arrive at the venue via taxicab, with a driver who absolutely hates his job. Don’t we all?
The venue is a small studio on Times Square; I’m one of three features, while Mykel gets up on the open mic portion and reads some of his work. Vivianna Grell the host dubs Mykel, “Mykel Board The Bard.”
That same week, we perform at a friend of mine’s bar, Grey Lodge Pub in Philadelphia, a performance that took us five hours to drive to due to an unusually hard and long torrential rainstorm. That same afternoon, a light plane flying along the Hudson River, piloted by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor takes a wrong turn and smacks directly into a 42-story apartment building on the upper east side of New York City, killing both men instantly.
Not knowing if it’s a terrorist attack or not, United States President George W. Bush takes no chances and sends fighter jets to protect New Yorkers. The plane accident ties up traffic for hours…
But back even further to Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois, late May, 2005. Mykel’s just published two new books, I-A-Me-Ist & Even A Daughter’s Better Than Nothing and is on a book tour filled with up with Illinois & Wisconsin tour dates.
It’s Mykel who encourages me to go back out on the performance circuit once more after a few years of sitting out, if for no better reason, for at the moment escapes me. He tells me he’s got a gig at the Reversible Eye in Chicago and wants me to be a part of it. So I agree to do it. We both do seemingly well, the audience is extremely polite and attentive and well; looks as if I’m hooked on performing again!
A few days later we drive up to Madison, Wisconsin with another friend, where I open for Mykel at Rainbow Books with a little throatsinging that ends up scaring away four potential audience members. Mykel doesn’t seem too pleased by that, but I figure if I can scare them away here, I can scare them away anywhere and do whatever I please in terms of performance.
Some hours later, Mykel goes on his way and I head over to an open mic with my friend and play an unmemorable, no-rules game of Scrabble in which I get the title for my next (and third) CD, I mean of course, the word, holfatzib.
I discover later that night, as my car radio stops working and to amuse myself and in order to keep myself awake, I sing at least 100 different versions of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” I realize that I am digging what is transpiring...
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