That’s Loretta Lynn!


That’s Loretta Lynn!
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Lucy’s pix came back from our trip to Owensboro to see the First Lady of Country Music, Loretta Lynn! Mom and Bill were kind enough to pick up the tickets. Thanks!

So she played technically at The Big E, Owensboro silently suffering flagship hotel. I expected the show to be in the Showroom Lounge (where I saw BB King when I was a whippersnapper). But, in fact, Loretta played this big concrete slab convention center type space. Not at all ideal for the Queen! Still, she owned the place. And she looked great doing it. You shoulda seen the dress. Jeezus!

We were in the VIP section, which meant, along with our stacking chairs, we got a folding table, some chex mix, a velvet rope to separate us from the ruffians (oh wait—it was all ruffians), and an unobstructed 20-foot view of the show. Can you say ‘awesome?’

Favorite moments:

  • Loretta gently curbs a woman who brings a pen and a book up for her to sign mid-song: “Honey, I can’t sign that right now. If I did, they’d throw me out, and I wouldn’t get paid! And y’all wouldn’t get to hear me sing!”
  • Loretta plops down in a standard-issue stacking chair, center stage, prom dress ‘n’ all, and discusses her health: “My nose is runnin… anybody got a kleenex?” With visibly shaking hand (“ohmigod! I’m giving Loretta Lynn a kleenex!), a woman in the front hands her a travel pack. Loretta thanks her, keeps talking, and after some fumbling, exclaims, almost indignant: “Well, I can’t open these! Somebody open these!” and passes them off to her keyboard player.
  • On separate shouts from the audience to play “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and “Van Lear Rose,” (the latter from me) Loretta shoots back, “I don’t like that song.” At the end she mock-begrudgingly goes into CMD, sighing, with resignation: “Alright. Here y’go…”

It was a great time! Thank you, Mom and Bill for helping Lucy and I to fulfill a dream!

Final thoughts on traveling Way Out West


Well, kiddos, I’m back in the Bluegrass, getting back into all manner of work and stuff. Wanted to share a few more pictures from the fabulous trip, and some thoughts.

Had a wonderful time in San Diego, staying at The Sportsman. I’ll hopefully go back and visit sometime. Hell, maybe I’ll buy the place. Seems like a good career to me. On second thought, maybe not. I would hate to have to look up and down every person who walked through the door, trying to decide if they were going to trash the place.

My last night, I let the girls do their gypsy thing, and I went for one of my trespassing walks. This is where I walk around—by myself—and see what sorts of places I can breeze in and out of without getting detected or, failing that, without getting hassled. Or thrown out. Shelter Island was a great place for that as I power walked through one swanky hotel after another. At one point, I heard a band playing, didn’t think much of it, until I notced that between songs, the audience was really going wild. What the hell? I thought… A wedding or something? Turned out, it was Lyle Lovett, who I ended up watching for a couple of songs from the pool balcony of the next door hotel. Huh!

The Tamale mission comes to fruition!The next day, thanks to cooperation from the girls, we got some tamales! this had been on my list, for sure, and I even had a place in mind. But being July 4th, I was actually surprised at how many places were closed (note: I endorse this. I sure don’t want to work on a holiday), including Liz’s Tamale Factory. Luckily, down the street was a tamale cart woman!

Later, we saw San Diego’s awesome 4th of July fireworks—a computer-controlled 4-site spectacular, with the exact same show being executed at exactly the same time in 4 different locations. Wow! We saw it from out in front of the airport, and I will confess that it’s a little unnerving to hear loud explosions while standing at a major international airport. Yep..

After flying out of San Diego, I landed in Chicago, where I had a 3 hour layover. Didn’t really see that coming, but I guess I could have looked at the ticket, right? But on the good side, I got in a visit with Helmut Jahn’s United Terminal, a festival of lights and sound and architectural coolness.

That’s about it, my chilluns! Thanks for reading and don’t forget to look at the pictures!

A Cat named Monster


A Cat named Monster
Originally uploaded by mrtoastey.

Out side the door to Carlos’ owner suite at The Sportsman, sits a big fat furry cat. The cat’s name, I’m told, is Monster. Monster has the run of the breezeway on a worn, blue 20-foot leash, which is apparently connected to him at all times. Monster seems resigned to it, and accepts this ultimate indignity with remarkable dignity.

Mostly, Monster sits by the door in eternal cat observation mode, with an added Confuscian look that says “I might lash you, fool.” Carlos explains, his antique hispanic accent resplendent: “He’s mean! You scratch his belly and then…” Carlos pantomimes taloned claws tearing into thin air. I sit with Monster for a bit, he on the concrete, me on a festive mosaic tile concrete bench, festooned with geraniums and other potted plants. (The bench is one of the many details telling me that The Sportsman is a venture long loved by its owners.) Monster’s leash is inexplicably wrapped around the swimming pool fence in a way that seems impossible to have achieved. As a good faith gesture—my deepest desire is to pet Monster—I unclip his leash momentarily, quickly untangle it, and then clip it back. With this, Monster regains his purchase on the walkway, and slinks towards the outer reaches, his worn cloth leash winding out behind him like a drugged and starved anaconda. Not particularly interested in me, Monster settles at the end of his leashed kingdom, all attention on a Japanese beetle flailing around on the sidewalk, a couple of feet beyond his survey. I watch him watching, and—in an act designed to curry favor—walk off, kicking the beetle into his fatal grasp as I go.

The next time I come by, I get to pet Monster.

Concerning The Sportsman motel


TT and I made a beeline for Shelter Island and found a run-down mecca of 60’s and 70’s drive-ups that have gradually become “Patel hotels” (thanks Loris) Grateful for the possible reprieve from a hard floor, we walked around, doing some room-visiting. Lots of vacancy, if you don’t mind your hotels old and a little musty. The prices weren’te quite what I was hoping for, but at around $120/night, it was still beating the pants off of “no vacancy” or $185/night. We were really close to biting at a run-down Ramada; They had a two-queen room seemed ideal for our expected accomodation of three (Super Kate on the way from LA, to augment to belly dance contingent) but the manager was driving a typically hard Bombay bargain. “My boss, she has the final word,” he pleads, with one ear to the phone, the alleged price-fixing boss on the other end. Negotiations broke down at $129 plus tax, and as TT and I walked away (part of the strategy, right?), these two—blast!—Indian gents—these…interlopers— appeared out of nowhere, wanting to see a room. I watched in minor horror as he showed them our room.

Damn!—surely that option was gone. But never mind—After a couple more lackluster inquiries, TT and hit the motherlode—a place that I first reacted to saying “I don’t like it. It doesn’t have enough windows.” Indeed, one wall seemed windowless. But this turned out to be a magnificent misconception. Upon closer inspection, the place was swimming in scratch and dent So-Cal style: style: Pink trim, aqua doors, kidney swimming pool, partial stone walls like yr. uncle’s den…

Let me just get right to the point: this place is a fucking treasure.

We popped into the front door and behind a thick glass, and even thicker glasses, we met Carlos, a retired fisherman, on the far side of 80, maybe. TT asked—with what was at this point understandable reluctance—if by any chance they had any rooms for rent. Carlos, smirking a little, and replied “No, no…we don’t have any rooms…” as he reached for some keys. I knew we were in good hands immediately This old wise guy was already bustin’ our balls.

The next thing he said, I don’t think was a joke. With no small labor, he scanned down a piece of paper that he held in his monumentally arthritic hands, and sighed enormously through his stooped shoulders: “I’ve got a three-bed room. But it’s expensive.” He paused and looked at us with great remorse: “It’s eighty-five dollars,” he confessed gravely.

I stared at TT. TT stared at me. We tried to act natural. “We’ll take it!” I screamed. Reaching under the security glass, I tried to grab Carlos and shake him forcibly, to make my point more clearly. Just then the Indian Iinterlopers—remember them?—walked in the door, and struck up a conversation with Dinora, Carlos’ wife.

Then, I saw it: The Approaching Checkmate: “Now, it’s okay for us to stay here tomorrow night, too?” I asked quickly. Dinora looked at me and her face lit up. She said: “Oh, you want to stay tomorrow night, too?” to us—and then to the Indian Interlopers—a sympathetic shrug: “I’m sorry!” They were polite, good sports, and hit the door, banished to whatever inferior dive would take their sorry asses, the losers.

And we were in like Flynn at The Sportsman.

Oh, we’ve stayed in some hotels…


Studio 819 – located in subtly trendy-bendy Hillcrest. It’s a residential hotel, 7 stories tall, with a distinct oldster smell. But not too bad. At first I was a little chapped over the $79/night price tag (I know—shut up—“that’s cheap,” you say), but there was a definite Barton Fink charm that won me over in a hurry. Talking to the front desk clerk, all I could think of was: “If you need anything, ask for me. My name is Chet.”

This place had a Chet, and a laundry room, and a rinky elevator, and a buzz-you-in front lobby (not so much swanky as mildly musty). Still, we were kicked to the curb after one night, due to the apparently endless tide of 4th of July visitors. Who knew? After Internet searching, door to door, callin’ the main Motel 6 line, we were still comin’ up empty. Empty! My first phone call was to the San Diego downtown hostel, and they surprised me by teling me they still had one room. Yet, I got put on hold and when the girl came back on the line, the room was gone.

And, guess what? THAT WAS LUCKY.

Lucky, because we put off the search. Lucky because we went to the beach with the crew. Lucky because we stopped at an outdoor bazaar and I chatted up a shopkeeper who promised us that cheap hotel rooms were available aplenty near Shelter Island, in Point Loma. “Because that’s where the fishermen stay,” he explained. “and I can promise you they ain’t workin’ this holiday weekend.” Roger, that as we became fond of saying on the walkie-talkies.

Next time I’ll tell you about the glory of the Sportsmen’s Lodge, one of my favorite hotels anywhere.

Overheard

Ah, Motel 6…I didn’t realize I’d get to become such a regular, but this trip has been The Motel 6 Trip. The reasons are two-fold:

  1. Pets are welcome. Hello Charlie Brown and Olivia!
  2. The rates, they cheap

Typically, there’s no wireless, but there’s been great luck finding it a door or two down at a neighboring hotel. Finally, there’s no shortage of characters lurking around in Motel 6 land; Overheard being sung by an invisible, anonymous man in the breezway, at 6am, at Motel 6 in Flagstaff: “There’s one thing I know…I like beer.”

TT’s here!

Through some odd weird confluence alignment-of-the-stars up above, tarasita done got her ass out here to NM! Now it’s a celebration! righton!©