Driving cattle or music

My band just got back from a whirlwind "tour" which we appropriately enough titled the "Talkin' Shit" tour, to promote our new EP Sidesaddle Sweet Talk.
We left Los Angeles right after work on Friday evening, swerving through the canyons that lead from West Hollywood into the San Fernando Valley, then proceeding north over what they call the grapevine (which I have never understood why), and finally rolling into Bakersfield at about a quarter 'til 9pm. I had never actually been to Bakersfield before, but we knew some girls there who have a band called Three Chord Whore and we've played with them in LA a few times. I got along really well with Shantell, the drummer, and each time I've seen her we talk about us going up to see them in Bakersfield. I was hoping to book a show with them up there, but this whole trip was planned very last minute so I wasn't sure it would work out. We arrived at their house still not sure whether or not we would be playing that night. It turned out that the owner of the bar we were hoping to play at had just passed away so the staff shut the bar down to attend the funeral that day. Once we saw the girls' house with various cats, dogs, ferrets and a beautiful backyard with a swimming pool, we knew we would rather just stay there for the night and enjoy ourselves. As part of the requisite "shit talking" we decided we would just say that we had played a huge show anyway! It was a very fun and relaxing night and even got a little crazy a little after midnight when we decided to dress up and dance around the living room!
I woke up the next morning before anyone else did. This is something strange that I tend to do when we are on band trips. Usually I like to sleep in later than anyone else if I can help it, but when it comes to the band and out-of-town trips, I like to wake up as early as I can and make sure we get the show on the road. I was up and around before 9am, so I walked around Bakersfield and stopped at the Dollar Outlet as I always enjoy foreign dollar stores.
When I got back, everyone was still sleeping but Marc showed some signs of life. I went out to swim in the pool, and Marc soon joined me. One by one, everyone else woke up and we showered and packed up the car, bidding Shantell and her partner Heather goodbye as we left for San Francisco.
The drive seemed much longer than it should have, considering we were already well north of Los Angeles when we left. The cramped car and lack of working A/C may have had something to do with it. Anyway, we made it to San Francisco around 6:30 and made our way to our friend Carrie's new place in the Sunset District. She just recently moved there to attend Golden Gate University's Law School and she found a very cute little studio apartment in a quiet, nice part of town. She gave us a little tour of her neighborhood so we could eat (an experience: we chose an extremely authentic Vietnamese restaurant!) and have some happy hour drinks at her local watering hole.
Then we hurriedly got ready and made our way across town to Kimo's. We have played Kimo's before and there really isn't much to say about it. I can say it was a better show than the other time we played there, and people were super supportive and nice to us after we played. We even sold a couple CD's this time. I really appreciated Josh and Chad for booking us in there on such short notice and running sound for us.
We had planned to go out afterwards but the reality was that we were all pretty worn out and tired, and knowing we'd have another long day of driving ahead of us, opted to hit the hay after unloading the car once again.
Next morning I let myself be the last one to get up, since I wasn't at all worried about making it to Santa Barbara in time, and I was still upset with myself for losing the iPod the night before somehow (which I realized right before I went to bed when I tried to locate it so I could charge it overnight).
We got up, had brunch at Boston Market on the way out of town, and took off down the 101 South. The trip was pretty uneventful but I did have a chance to finally finish the book I'd been reading, The Last Cattle Drive, which takes place back in my old stomping grounds, literally covering the entire area where I grew up from Hays to Paradise, to Lake Wilson, east along I-70 all the way to Kansas City where my parents live now. The book details a fictional cattle drive in the late 70's, orchestrated by a rancher named Spangler Tukle who embodied so many guys I knew when I was growing up. He is joined by his wife Opal, a strong prairie woman who really illustrates the phrase "behind every good man there's a good woman." She seems to be the one who really keeps everything together when it comes to their ranching operation. Jed, their hired hand, is an old cowboy and is considered the only one on the drive who knows what he's doing. He is a loyal, hardworking farmhand who rarely speaks. Lastly, the narrator and central character is a young schoolteacher fresh from Kansas City named Leo who finds himself fascinated with the cowboy lifestyle while working part time for the Tukles out in Hays, Kansas; where I lived for over 10 years. The idea of driving their herd all the way from Hays to Kansas City begins as sort of a joke and ultimately escalates until the four hit the road with 250 cattle, their horses, a truck, and a cat in a box - named Rabies. Opal has mapped out the entire route and coordinated places where they can keep the cattle each night on their trip. The first night they stay in my beloved hometown of Paradise - the first time I've ever come across the town in fiction! It was quite the trip to be reading about it, although I would have been thrilled to have more pages about their time in Paradise, of course! The next day they head further east and stop in Lucas, Kansas at the Garden of Eden - where my cousin used to work when she was in high school as a tour guide! My aunt lives in Lucas to this day, and my grandma recently moved there to live in a nursing home.
Reading this book while traveling up and down the state of California was rather poignant to me. Not unlike the characters in the book, my brother and I were joined by our fellow band members in pursuit of our dreams, knowing that the ultimate destination would always be overshadowed by the journey itself. Although my days of farm living, cattle feeding and horse riding are long over (even before I left the state of Kansas), I couldn't help but feel that in some small way I am carrying on many of the traditions of Kansas pioneers. I moved west to find more freedom and opportunity, just as my ancestors did when they moved to Kansas from Germany. Instead of cattle or wheat, I farm music and each song and every concert is like a crop - each has to be tended to, taken care of, and ultimately left to the mercy of something other than myself - I can only hope that I've done everything in my power to lead to the best outcome possible.
Although by no means an earth-shattering success, the tour was equivalent to a decent crop. Not the kind that my family would have celebrated by hosting a keg party, buying a new car, and re-carpeting the house, but one that would definitely have gotten us nice new clothes when it came time to go back to school, and to live comfortably until the end of the next summer.
I finished the book somewhere near San Luis Obispo.
We finally arrived in Santa Barbara around 7pm and were enthusiastically greeted by Big Gay Mikey, who helped us unload the equipment and presented us with a check and drink tickets - a very nice welcome!
We played at 10pm at The Wildcat which, on Sunday nights, is the only gay bar in Santa Barbara. I was very happy with the show. The bar was really cool, we won over some new fans, and we played great. There was even a funny incident where a really annoying guy took the microphone from Amy after we played "Mondo di Corpo" and said he had a question for us. Amy humored him and allowed him to inquire. He (most likely drunkenly) made one of the most idiot statements I've ever heard - something to the effect of "why sing about religion, why not something {more important} like politics". It was really a brain-dead type of statement, first of all because "Mondo" is really not about religion, per se, and secondly because it just sounded too trite and generic, while it was obvious that the dude thought he was being really provocative. I think the bar staff threw him out, but luckily we were ready with our retort as Amy calmly explained that she did have a song representing her views on politics, and we launched into "Socially Activist" which may have driven some of the crowd away, but definitely amused those brave enough to stay!
We played for a half hour and stayed around the bar much longer, watching it fill up with more and more people until it was packed about an hour after we had played... I was just thankful that we got to be a part of the night at all, and that our tour ended on a very positive note, with all of us having a good time and enjoying ourselves.
Back home in LA, we unloaded the car after 1:00 am and I'm sure each of us was thankful to be back in our own beds, getting a few hours of quality sleep before having to head back to our day jobs this morning.