It’s probably a comfort thing. I keep discovering things about myself, things I didn’t use to know I did and just one day realized it. Like, I like to stick my left foot on the leg of my mic stand and stand their while I sing. I like to tighten the handle on the boom every time I talk, even though I know perfectly well it won’t come loose. I tend to mumble in between songs.

Just little things, you know. Not necessarily good or bad – just there. Just making everyone unique.

Then, there is another thing I do…

I tell random stories:

Megan’s Random Story of the Day #1
(as told on Nov. 22 at Rianna Café)

I don’t know if you know who Michael Moore is, or if you even want to know, but if you keep reading, I’ll tell you anyway. Quickly: he is a documentary filmmaker who first became publicly acclaimed with his 1989 film, Roger and Me. His latest effort, Bowling for Columbine (which you probably saw), won him a Grammy (which you probably heard about).

Okay, now whether you like him or not, you gotta hand it to him — he’s good at what he does.

So, on with the story. I recently had the opportunity to hear Mr. Moore speak. This was at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, in an auditorium that was filled from head to toe with over 3000 people. And, let’s just say I got the cheap seats.

My sister Lauren came with me; she met me at the event after coming from the prestigious Michael Moore Press Conference: 20 or so people with flashy questions and auctioneer speed voices waving around their press passes and scribbling down things in little white notebooks. You see, since she works as a reporter at a newspaper, she was invited to go.

“You know,” she said after we had settled down on our bleacher, “During the first 10 minutes of his speech, one is allowed to go down there and take pictures.”

She pointed far down into the heart of the auditorium where, there, next to the stage, was a crowd of photographers. Waiting.

“If,” she tugged on her media pass, “if you have one of these.”

My eyes widened.

“Go do it!” I gasped.
“Nah,” she said casually, “Besides, I don’t have a camera.”

The crowd went wild as the announcer stepped up to the podium. She was accompanied by two cardboard cut outs, one of Bin Laden and the other of Saddam… don’t ask. A voice boomed over the stereo system, narrating a fictitious tea party between the two. Then, when the entire crowd was wiping the remnants of laughter from their eyes, Michael Moore stepped out on stage.

Now, personally, I happen to like Michael Moore, but that has really nothing to do with our story. Whether you like him or not, or whether you even know who he is, I’ll just tell you, he certainly had the attention of us all. We laughed, gasped, booed, cried, and cheered for him.

I was definitely having a good time, but for some reason my eye kept straying from the stage and getting caught on all of the shiny cameras below.

“Can I borrow it then?” I tugged on my sister’s sleeve. She squinted; then removed the media pass from her neck and handed it to me.

It’s amazing how important one feels with one of those things. I stood up tall and pushed my eyebrows up my forehead and suavely threw my head back in a chuckle. Yeah, I could so get used to this.

“Be right back…”

I left my seat and threw my bag over my shoulder. I walked the length of the auditorium to get to the appropriate staircase, glancing back at my sister as I got further and further away. I made it a point to flash my badge at any and all volunteers and staff workers at the event that I passed along the way. Most just smiled and pointed me in the direction I was already going. The others tried not to roll their eyes and passed as quickly as possible. None cared.

I walked in a kingly manner down the set of stairs onto the floor of the hall. Michael Moore was life sized now — talking about Canadians or something — I had important business to do.

I moved myself up to the gaggle of photographers, there, in full view of the stage. It was amazing. There were dozens of them: people with huge expensive looking cameras, video cameras, recorders, microphones, digital things, blinking things, all mounted on tri-pods, and quad pods, iPods…

I confidently pushed my way through the jungle of clicking and snapping.

“Excuse me… ‘scuse me.” I tugged and waved my badge around.

I opened my bag and pulled out a tiny, bright yellow, one-use disposable Kodak camera.

Click.

Ratchet, ratchet.

A man with a camera the size and look of a locomotive peered down at me with a look of utter skepticism. Disbelief. I did that cool thing where you tip your chin up really fast — you know the, “hey, waz up?” kind of thing. You know, ‘cause I have a badge too.

Click.

Ratchet, ratchet.

I tucked my camera back in my bag. And, strolled back to my seat in an air of grace.

“Thanks!” I said handing the badge back to my sister. She squinted again. “No prob,” she said, “though, you shouldn’t slouch when you walk…”

Shh, I thought. He’s talking about Canadians.

Tuesday November 18 • 20:17

mood: rosy with the holiday spirit! (No, I have not been drinking eggnog!)
song: “paper thin walls”, modest mouse

It is cold. It is so cold cold cold! You would think it was winter or something… Winter? Wait a minute…

I saw the first house with Christmas lights tonight as I was heading into town for some food. Taqueria, yum. Lights! Already? I think it was Charlie Brown’s sister Sally who said, “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet…” It’s freaking me out a little how quickly this year has been going by. I think I get freaked out a lot.

So, Stifler’s was the place the band and I played on Sunday. Modesto on a Sunday. Okay, so the crowd wasn’t huge,or anything, but they were friendly (and freezing) and we all had a good time.
Stifler’s is awesome too. You oughta check it out. Basically it’s a club for anyone who is 16+. Pretty retro; blue couches, purple walls, arcade, great stage. The room was a little echo-y. Our chords boomed through the hall like a taste of thunder through a canyon. But, as a dj/live band venue, they’ll work it out eventually.

So, the show was good.

Karen Jacobsen opened up the night for us. Her voice circled through the place climbing over treetops and frosted mountains. And she was super nice too. We’ll definitely want to play more shows with her. I’m really sorry if you missed it.

We played pretty well. I wasn’t extremely tight, but it all felt good. We did some nice spontaneous set list tricks. Jammed a bit. I even practiced my rock moves… actually, as we were getting up to go on, I slipped and did a near face plant on the stage. I’ll just pretend it was deliberate and I was just warming up for my stage dives.

Well, I’m going to go put on a jacket, and maybe go hang some Christmas lights…

Yours,
megan

---

Sunday November 16 • 02:08

mood: there
song: “walking on the moon," the police

I think it was about 4pm today (uh... yesterday) when I realized what I had done. I already knew what I had done, it’s just this afternoon (uh… yesterday afternoon) I realized what I had done, and believe me there IS a difference.

See, I knew I had booked these two shows this weekend. And I knew they were both important to the band, and I knew they would both be fun. And I even knew it’d be hard work getting a crowd out on a cold, rainy weekend.

But, I just realized that these were both ticketed events, we only had one real practice before them, the radio station B93.1fm would be doing a live remote for the second one, and since we were gone practically the whole month we hadn’t had anytime to promote…

And I realized that the little voice that always tries to make me feel good about what I’m doing had been tied to part of my cranium and had a big piece of duct tape covering it’s soothing little voice.

And I realized that its nemeses, the evil Count Discouragement, was perched high on my shoulder telling me that I was getting physically ill from all of the stress of worrying about a good turn out.

I did stay up really late yesterday, I’ll admit it, but that’s nothing I don’t do almost every night… Yet, that didn’t stop me from crashing down onto my bed like a tired car on the Altamont. And I slept it off.

By the time I opened my eyes again, it was time to go to the show. We had played Little Valley Winery before. See, comfort right there. The venue was still its beautiful little self, and by the time we got the show on the road, I knew that everything was all right.

I could see that the place had filled up, people were smiling, I knew that the vibe was there. I knew the band was there.

I knew I was having a good time. Nah. I was having a great time.

Then I realized I still have to worry about Sunday’s show…

Yours,
megan

---

Thursday November 13 • 14:51

mood: rested
song: it’s not written yet…

We think Chad should be promoted to sainthood. That’s all there is too it.

So, d’you want to know what happened with our lonely story about the missing bass? [continued from below] Dave called me up yesterday saying, “So, what happened after that? You just can’t leave us all with a ‘to be continued’… oh, wait a minute, I already know what happened...”

After all, he was there.

But, for the rest of you who didn’t happen to catch that episode, this is how the legend goes:

Dave had bought his precious bass (the missing Quantum Modulus 5-string) from another bass player friend named Chad. Dave had needed an instrument, because his current bass was “Oh, so not working out.” So, Chad sold D the Modulus and basically gave him a huge employee-like-ultra-discount.

Chad saved the day.

But then, as you found out a few days ago, this bass was taken from Dave’s life, kidnapped from his car, stolen from the band, in a bad attempt to take a subwoofer from the trunk. We called Chad for sympathy and advice, and a shoulder on which to cry. Well, Chad could relate so well, he said he would lend Dave another bass; but, if Dave so much as breathed on it wrong, he wouldn’t live to see another day. But at least now we could play shows without having to relearn on a 4-string.

Chad saved the day.

But, of course, lending means you do, after some point in time, need to return what ever was borrowed. Which we did after a slightly concerned voice on the other end of a telephone a couple days ago asked us if we might do just that. “But!” it said “check this out…”

Too make a short story even longer, Chad had a fretless bass that someone wanted and instead of paying for it, he swapped a Quantum Modulus 5-string bass for it… "Want to buy it from me, Dave?" asked Chad, "I’ll give you an employee-like-ultra-discount… "

Amazing. This bass is the same as our stolen friend in everyway except a) it sounds fuller, b) it’s emerald green, c) it’s newer and d) we have it with us…

St. Chad saved the day.

Yours,
megan

---

Tuesday November 11 • 01:46

mood: hopeful
song: Star Wars theme song

Who would steal a bass? I mean, seriously — I didn’t think musicians stole anything. Well, granted, 90% of them are what this term refers to: a starving musician. Meaning, a) no money to buy food, because the minimum wage we make doesn’t cover that AND strings, and b) we would rather starve than give it up. So, yes, granted that most of us are starving, I have not, in my experience, ever run into this much dishonesty in a musician. And see, it’s like the lowest of all lows — you just can’t steal someone else’s means of living. It’s like taking your life away.

So, where I’m going with this is, if it wasn’t a musician who stole it, what would a non-musician want with it? Sure it looked pretty, but… but… wah! wah! wah! I just can’t believe it, that’s all.

Dave, (MSB bassist,) if anyone, knows exactly what I’m talking about. After all, it was his bass.

Practice was just not happening today. It was the first one since that fateful day. No one’s heart was in it. It just wasn’t the same, trying to get the same flirtatious sound, sliding down the walls, out of a little Fender Squire 4-string back-up bass as D’s Modulus Quantum 5-string. Nah. Not gonna happen, no. And two very important shows coming up for us this next weekend. I posed this question to the group of very bummed looking band members, slumped over couches and drum thrones in the practice room, earlier this evening : “Couldn’t we just rent a fiver until we swipe enough pennies from fountains and rescue the silver from in between couch cracks?” Main Street Music — my local hook-up — is always ready to help, I told them. But how long would we have to rent before we could replace Dave’s fine instrument friend? And, how much would a new one cost? And would it sound okay to just get a cheapo? Or should we save up for a nice one? L’embarras des choix!

Ah, but what! Just as we thought of succumbing to despair… we heard a faint call. Help was on the way…

To be continued… [Insert thematic patriotic music here]

Yours,
megan

---

Monday November 10 • 02:28

mood: melancholic
song: “She Will be Loved” Maroon 5

Weepy day. I love the smell of a sad sky on a wet road when you have some good music smoking in your ears. The heater’s on; in the seats next to you there is an intertwining hum of chatting and laughter with the guitar rolling around in your headphones. I generally like those days. Today, for some reason, I was feeling a tad wistful.

Maybe it had something to do with the end of our tour. It’s not like it was a tour-tour, like with roadies, and promoters, and weeks of fast food and hotel coffee. It’s just the end of the five-show stint with David Knopfler and his amazing guitarist sidekick Harry Bogdanovs.

The two last shows, on which I will now report, were fabulous fun.

Show 4, in Redwood City was at a place called the Little Fox. It was a beautiful little concert space with a bar in the back. Very classy. The reason for the name is it is connected to the big Fox: The Fox Theater. And when I say connected to, I mean, we walked down a hall and up some steps and got the tour of the big theater after our show. It was a nice magical place.

It’s fun to be able to sit in the back of the audience when I’m done with my set. Watch the rest of the show. Sometimes in the middle of their set, Harry would throw in an Irish jig. Or a reel. I’m learning things: I didn’t know there were such things as reels. Harry told me the difference when we were backstage, singing the rhymes and swinging his hand, conducting an imaginary group of Celts. It was beautiful.

And of course I’ve always enjoyed listening to them talk as well. I’m a sucker for accents, really. David uses a lot of those “bolocks,” and “cheers” kind of words, making the show feel quite entertaining.

Okay, so…

Show 5, in Santa Cruz — I just got home— was at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.

Got there at around 5pm for sound check. Dave and Harry showed up not long afterwards. I took a stroll to Streetlight Records with my mom, (I have some CDs there, so I thought I’d go see how they were doing. Three left.) We got lost on the way back to the venue. I think it might have just been an excuse for some fresh air and a chance to window shop.

Back to Kuumbwa (I like typing that word.) This was the place I first saw Richard Shindell perform. I got a front and near dead center seat at that show; I got there early to choose the best place for easy guitar chord observing. And here I was tonight, playing my own set there. It was wonderful. And this one was especially wonderful because I had some of the troops come to the show: friends, family, and several people who came to my last Santa Cruz show. That made my night.

Well, I can say that was a good end to a nice week.

Now let’s see what Monday brings…

Yours,
megan

---