January 7, 2009 - Wednesday
One wild weekend......
As you know if you know me......I tend to travel a lot for concerts! In the past I have made roadtrips to Detroit to see Iggy & The Stooges (which was on the day that the North Eastern part of the United States had a total blackout) and to Toledo to see Blue Cheer (which was never posted as "canceled" on the venue's (Vamps) website/concertline) and was still listed on the myspace links when we left town. So when I got a good deal for a flight to Chicago to see The Stooges @ Congress Hall once I got the ok from my Chicago droogs there was NOTHING that was going to stop me short of death! My automobile had other plans......
The old '94 Dodge Spirit was an ok car to make brief trips in....but I have never taken it out of town as it was somewhat unreliable. I left Knoxville early to try and get a charge back on my Guns N' Roses ticket for a canceled show that was suppose to happen in Oct of last year @ The Gaylord Center! Once I crossed over the time zone part of Tennessee around mile marker 340 I started to lose compression and when I got it to a service station at the next exit the engine locked up. At that point I had to make a decision......"Should I stay or should I go?".......and I decided that I would go on with my plans and deal with it later when I get back home. So I stuck my thumb out by the exit ramp and hoped for the best! I was starting to get discouraged after being in a light rain for over an hour when a Cadillac pulled over to check me out......he asked me "Where are you going?" and I told him to the airport in Nashville. Then he asked me if there was anything in my baggage that he should know about and I said I wasn't in possession of any weapons or anything "illegal" and he let me in. Comes to find out he was a fleet salesman who was on his way home to be with his family. And at one time he used to be a security person at Deer Creek in Noblesville, IN so we may have crossed paths before. C.K. dropped me off at the terminal with about 2 hours to spare! So part one of my mission was done! At first I thought that God was fucking with me when we had some severe turbulence on my way to O'Hare but we made it to ORD in good shape...even though my nerves was a bit on edge! My friend Dan picked me up and took me to The Snappy Weiner, Lilse's 1 Party destination! I bought his ticket to see Blue Cheer in exchange for a ride to Schuba's. But right when we was getting ready to head out the door we all hear a loud crash! And apparently a car rammed another car in the ass end at a high rate of speed! Once again I am questioning why I'm having all my bad luck on Saturday the 14th! After driving around for a little while Dan finds a parking space and we are in! And once again Blue Cheer kicks my ass!
The next day I relax from a very stressful day until it is time to go to see The Stooges. I try to figure out how I'm going to get back to Knoxville and is getting stressed again as it is a hard thing to do...ask you friends to drive 3 hours to pick you up and then drive you back! But more on that later.
After going to lunch @ Portillo's (thanks Rich!) and a brief nap it is time to see one of my Idols with his original band (minus Dave Alexander who is dead) and Tony & Tiff decides to catch some improv @ Second City and have a bite to eat afterwards while they wait for the show to be over. The opening band (did not catch their name) was good but was a bit annoying at times.....I thought they was never going to get off of the stage! Thank God it didn't take very long for the equipment to be taken off the stage. In what seemed like record time The Stooges was on stage and performed one hell of a set! About 81 minutes long and played almost all of the 1st lp & Funhouse and about 5 songs from Skull Ring & The Weirdness. In retrospect (with the exception of the car problems) it was worth the effort in spite of the hardships I had to deal with.
This afternoon I will take my flight back to Nashville then take a shuttle to the Greyhound bus station and arrive in Knoxville at 4:45am Tuesday.......with luck it will turn out ok too! Thanks again to Rich, Tony, Dan & Tiff for all of their hospitality whenever I visit Chicago and to Bruce for helping find a way back how without disrupting my Knoxville friends into making a 6 hour drive that is unnecessary.
Work will suck Tuesday morning!
Of course things did not go smoothly.....my 6:55pm flight out of O'Hare was delayed until 8:08pm....to be delayed again and then moved to another gate! Finally get on and get settled and the flight attendant said there was another delay as they was waiting to be "re-fueled" made me think about what happened to Lynyrd Skynyrd 30 years ago this October! We get off the ground and arrive in Nashville close to 10pm CST and was able to get the Gray Line Downtown shuttle to the bus station. Had to wait about an hour & a half for the bus to leave and got back to Knoxville shortly before 5amEST and got a ride back home with Doug's father and had enough time to shower before I woke my sister up to take me to work. After work Doug picked me up & we went back to "Trigger" to get stuff out of the trunk & to yank the cd player out of the dash...and let the gas station owner know what happened & make arrangements to try and get it picked up by the end of the month. After Doug dropped me off I got the show transferred to cdr for the torrent that you now have offered before you! I am well rested now so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I listened to it on the long bus ride back from Nashville!
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