Friday, May 24, 2002

"Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel" good advise for any traveling musician. Or for any traveler for that matter. But today it has to do with two of the musicians in Bold Montgomery as they traverse the winding roads that lead to the North coast of California that is Mendocino county. This reminds me of the many road trips taken between ten and fifteen years ago with these same fellas. Sometimes I wonder how we survived a few of those trips. In those days we used the ever(and sometimes not so) faithful 1969 Chevy stationwagon (I've always wondered what that word meant) that we fondly named "DogCheese"..DogCheese embarked on many adventures contrary to her benevolent nature. I recall in our Santa Barbara party band phase driving the unregistered beast down a crowded Isla Vista street (I believe it was Craig at the wheel) where we spotted an innocent trash dumpster at the end of the line. The dumpster's innocence was in question when we saw spray painted on it's side "Death or Glory". Now that prompted Craig (with our blessing sung to the tune of the Clash's song of the same title) to ram the offending bin. When the dust cleared and our laughter subsided we could see over the horizon of the afflicted can:parked there on his trusty two wheeled steed was none other than a bonafide Santa Barbara Motorcycle COP. With nobody coming to our defense we picked up every piece of trash the dumpster formally contained and a few bits of other peoples' trash besides in order to show the kind peace officer a different side of our humanity that was not apparent. So on today's trip there will be no dumpster trashing. Those lessons were hard won and need no repeating. I sometimes wonder where the DogCheese ended up. I have a pretty good idea, but I choose to envision some sun baked car enthusiast stripping her down, repainting her, restoring the interior and cruising her down to the beach to catch the surf on time. What can I say, I'm an optimist. Roger, over and out. 9:40:53 AM