bilocate — part nine (a read-along accompanied by oneiric compositions 21 & 38)
It can get precarious.
continued from bilocate — part eight (there you are then again)
East into the northern southwest, the highways & hallways crawled with mile-high amateurs braking & shuffling in a pulse of sanguine confidence that innocently comes after the fall of any prohibitions — in this case, recent weed legalization in a statewide honeymoon stage. The sound person delayed check until after finishing emergency bar appetizers, ringing out the room in a showtime feedback dispensary afterglow. The green room was a backlot minivan parked next to a kitchen dumpster & occasional loaders.
A nightfall cruise into the open plains made way for a virescent-eyed Lincoln that passed towards its namesake in the distance. Taken as a sign, the next exit led into an outskirts Keno lounge with a televised car show beaming down on a drunken dart team sporting uniform gym shorts & mohawk-do variations, shit-talking between chicken-&-pulled-pork combo bites & sloppy pitcher rounds.
The day trotted along until cornered in a quad, where lo-fi aesthetes with snarling smiles insisted on pilfering art in the name of artistic preservation. The sponsor of the show wanted to film the performance to sell to another sponsor to sell. I declined. They insisted. I left. About twenty miles outta town, a mediator resolved the issue with a word of honor. I went back. They filmed anyway. Shortly later, a lawyer would have to explain to them that the world is not their oyster trap.
A frontage road dark expedition led to a “local since 1979” with cheap specials chugged in tepid air. Across the bar, a hairless man angrily stared at me as if I was the one who made him bald. Reactionary news multi-beamed in from all directions. Peanut-shucking wanderers clapped in unison about overly-imagined hopes over half-priced bottom-shelf & redneck calamari. I retreated quietly.
The late afternoon already felt like something was off as I drove towards the venue for a free early show. It was a summer weekend afternoon. The lanes on the interstate & the sky were nearly empty. Then, my offramp began with an abandoned sedan crunched against a cement lane divider. The streets seemed deserted until a turn into a neighborhood suddenly packed with benevolent daylight drunks charitably pub-crawling for a universal affliction. They invaded on foot, leaning on parking meters & each other, or pedaled party bikes on parade in tribal colors of vogue public-spirit. The locals took position along the street, strategically bumming smokes & loose change from invaders intoxicated on altruism. I set up an amp, guitar & chair on a small corner stage. A sauced ponytail visor spilled past the amp & onto the chair for a phone pic. A guitar was almost knocked over. The surrounding revelers thickened closer. Drinks hovered near guitar pedals while their distracted handlers swayed. A few songs in, the crowd was louder than the monitors. No one seemed to notice when I stopped, so I packed up the gear & squeezed through dead weight to load the minivan. Last look in, the bar staff was overrun, barely keeping the benevolence at bay. Pulling out from the parking space in front of the venue, the minivan moved carefully, as if navigating a debris field of ghosts in a fog. A turned-block later, the sidewalks were quiet again — a welcome void absent of the spectacle of unquenchable goodwill. I’m not going back until there’s a cure.
The last picnic in the minefield featured a gas stop Flying J ventriloquist greeter setup near a glass case of Precious Moments figurines & a motel desk clerk named Hercules who clean-jerked a last-minute reservation at a budget motel with a complimentary poolside gigolo chatting up wine-cooling senior sunbathers & watching the parking lot where it appeared that someone took a dealer-plate test-drive for a liquid-lunch getaway.
But, even feral cats will have their chins scratched just so they can eat & stretch out in the path of some momentary light shaft breaking through an archaic open-windowed screen. So, I kept going, continuing half-way to nowhere once more through missed exits, ignored recommendations & blocked intersections, back into the collective jet stream curious for anything at all — . . . even a new hunger. Uncertainty is a thrilling, but exhausting addiction. The gut growls either way . . . . . . so, why not? Just wait.
Tough crowd.
I may have been one of those bozos bumming smokes...or at the very least, day drinking. Ahhh. So many great shows that I wish I had been sober for. Good times...indeed.
Always a pleasure Buckner.