So many photos. It’ll take a while going through the bounty in December. I posted a bunch to Backstage already but will have to create several galleries.
The above pic was taken early this morning in Naoshima. Straight out of the phone cam, nothing adjusted.
I had my ear pierced for the first time in 1978, in Taipei, Taiwan. Walked by a jewelry store and spontaneously decided to buy a little gold stud. Asked the sales person to put it into my right ear. She used a gun-shaped device to knock it into the ear. Why? I am not sure. Perhaps I felt I looked too bürgerlich. That’s an interesting German word that can have a lot of different meanings. Civil and normal would be closest to what I felt. Earrings were often worn by pirates, but also by carpenters and traveling musicians. Perhaps, at this point in my year-long journey I started to feel that I might want to live the life of a musician and the stud was the signal of my intention. I wore the little stud and soon forgot about it.
A few months later I found myself in Thailand, about to board a bus from Bangkok to Phuket Island. A lot of busses were getting hi-jacked and robbed at that time and in order to attract less attention I tried removing the stud from my right ear. I couldn’t find the lock behind the ear and tried pulling out the stud from the front. Something was resisting and it hurt, but I gave it a good tug and the stud came out. Since it seemed a little infected I did not put the stud back into the right ear.
A few months later still, I found myself in New Delhi and staying on the roof of a hotel – the cheapest beds were on the roof, under a tent-like structure, with maybe 10 beds placed under the tent… An Australian girl pierced my right ear, again – by placing a potato behind my ear and jamming a needle with thread through the ear into the potato…
Fast forward about six months and I am walking around Cologne with my brother. Something had been itching in my right ear-lobe for a few days… and I kept touching it. I walked into a restroom and looked into the mirror. A strange shine seemed to emanate from my right ear lobe, only when the light hit it at a certain angle… I leaned forward and closer and started pulling on my ear – and removed the clasp that had been fastened on the stud in Taiwan, and which I could not find in Thailand. Apparently my ear-flesh had grown around and over the clasp while I was in Taiwan and Hongkong, and caused the resistance I experienced in Bangkok when I tried to remove the stud. The girl in New Delhi had re-pierced my ear in a higher spot – above the clasp inside my earlobe. And now the clasp had completed its journey from behind my ear through my ear to the front.
I started wearing an earring in the new, higher hole and soon the weight of that ring made the top hole unite with the bottom hole to form one rather large hole…
Anyway, in the Summer of 1979 I lived in New York and Vermont and it was cool to have an earring in the right ear. In the Fall, however, I moved to Boston. Different rules applied in Boston – I believe Keith Richards commented somewhere on this silliness also: while in New York an earring in your left ear was considered a gay-signal and an earring on the right was a thing a lot of musicians wore, it was the other way around in Boston. My solution was simple, I got a hole in my left ear as well and started wearing two earrings.
The two gold earrings I have worn since 1990 were custom-made since I couldn’t find anything I liked. I wanted simple earRINGs and the solution was to buy two wedding bands and modify them by removing a small section and adding a hinged lock to each.
I remember a conversation with my accupuncturist in Santa Fe, a wonderful woman I went to for many years and to whom I took lots of friends and family. She told me that she figured that some drunken sailor got an earring and by sheer luck the ring went through an acupuncture meridian that can improve the eye sight. Their sight did improve and from then on many other sailors attempted to improve their sight with rings.
Actually, men have worn earrings throughout history. In most depictions the Buddha has elongated earlobes. He probably wore heavy earrings in his youth but later discarded them. Depicting the distended earlobes is supposed to show his rejection of those material possessions. Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s death mask shows earring boreholes. Friezes from Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Empire (550–330 BC), show warriors wearing earrings.
Like everything else, earrings are cyclical, they come and go. That’s my earring story.
Venice is cursed. I walked cursed Venice in a cloud of confusion. Why did so many people bring so many roller suitcases? Did they not know they were coming to Venice? Did they not know Venice has a stone-stepped bridge every fifty yards? Sweat soaked beneath the savage sun, they heaved their suitcases — all of which were big enough to hide a dismembered body or two — up and down and huffed and seemed distraught at the amount of heaving required to make headway.
Walking Venice — Ridgeline issue 144
This opening paragraph from Craig Mod’s very enjoyable Ridgeline Newsletter could have been written about Lisbon as well. One hears them from afar, the tourists’ suitcases clattering up or down steep cobblestone streets, their wheels squealing from the abuse while the people get the workout of their lives. Mod calls this noise the Rimowa Thunderdome.
Some cities have cobblestone streets while the sidewalks are concrete or asphalt or otherwise fairly smooth. Not Lisbon. Here many sidewalks are made from a different color cobblestone, a smooth beige stone that becomes super treacherous when it rains. I am still experimenting with different pairs of shoes, hoping to find some that offer enough grip during a rain shower, so as not to break a leg. The experience of walking on snow in Santa Fe for thirty years gave my body the very useful ability to react to a slipping foot without going down. So far so good.
What’s the ideal baggage for travel? I don’t think there is one right way. Jon is in the duffel camp and has carried a Tumi duffel for at least two decades. It’s traveled all over the world and has been repaired several times. I used to be a duffel man but a few years ago I switched to a suitcase. There are times when it is so much easier to push a suitcase with one hand (those wheels have become really great, haven’t they!), with my backpack riding on top of the suitcase and the guitar case slung over the other shoulder, while Jon carries his bass case (not exactly light!) in one hand and the Tumi in the other. But arrive at a cobblestone street and he is the one smiling while I have to put the backpack on my back, hold on to the slipping shoulder strap of the guitar case, and drag the suitcase along pitifully.
A few things I have learned:
Even if a company replaces the broken suitcase, as they did with mine after the frame got bent, it would no longer lock properly, and a wheel came off, it’s a waste of materials and not a good solution.
Back to the clattering suitcases on cobblestone streets and sidewalks… Take heed and don’t start your journey with a long and exhausting and noisy nightmare of a walk.
Long travel day. Left Santa Fe a little before 08:00 and arrived in Miami around 21:00.
Interesting stuff happened. After checking into our flight in Albuquerque I observed a woman talking on her mobile AND pulling two wheeled bags – one at a time. It was very entertaining to watch. She calmly continued her conversation while moving one of her bags about six feet ahead. Then she would go back to drag the other bag forward by those six feet plus another six feet. I kept looking for a hidden TV camera, as this seemed like a joke.
I would have told the person on the other end of the phone that I would call them back, or one could have used a headset, but no, this lady kept talking with the mobile in one hand and dragging her luggage slowly, but surely across the airport. And she seemed perfectly content.
The flight to Dallas was completely full. I had a window seat in the emergency exit isle – yeah for leg-room! The person sitting in the middle seat was one of those people that quickly takes control of both armrests. A little later, I looked over and noticed he was asleep. He was drooling and spit had reached all the way from his mouth to his lap. It was amazing – a perfect glittering band… As I contemplated sneaking a quick photo with my iPhone, he woke up and I quickly looked out of the window, pretending I hadn’t noticed anything.
Then the plane from Dallas to Miami developed mechanical problems while on the tarmac. The captain turned around and returned to the gate. He announced that some valve wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do, but a mechanic could just close it by hand… but then this turned into a 90 minute delay, with the full plane sitting at the gate.
We arrived in Miami at 21:00 and made it to the hotel by 22:30. At this point we were all starving. The hotel’s restaurant was due to close at 22:50, so we hustled and made it just in time for a fabulous meal.
Night view – handheld at 2500 ASA:
Morning view:
Well, we are happy we made it here and everyone is really looking forward to play. A TV station wanted to film our first concert tomorrow, in Miami, but I don’t want to deal with camera men running around the stage on the first night so we turned down the request.
Ode to the Tourbus, a slideshow on Flickr.
