Category: Travel

(29 September 2012) AUBURN, AL and WAVERLY, AL — When I did the Jazz Or Bust Tour this summer, a big part of the tour was finding places where people had created their own scenes. Today in Waverly, Alabama, I found another one.

The Fall Boogie is a companion to the Old 280 Boogie, which happens earlier in the year. This is the first year the folks at Standard Deluxe, a screen-printing shop in Waverly, have tried a Boogie in the fall. Judging by the success of today’s event, I’m guessing it won’t be the last.

The idea of the Boogie is simple — put a bunch of good music, food and people in a gorgeous country spot and let the party happen. The Fall Boogie featured nine bands, plus food, drink, desserts, pottery, jewelry, graphic art and more. I went there with Patrick. We arrived around 2 p.m., in time to see Katie Martin, who we also saw last night at a taco truck in Auburn. Martin has a great voice and a real talent for songwriting. She was joined by a bassist for a few songs. I would have loved to hear her music with a drummer, too. She has only a MySpace page, and you know how I feel about those, but here it is.

The food on offer included chicken and waffles, beet sliders and fried Snickers bars. Here’s a photo of the latter two:

I’m not a fan of beets, but I did try a bite of Patrick’s fried Snickers bar. It was possibly the sweetest, most calorie-laden thing I’d ever put in my mouth. One bite was more than enough.

After Katie’s set, the sound engineer, Mark, put on Youssou N’Dour’s 1990 album Set. This is one of the most important records of my life. It’s what got me into West African music and started me on a much wider musical journey. I bought the album in a record store in Sendai, Japan, when I was an exchange student, and I played it multiple times a day for months. Hearing it ringing out over a field in Waverly, Alabama, was a pretty magical experience.

Up next was a great, four-on-the-floor electric blues set from the Tony Brook Band. I really liked their tough, take-no-prisoners sound.

Patrick and I had to split after Tony’s set, so we missed a lot of music. But what we saw was fun and the whole vibe was so welcoming. Kudos to everyone at Standard Deluxe for making it happen.

When I arrived back at The Sharpesonian, there was a package for me containing my new samue (sam-oo-ay), which I bought to wear at Upaya Zen Center.

(September 28, 2012) JACKSON, MS to AUBURN, AL — I’m sure Birmingham is a lovely town, but seven hours in the lobby of its Greyhound station didn’t make much of an argument in its favor.

I left Jackson, MS, just before 11 p.m. on Thursday, arriving in Birmingham just before 3 a.m. the following morning. To get from Jackson to Opelika, AL (the closest stop to my destination, Auburn) meant a 6.5-hour layover in Birmingham in the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say, there wasn’t much to do and nowhere comfortable to sit. I ended up sleeping on a metal bench for two hours with a pair of my shorts balled up under my head for a pillow. But first I used my TV-B-Gone to shut off CNN on the one TV blaring in the lobby. No one seemed to mind, given that everyone else in the room was also trying to sleep — or at least relax — on a metal bench.

I spent a couple hours of my layover watching Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads’ concert film from 1984. Dear All Bands, if your concert performances aren’t this good, it might be time to rethink.

The small connector shuttle from Birmingham to Columbus, GA, arrived just before 10 a.m. It stops in a bunch of little towns, including Opelika. In a gas station at one of the stops, I saw this for sale:

Needless to say, it was very hard not to buy this shirt.

I arrived in Opelika right on time and my friend Patrick McCurry picked me up. We stopped at The Gnu’s Room on the way to my temporary home so I could see my friends Tina and Maddie. Then it was off to the home of the wonderful Rachel Sharpe, a relaxing little hideaway she calls The Sharpesonian. Rachel’s in Texas, so at the moment I have the place to myself.

I showered (huzzah!), changed my clothes and rode my bike back to The Gnu’s Room to work on a freelance project for a couple hours. Later that evening I met up with Patrick again and we went to a taco truck on the corner of Gay Street and East Samford Ave. Those of you reading this is New York City or other major metro areas may be saying, “Ho hum, a taco truck,” but in a place like Auburn, this is not a common sight.

We arrived in time to catch a short set by singer/songwriter Katie Martin, who had a great whiskey-and-cigarettes voice and a muscular, bluesy guitar style:

At the end of the set, Katie was joined by singer/songwriter Marie Robertson for an unusual performance. I caught a couple minutes on video:

It was hard to top this performance, but Patrick and I headed over the Piccolo’s, a jazz room that’s part of The Hotel at Auburn University. The room was packed to hear Roman Street, a band that I guess can be best described as Django-Reinhardt-style jazz. They were obviously sincere, but I was underwhelmed by the too-loud set list, which included everything from a very slow version of Django’s “Minor Swing” to instrumental, two-guitar covers of “My Girl” and Pachelbel’s Canon. There were some decent moments of improvisation, though. The best part of the evening was the conversation Patrick and I had with three other musicians — Alina, Nicole and Lisa — who were also there at the show. All three are classical musicians and educators with often acerbic senses of humor.

I’ve been keeping an early-morning schedule to prepare for Upaya. That, coupled with the two hours of sleep I’d had the night before, meant that by 11, I was fading fast. Patrick took me home, where I meditated and went to bed. I decided to turn off my early alarm so I could catch up on sleep.

I really love Auburn. I could definitely see myself living here.

Last night I took a trip from central Pennsylvania back to my home in New York City. It didn’t go well. Here’s my account of the doomed voyage, as told to my Twitter followers. You can be one of them by following @jasondcrane.

The story begins about an hour into the trip…

• 8:48 p.m. — Looks like our bus has broken down somewhere in rural PA. No announcement yet, but we’ve been on the roadside for a while now.
• 8:54 p.m. — It is very, very, very dark out here in rural PA. The bus is completely off. We’re sitting in absolute darkness.
• 9:00 p.m. — Aaaand now we’re moving again. Let’s see how long this lasts. I keep expecting the bus driver to be Rod Serling.
• 9:04 p.m. — I’m no mechanic, but I give this bus a 40% chance of making it to New York City.
• 9:06 p.m. — I also love that the bus driver hasn’t said one word to us all this time about what happened.
• 9:50 p.m. — We just hit a deer. This bus is doomed.
• 10:03 p.m. — Post-deer, we’re pulled over again. The bus driver asked for a male pasenger to go outside with her. I went. Front of the bus is smashed.
• 10:15 p.m. — We’re going to limp along to a rest area where we’ll switch to another, hopefully less doomed, bus.
• 10:42 p.m. — I’d like to publicly thank @reneeyoxon for suggesting I make this Voyage Of The Damned today.
• 10:46 p.m. — Picture, if you will, a man trapped on an eternal bus ride through Pennsylvania. There’s a signpost up ahead. It reads…The @Megabus Zone.
• 10:57 p.m. — Driver has MacGyvered part of the busted headlight and Mr. @Megabus has cleared us to leave. Driver is eating a salad. Then we’ll go.
• 11:01 p.m. — “@Megabus: We’ll get at least part of your bus to its destination, no matter what we have to kill along the way.”
• 11:08 p.m. — Sweet weeping Jesus, we’re on the road! New York here we (possibly) come (if we don’t hit anything else)!
• 12:34 a.m. — You have got to be kidding me. Now we’re stuck in a looong line of cars on the highway at 12:33 a.m. Accident? Construction? God hates me?
• 12:45 a.m. — I don’t know what I did to anger the gods before this bus trip, but I’d like to apologize.
• 1:03 a.m. — People are getting out of their cars and walking around on the highway. That’s a good sign, right? I hate Pennsylvania.
• 1:06 a.m. — It’s on nights like this that I wish I still had the cyanide tablet that Mom used to pack in my lunchbox.
• 1:32 a.m. — Guy behind me is having a heated argument with a woman. He keeps smacking my seat. I ask him quietly to stop. He starts yelling at me.
• 1:35 a.m. — A breakdown. A deer strike. A huge accident. We haven’t moved in an hour. Six hours and counting for a 4.5 hour trip. Not out of PA yet.
• 1:47 a.m. — We are doing a k-turn. In a bus. On the highway. No idea where we might be going. Doesn’t look good.
• 1:54 a.m. — Off the highway. Driving on surface streets through a small Jersey town. Presumably toward our next accident or hijacking.
• 2:01 a.m. — Passed a billboard that said “Think Red.” Guy behind me yelling into his phone. At someone on the upper level of this bus. I’m thinking red.
• 2:07 a.m. — The guy behind me is so loud that the bus driver just turned on her mic to ask him to be quiet. And you’ll never believe why he’s angry…
• 2:08 a.m. — …He’s angry because he apparently fell asleep with his thumb in his mouth and his partner slapped it out. And he’s enraged.
• 2:16 a.m. — Every other truck that was rerouted by the cops continued straight on this road. We exited. We’re pulled over again. Driver on her cell.
• 2:24 a.m. — If we ever do reach Manhattan, I’ll still have to get to Brooklyn by subway in the wee hours on a Sunday.
• 2:41 a.m. — Hour 7 of this 4.5 hour trip.
• 2:55 a.m. — We’re at the Lincoln Tunnel. I may start crying with joy.
• 3:04 a.m. — Off the bus. Headed for the subway.
• 3:55 a.m. — Home. Going to bed. My 4.5 hour trip took 8.5 hours. Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.