The Stars at Night and Other Tall Tales — A Travelogue — Part 1
Early mornings, new offers and jangling nerves at the Frontera Festival
I arrived at the airport, insane, shortly after 5 AM on a Thursday morning. The Paranoid Style had been booked to play the Southwest Review’s Frontera Festival in Dallas that weekend, and I was on the earliest flight out. This was courtesy of the ministrations of the travel agent hired by the good people at SwR — great people really — we’ll get to this. I had needed to turn down an offer from the Frontera Festival the previous year for a highly specific bummer reason, but no way was this going to happen a second year in a row. Still — the travel agent. What were they thinking, this 6:50 AM departure for the three hour flight into crowded, claustrophobic Dallas-Fort Worth? I guess they had no way of knowing, really, that I am an insomniac whose fear of waking up at 5 AM is only challenged by a phobia of air travel that is acute enough that I hadn’t entered an airport in ten years. But that was the situation, at RDU, in Raleigh. Sensibly, I had packed several bags, not knowing what might occur in the Lone Star State, with its desperados and landmen and Jerry Jones and what have you. To approach a new place, you need to be tactical. I wasn’t going to let any federal aviation laws get in the way of my hoarding. I had my husband Timothy’s guitar too, and my husband Timothy. The guitar was safeguarded by a titanium case provided by Paranoid Style lead guitarist Peter Holsapple. Holsapple had told Tim, if I am remembering right: “If your plane goes down, your guitar will be the only thing to survive.” That convinced Tim, but did nothing for my anxiety.
At RDU, a woman in a uniform approached me near the security lines. “Would you like to join our ‘Clear’ program?” she asked, sounding purposeful. “Absolutely,” I answered, totally non-comprehending. I would have signed up for literally anything at this moment. I would have said yes to anything. “Would you like to mule this box of heroin for me?” “Absolutely.” Never my long suit to start with, saying “no” would have been completely impossible under the circumstances. “Clear” turned out to be some annual subscription service, which allowed you to get through security more quickly, I think, or at least that’s what I could grasp. I ended up turning over a tremendous amount of personal information, and $89. They took my picture and my fingerprints. If anything, I’m pretty sure it made getting through security much slower, but of course I can’t prove that. I was put in mind of stories of the Stasi — the dissident crushing secret police of East Germany — who were always amazed that they barely had to do any work at all. People just turned themselves and their neighbors in. How long would I last in Texas?
The plane landed, despite my suspicion that certain heavy hands in the golf world might have rather had me disappeared on the basis of a Masters preview I had just filed for the Ringer. You could say I’d “broken news,” and in the cloistered golf ecosystem, the wrong loose talk can be tantamount to a death sentence, if the wrong parties take offense. When we finally taxied to the gate, it had been hours, but it still was very early in the morning — a paradox. I was so exhausted. I’d rented a car at the airport, the first of many decisions on this trip which still cannot be rationally judged by the common good/bad dialectic. It was a beige Malibu — not the prettiest on the lot — but something made me trust it. It served as my steed for the trip for hundreds of safe, scary and happy miles. Without you there is no chance I would ever have passed through Stringtown, Oklahoma. I will miss you, Malibu.
I drove to the hotel. I had thought: I will take a nap. Here began a problem that would menace me for the entire next week. It was an hour earlier when we landed, the Central Time Zone, but my sundry devices obstinately refused to internalize the time change. My phone, my tablet, my watch: all week they would only display Eastern Standard Time, as if compelled by a loyalty test. Thus I never knew what time it was. I know what you are thinking: look at your device and subtract one hour from whatever time it is displaying. That’s the formula. But somehow, in my overall panic, such simple calculations consistently eluded me. If it was 7 AM, I thought it was 8 AM, or, sometimes, 6 AM. The hotel turned out not to be a hotel, in the strict sense of having a lobby and a place to check in. It was a sort of ersatz Air BnB, with seven or eight units on three floors. It was called the Bishop Arts Hotel though, so I had made false assumptions based on branding choices. I arrived and the cleaning staff was busy on the premises. I asked if I could, you know, go in my room. They emphatically said no. I asked if I could drop our bags off — the tonnage of them: no again. What time could I actually access the room? 3 PM. It was, I think, 11 AM, though it might have been 10 or 12. The point was, I’d need to kill hours in a strange place, on zero sleep. We put the suitcases and backpacks and guitars into the trunk of the Malibu and began wandering around. I texted Kieran — one of the festival organizers — and he texted me back. Stephen Dawson, one of the other guitarists from my band was already there, staying in a different unit with the rest of the other boys. He had flown in even earlier, but was unflappable, as usual. He had already walked the four miles from the hotel down to Dealey Plaza, taking in its dark history. He was in a heady mood, full of stories as always. His band is the incredible Virginia Coalition — immensely more popular than the Paranoid Style, plus he runs a profitable business in DC’s lobbying corridor. His multitudes contain multitudes. We ended up in a sports bar called Sportsbook — well-appointed with poker tables and many TVs. We sat at a booth and I drank Miller Lite and watched the early Masters coverage — the wispy ESPN stuff where they show a hole every ten minutes. The Canadian Corey Conners had gotten off to a good start — that was an early story. CBS’s proper coverage didn’t start until 3 pm — or was it 2 or 4? Either way, I’d need to pay attention. I’d be writing the day-of Sunday write-up for the Ringer. But now it was time for band practice — we needed one to shake the rust off — a lot of strands in this lady’s head.
Good practice at the Soundhouse in Garland, all things considered. We’d booked a long block — 3 to 8 PM — to account for chaos. With so many of us flying in from so many places, and not knowing who or who had not signed up for “Clear” — it would take a broad spatial generosity to make sure we had allotted sufficient time to show up in any kind of shape to prepare a thirty-minute set. As it transpired, we all arrived roughly at the same time, and the practice turned genially interminable. Don’t get me wrong: it was good to jam again, but sometimes you rehearse a song you already know for the fifth time just because the room’s been paid for. I endorse maximum preparation most of the time — I’ve read Belichick — but in this case we might have gone a tiny bit far. Or maybe we went just far enough. We’d come together and we’d be playing at the historic Kessler Theater tomorrow.
Load-in/soundcheck the following day were, per the relevant document, both scheduled for 5:30 PM. This did not sit right with Stephen who said, correctly and repeatedly, “I’ve never seen both done at the same time.” My bassist, Mike Venutolo-Mantovani, keyboard player William Matheny and drummer Jon Langmead thought so too. WTF — this time crunch? I asked Timothy, who interpreted this all much more loosely, falling into his usual unpersuasive patter about how things were done in the ‘90s. Charming, yes, but not elucidating. Also, I was putting the final touches on an article — from our green room — for the Fender website about the pop-punk icon Tom DeLonge and his rad signature Starcaster, which was due immediately, possibly during our set, according to my watch, which was incorrect by one hour. DeLonge is an expert on the subject of U.F.O.s and his considerable meditations on the topic have piqued the interest of congresspeople and academics. My piece really wasn’t about all that, but I think it’s a fascinating aspect of his profile and I’d be curious to know whether he enjoys testifying in front of the Congress about the cosmos as much or more than he does playing live music. In many ways it’s all just the Mothership Connection. I filed my article and then it really was time for us to hit the stage.
END CHAPTER ONE.
COMING IN SOON-TO-BE-PUBLISHED FUTURE INSTALLMENTS: A RECAP OF OUR SET AND THE REST OF THE SHOW, INCLUDING A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE BY KARLY HARTZMAN. ALSO, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE HAUNTING KIND FROM MEGAN ABBOTT AND WILLIAM BOYLE AT A SCREENING OF BLOOD SIMPLE AT THE TEXAS THEATER. A RECORD STORE DAY TO REMEMBER FEATURING PETER HOLSAPPLE AND A REALLY GREAT POSTER OF LITTLE FEAT. JON, TIM AND I HEAD TO ANOTHER JOINT IN OKLAHOMA. ALL THIS AND MORE. STAY TUNED.
