Grey Anne: Getting Out Of The Way (Napa, CA)-- Local Cut

Grey Anne: Getting Out Of The Way (Napa, CA)

June 26th, 2009 [4:37PM] Posted by: Grey Anne | 0 COMMENTS

Day 6—Napa, CA

Subheadings. Why didn’t I think of them before? I was road-weary and distractible. Forgive me.

The Falafel Pun

I know you’re dying to know the circumstances that generated The Best-Ever Falafel Pun. So I won’t make you wait any longer:

The guy we’re crashing with is a major bachelor, and he lives with all guys, too. There are a bunch of Men’s Health mags kicking around, one with a doubtless enlightening cover story: Why Women Choose Food Over Sex.

Kaz and Tennie, fresh from their first night of relative privacy in a borrowed bedroom, are talking about a nearby place with great falafels. Says Tennie, “I love Greek food; we should go!”

“Would you choose Greek food over sex?” Kaz jokes, and they exchange conspiratory glances.

“I think that article’s stupid,” says Tennie. “Women don’t choose food over sex if you do it right.”

Stephanie agrees. And I say—

–

“Yeah, either you make her feel good, or you make her falafel!”

Heh, heh, heh.

Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Snort.

Stephanie and I are not yet such bitter old spinsters that we can’t appreciate Kaz and Tennie’s cuddly young love affair. Not yet. Yesterday was the first time they argued in the car, though, while we were crossing the golden gate bridge. I think we were both relieved to see this; they’d been such Hello Kitties all trip, now they seem more real.

Magazines, Colgate and Coca

Last night, Magnanimous (who’s hosting today’s show in Napa) told us that only Kaz could play Copperfield’s Books. There’s been some sort of mixup with the manager that he’ll make up to us, by staging a last-minute house show he promises to fill with friends. So, I’m just hanging out at the bookstore, reading Psychology Today and The Believer. I spot a guy from the prior night’s closing band, and try to chitchat, but he’s kind of a snob. I don’t know if he knows that I played last night, and I’m not going to press him to find out…but he soon throws out a dismissive comment about, “Yeah, you and the other acoustic girl—well, not acoustic, but you know what I mean….”

I do think I know what he means, although both Tennie’s set and mine were electric. He means, “girls as music-players are not worthy of my full attention.” I flush with that old schoolyard feeling, the one you get when they say that you throw/run/cry like a girl. Which is supposed to be shameful, even though you are one. Where is my metalhead friend from last night when I suddenly need him? I would like to deploy him to do some punching.

When Kaz plays his bookstore set, a little orange-haired kid requests one of his older numbers, called “Brush Your Teeth.” I’ve never heard this one, so I’m surprised to hear Kaz rip into a seemingly un-ironic dental tutorial, but kiddo’s all about it. She dances along. Kaz unabashedly segues straight into his next number, “Coke Dealer’s Girlfriend.”

You say your boyfriend is the biggest coke dealer in my town.
I wish all the snow in the sky was cocaine
Now I’m the biggest dealer,
I’ll start a hip star bar,
I’ll treat you like a good guy should,
If you will come to me,
My coke dealer’s girlfriend.

Believing is achieving so I started collecting all the snow in my garage.
Off the street, off the roof, so much snow,
Then summer came.
All my drug melted.
All my drug is gone.
But that’s okay, it was just snow anyway.

My coke dealer’s girlfriend,
I tell myself it’s not worth it,
But I’ll treat you like a good guy should
If you will come to me,
My coke dealer’s girlfriend.

This song seems silly, and novel, and you’d think once you knew the plot twists, you’d be over it. But here’s the weird thing: you’re NOT. You’re NOT. Like melting snowcoke, the meaning just seeps deeper. Suddenly, you’re wistful about life’s futility. You see how love perpetuates the sad pathology of denial. You want the plot to work. You want Kaz’s snow to turn into drugs, and you want him to steal away with his girl. The more you get of it, the more you wish for it.

Incidentally, this is the only story about a coke dealer that you’ll find in this diary. The other coke dealer story from this tour will remain untold.

Whole Foods and Popular Wisdom

I perceive that we’re living like Napa natives when we hit the Whole Foods for a wholesome lunch and kombuchas. This is the first time I’ve tried kombucha; I have a sip of Stephanie’s raspberry one and it sucks. Kaz says the mango is better, and I buy one. And it’s okay. I’m counting on you, kombucha, to realign all my anatomic systems and make me new and whole.

I am still reading Psychology Today. The bookstore let me have it. Tennie and I had a heavy conversation last night about the ways we were respectively raised. About the artist’s path, and overcoming the thwarting forces of personal doubt. Her mom, and her mom’s fiancée, have told her so many awesome, affirming truths. She hasn’t had it easy by any means, but in this respect, she’s a lucky duck. I tell her there’s stuff in this magazine that addresses what we talked about. She says she’d like to read it later.

The Waterfront

I have superhuman eyesight. People who know me, know I can back up this boast. We’ve wound the car around beside the river, to the secluded address at which we’ll be playing. It’s early dusk, and there’s something lying in the driveway. “Don’t run over that,” I tell Stephanie, “It’s a box of Star Crunches, and it looks intact.” She works the car wheels around the object. “It’s a WHAT now?” she says. “Star Crunches.” Little Debbie snack cake company was founded by people from my old church-cult. I know everything they make, and with my superhuman eyesight, I can spot it from a car from 15 feet away.

It’s immediately clear when we enter this house, that the guy who lives there wants his snack cakes, and everything else, left the hell alone. My radar for The Kickout is beeping and peaking as we survey the empty living room, and the massive porch-dock, and the Napa River and sailboats beyond. It’s such a strange feeling, though, because on some subconscious plane this place also feels like home.

My dad is a Newfoundlander by heritage, and my folks lived over there for a few years. Then, in my lifetime, my family lived in Anacortes, right on the waterfront—with the water out the window, and all the Newfie collectables, adorning the walls and shelves. Giant black-and-white etchings of Newfies hunting seals. Watercolors of boathouses. A clock set in a porthole. Water, and boats, and wooden water tchochkes. My street was full of boat-people also, with driftwood fences and totem-pole doorbells. People who didn’t get visited a lot, who were hard to sell cookies to. Our host, Casey, is one of these people. He doesn’t want any.

Stephanie has commented on the only thing on the wall: a Megadeth poster. Casey is now clearly offended, and retreats to his room. We disperse to the dock, and I wander up the street. There’s a little lagoon full of reeds, and the reeds are tilting together in the wind. I watch them, I remember clichés of flexibility and strength.

Zen. Zen. Zen.
Okay. Okay. Okay.

We return to the dock outside the house, leaving the Megadeth dragon to his lair. We’re reading magazines some more, and drinking plum wine—which is not nearly as good as it sounds. It’s the kind of beverage that you make faces and slug down. The sky is darkening and a sailboat is sloshing in its moorings.

The Show, The Glow, The Centrifugal Force

We don’t go back into the house until it begins to populate with other people. I meet two kids who are pretty musically involved; one tells me he just got a radio station internship, the other is in a couple bands. They’re asking me about my looping pedal, so I try to explain what I know. “It’s better if I just show you,” I say. And I will, once we start.

Once there are enough people, we start. Tonight, DJ Magnanimous is gonna close. This will make sense, both because it’s his home-crowd, and because he’s potentially danceable.

Lighting is weird again. Note to self: add a lamp to the touring gear kit. Cap Lori and I play to the ghostly glow of the computer screen, while a timid crowd hugs the walls. Her set is really compelling today; she seems to be hitting a stride. But I think she needs drums. I envision “dumb drums” for her songs—just booms, on the ons. And I can provide those. I’m gonna ask her if she wants that next time.

For my set, I bust out all my b-sides. I know that there’s some repeat attendance from Oakland, and I don’t want to bore them. And I don’t think I do. They are all about it. They’re cheering loudly from their walls. It’s like playing in the Gravitron. I hope nobody barfs on their own shoes. Kaz may. He’s pretty tipsy at this point, actually.

Between songs, pretty late in my set, I see him squirm childlike on the couch, and hear him mumble, “she should just stop playing.”

“Should I stop now?” I ask sincerely. (Gosh, I don’t know how long I’ve gone on. I feel bad.) “No!” yell the walls of the Gravitron. “Kaz, you are drunk,” says Tennie. “Keep going,” she reassures me. I’ll split the diff. Two more songs.

Nice Jacket

Kaz is so on-point, he could probably be shot with an elephant tranquilizer and still play. He busts into a precision set, after requesting that they raise the lights. He’s raising his finger, which means it’s almost time for… “Nice jacket!” he yells to Casey Megadeth (even though it’s actually more of a vest).

Casey doesn’t realize this is a comedy bit. “Oh yeah?” he fumes. “Nice…” the song is starting, and he trails off. What was he gonna say? Nice white pants, fag? Nice…face?
I rush over to him.

“He says that every time,” I tell him. “He plays a song about a jacket. You’ll see.”

“…nice jacket, on a nice boy,” sings Kaz. “Remember,” he sings to Casey, “I can’t marry you, I just wanna be your man.” There is a struggle on Casey’s face, to not smile. He wins it, but there’s a second where it seems like it could go either way.

Now we are bathing in blacklight and being regaled by samples from Battlestar Galactica. Which must mean Magnanimous has again taken the stage. Now there are a couple boys who seem over 21, who seem like they might wish to make out with me. But they’re not really closers, and neither am I, so it doesn’t matter. Never mind. They smoke cigarettes on the dock. They say, “Thanks for coming to Napa. Nobody comes here. Come back again sometime.”

After which we get The Kickout from Casey.

Hard and Soft Surfaces

We sleep on the floor at Dan’s girlfriend’s. She has a cat that looks like a heavier hairier version of my Fauna. I miss Fauna, because by now it’s been days. I regret that I forget Dan’s girlfriend’s name. She has a particular kind of glamor that’s sort of 50’s. Breasty and bee-hivey, with winged eyeliner and figure-hugging darts in her clothes. She’s very put-together, very right-and-tight, like a femme-bot. And she’s nice. She tries her best to compensate for the hard floor by billowing out her voluminous collection of throw-pillows.

We awake from the hardwoods, to dance music. In the park across the street, there’s some sort of event that involves large inflatables. People are jumping inside a castle. People are jousting inside a ring. Large inflatables and dance music, at 10:30 am. How strange. Party on, Napa; after Kaz and Tennie split a bagel, we’re headed back to San Francisco.

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Photo courtesy of Grey Anne

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