Tour Diary: Let’s Pick Berries, Tra-La-La-La-La!

(June 26, 2012) NEW YORK CITY to RALEIGH, NC – How do you know when a tour is going well? One way is to count the number of minutes between your arrival at your destination and the moment you begin picking wild blackberries on the roadside. My number: 10 minutes. Good sign. More about that in a minute.

I was in New York only slightly long than the travel time to and from the city, but it was worth it. I left this early this morning on my way to Raleigh, NC.

This morning marked the first time I’ve had an issue with my Greyhound Discovery Pass – or more accurately with a Greyhound worker who didn’t really understand how it works. With the pass, you don’t get a ticket for the bus. You just show the pass and board, as long as there’s enough space. I checked in at the counter at Port Authority Bus Terminal, had my bag tagged for Raleigh, and asked whether the bus was full enough that I should spend $5 to purchase a guaranteed seat, even with my pass. The clerk said it should be fine “if you go down now,” so I went downstairs and got in line at the gate.

A little while later, a Greyhound worker started checking everyone’s tickets. When she saw my Discovery Pass, she told me I had to go get a ticket. I said Greyhound doesn’t issue tickets for the passes. She told me again that I had to have an actual ticket. I showed her the boarding voucher from the clerk upstairs and said I’d just received it and that I wouldn’t be able to get a ticket.

“Come with me,” she said, and walked me over to an information counter down the corridor. She asked the clerk there to issue me a ticket. The clerk said that she couldn’t issue a ticket for a pass or else her money would come up short at the end of the day. She said tickets aren’t issued for passes. The worker who’d brought me there said that she and her co-workers had been hassled by management for letting people on without tickets. My guess is that either she misunderstood the kind of pass I had or else someone higher up the food chain was issuing incompetent orders. Eventually she said, “I’ll let him on but somebody needs to get this straightened out.”

There were two buses heading to Raleigh. I boarded the second one and we were off. This bus (like many I’ve taken along the East Coast, and none elsewhere) had both power outlets and wifi, so I was able to get some freelance work done. And also to watch A Few Good Men on my laptop. It’s one of those movies I’ll watch whenever I’m in a hotel and it comes on the TV. And so I put it on my laptop and watched it for the nth time, enjoying it just as much as every other time. It’s just one of those movies for me.

We stopped at a nice rest stop about two hours into the trip. It was big and bright and airy. It had the usual fast food joints inside, but also a Starbucks and one place that had some vegan stuff, a faux Mexican place. Sadly, that was the only one of the restaurants that wasn’t yet open. I’d brought some Clif Bars with me, though, so I stuck with those. I also used the rest stop’s much faster wifi to upload a bunch of files for my freelance gig.

Then we continued on to Richmond, where I was going to switch buses. The four-hour trip was painless and we arrived just about on time. I caught up on some episodes of The Bugle and Le Show podcasts. I also listened to a record by The Louvin Brothers called Satan Is Real. They’re an old-time country gospel duo about whom I know nothing. But my friend Josh bought be a Kindle book about them (also called Satan Is Real), so I look forward to diving in. I thought the record was disturbing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something about the extreme religiosity of the lyrics that made my skin crawl.

In Richmond I stood in line for several minutes at a door marked Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia and Raleigh-Durham-Atlanta until my brain finally put together that those were two different routes in two different compass directions. I asked the guy ahead of me where the bus was headed and he said north. Oops. I was happy, though, because that meant I had time to eat. The bus from Richmond left more or less on time.

I wrote a poem on the bus called “Argentina.” You can read it here.

I also secured a place to stay in Auburn, AL. I’ll be there from Friday to Sunday this week. I’m reading my poetry on Friday, June 29 at 7 p.m. at The Gnu’s Room. Then the next night I’m being interviewed about my tour (I think) at the same time at the same place. There will be music, too, provided by a group including my pal Patrick McCurry.

I don’t know why I thought my host in Raleigh, bassist and baker David Menestres, was a guy in his 50s. He’s not. Not even close. In fact, I think he’s about a decade younger than I am. So when he met me at the bus station in Raleigh, I started to walk right past him until he said my name. We hopped in his car and he turned to me and said, “Do you want to go blackberry picking?” That was all it took to know we were going to get along just fine.

Turns out that David and his partner Carrie Nickerson are professional bakers who run Crumb, a custom bakery. They make lots of amazing stuff and use local, fresh, good ingredients. David knew of a blackberry patch on the roadside that was ripening nicely, so we grabbed some buckets and off we went.

We each filled about half a bucket. At one point a man and his daughter pulled over in their SUV to ask what we were picking. David told him and I brought my bucket over so they could taste them. “Not bad,” the man said. “A little sugar and those would be good.” They tasted good to me without the sugar.

I did manage to drop my bucket. Nothing spilled, but I impaled myself nicely on some thorns when I lunged to catch it. Ah well. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Then it was back to the apartment where David made a pie crust while I worked. We listened to Dan Tepfer’s Goldberg Variations Variations album. Then, as if things needed to get better, David made me a yummy vegan dinner, too. Pasta with lamb’s quarters, which may not be what you think they are. I had never heard of them. They were delicious.

After dinner we chatted a bit, then David took me to the place where I’m staying. All by myself. I can’t tell you how nice it is of him to find me a place to be alone. Alone time has been in extremely short supply on this tour. I’ve loved being with all the wonderful people I’ve met, but sometimes you need a space of your own, too, you know? So here I am. It’s quiet. I don’t have a shirt on. It’s glorious.

I took a short walk around the neighborhood and saw a sign I liked:

I’ve decided to stay an extra day in Raleigh. Tomorrow night, David and I are going to see bassist Carl Testa at The Nightlight Bar & Club, 405 1/2 West Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill. He’s playing on a three-act show with Broadcloth and Scrimshaw. The show starts at 9:30 and it’s $5. Come on by if you can.

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