Driving home from Charles Village the other night, I had an out-of-body experience.
Crossing the 29th Street bridge over the Jones Falls, I came up behind an all-black Ford Econoline 15-passenger van with Connecticut plates pulling a similarly black trailer with a crude red eagle painted on the side, marking them as either a touring metal band or an unfortunately well-advertised Satanic cult. The leftmost lane split off for I-83 South, while a sign above the center and right lanes two pointed towards Druid Park Lake Drive. The driver hesitated in the middle lane, seemingly unsure of where he was supposed to go, and for a split second I could nearly hear the discussion that was surely going on in the front seats: Wait – where in the hell did 83 North go? That sign back there said it was straight ahead, but that one just says 83 South, and those two say Druid Park Lake…was that in The Wire?
Meanwhile, he’d slowed to 15 miles an hour and the right brakelight on the trailer had gone out, so as he pumped his foot while trying to make sense of this Gordian Knot of Direction, it looked like he was trying to summon the courage to take the interstate south, to at least head somewhere. But instead, he crawled past the southbound ramp, resigning himself to the Unknown, possibly about to drive off the face of the earth, or into the middle of the Barksdale-Stanfield War for all he knew. Until just then, as he slowly came around the bend, he caught sight of the nearly-hidden I-83 North exit ramp, picked up speed, and dove onto it and into the Night beyond. Until GPS took all the guesswork – and some amount of adventure – out of driving in unfamiliar cities, we’d been there in those same front seats in St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta, even Washington, D.C. Hyde Park – does that sound nice, or dangerous?…Biggie always rapped about the Marcy Projects, so we probably want to get off Marcy Avenue as soon as we can…Are you sure Davison Freeway was the right exit? This looks bad. Lemme see the map… Our own personal driving tour of inner-city America, navigated by dome light.
On to more pressing matters…
We just confirmed the last dates of our 2011 calendar, and they amount to a whopping four shows on either end of December. They are:
Thursday 12/1 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge (early show!) Tickets
Friday 12/2 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar (Tickets go on sale 10/21 here)
Saturday 12/3 – Philadelphia, PA @ Kung Fu Necktie Tickets
Support for each of these dates still being hammered out, and we hope to announce it soon. All three of these will sell out, so lock ‘em down early…
And, lastly, the Big One:
Friday 12/30 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club (supporting the Drive by Truckers!!) Tickets
We’re thrilled and honored to be joining Patterson and Company for one date of the Trucker’s three night Farewell to 2011 and Welcome to 2012 that will also include Lucero on the 29th, and the Alabama Shakes and Booker T. Jones – of Booker T. and the MG’s fame – on New Year’s Eve. (We won’t all be on the same date, unfortunately.) Tickets for all three of these shows are going quickly, so by all means make haste in buying them if you intend to attend.
The unfortunate corollary to these shows is that we will not be doing a New Year’s Eve show in Baltimore for the first time in three years, which is a huge bummer all the way around. This felt like a good year to take a rest and have some personal adventures, or just get blind drunk in the privacy of our own homes watching Ryan Seacrest. Or whatever Telemundo has on that night.
I leave you with this:
Mikita’s Manager, Glen: Anything wrong, Davy?
Davy: Yeah, I got paid today.
Glen: Yeah, I know what that’s like.
Davy: No. You don’t understand. They laid me off. I got one of these. (holds up pink slip)
Glen: Yeah, I know how that feels.
Davy: Know what I’d like to do?
Glen: Yeah, I know what you’d like to do. You’d like to find the guy who did it, rip his still-beating heart out of his chest and hold it in front of his face so he can see how black it is before he dies.
Davy: (blinks) Actually, I was thinking of filing a grievance with the union.
Glen: Well, the world’s a twisted place.
True that.
