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| THURSDAY
December 17, 1998
I was exhausted after the Catamaran gig last night. I had been feeling as if I were coming down with some sort of flu. It turned out that it was nothing really, but I was definitely feeling a depression coming on. That too was dissipated when a "friend" had emailed me concerning my depressed state of mind. I was just glad she had checked out one of my previous journal entries and "straightened" me out. Sometimes our minds get into all kinds of "silliness". Laurie, wherever you are... thanks a lot!
And now... I'm ready to get back up and be strong again.
Nate and I left his house around 4:00pm for a 2 hour drive to Palm Springs (actually, to a community just outside Palm Springs called Rancho Mirage). Just 15 minutes away from our destination, The Blue Tattoo, we hit a wall of traffic that was incredibly horrendous. We were detoured to another highway, route 62 going north to San Bernadino and beyond. WE were moving along at a snail's pace. Nate and I were thinking it was a major pileup, an accident of some sort. When we got to a point where we had an option to continue on where everyone else was headed (a long line of "red tail lights" that seemed to go off for miles into the distance), we decided to turn around. Unfortunately, the large number of vehicles ahead of us were not given this opportunity, so we were fortunate. We took this side detour in which a few drivers were taking to go back south on Interstate 10, the road we'd been on when this whole thing first started. We found out through another driver that some power lines had fallen onto the freeway, which caused this whole traffic fiasco. When Nate got a hold of Warren on the cell phone, we found out that Warren was able to take the 111 into Palm Springs and detoured that way up to the Blue Tattoo. He was able to do this because of a cell phone call from Shannon. Nate had his cell phone turned off (a lesson to be learned, that's for sure). So, we were able to back track on the I-10 and take 111 into Palm Springs, which was still stop and go because a lot of the vehicles thought of this same route. All in all, we were in this major traffic jam a solid two hours, making a grand total of 4 hours on the road, twice the amount of time to get to our destination. We arrived at our destination at 8:00pm, the time we were supposed to have started playing some music. We found out that Rick and Tom were still caught in the traffic mess. The manager of the Blue Tattoo was very understanding. Apparently, the sound man was also caught in the traffic and had arrived just before we did. We ended up starting our show at around 9PM. I performed exceptionally well tonight, but too bad there was only a handful of people there. I guess the owners are trying to get some kind of swing culture happening in the Palm Springs area. I don't mind playing here but we've never gotten any decent crowds here as of yet. But the owners seem to love having us and we'll continue to try and get a swing scene happening here. The crowd that WAS here really loved us, as it would appear by there enthusiastic applause. That made it worth driving all the way here to perform some big band music. On the way home, we assumed that the traffic on the I-10 was history. Needless to say, when we hit the I-10, only 5 minutes on this freeway system and we again were caught in terrible traffic!!!! Apparently, the problem was not yet solved, and after six hours and another gig behind us! We pulled up alongside Jim and Shannon, who eventually pulled off the freeway to check into a travel lodge and get some rest and to stop fighting this traffic. Nate and I continued on to battle the traffic and we were finally free of this mess after an hour of stop and go driving. Nate was the driver tonight and I must say I felt sorry for him. I was able to sleep a little during some of this mess, but I had to stay awake to help him stay awake once we passed the traffic and were just worried about getting home safely. I finally arrived home at 4:30am and went to sleep right away, exhausted from the previous nights performance and last night's and this morning's traffic ordeal!!! home
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Today's
Music:
Current Readings: Drummin' Men
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away!
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