It's a cool 50 degrees in Tulsa, OK today. After all too brief a rest after last night's fun, we left our hotel to grab lunch. Rhoades and Fallon and I fed our bellies at an Indian buffet and shared some laughs about last night. In case you missed it, I'll share my thoughts with you now. After having left my home at 10:30am to meet the guys at 11:00, we made our way through time and space to arrive on the other end of what wound being 10 hours on the road (9.5 together in our time capsule). Surprisingly, we were all feeling pretty good despite having been packed into the van for such a long time together (although the van smelled somewhat of a locker room by the time we crawled out of there). We arrived in Tulsa at the Merc and set about to unloading our gear and using our best Tetris skills to fit all of our instruments into what is quite a small area that serves as the stage. Once setup, we even had plenty of time to say our hellos to old friends and a few new ones too, and time to quench our thirsts; our throats dry from such a long day's journey (Wink! Wink!)
We then played a long first set of just under 2 hours before breaking to visit a bit more with our patrons and wet our whistles one more time before finishing out the night with another 60 minutes of music. We quit right around 1:30am and then our night "began". Not quite as wild as other nights we've spent in Tulsa, but long into the wee hours of the morning (as is so often the case with my friends in this band.) Rather than dread these late nights out every weekend, I've come to where I really enjoy them and even look forward to being out til way past crazy-stoopid o'clock.
After so many miles unbroken by nothing except a few stops for gas and vulgar bumper stickers, we were hungrier than we were thristy and the hotdog vendor outside on the corner hooked us up with however much (or little) nourishment there is contained his tubes of salted animal meat product squeezed between the sides of a white bun loaded with everything we could possibly fit onto them. The "Party Bus" rented for the night that was parked out in front also made for some very unique entertainment while we dined, the likes of which can only be witnessed after midnight outside of one of the many area watering holes. (Remember - there's a reason why yo' momma siad to be home before midnight, because "nuthin' good happens after midnight".) And of course once the festivities outside had calmed down, we made our way back into the empty lounge to enjoy a nightcap (or two) (or three) and see what the few remaining bar employees really look like under flourescent lights.
After lots of ridiculousness and lots of laughs (some of which was captured and committed to celluloid for posterity's sake), we said our thank you's and goodbyes and ventured into the early hours of a new day to find our quarters for what remained of the darkness. Once checked in, Dennis decided he was hungry enough to head back out in search of something tasty.
Rhoades and I followed him back to the van where I attempted in my own weird way to assist in his hunt for food by using the map application in my iPhone to navigate us to the nearest late-night eatery but we only wound up burning fuel and stopping at a local filling station for what offerings we could find at that hour. (Note: The maps app on the iPhone WILL chart a course "From: Current Location" "To: Eggs". However, the chances of being led to anywhere that actually serves eggs is anybody's guess and thus, our settling on a gas station for a "meal") I settled on a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit and some chocolate milk, followed up by an Andes thin chocolate mint and I'm not sure what Fallon found but Rhoades ate something with a corn tortilla and it was very fried. That's all I know. The rest of the night was pretty tame and we all found our way into our beds at roughly 4:30am. Party! We're now approaching Denton to play Dan's Silverleaf Tavern and rock everybody's faces off. We're playing the early set tonight which means we'll make our way back home through the night to wake up in our own beds tomorrow. I'm not sure what shows are on the schedule this week, but I'm sure we'll have a blast a couple of somewheres a couple of times this week at least. In the meantime, enjoy this cooler autumn weather and be safe out there and we'll talk soon.
- Doddsy
