Answer 98 - Because Bi-Polar Sumo Wrestlers are Scary

We rode bikes from Jipsingboertanger to Sellingen this afternoon.



There is a man-made hill, with steps leading up to a 'theatre of nature' - a metal art piece, that frames each view from the hill.  Dave stood on top of it and contemplated doing a hand-stand.  He's like that.

Each step has a snippet of a poem or a song lyric.


We met one of the authors of a step snippet, blues artist Harry Muskee, a couple of years ago, when we were doing an interview on Dutch Nat'l Radio. 

Harry has his own statue in Drenthe.  I'm glad I didn't know this when I met him.  I'd have been nervous and probably said something stupid.  Not that this would be unusual.

Why is it that meeting someone famous makes us nervous?

It's just bizarre.  And many of us react that way.  I know I do.  I can see it making more sense if that person is, say, someone with the strength of a grizzly bear and a personality disorder.  But why, otherwise?  The fight/flight response that I tend to associate with fear shouldn't really come into play in the presence of celebrity.  Nope.


However, in the presence of a Bi-polar sumo wrestler, yes. 

Answer 97 - In the trees.

They say it's a monastery, but I believe it's a cloister.  We're staying tonight in the 'Maria House' here in Krefeld... above my bed is a crucifix, above Dave's is a colorful painting of the Virgin Mary in a gilded frame.  This is not entirely unlike my kitchen, except the austerity.


Tonight's show is in a club called Kulturrampe - it's dark, in a long row of warehouses, will be full of smoke and it's a wild walk... from theatres to rock clubs.. across country lines..


Now, waiting for the opening act (Someday Jacob) to sound check, I'm listening to Jacques Brel, glancing at the bar menu and realizing there is no wine.

I've left the red wine at the hotel.

I rode in the backseat from Holland to Germany.. thinking of the lines that blur.  Things that look one way, and in a different light, are something else entirely.  It's a strange place, out on the edge of connection to the day to day.  When I'm inundated in the mundane, I edge toward the front door - dreaming of long and winding roads... but so far from the door, I can almost feel my hand on the doorknob.

So where's the line?  Where's the contentedness we're all looking for - in the place we're standing, or in the back seat in which we're riding?

Since I've been gone, my dog has bitten someone.  Someone else.  My dog that Dave loves to distraction just doesn't understand the difference between acceptable behavior and the long dirt nap.

And me, well, what I don't understand is everything... I took a nap this afternoon on a small bed, in a room with white walls and no ornamentation but the crucifix and Virgin Mary.  The pillow was full of feathers, but there was nothing soft about it.

So I'm looking for the line.. the place between the feathers and the clouds.. the feet on the ground and the head in the sky.  At the same time. 

Answer 95 & 96 - I'm a bunny disguised as Winona Ryder

I want to say that everyone does it.
You know, snags food from the free breakfast buffet at the hotel...

Come on!  This is Europe!  The breakfast buffet is freaking amazing... fresh rolls, cheese, fruit, muesli, pastries... little packets of pindakaas (peanut butter, xlated, literally 'peanut cheese' in Dutch) - yogurt, fruit juices, eggs (boiled, scrambled), meats... it's unreal.  And it actually tastes like food, unlike any breakfast buffet you might run across in the U.S., that tastes like it was poured directly into bread-shaped molds and egg-shaped molds and fruit-shaped molds from a Sisco Food-Style-Products bag. (well, some of the high-end natural food giants (translation - expensive) and smaller chain co-ops (Bloomington's own Bloomingfoods) are the exception.


Still.


Today I made a sandwich for lunch from the buffet and then and asked Dave to stuff it in his jacket.


This is so tacky, I know, but we're musicians.  Who knows when the next free meal will come along!?


I'm starting to fray around the edges a bit.  Too long from reality as I know it, which, of course, means the voices get louder... (heh) (hee) (ho.. hee hee hee hee...)  Maybe I'm turning into Winona Ryder, and the idea of pilfering something makes the voices somehow quieter, eh?  

It's the illusion of control, maybe.  Maybe breaking the rules like some sort of.. of... maverick (like Sarah Palin said she and John McCain were right before she winked at the camera for the 3,000th time, causing me and half the people I know to groan and increase their prozac dosages) - anyway, being on the road feels, one month in, like being in that rabbit-catching machine that they invented in the Wallace and Gromit movie.  

So am I a bunny in a vacuum or am I Winona Ryder?


Apparently I'm both.  I'm a floating bunny in a plastic bunny vacuum, that thinks it's Winona Ryder and feels compelled to pilfer good Dutch cheese.

ssshhhhh, voices.   Tomorrow they'll certainly be another breakfast buffet!

Answer 94 - Tot Ziens

The island we're on this morning is called Tiengemeten.



Here's the inn we're staying at



100 people will take a ferry over to hear an American sing about the moon.  They'll drink coffee, eat soup, and walk the beautiful grounds before and after.  Nearly everyone  in Holland speaks beautiful English.  Dave speaks Spanish.  Mike speaks German.  


I'm the lone uni-lingual.  


Does this maybe explain why I talk to myself so much?


Maybe, because with only one language, my brain really has no one to talk to but me.. what with only English and the occasional French or Spanish phrase popping up like a condiment...  'vous les vous alles...'  and 'Donde esta el vino?'   


I really need a second language.  People will start looking at me funny otherwise.


I've picked one important Dutch phrase:  'War es het toilette?'

This is an important phrase at times.

Answer 93 - Yes. And no.

There are witches in the hills, calling my name...

I met a very nice man tonight, who bought a canvas poster of the new album cover -
"'My children love your album... they asked me, very excitedly, 'are you really going to see the witch?'"


And so it happens.

You wake up in Holland, and realize that somehow you've acquired a child-sized oven and a gingerbread house.



I looked out the window this morning, and I swear, I swear, there is a broom made of switches and twigs, like any self-respecting witch would fly upon, sticking out of one of the ends of the poles that hold the clothes line up.  Like it's just waiting for me to grab it and (with a good running start) fly off and out over the North Sea.


                                      

I admit, the imagery is a little surreal on the album cover... the hair is basically always a little witchy - maybe more so lately... but, well, there's the broom.   And then the casual comment... and across the road is the Wood of the White Witch.

I knew this day would come eventually.  I just didn't think it would be this year.  I mean, I like gingerbread as well as the next guy - and, well, come on -

 the idea of tapping into some source of power wherein you could turn an enemy into a toad is an infinitely appealing idea, right? 

yes... and then again, no.

I need to face facts.

I'm just not ready for the responsibility.

Besides.  Look around.  The world has enough toads.
   

For now, red wine and cheese.  Next year, gingerbread.

Answer 92 - hold tight to community radio

We played a regional radio show today in Holland (traveled this morning from Germany) - the station is Omroep Fryslan.

 


We had lunch at the station - which is so big that there's a full restaurant in it - and good coffee.  Lunch included good Dutch cheese.  This is a very good thing, if you haven't had it.





American radio is rarely like this - the closest I've come is Minnesota Public Radio - a big, swank studio funded primarily by Prairie Home Companion - 'the studio that Garrison Keillor built.'  





These stations are sponsored nationally - and are a unifying force for communities, states, and countries...  Radios are on all day in Europe...  people listen while they cook parsnips and cabbages... while they garden, while they drive.  


And what can we do?


We've lost something, in the U.S., having lost these broadcasts.  We hold tight to our community stations, hold tight to what we can.


We're all on-line, yes.  But separately, somehow.

Answer 91 - Because without cats, there is solitude

In Hannover there are doors separating every room, closing each off from the hall way.

This is a strange feeling, walking the empty hall in a house full of people.. never knowing who might be sitting in the kitchen, kissing by the stove... drinking milk right from the carton... I tread lightly, and peak through the crack before pushing my way through and into the next space.

Why is each room shut off from every other room?

This would be an especially difficult existence for a house cat, I think, unless there were a litter box, food, and water in every room.  For all I know, in some houses, this is the case.

Or maybe every door in some of these Hannover flats has a cut-out cat door in the base.  Since we're in Europe, they're probably beautiful and ornate... form and function.


In the bedroom we're staying in, Bernie has a babygrand piano and a love seat in front of a wood stove.  Naturally, I assume that he sips brandy and reads Bertolt Brecht on long winter nights.

"In the asphalt city I'm at home. From the very start

Provided with every last sacrament:

With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy

To the end mistrustful, lazy and content..."

Bernie has no cat.