S29 ST. STEPHEN NEW BRUNSWICK
We flew onto Halifax, got a big new Truck that Smitty loves, Frankie figured out what all the electronic buttons do, and I found 3 excellent new books at a store. The first one is about COLOUR HEALING, which deals with the meanings of colours, how they affect people, and what you can do about it. There is a great chakra meditation that I tried, and WOW, it does revitalize. Great stuff. Nothing new, ancient in fact.
Frankie saw the opening act at the arena with a girl entering the venue on a motorbike.
Decent arena gig. What I remember, and probably always will was the big BANG that made a stinking stench in the dressing room. There was a big thick electrical cable, wrapped in black tape on the cement floor right in front of the dressing room door. Frankie stepped on it as he walked in, and the thing exploded quite a bit, leaving a big black burn area on the floor. This was a 2-20 cable, the main one for the show. This will kill you.
Lucky for us, Frankie didn’t get killed.
OK, I will a break, save some computer battery power for Smitty, (Mr. Garlic stench sitting beside me) and watch a movie with Ra on his machine. Did I mention that we watched THE CORE last week (on Ra’s powerbook), and the explosions sounded REAL in the van!
M31 FREDERICTON
Ok, back again, typing this report in the same truck, sitting with the same bunch of guys, driving around Newfoundland.
OK, Fredericton, Wow, what a cool town! I love it. The great old houses, excellent boardwalk bridge across the river and, of course, the great friendly people. We had a day off here and I walked for hours and hours looking at everything, getting some sunshine, and not getting hassled about not wearing a shirt. Just walking around, eating peanuts all day.
Our excellent hotel, The Lord Beaverbrook, was right in the centre of town, beside the art gallery and across from the sold-out, modern theatre. I got to spend some fun time before the show blasting my keyboard through the PA when the place was empty, and the room sounded great. I knew that this would be a special gig, as ALL theatre gigs are. I explored the backstage rooms (all upstairs) and played the most horribly out-of-tune piano in a rehearsal room. In fact it had a sign on it saying UNSTABLE – DO NOT TOUCH.
Theatres are so great because EVERYONE has a good seat and the sound is amazing, so nothing is lost. The gig was so sold out, that the management refused us a guest list, which is pretty lame, so my guests came in the back door with me. Frankie played a solo on a coat hanger rack and his plastic buckets, and there was a huge line of people to say HI as we signed stuff afterwards. Lots of great compliments. All the kids here have braces, as opposed to other places we have seen lately, so I guess this town has a bit more $ than some.
Yes, great city. I love it. Got lots of tourist video footage to show some friends back home.
This may have been the drive where Scott spotted a huge TEXACO sign (like the new T-shirt design), so we stopped at a guy’s house to take a picture with it. He had a total retro garage set up, and invited us in to see his collection of collections. I liked the wall of school lunch boxes (The Waltons and The Partridge Family) and Smitty liked the old Elvis Guitars. This guy had rows of kids fishing rods, lighters, full cereal boxes. Rooms full of stuff. He bought it all at antique shops over the last few years. We didn’t introduce ourselves as being a rock band. He probably thought we were professors, or corporate dudes on a conference.
W2 SAINT JOHN
Frankie had never been here before, and he really dug it. Saint John is SO old and funky. I went for a huge walk and ran into Frankie 3 times. We explored a graveyard and saw a stone from 1795, which is pretty amazing for Canada, I think. We hung out at the local market and I bought bottles of maple syrup, and hard maple candy for the Protection Island people that were so kind to us recently. I saw Frankie in the street as well, and we parted ways but ended up both seeing the same stuff anyway.
I bought an Images in Vouge cassette for $0.25. I HATED this stuff in the mid ‘80s, being such a snob about everything, and I figured that it was about time that I at least listened to it. Played a track in the van. Good ‘80s drums. Total Frankie music. ;)
I went to a FREE museum, which had nice films, and a BRICKLIN car (cool, but the interior was kinda cheap, sorry) and I made friends with students from China. We all had a turn at playing a 9’ Steinway piano in the lobby, a strange place for a world-class concert grand. It was donated, and is for sale, but I couldn’t go too crazy on it because the gift shop ladies were trying to talk on the phone, the groups of school kids all shouting and the museum workers pounding hammers on future displays. Not the best place for this fabulous piano.
I really like the Maritime people a lot. They are totally friendly. Like Saskatchewan people.
The gig was a big sell-out blast, good food backstage, even though I am not the king of the deli tray anymore.
Ra had total internet access at the hotel, and at my request we looked up Crystal Balls on EBAY. We found nothing, but that makes sense to me, because a crystal has to SPEAK to you, otherwise it won’t work. So, you have to see it in person. I think that I could actually get one to work..
I knew an old lady years ago who was a total psychic (even had a scarf on her head) and she saw her husband’s childhood home in her crystal ball, explained it all to him and the old guy was seriously in tears. Her house was totally full of priceless world artifacts (suite of armour, machine gun, art deco jewellery and stuff) with no dust, because she was visited by aliens and they said that they would look out for her. Pretty convincing when you visit her and she plays songs on a tack piano that she wrote in the 1930s.
She told me that everyone who had ever stolen stuff from her house gets a heart attack.
She had bad circulation, went to the hospital for leg amputations, had her house cleaned out by thieves with a huge truck, and died. Her wake was a few months ago, and I couldn’t go because we had a gig.
T3 BRIDGEWATER NOVA SCOTIA
I got to get soaked in a rainstorm, which was actually quite glorious.
Bridgewater has a nice bridge over some water, and another jogger said “ we must be CRAZY to do this!” I got back to the hotel and the sun came out, and Scott went for a run.
This was the first gig with Nazareth.
This was a very old arena, with old power, old wiring. The main power was on the exact opposite side of the arena from where the stage was, so the production company (The Savard brothers) had to run 300’ of cable, and another 200’ back to the spotlight. Very unusual, and not at all good. I didn’t know anything about this, and had a hard time playing the gig.
My wonderful new $$$$$$ synth started to change patches by itself during the show. So, an organ turns into a piano, into sound effects. I could not really even look at the crowd because I had to keep an eye to change the sounds back again, which was not always possible as they changed so fast.
Of course I am quite concerned that my keyboard has serious software problems.
I play a really loud solo in front of a capacity crowd, and it is REALLY loud, and I have no idea what sounds are going to come out. This was one of the more unnerving and disappointing moments of the year.
Turns out that I was being fed insufficient voltage, and luckily we got through the show and our equipment was not damaged. 7 more arena shows to play with Nazareth, and I would have a hard time finding another KORG TRITON STUDIO to replace this one.
Other than that, I have been feeling pretty good on this tour and the colour meditation stuff actually works, keeps me balanced, so I didn’t completely freak out when my keyboard went insane on stage. I was, in fact quite freaked out, but I didn’t let it drag me down.
I went for a walk, found a trippy store that had crystal balls for $200, which is excellent, but didn’t buy anything other than 3 colour candles (they are still in my shirt pocket as I write this.)
F4 WINDSOR
Windsor was a better show for me. My keyboard rig was back to normal. Whewwwww. We are all quite fond of the Nazareth drummer, Lee Agnew. He told Frankie “I was listening to your solo, and I heard this AMAZING sounding drum and ran out to see what you were doing, and you were playing a BUCKET! And I spent a fortune on my new kit!”
I found a HUGE heavy garbage can backstage for Frankie to play, and said, “Nah, it’s too heavy, I’ll never get it onto the stage.” Lee picked it up, and carried it up, up the steep and narrow stairs and held it up for Frankie to bang on. Cool guy (strong too.)
We passed through the town of Lunenburg on one of these drives. This town is a world historical site, so we took lots of pictures. It is like stepping into the glory days of Maritime ship-building days. We spotted the Bluenose 2 on the horizon, and it docked as we had lunch and walked around. This time we did introduce ourselves and were offered a tour of the ship. I had my picture taken at the helm, goofed around and Scott bought a little wind flute (penny whistle) which kept us laughing in the van for the next few days.
S5 STELLARTON
I like these arena gigs. Every show on the tour is sold out, so I will stop saying SOLD OUT each time, OK?
Jimmy, the Nazareth guitar player, got sick and had to take time out from their show. The other 3 guys did a vocal number and then shut it down for awhile. The Ambulance guys hooked Jimmy up to an IV backstage and he barfed away until he could drag himself back up to finish the show. The audience was quite patient and nice about it. Poor guy. YUK.
The after-show meet and greet thing at the T-shirt booth gets really busy with happy people on these arena shows. The way we do this, and we consider this to be the only really cool and professional way, is to stop hanging out and get lost when the next band comes on stage. It would be so uncool for us to be potentially distracting their crowd when they start their show, so we don’t.
Unfortunately, we often have to split before we have met everyone, including one group of people wearing custom Trooper shirts for the occasion. We have a lot of fun with this, do our best to share the moment, and I am assured that everyone has a good time at these gatherings, even if we do have to run away before they can tell their story. We had our photos taken with dozens and dozens of great fun people, and we certainly have fun with this. Who wouldn’t?
T8 MOUNT PEARL NEWFOUNDLAND
We all had to live according to a ferry schedule, and there is no shopping on Sunday in Nova Scotia (excuse me, Frankie is laughing REALLY loud in the van) so we all hung around a hotel in Nova Scotia for several hours while I walked from one grocery store to the next with the idea that I could somehow walk through walls or something. Wendys made a buck that day.
I went to a grassy patch behind the hotel, and being that it was nice and sunny, I took off my shirt, sat down all alone to meditate in the field. The bug bites that I got are still with me.
There were cookies and apples in the lobby, and that became the living room for the trooper and Nazareth people, until it was time to head out to Cape Bretton Island to catch the midnight ferry to Newfoundland. This is the largest ferry in Canada; a 7-hour trip into the North Atlantic. There are 1400 icebergs around the rock now, but none between where we are sailing. OK.
The promoter reserved sleeping bunks for everyone, and the first thing that I did was put my books on my bed. There are hallways with doors leading to big rooms with big modern bunk beds, each one backing onto a wall so you don’t have to wake up and see some big guy across from you. It is actually quite private, but you can hear people snoring. It is also dark, so not a place to make gross sounds or do shadow shows.
I had a delicious piece of old cod in the restaurant (Frankie had a huge burger and a gallon of gravy on some fries) and Peter Agnew, the Nazareth bass player was up sick all night barfing and other things. I joined in with our crew, and Lee and we closed down the bar telling stories and having a laugh. My big plan was to go out on to the upper deck (there are staircases everywhere leading to platforms with rust and rooms with old Russian-looking computers and dead desks) and you finally get to a HUGE flat metal deck where you see gigantic ocean liner smokestacks and a few big ship light bulbs.
It is windy and COLD up there, very dark, lonely and open. It is you facing the North Atlantic at 3am. If you ever went in, nobody would ever know, or ever find you. Ever. It was far too surreal. Frankie said so too, when he went up there. The vibe was intense. Spooky. I slowly descended a series of staircases and went back into the main seating area where I met a hippy couple who had hitched across the country (He had big army boots, a million tattoos and piercing, and pyjama pants) but they were kinda dull people. I got my video camera and taped the rows and rows of people sleeping in chairs and food booths. It looked like a JONESTOWN scene. Legs everywhere and faces with mouths hanging open. In truth, there is a health regulation which does not allow sleeping on the floor, so everyone took to the seats and tables.
When I finally hit my bunk, there was no happier place on earth.
Sleeping with the humm of the engine and gentle rocking of the ship………nuggggggggggggggggg……….until some stupid alarm goes off 4 hours later and everyone is expected to wake up an HOUR before the boat docks. In hotels I wake up a half hour before lobby call, and that is giving me too much time. When I was a kid, I would wake up, put on some bad clothes and walk out the door. Up and at ‘em. I don’t like this wake up and look at the grotesque egg breakfast deal in the ferry boat galley.
Jimmy (Naz guitar player) got sick on eggs (remember Scott last year with his gas station egg sandwich?) so eggs are off now.
So we drive off of the ferry and right from one end of Newfoundland to the other. The road is twisty, moose-ridden and we stop about 6 times for Frankie to barf. He was really sick now. I do not know what is going on with this. Ra is ill as well but holds it together. Frankie is really sick. The drive is 7 hours or so and Scott finishes it off in fine Indy style.
We check into the hotel (it is a night off) and I walk for miles up a boring road in Mount Pearl, outside of St. John’s. This could be anywhere; white kids dressed like black rappers, people ignoring each other. Scott found a wonderful boardwalk by a brook for jogging, which picked up my vibe. I made a funny bit for my home movie about washing laundry in the hotel sink. It takes awhile to get the right camera angle in the can, but a real fun time waster. I made a funny fake LOVE TRACY tattoo for my butt that made its way into the funny home movie. Poor girl, having to live with me. J
The next day I went for another mondo walk, and the weather had turned back to semi-winterish. A car pulled over and a guy offered me a ride (It was Erick, the ex-mayor of Harbour Breton, and his fiancé, both friend of ours) so I said HEY! EXCELLENT! He told me stories of vending machines and wonderful business ventures, and truth be told, this little drive was a highlight of the tour for me. I really enjoyed their company.
We did a gig in a bigger arena and it was a smash. The PA and lights are all great, a fantastic monitor guy who is really into it (a big super long-haired rock dude), and all new colour gels on the lights so the colours are all really PURE. One of my favorite things about rock and roll is the coloured lights. Always has been.
When I was 12, I used to enter abandoned and condemned houses (there were tons of them in Nanaimo back then) and remove all the light switches and sockets. Good thing the power was turned off in those houses. We built a light board and made a light show for our band out of peanut butter tins and camper stands, all painted flat black, with coloured plexi glass for gels. I remember the first time we cranked it up and the keys on the organ went all red and blue. There was nothing cooler. I actually ran lights at jams for a while after that, because I could strobe from blue to red REALLY fast, and I set up a white bed sheet as a backdrop with tons of blue Christmas lights behind it, so I could FLASH from that to red. Freaked everybody out, including the guys who had to pay the hydro bills, I bet.
W9 CLARENVILLE
Ra is still feeling ewwy. I had some stomach rumbles as well, but it was probably just the jars of salsa that I ate with a spoon. Great, with white corn and beans.
Another excellent arena show. Nobody too sick. I love Nazareth. They are totally the real thing. I know almost every song. Great guys. Dan, the singer, always has time to share a good vibe or great story. Long drive tomorrow, but we stay until the end of their show anyway.
Oh, I think this was the show where a guy threw his shoe onstage, almost took my face off but did manage to knock my microphone off of its stand. I had read years ago that Alice Cooper got hit by a shoe and acted like nothing had happened. I always wondered if I would ever get hit by a shoe and have been lucky so far. I didn’t like it. I think it is unmusical and rude, call me a snob. Someone went home with one shoe. The nice thing for me to do would be to give it back, cos I think it was the drunk man with no shirt and a shaved head who threw it, but I don’t want him to throw it again, and I don’t want him to think it is cool to throw dangerous stuff into people’s faces. So whatever, enough about that crap.
Hey, wait! This was the night where Smitty said “let’s go crash their dressing room.” So, the 5 trooper band guys descend on them (the Nazz and their crew) like a pack of locusts. The room got really loud, for about 2 hours. Peter was in his underwear, so Ra got into his underwear, nobody had a camera, thank GOD, and I spent the whole time asking questions and listening to Dan’s (the singer) wonderful stories of years and years of rock and roll. I really like this guy. He is a great storyteller and we are all good friends at this point.
From what I see, these guys don’t get down a whole lot with the natives. They stick to themselves a lot. Don’t really touch their deli tray (we are their nuts) and they drink a wee bit. Some loud girls crashed the party, and the driver escorted them out when they got too obnoxious. The Nazareth guys are like a men’s club unto themselves. They are all married guys (except for Lee) and are not looking for any more adventure or trouble than they need. They are quite happy to stay together, smoke, have a drink and tell stories. Dan and Peter have known each other since they were 5, and when they tell stories, it is like a comedy duo.
Eventually, I drove Smitty back to the hotel and the rest of our band went with Nazareth in their rented big camper thing (Dan says it is like being a bean in a maraca). The Nazareth guys also sleep in quite late, so Scott and I were unable to go shopping for Roller Blades for Lee. Scott and I did get to go shopping for Ra’s birthday (coming up in a couple of days) and I rejected a MOTORHEAD CD, only to find that someone tossed him a MOTORHEAD shirt on stage and he loved it.
That’s OK, I found a copy of the new live Chilliwack CD that I think he will like. Scott found a book by Deepak Chopra, and you can’t go wrong there, for anyone.
T10 STEPHENVILLE
There was a big, barricaded section in the middle of the arena from the stage to the soundboard that had no people in it, like a moat, so most of the crowd was at the back of the room. Unusual. There was some fire regulation that made us set up really close to the front of the stage, which was also strange. We had a great show, I was in total UP spirits.
Every stage is different on this tour; some solid (because they are on semi-truck trailers) and some are made of wood (I guess) and are really bouncy. This may have been the show where my keyboard actually bounced off of its stand. This has never happened before, and I have always known somehow that it would, so I was there to catch it, and Craig ran up onstage to help put it back. It didn’t hit the ground. There is a sentence in one of the 3 manuals for this synth that says NO NOT SHAKE THIS INSTRUMENT. It is pretty high tech and is built for studio work more than for flopping around the country, but it is also the best thing out there, and it is holding out really well.
I am using a keyboard stand that was supplied by a rental company, and it is really low. I feel a bit like Veronica (keyboard player for the Archies).
It was a fairly long drive that day, with a full CD of acoustic JAZZ in the van (with trumpets way too loud). I have nothing against trumpets. They just don’t belong in music. ;) We got to the hotel in time to either have a quick nap or a jog. I ran along the Atlantic coast line and for the first time got the total Newfoundland vibe. The ocean smells different than the Pacific, but very beautiful in its on way. Jogging clears my mind, and I have a design for an easy to build fire, rock and steam sauna back home for the summer. I have a friend who has a portable one that can be set up at the river as well. Life is excellent.
I got my picture taken with a gaggle of girls, one at a time, really fun. Sweet people. Someone got their shoe signed, and it caught on. I signed dozens of shoes. We didn’t stay until the end of the Nazareth set. But I got to dance to RAZAMANA. Really fun, you gotta try it.
F11 TRITON
We are really getting the Newfoundland vibe now. This is a really small town on the coast. There is one motel in town, where Nazareth stayed, and we set up for the afternoon in a house. The people are friendly enough, so I walked around with a camera (so did Ra and Brian) and I knocked on a house that had a saw mill so I could talk to an old fellow and see some boards. Two teenage guys had 1970s-looking bikes with big chopper forks, so I put them on the guest list and told them that we would be at the arena by about 8pm and then they just have to say their names and get in for free.
We shared one can for showers and had IRON MAIDEN on TV until the gig. It was a break for Nancy Regan following her husband’s casket from place to place, which was great, but kinda private and I don’t need to see that every day. I was really political in school, and didn’t like Regan, but I can see now that he was a lot of fun.
We drove to the gig and the little narrow road was filled with people walking to the arena. I noticed two people walking away from the arena looking really dejected. I knew for sure that they were my chopper-bike buddies, who had been there at 8, and now it is 8:20. They are too shy to stick around, or BS, so they just walked home, all sad and dejected. They are just too shy to BS their way into the gig, and too humiliated to wait for us to show up. They just gave up and walked home.
I got set up into the dressing room, borrowed the truck keys, went out the back door, up the road, saw them on the road, told them to get in the truck, and drove them back to the gig. A security guy let us in the side door, and they disappeared into the crowd like the wind. Earlier, one guy did say thanks, although they really didn’t say much at all. I hope they didn’t think I was a big freak or something. At least they know I wasn’t a BSer, and in years to come, they will probably look back and think that the whole deal was pretty cool.
On the drive to the next town, we stopped at DOTS PANTRY for soup, fish and chips and Frankie bought a pie for all the people in the restaurant to share.
S12 ST ANTHONY
I loved this gig. It is a long drive up the windy road to the top of the rock. You can see Labrador in the horizon, about 17 moose (including a cute baby one) and great big icebergs up close. We stopped a few times for iceberg pictures. Scott gave Ra a Deepak Chopra book for his birthday (we went shopping in Saint Johns) and I found a copy of the new Chilliwack live CD. So Ra loved his new stuff and we played the Chilliwack CD at a decent volume in the van that day. We love Bill, of course, and had lots of fun with his booklet, family tree, and excellent vocals.
Now, this is a lovely community, from what I saw. We looked for the Viking landing site from 100 years ago, but ended up at a huge field of gravel that had a 12 minute film in an information center and stories about other, non-Viking, people who used to live there. We had lots of laughs about this stuff. We just keep laughing, you know. Frankie talks about last explorers who just settle where ever they land.
Everything here is named VIKING hotel, Viking mall.
(I am in the new, smaller FORD truck in Ontario as I write this, and Scott had just told Smitty that we are on the wrong highway.)
The arena floor was barricaded into the drinking crowd, and the kids on the other side. We had very little room onstage, and one of Smitty’s guitar petals killed his rig by the end of the show. There were tons of kids backstage to take pictures with, and one girl had a flashing light in her mouth that made her smile really neat. She reminded me of what Tracy was probably like when she was 13. There didn’t appear to be any animosity between all of the kids. Just a bunch of close friends have an amazing amount of FUN.
I went out front and danced with people and had lots of laughs with the locals that night, which I never do, really. Two girls asked me to dance to This Flight Tonight and I was even dancing with a guy at one point. I have been to tons of concerts of many years, and this was about the friendliest one. Ra went up and sang the second verse of Love Hurts with the Nazz, and it was quite high, and moving. It was like an angel started singing. Ra and I both consider that song to be a masterpiece, and it was a true thrill for Ra to have sung it.
The drinking side of the arena was less good-vibish, and a big red-face redneck kept punching people. It was the big slow sloppy drunk fight where the wife gets in there with the big exaggerated stress face and nobody really ever falls down, because they are all hanging onto each other. Once in a while someone gets a punch in the face by a big fat arm.
The security guys showed up with their moustaches and were just too kind to do anything. They just stood there.
The singer and bass player for Nazareth asked them, between songs to stop fighting.
Nazareth finished their next song, and walked off stage.
Several minutes later, a member of their road crew walked up to the mic and explained that Nazareth will not tolerate violence at their shows, and for people to hold it together and the band will perform 2 more songs. I was amazed. I have never seen anything like that.
I played a million gigs in Vancouver with other early bands, and have seen a lot of fights. I saw a baseball pitcher ruin his arm once when hit with a metal chair. I also saw a mass female stripper fight where one girl banged another’s head on the vocal monitor. We just played along. The bouncers didn’t know WHAT to do that time. Nobody wanted to touch the girls. When we finished the song that night, the girls all walked off of the dance floor and it was COVERED in hair. I am not kidding. Never in any movie have I seen anything like that.
Anyway, it was Ra’s birthday, the last night with Nazareth before we both go to separate towns, and a wrap up party was scheduled for the conference room at the hotel (2am). I went early and took pictures of the 80 pounds of lobsters (about 48 of the beasts) and they were BIG! One lady did ALL of the prep work for this party, and she told me that her fingers were sore. I hope that she was thanked, or paid appropriately.
I asked the Nazareth guys to say HI to Tracy for my camera, for my home documentary, and they were really funny. As the people filled the room, and the room filled with cigarette smoke, I dug in and ate 1 big lobster and a couple of extra claws. Scott had about 4 or 5, and he ate a huge tail in ONE BITE! The guitar player, Jimmy, who is usually quite quiet, was repulsed, sat across from me, smoked, and ranted about how disgusting the spectacle was. We ate a huge cake, roared like a crowd 10 times its size, and eventually I had to leave because the smoke was making me blind.
For anyone who is into lobster, this is as good as it gets. These things sell for about $35 each in restaurants on the West Coast. We couldn’t eat all that was there that night. A big tray was left.
The party was a treat or Jack, the promoter, who is a nice guy, did well on the tour, and also sold out a CHER gig in Halifax in 1 hour. I was up until 5am and woke up the next day with an instant cold that lasted for the rest of the tour.
Bad time to catch a cold, but I did anyway. All symptoms full out, instantly, no warning.
Big 30-hour travel day coming up. We drove down the coast of NFLD, stopped by a doughnut shop by the first drive-in church service that I have ever seen. It was like a drive in movie, with a stage instead of a screen, with a band, a preached doing a sermon, and a decent sound system. It was sunny out, I blew my nose a lot and thought the whole thing was quite hip.
You know, I am told that there are no farms and no agriculture or livestock in NFLD. I haven’t seen any, for sure. So you go to a grocery store and EVERYTHING is trucked in. The selection is pretty basic. The trucks wait in line at the ferry for days, with serious expiry dates on some loads up to $250 000 in meat products. And then, all the motor homes go ahead of them. Quite different from BC, where the trucks have guaranteed space to the Island, no matter how fancy the motorhome is that is waiting.
I am now the only guy in the band (and crew) without a cell phone. Nazareth are getting bounced and bruised in their motor home.
Ray Charles died.
We got to the ferry and I watched a big screen movie in the lobby that was about the cheesiest movie ever printed, http://www.ldsfilm.com/videos/RobinHoodGang.html and I loved it, bought a fridge magnet, walked around. Smitty hung out on the Nazareth motorhome (smoky place that it is) had a drink, drove onto the boat (the ferry worker wants us to do a gig there) and Scott, Frankie and I found our private stateroom. The crew was to share one, and Ra and Smitty actually bunked together in one.
I walked around the ferry, a different one this time, the Leif Erikson (and early Viking) which is a smaller boat, with about the same food. I didn’t stay up and party with the Nazareth guys (who got in trouble for smoking). I had some rare quiet time, had a shower in the stateroom can, read a book a bit, and had a summer camp laugh-out when Scott and Frankie arrived. We all went crazy flicking bunk lamp lights on and off, finally went to sleep and a ferry worker banged on the door “ONE HOUR!” a little while later. I stayed in the bunk until about 20 minutes to shore, said Bye to the Nazareths, and we drove the 5 hours to the Halifax airport.
Lucky as we are (and it cost some $ as well), we got onto an earlier flight than we had prepared for, saving about 6 hours of sit-around time and found some space in business class to Toronto. The guy at the airport desk was a huge music fan.
I went through an entire box of Kleenex that day. When we did arrive in Toronto, we had over an hour song and dance to get any decent rental vehicle, accepted a smaller one than usual, drove onto St. Thomas, and with a big pimple on my chin and a few Kleenexes left, I went to sleep in a hotel again.
