I had never been to Idaho before, so I was surprised when—three songs into my set at Pengilly’s Saloon in Boise—the bartender walked up and put a napkin in front of me that someone at a back table had given him. The napkin said, “Request: ‘Wrecking Ball.’” I’m of the disposition (I like to call it “anxious realism”) where in such a moment as when I see the bartender walking up to me with a napkin, I’m thinking that it’s going to say something like, “You’re too loud. Stop playing.” Like in Back to the Future when Marty is auditioning with his band and the guy with the megaphone stops him and says, “I’m sorry—You’re just too darn loud.” But no, the napkin offered a request for an old song of mine, unexpectedly.The set in Boise went well. I’ve been doing these shows with my friend Dustin, who plays as Run On Sentence. I produced his new album, so I’m familiar with his songs enough that I can usually pick up a shaker and shake it on the right beats to back him up. And when I play my songs, he grabs a couple of piano keys that he got from a dismantled piano and around which he wrapped socks tied with rubber bands. These are a simulation of mallets, and it is with these that he beats an old bass drum that is standing upright like a floor tom. We knew we were going to have a good show when, in the middle of the first song, Dustin burst into a mouth-trumpet solo (which he often does) the crowd erupted in disbelieving cheers. We traded off sets for a few hours until the bar got lonely and Sunday night-y.
Speaking of the lonely hours, I’ll stop here to give an update on the success of my new drink. You might have heard of it already. You probably have, actually. It’s kind of a sensation in the drink world. It’s vodka and Coke with a lemon, and I call it a High Roller. I started drinking it in the springtime, and now it’s the only thing I can drink. And I don’t mean that it’s the only thing I want to drink, I mean it’s the only thing that I CAN drink. For some reason (and I’m not saying this will happen to you when you start drinking High Rollers, but would that really be such a bad thing?), the chemical balance in my body is such that wine makes me sick with one sip, and if I drink one beer I’ll have a headache for the next 24 hours. All the other liquors are too harsh, but somehow vodka and Coke with lemon is something that I can drink in all those lonely moments where there is nothing else that will soothe the pain (i.e. most nights). And there’s the added comfort of knowing that I’m ordering a drink that alienates my friends and upsets bartenders without fail. I still haven’t received a reasonable response to my question of, “Exactly what is so weird about vodka and Coke with a lemon?” The only answers I’ve received are “You don’t mix clear and dark,” and “It’s just weird.” Not enough to change my mind, so I keep drinking the High Roller, to everyone’s embarrassment. However, I have actually found pockets of acceptance for my drink. When I was in Finland, everyone was very understanding. Apparently the Prime Minister there takes her High Roller into the sauna with her. A friend of mine saw the Prime Minister in a public sauna in Helsinki once, completely naked, High Roller in hand. (Of course, they don’t call it a High Roller in Finland—they call it something unpronounceable and unmemorable…which isn’t helping my cause at all.) And when I was in New Orleans, my two bartending friends told me that the drink is actually somewhat common, although they’ve noticed the only people who order it are Canadian. (That was quite comforting to me, as I was once married to a Canadian, and so maybe there is something about the Canadian way of life that has stayed with me through the dissolving of bank accounts.)
But no more living in the distant past! Instead, it’s on to the slightly more recent past. On to Salt Lake City!
The streets in Salt Lake City are six times as wide as the streets in Portland. The blocks are six times as long as a Portland block. Every church is six times as large as a church in Portland. And “Why?” you ask. Well, the whole city is preparing for the return of God, and so everything in the city has to be God-sized. When He comes back, He’ll need a place to crash. He’ll have to be able to walk down the streets comfortably. No low-hanging wires over the streets either. God has to be able to hold His head high. And somewhere in one of the enormous churches of Salt Lake City, there is no doubt a giant fold-out couch, where Our Lord can stay while He sorts some things out. Thank you Salt Lake City! Putting the Lord up for the night, when no one else was capable.
(My friend David tells me that the streets are actually as wide as they are because when they were originally designed, they were supposed to allow a horse-drawn carriage the ability to turn completely around. Thank you, David, for this actual fact—the first such fact in this diary entry.)
One of the peculiar things about Salt Lake City is that if you want to go into a bar and have a drink—say, a High Roller, for instance—you have to either be a member of that bar, or you have to be sponsored by someone who is a member. Luckily we were hanging out with Anna and Chris of Slow Train Records, so they pointed to us in the bar and said that we were reasonable people. Anna and Chris had moved up from Arizona a couple years ago to try to start a cool record store in Salt Lake City. And God bless them, it seems to actually be working. They are in love with everything on HUSH Records in that store, and on your way to the bathroom in the back you pass by about seven different Laura Gibson posters. I was surprised that someone would find Phoenix to be an artistically oppressive town and would want to trade that in for the freedom of Salt Lake City, but perhaps I’ve met the wrong people in the wrong places. Anna and Chris certainly seem like the kind of people who could make Salt Lake City cool on their own. We, on the other hand, were going the opposite direction, headed for Arizona.
You know you’ve crossed the border from Utah into Arizona when you walk into a bar and order a drink—vodka and Coke with a lemon? Don’t mind if I do!—and instead of asking for your membership card or somehow trying to limit the amount of alcohol you put in your body, the bartender informs you that it’s after 8pm, so the drink special is that you can get a double of top-shelf liquor for the same price as a single. Even though the addition of Coke pretty much nullifies the superior taste of a top-shelf vodka, it was a deal I had to take. We were in Flagstaff and we had driven all day past the beautiful buttes of Utah, and we had a last-minute show opening up for three heavy metal bands… Zombie Religion was the name of one of them… I’m sure they were all to be fine bands, but when I walked into the club and saw the crowd, I said to Dustin, “How about we just play your songs tonight?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Our set was actually quite well-received. When we first started, it looked like some people were mocking us by pretending to line dance, but after the first song the applause was louder than it was in Salt Lake. Who knows where we belong? We’re just looking for acceptance of our music and our awkward cocktails.
