Tour

Last year, at about this time, I was doing a lot of walking in the woods preparing myself for a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I had an understanding boss then and a job that might well allow me to take a month off for that purpose. I had frequent flyer miles and a little money saved. All I needed was for myself and my family to survive the pandemic and for travel restrictions to lift. 

And then, as they do, things changed. A new job, less money, no possibility of taking a month off. A different reality. Still, there is this urge to move stirring underneath the weight of hibernation. 

The other day I was scribbling in a notebook in a coffee shop around the corner from the auto shop in which my car was having surgery. I'd had too much coffee and things started to seem possible. I had sudden ideas.

I started thinking that I wanted to go on tour in the way punk rock bands did in the early eighties. Traveling rough. Living close to the ground. No budget, no hotels. Just a van and a line of scheduled gigs out there in the great beyond. I felt like I wanted to do something like this. 

I'm not in a band. I'm not even a musician. I don't really want to listen to, or smell, four other guys in a Ford Econoline for a few thousand miles. But I do want to go. 

I have known the particular terror that comes with  singing karaoke alone in a strange city, not knowing if the audience is friendly or hostile, when you're not much of a singer in the first place. There's an exuberance to the experience. Caffeine causes physiological symptoms that mimic exuberance. 

Maybe I could map out and execute a solo karaoke tour. Say to New Orleans and back. Seven to ten days with performances every night in different venues. Get ten to twenty songs down as tight as I can and go. Then write about the experience. I was pretty high on the idea for a while. 

The excitement subsided with the caffeine though. It lasted long enough for me to say it out loud to two or three people who encouraged (or humored) me as they might do a madman who they don't quite understand and think it better probably not to question.