a free form jazz odyssey in front of a festival crowd

Forget the title reference, it was obscure anyway.

So we ask ourselves- why would there be a post at 5:53am? Well children, i’ll tell you why. Because i am at the Dayton Ohio Airport. Quickly, lets list positives and negatives. Since we here at steveweiss.org always like to be looking upward, here are the positives:

1. Free Wireless

And now the negativges:

1. Everything Else

Let me explain. If you recall my post from the Chicago Hilton, its similar, but worse. The arrival was fine, the hotel was available, the recordings went quickly. The weather was even nice- i was thinking “hey Steve, maybe you were wrong about the midwest!”
Then…we arrive at the airport to go home. The weather is still beautiful, so whats the problem?

I’m not even sure what the problem was. They said it was “En Route Weather” not the weather on the east coast, or here. Now, i’m thinking… if you’re driving on a highway, and a bear jumps out of the woods and tries to attack your car at 8:45 am on Rt 17 North in NJ, you fucking drive around it. Now, apparently Continental Airlines does not share my philosophy.

But I learned that I took it pretty well in my upset state. My flight to cleveland to go to laguardia was delayed, so i would have missed the connection, so they put me on a flight to newark, which appeared to be a blessing, yet was cancelled at 8pm, and was the last flight out of this god forsaken dot on a map. Several girls on their easter break were reduced to tears. Business men resorted to cursing at the airport staff and throwing packets of trail mix.

I’m kind of in hell, but at least i can laugh about it. The girl on the crew who got stuck with me is annoying as hell. And instead of stabbing myself in the leg, or throwing an old school fit, i’m blogging.

Housewide party tonight. Well, me and the T bone listened to part of the new Flaming Lips album, that counts. There is a serious cover of Bohemian Rhapsody on there, and i must say, the Lips have Balls. To do what they did takes serious “chutspah” as my homeboys in the Yiddish community would say. (like CHallah). They took some artistic liberties, but i still give a round of applause to Wayne and the dudes.

Anyway, I am safely back from chicago. I got not nearly enough sleep, but I did eat some steak, slept in a wonderful bed, and got called “homeboy” by a preacher in a gospel church during his sermon. Lets just say i stuck out like a sore thumb. They had a giant green baptism bathtub, kind of freaked me out. Our flight was delayed and I got home at 4am monday, but life does indeed go one, and I ate half the ocean in Hoboken tonight.

Some have encouraged me to keep my posts short, do I cave to the corporate pressure and sell out to the masses of short attention spans? In this case…yes.

Well my dear blog, it seems we are in the midwest, doing a remote post. And the specific location for that remote post, is none other than Purgatory. Let me explain.

I’m on this documentary crew, and my first ever out of town trip was proposed, and it seemed like a good idea. Going to Chicago, recording music, all good things, right? The details slowly look downward. The flight will be leaving at 6am, we will return the next night at midnight, and there is no real schedule of the recordings we are doing.

Last night I was up later than I should have been, and decided at 1am to take a 2 hour nap, leaving enough time to finish packing and shower before i was picked up at 4:15. It must have been the power of sleep, or satanic intervention or something, but My alarm did not go off. I was woken up by the driver, calling from outside the building. Now, there is no greater state of panic than one realizes they have overslept. I attempted to dress in a semi professional manner, but that fell through quickly. I didnt even pack anything other than what i had done the previous night, and I am dredding to discover what I have forgotten.

I arrived first of the crew at the airport, at 4:37am. Who knew we lived that close to Newark Airport? When the rest of the dudes showed up at 5am, I was a little worried, considering they had 5 extremely heavy bags to check, and had not parked their car. Did i mention the flight boarded at 5:30? The bags were overweight, there were problems with parking, the works. So at 5:26, still not through security, they said “steve, go ahead, hopefully we’ll see you on the plane”. Lo And Behold, everyone made it on the flight, literally 2 minutes before they closed the doors. I was so delerious, I had no idea what was going on.

But luckily, they got me my own hotel room, which in theory is amazing. It is “in theory” because its not fucking ready yet! and where is my fucking soy chai!! what:? ok. you have no idea how excited i was to take a shower and sleep for 2 hrs before the first recording starts, but those plans have been thwarted by the evil Hiltion of Oakdale. I’ll bet that Paris slut is behind this.

and so, in the hotel lobby, where wireless is a plenty, we wait. and wait some more.