Kansas City here we are . . .

We have been in Kansas City, MO for a day and a little more now.  We arrived here from Lincoln, NE.  The day before we arrived in Lincoln we had a long drive from Rapid City, SD which took us through rural South Dakota and notably the Rosebud Indian Reservation.  I have thought while driving through Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska that we were traveling through areas that were economically disadvantaged.  I sarcastically call those regions part of the great American wasteland.  To tell the truth though, I don’t really know what I’m talking about.  I don’t know how else to describe  what I saw.  I saw a lot of pre fab homes, trailers, yards full of old vehicles.  That said, the most prime property is seldom property that  butts right up to a freeway. 

We have been blowing right through the countryside stopping only to refuel.  We purchase groceries, or anything else when we stop for the night.  There was a point when almost all of the people we saw were Native American.  I thought of what I had read about treaties, and the land that Native Americans landed on after being kicked out of their home territories.   In that context it made sense that the most barren, virtually useless land that we drove through was inhabited by Native Americans.  I'm sure that's not always the case at all, but there is certainly an element of truth there.

When we finished out gig in Rapid City, SD we visited a grocery store.  While waiting in line  behind a couple of apparently Native American women the clerk informed me that we would  be waiting awhile.  She appeared to be quite unhappy, and quite willing to express her unhappiness with the expression on her face and the tone of her voice.  It looked to me like a racist clerk, but that is just me.  I’m quite aware that I see the world through my own eyes and someone else might see the things that I see in quite a different light.  I guess I would have had to see how the clerk dealt with someone of another racial profile to really know.  Maybe she was just having a  bad night.

We have been sharing the driving responsibilities quite well I think.  Gen drove long hours for the last couple of days.  I drove the home stretch into Lincoln.  Kristi drove us from Lincoln to Kansas City.  We are staying in a suburban neighborhood in Kansas City.  When our hostess drove us through the city on Monday night we saw a very prosperous city.  The downtown is impressive with it’s new buildings and layout.  I mentioned on our freeway approach that what we were seeing appeared to be a prosperous city.  We have not seen much of the city, and I don’t know if we’ll have an opportunity to. 

Kansas City was an intense experience.  We got up early, and stayed up late.  We were constantly going from one  event to another or sitting in a room listening to people talk about music biz.  The exhibit hall was for schmoozing.  Gen turned out to be the best schmoozer.  I had my moments, and Kristi was good especially when she could contact a DJ who had already played us.

We had a long discussion today about Ferguson.  We were warned to watch our speed limit and driving protocols closely when we blow through Ferguson the environs.  We’ll do that.  They apparently have made some changes there in the interim.  It has been suggested that if they do not have properly trained officers of the law that they use the services that the county provides.  They rely on the money from fines to run their city.  The social/political atmosphere in this country is quite complex and dirty with state, and local law differing greatly from place to place.  It’s not something that I would normally give a lot of thought to,  but . . . under the circumstances I do.

Last night we ran through our environmental set for our host/hostess.  The host is a real music fan and has a lot of info about Phil Ochs.  I mentioned Simon and Garfunkle and he brought out a  complete collection of their work.  He played a bootleg track from the Beatles Abbey Road and was willing to talk all night about any of these and I’m sure he could talk about others as well. 

We are going to be fully occupied for the next few days with the International Folk Alliance Conference.  I’ll probably have something to say about that experience.  In the meantime we are living quite well.  Our host and hostess are really nice people, easy to engage in conversation, and I might say quite willing to talk about most things.  For my part I’ve barely gone outside except for a short time yesterday when we went shopping.  Today we’ll venture out to the big conference center.  I hope I don’t get lost.

International Folk Alliance Conference

It has been an intense experience to be at International Folk Alliance Conference in Kansas City.  I started this bit of writing before the conference began with the idea that perhaps I’d have some time to write, but I did not.  I have been totally engaged since last Wednesday and now it is Sunday.  It has been late nights, and early mornings for us.  We have been around crowds of people every day.  By last night we were all three of us exhausted but we soldiered through our last showcase.  We have been immersed in music tour business for this conference and it has given us a lot to think about.

I have attended a number of panel discussions about booking etc. that have been quite good.  I'll probably have more to say about that later.  We saw showcases on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Sometimes I was disappointed, but many times I saw/heard excellent performances by a variety of artists that I would never see or hear otherwise.  

We shared a table in the exhibit hall with Rick Ruskin.  It was good to see Rick and spend some time with him.  He has been playing with a singer/songwriter by the name of Leslie Evers who is quite a good songwriter.  We went to Rick's showcase on Saturday night, and Leslie followed immediately.  We were all but completely done in by Saturday night, and we had a showcase at 1:50am.  Kristi and I are not the night owls that we used to be.  We did get through it OK and there was even someone there to see us, and who was recording us on his phone.  He didn't leave any contact info, and we have no idea who he was.  The hosts sent us a nice email that we got the day after.

Conference Gen

Setup the booth

Up On the Roof

We had a "firsttimers" showcase.  I think everyone gets one of those.  We got one showcase that was on account of Kristi being a singing female bass player.  The woman who booked it has a house concert series, and she is a bass player.  She even has a Mustang bass guitar like Kristi's.  

Steve, Rick Ruskin, John Jacob (record producer)

Tomorrow we head off to St. Louis where Gen is from.  We’ll stay with his friends and we’ll be playing a concert there.  We have a few retirement home bookings to play in St. Louis.  We’ll get to meet some of Gen’s family which we have not done yet.  We have met Rebecca’s sister and brother in law.

I keep asking myself how I feel, wondering if I should give myself the luxury of an answer.  I ask myself if I should more than acknowledge my feelings, but indeed express them to others.  I often feel that to share feelings is to burden others with the load that is mine, and mine alone to bear.  This is how it is with all of us to one extent or another.  We all have emotional baggage that we must hide in a corner for if we do not we would not be able to function from day to day.  Some of us have more difficulty functioning than others.   As I ask myself these questions I wonder what is more difficult.  Is it more difficult to fully experience our feelings?  Or is it more difficult to hide them from ourselves?  Often the anger, pain, joy, etc. that we feel is the residue of things that have happened in our lives long ago and have little relation to what is happening in the now.

I do find that I lose my ability to hide my emotions as I grow more weary.  In the last week there have been several days of being quite tired from lack of sleep.  I have found myself yakking away unconscious of what I am actually saying.   I suppose that now I’ve got you all confused.  I guess I’ll leave it at that.  I’ve got to get to bed now.  It isn’t late compared to what we’ve been doing, but I must have a reasonable amount of sleep and if I stay up much longer I’ll be unable to do that and get to our destination tomorrow.