western tendencies

1) REM – So. Central Rain
2) Wilco – Forget the Flowers
3) Wilco – No More Poetry
4) Magnolia Electric Co – Talk to Me Devil, Again
5) My Morning Jacket – Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream (Pt. II)
6) Wilco – I Must Be High
7) Turin Brakes – Ghost
8) Badly Drawn Boy – River, Sea, Ocean
9) Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
10) REM – Country Feedback
11) Archer Prewitt – I’m Coming Over
12) Josh Rouse – Quiet Town
13) Fleet Foxes – Innocent Son
14) The Watson Twins – Friend and Foe
15) Badly Drawn Boy – I Love NYE
16) Wilco – Blue Eyed Soul
17) Fleet Foxes – Drops in the River
18) Goldfrapp – Happiness
19) Grizzly Bear – Plans (covered by Band of Horses)
20) Jim White – A Town Called Amen

I listened to those songs-- on a mix CD I created with the words "Western Tendencies" scrawled across the front of it in permanent blue marker-- 14 times because it was the only goddamn CD I had for the 15 hour ride I had from Cincinnatti to Boston. Poor planning you say? Well no, just the wrong iPod adapter. I was in another rental truck because the Crocs rig was still not repaired at the Sterling shop in Cincinnatti—the one I had gotten the truck towed to by Virgil just about a week prior before surprising Mom at home for her birthday. This rental truck didn’t have the auxiliary port that allowed me to connect my iPod, so there I sat for 15 hours driving to Boston listening to the same mix CD over and over again. I was alone for this drive because everyone else was on vacation for the week before getting to Boston. I was the closest one to Cincinnati so I volunteered to pick the truck up and drive it to Boston while the others flew in from their respective areas.

I definitely stopped somewhere in rural Pennsylvania when I saw that a boot shop was going out of business and boasted clearance sales of up to 70% off their inventory of cowboy boots. Good lord. I entered through the doors and the jingle of the cowbells kind of rattled me. There had to be have been 500 boots thrown in pile in the middle of the floor. Despite the disorganization I saw the pair immediately that I wanted. Yep. They were made of ostrich leather. And I would say I was dead set on purchasing them until Carl, the attendant that was hounding me to make this purchase, informed me that these boots were handmade by a 78 year old American man and carried a price tag of $530. My next question was whether or not the 70% had already been taken off. It had, according to Carl, and I wanted to throw a hissy fit. Here I was in love with these boots—hell I was already wearing them and about to rip the tags off proclaiming they were mine—and Carl was here to tell me I was going to need to sell my body in order to scrounge enough greenbacks to pull off the transaction.

Awesome.

So I went outside, angrily of course, and took a walk. I was in the middle of nowhere and there was a fairly big sprawling field in the distance so I just walked towards it. The birds were chirping and it was something of a scene. I was kind of in a weird state of mind, hungry for some sort of inspiration. At this particular moment, I was looking to the trees for it. Perhaps the field. Most of all, the sunset that was coming.

Awesome.

I was kind of sitting there thinking about that, the beautiful sunset, this totally random field, with visions of ostrich boots still kind of lingering in my membranes, feeling sort of lonely but also feeling kind of inspired by it all. There’s those moments when you feel so powerful as a result of the fact that you are surrounded by so little-- there's a burst of freedom that comes from the simplicity of it all. It is kind of like those moments when you break up with a girlfriend/boyfriend. It’s like POOF! the person is gone and that feels sort of terrible, but once they are, the focus of everyday life wants and needs shifts back to being solely on yourself. And come on, when you have that realization for a split second it is invigorating. You then usually go back to being mildly heartbroken afterwards, but still. It’s there if even for a fleeting moment.

So it was me, myself and I. Literally. I climbed back in the truck after the rendezvous in the field and track 5 was on. Jim James was shouting in to the microphone about how “this feeling it is wonderful, don’t you ever turn it off!” I had roughly ten more hours of driving. I wasn’t bored though. My mind was keeping me occupied.

I graduated from Pennsylvania at some point around 1am and made it to cross the George Washington Bridge between New York City and New Jersey. You would have thought that Jesus Christ himself was waiting on the other side of the bridge handing out bricks of gold with the sort of traffic and congestion that was collecting. There were about four toll lanes open and about 17 billion cars looking to cross. Rosa eventually greeted me at the tollbooth. I made a comment about how busy it was to me and she threw my receipt at me with the change. This was not your ordinary bridge crossing—it cost $16 for me to cross the damn thing in the Crocs truck. I gave Rosa a smile but I don’t think she could have cared less. The heavy traffic lasted clear up to Connecticut and by 3am I wanted to saw my arm off if it meant I could escape the horrific mess that was now just eating my soul. I had to get a cup of coffee—weasel piss gas station coffee mind you—to stay awake. I did a casual jumping jacks routine before I got back in the car to assure the blood was still flowing.

Track 20 was blaring, and I mean seriously BLARING through the stereo as I pulled in to the Courtyard Marriott in South Boston around 4:30am. I was using anything I could to keep me up—windows down, multiple cups of coffee, monster energy drinks, loud music.

The Boston Marathon is probably the biggest weekend of the entire tour from a work perspective, and things went over pretty well. I felt pretty tired for the majority of the weekend seeing as how longtime friends Omri “Slice” Bloch (old housemate from days spent in Australia) and Drew’sef Jenson (roommate in Chicago) came up to visit from NYC. Between losing cell phones, sleeping in hotel hallways, outdoor barbequing, beer gardens and Omri being an absolute champion with the women of Boston, I’d say we did OK for the weekend.

The haze of Beantown faded in to Nashville.

Oh god.

Talk about excitement. I had randomely happened upon Nashville roughly four years prior with Nathaniel Booneskids Peerbolt (a college roommate) on one of our DISCOVER AMERICA road trips. These road trips were usually envisioned over a dozen beers and then acted out a few days later. If there is one person in this great universe that shares the great wanderlust for all things unfamiliar it is Booneskids. An infinite curiosity bring us together. So we were on spring break driving down to Miami some time ago and stopped in Nashville on the way down. What greeted us that night was a collection of honky tonk bars and pool halls that beckoned us at every turn. That night we had a beer, played some pool and then got back on the road for Miami. It was clear as we walked away from the magnificence that is Broadway Street in Nashville that we were both totally in love with the place.

That same love was in the air when I was back in Nashville for the third time. This, however, would be my longest stay. I was in town for roughly 5 days working the Rock ‘n Roll Country Music Marathon. I had intense plans of getting out my denim western shirt, Wrangler jeans and my finest dancing shoes for the weekend.

I checked in to the hotel and immediately threw my stuff down and bee-lined for the town. I asked the hotel front desk the best way to get to downtown Nashville by cab (we were staying out by Opryland) and I was promptly referred to “Jerry.” There was no formal brochure, no fancy letterhead or even a short explanation of this guy—I just needed to call Jerry. So, naturally, Jerry was contacted and he of course showed up promptly at 7pm like he said he would. The man was a firestorm of enthusiasm and probably intoxicated. He was about 5 foot 8 and skinny as a rail. His skin looked like aged rawhide. He wore an oversized button-up shirt and a pair of old stonewashed jeans from about 1987. The man must have told me he was going to show me a good time on about 45 different occasions. Every time Jerry spoke, there was some sort of hokey ending to the sentence that made it very difficult for me to keep a straight face. Most sentences involved “man” or a reference to this “good time” that he kept mentioning every 4 seconds or so.

I hopped in to the empty cargo van, completely unaware of where this Jerry guy was taking me or if I was actually even in a cab to begin with. His carton of cigarettes was wedged between the front console and the drivers seat. We drove on and Jerry broke in to full-on tour guide mode. I was learning things about Nashville that were pointless and intriguing (for example, the fact that Nashville houses the largest amount of bible publishers in the United States). It seemed as though every one in the town knew this guy. We must have stopped 36 times so he could say hello to whoever it was that knew him on the street corner—bums hoisting a 40 of Steel Reserve, scalpers outside the concert hall where Bon Jovi was playing a show, restaurant owners. You get the point. The highlight of these little occurrences was this little Danish man that was feverishly flagging down Jerry from a street corner. The guy was so sunburned he looked as though he had stepped in to an open flame. He was out of breath when he reached the car. His shorts fell about 5 inches above his knee cap. But he still had the mandatory western shirt on with a pack of smokes in the chest pocket. His straw cowboy hat looked like it was about 10 sizes too big and it shook every time he tried to construct his sentences in broken English to Jerry.

“Hi meester Jerry, my wife and I are ready to be take back to hotel.” You could understand the fellow just fine, but he was having a little bit of trouble with his English delivery.

Jerry kind of cringed a little bit as if he didn’t fully understand the guy. Well, actually I know he couldn’t understand him. Jerry began to ask questions. “You want a bar, man? You need some food?”

“Meester Jerry, can you take back to hotel.” The guy’s Scandinavian pale skin was just glowing bright red. He was definitely a grown man, but his demeanor made him seem all of five years old. Every 10 seconds his hat fell over his face and he would struggle to speak and simultaneously adjust it. Gotta love his effort though. The man obviously loved Nashville as any human being should.

“Ohh sure thing man. I will be around in ten minutes or so. Ten minutes, man. Ten minutes. You got it man. Ten minutes.” Jerry took off like in the van like a bat out of hell to the bewilderment of the Danish couple thinking they had a ride. And Jerry continued talking to me, “Hey man, they just came from Denmark, man. Been in Nashville for only a couple of days and already got himself a cowboy hat. Hell of a guy.”

I was trying to hold back laughter at this point as Jerry was spouting off pleasantries left and right, not even watching the road in front of him as he drove along. It all kind of reminded me of my Dad driving actually. Eventually Jerry dropped me off at a restaurant he recommended for some good southern cooking. What more could a cowboy-in-training ask for?

I ran the half marathon that weekend in Nashville. My plight as the common man running marathons continues—extremely painfully, however. The idea I have in my mind, supported by some of the folks that I work with, is the fact that anyone can do these races. You don’t need wonder fabric wicking shirts, million dollar shoes and a trainer that you pay $100 per visit. Hell, you don’t even need to train. So I wear normal street clothes in the race, run in a pair of Crocs and don’t train whatsoever. So far it has been OK for the most part, short of some fairly serious pain towards the end of this one past one.

About mile one in to the race, I realized that I had absolutely no fucking clue how to effectively work the chronograph on my Timex watch (so as to calculate my average mile time and approximate finishing time). I was tapping buttons and didn’t understand any of the language being displayed on the screen. Then it started to pour rain. This of course prevented me from using my iPod. So I now had 12 miles of running in front of me and no music to fuel my effort.

Awesome.

The Nashville race was a Rock ‘n Roll Country Music Marathon so the idea is that at about 3 mile intervals there is some sort of band playing some sort of music. I cant remember the name of the honky tonky band, but when I was passing their booth around mile three they were doing a cover of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Do Me Like That” and I immediately felt a bit of push from the overflow of Americana that was in the air.

For the first time since running these races in Crocs, I was getting a fair bit of inquiries as to why in the bloody hell I was being such an idiot. I didn’t have 5 minutes to give them the full story of it all so I came up with a different response every time—“my doctor recommended it,” “I forgot my running shoes,” “It’s raining? Cant you see? Crocs are better in the rain.” Etc. Towards the end this response changed to “I have no fucking clue.” One couple I could hear behind me and they were convinced that they were going to appear on a Crocs commercial.

Around mile 10 I was looking for inspiration and a shot of adrenaline from anything and everything. I was talking to trees, singing to myself and just looking up at the sky hoping that a wizard would come down and repair my ankles/knees. The most effective approach to getting my mind off the pain was hopping behind a female runner and allowing my train of vision to just fall to her ass. Yep. Desperation. It was all I could do. But it helped.

Mile 11 I realized that everything from waist down was failing. As I realized this, I passed a Gu station. Yes, Gu. It’s the stuff that comes in a little foil packet and you squeeze the substance in to your mouth and it’s supposed to give you a burst of energy. As I passed the booth I remembered the words of my coworker Nate (who runs many of these races) “I mean you should run on race day with whatever you train with.” Having no training whatsoever and being desperate for any sort of kick to keep me going I grabbed a small handful of the Gu packets in every flavor—espresso, French vanilla and chocolate.

French vanilla went down first. I struggled to open the damn thing to begin with, but once I did I practically swallowed the entire package. The thing tasted like the smell of toe jam and I was really wondering how they had any business calling it “french vanilla.” I was practically gagging this stuff down seeing as how it had the consistency of pancake batter. With coffee and chocolate left— but practically unable to breathe at this point—I had a big, big decision in front of me. I went for chocolate and could only gag down about half of it. If those things helped AT ALL, I was completely unaware of it. I am pretty sure I felt worse after eating the Gu. After 2 hours and 11 minutes of this bullshit, I crossed the finish line.

After the race that night I ate roughly ten pounds of barbequed ribs as a celebratory feast and remarkably took my western tendencies to the dance floor at Nashville’s finest honky tonk bars. See, Nashville isn’t your standard run-of-the-mill line dancing Texas bologna and cheese town. Oh no. It’s the sort of scene where you make it just exactly what you want—independent of how much you like anything country western. Every walk of life makes it in the bar—young bucks looking to have a shot at the opposite sex, old honky tonk veterans looking to just get their nightly dose of the good ‘ol days and everything in between. If anything it’s fun to sit at the bar mozied up to a cold Budweiser marveling at the unique clash of music and all walks of life. And it all feels normal. You go to Nashville feeling like you belong there in that moment.

After the brick of barbequed ribs in my stomach settled and I was able to take down 8 Budweiser’s to aid in the numbing of all bodily parts from mid-thigh down, I was able to shake a leg out there with the best of them.