Tag: Stephen Jenkinson

Dark Road Diary, Part 58: Fallow

on By

I’m at the door of a greenroom somewhere, in the midst of remembering the first gig of this tour six months earlier.

“It’s amazing,” I say, “to be on this side of all the Nights. Time surely passes.” 
I’m tucking the wires of my earbuds behind my ears while Jenkinson reaches behind his back to turn up the monitor pack clipped to his belt.
“Time IS passing,” he says, nudging my statement towards a clearing and bringing us into the moment. We walk out to the microphones.

There would be a couple more Nights, a few more strange beds, a few more airports, a few more rental counters, a bout of Covid on top of jet lag, then the final Night, and then…nothing. Or the illusion of nothing.

Aware of the extraordinary privilege of doing that we get to do for a couple hours behind the mics, we commit/submit to repetition—play/sleep/wake/travel/play/sleep/wake. Somewhere in the dullness of the repetition, the extraordinary becomes ordinary.  At face value, tour dates on a calendar come across innocent and above suspicion, even comforting, but they conceal consequences of the days in between and the months before, and the weeks after, riddled with details, pratfalls, pitfalls and immeasurable impact. Impact on the body, the planet, family, the helpers, the bank account, the nervous system…especially the nervous system, which can take only so many cycles of torquing and uncoiling before it becomes flayed, frayed, and played out.  So, somewhere along the sine wave of the doing and undoing of each Night we have quiet conversation, both of us on our bellies, commando crawling to the edge of ending. Or pausing. Or ending.

“It’s more like ‘fallow’,” I say. “You’re a farmer. You get it.”
He nods in agreement, but doesn’t say anything, letting the image be, I suppose:

a plowed field
muted hues of brown, gold, and grey
an act of will, denying the gratification of planting and harvesting in favour of recovery and regeneration.

The soil broken, but not not seeded.

gh
December 26, 2023, Guelph

Dark Road Diary, Part 55: Dark Road Lighter

on By

When much of the day stacks up with things that ask to be complained about, the following can happen:

“This your conveyance?” asks a man leaving the Nevada City venue.

I have to think on the word a minute, but since I’m actually leaning on our rental car when he asks me, I put it together that he’s talking about what I’m leaning on. It’s long after the last note has died. Charlie and I are outside at the loading dock waiting on Stephen and Nathalie. We’ve been waiting what seems a long time.

“Uh, yeah,”  I say.
“Stay right here. Don’t leave yet. I’ve got something for ya,” he says.

He sprints up the rather steep hill that is the driveway to the venue and leaves me for a while to notice, among other things, that the stars are brighter than I thought they’d be in this part of the country. He returns, striding towards the car carrying a rag and shaking what I think is a can of spray paint. Then he’s spraying the windshield, a dense white cream covering the whole thing. 

It takes me a second to realize: he’s cleaning the glass. 

Spray, wipe, spray, wipe, throwing in the occasional exclamation in praise of microfibre cloths, along with a comment about how dirty the glass is.

Initially, I am…the word “aghast” comes to mind…but then I think— well, they do need cleaning in a bad way, the car came in crap condition from the rental company—  and I relax into letting him do his thing.  Still, something like embarrassment is dogging me (again) but I’m not sure if it’s my own embarrassment for driving a shitty car and I’m letting him do what I should have done, or for him doing what he’s doing. 

He goes vigorously at all the windows and the mirrors, suffers my repeated thank you’s, thanks me for the Night, and wishes us safe travels. Then he’s gone.

I don’t know what I expected when I got in the car after he left, but it was probably something like disappointment. I thought there’d be streaks, missed bits, and the evidence of good intentions, even though I just witnessed how hard he’d worked the rag.

The windows were near crystal clear. I could make out all the constellations as we drove the half-hour back to the motel.

His name was Evan, and on a day that was woefully short of goodwill in that town (the venue people…don’t get me started), Evan’s very humble kindness went a long way toward us recognizing/remembering the calibre of people that come see something called A Night of Grief and Mystery. Of course, no one expects that every one in attendance need do this kind of thing, but the actions of the one elevate the many. Or they can, anyway.

And we remember who we are playing for when we climb behind the mics.

gh
September 22, Auburn, California.

ReplyForward

Dark Road Diary, Part 54: Dark Road Darker

on By

“The trouble with modernity is that you always find out by phone,” SJ says.
“That’s true,” I mumble, thinking of the reference to ‘daemon’ that he sites in The Gloss, the bringers of unwelcome news. 

We are headed out of town, snaking along a road on the floor of a valley in a mountain range. He’s sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, though he’s admitted he’ll be no help with navigating using the touch screen mapping tech…or any vehicle tech, for that matter.

The news could be for/about any of us, about all manner of things, but he’s referring to a text I got in the middle of the night. My mother…93 years old…had a type of seizure, falling unconscious into the arms of my sister, sometime while we were sound checking. An emergency call, and ambulance, a battery of tests, the text I was reading listed all these things along with the predictable conclusion that no one could figure out what happened, more tests needed etc.

In the morning I tell my road mates I need a few minutes to make a call before hitting the road and I phone the house, speaking briefly with my mother. She does her best to be chipper, and I do my best to be a solid son until, nearing the end of the conversation, I can’t. The 59-year old solid son dissolves into liquid and I am a 6-year old boy clamping my lips tight, trying to stifle a wave of sobbing that is highjacking me. Since my father died, my mother and I have had this practice: every time we say goodbye in each other’s company, we mean it as the last goodbye. It seemed like a wise kind of practice.

There’s a long silence, the cell reception mangling the sounds of trucks passing on the roadway. I try to force some words out, try to apologize for the silence and my obvious state of emotions.
“I thought,” I stammer, “with all those goodbyes…I wouldn’t be undone,” I manage through clenched teeth.
“I know, I know,” she coos like a dove, reassuring me.  “One day at a time,” she says. It’s her go to phrase when the world seems like it is falling to pieces.

I end the call, the flood comes, and I am awash in sorrow (I am on the edge of it now as I type this) and embarrassment. I am in Nathalie’s arms in a parking lot. What is it about parking lots and tears on this tour?
I mutter to myself, “Get your shit together, get your shit together, get your shit together…for fuck sakes, get your shit together…”

I do get it together, eventually. I slap my sunglasses on and climb behind the wheel, a 6-year old piloting a tank of an SUV through the mountains.

“So, what do you think is happening?” SJ asks after a while. 
“She’s old,” I say, “That’s what’s happening.” I’m a little sharp.
“No,” he says, “I mean with you.”
A pause.
“I’m disappointed in myself. I thought I had a bead on this. All my time with you on the road, all the exposure…I thought I was solid…” I trail off.

“Did I ever tell you the one about tennis?” he asks.

He may have, I think to myself, but I retain less than you’d think after 8 years. “No,” I say. “I don’t think so”

He unspools a line of questions and as he talks I’m wondering what this has to do with anything, but am smart enough to shut up.
“So let’s say you like playing tennis.” 
“Yeah”
“Are you trying to get good at it?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because I love it.”
As best as I remember he says, “You don’t practice so you can finally stop doing what you love. You get close to the thing over and over again and, if you’re lucky, and if you’re paying attention, you get to chose: who you will be, how you will be, how you’ll proceed, how you will manage one foot in front of the other when the time comes. That’s what grief is. Life bends your knee…” he ends with, another line from The Gloss.

A few more tears gather and spill from behind my shades and I need to feel something other than the neoprene of the steering wheel under my hand. I reach for his hand and I find it. Smooth, a little gnarled and bony, not too far off from my own mother’s. My hand is there for a long moment or two and then back on to the steering wheel. I pack away a future sorrow and set my mind to keeping us safe on the long drive ahead.

It comes to this: You receive some news, you’re far away, and you get to find out a bit about who you really are. The Dark Road gets a little darker and then its one foot in front of the other.

One day at a time, as Mom would say.

Dark Road Diary: Sine Wave

on By

Tel Aviv, Israel.

It shouldn’t have worked.

A last-minute venue change the day before the gig to a theatre situated in a movie cinema complex absolutely dressed up like a theme park, complete with life-size characters from the blockbusters of the last 40 years; an unfamiliar format for the evening that included an onstage interview with a prominent broadcaster, followed by a 45-minute set of a Night of Grief and Mystery— a window, open then shut; language barriers; jet lag; and the usual challenges that attend any live event production. Plus, we haven’t been on stage together in 7 months, so it was just a fist bump then “Go!”

It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.

My own understanding of what this thing is that I do with Jenkinson travels along a sine wave: I know what it is, then I don’t know what it is. I’m currently in the “I don’t know” phase. Strangely, it has a calming effect backstage. Fewer expectations, maybe. With room for only one song in the shortened set, we choose a brand new one I’ve never sung all the way through let alone in front of anyone. We decide to forgo a translator or have translated lyrics and text projected beside us, and so there is a gnawing, low-grade worry of not being understood—kind of like, “Is this mic on…?”

Afterwards: private, intimate, mostly silent exchanges with some who have stayed on; gestures in place of words, usually a hand to the heart; long moments of locking eyes; tender hand clasping, the kind that linger softly.

These things are enough for me to know it worked, whatever “it” is. Something worked. And that’s plenty enough to get me to the next gig in Tel Aviv in a few days’ time.

gh

Dark Road Diary, Part 33: John of the Laundromat

on By

John of The Laundromat

It’s hard to know what an audience at A Night is thinking…or feeling. For one, they aren’t really an audience, they’re unintentional allies in a ceremony. They don’t seem to know it, but we do. Beyond the applause and standing O’s, there is the ever foggy sense of “are they with us?” as we spin the kind of glass that we do. No suspension of disbelief is required for this kind of evening. The deal we are trying to make with them is a different one altogether. If there is good will in the building, we can generally pick up on it, but it’s not always clear.

The morning after the Moab Night in front of a full house – which was a free event sponsored by a local hospice organization – I’m doing laundry in the local laundromat. As I finish emptying the dryer, I turn to find an older gentleman a foot away, staring at me.

“I saw you last night,” he says. “It was a wonderful event. I have a few questions for you, if you have the time.”

Always an iffy proposition, and more SJ’s territory than mine, but I’m curious so I figure, what the hell.

“Sure.”

He asks about why we don’t have an intermission, about the set list, a couple other things, and I do my best to answer as I fold my laundry.

Then he asks, “What did you think of the audience?”

That was a stumper. Besides the cell phones going off despite the plea to have them silenced and the full-blown conversation from a deep-voiced individual during the first 10 minutes (dealt with A LOT more grace by SJ than I am capable of), there was the ever present aforementioned foggy sense of just whose side they were on.

I relay this as best as I can, he listens thoughtfully, and almost like a plea he says, “I thought they were with you the whole night, attentive and completely riveted.”

Huh. “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” I manage. He gives me a few tips on what to see around the area before I leave for Colorado (which I took him up on…thanks, John), we say our polite goodbyes and I head out the door into the Moab heat with my folded laundry. 

If you ever find yourself walking a tight rope in front of a crowd that no one has asked you to walk, go to a laundromat the next morning. You might find out how you did. No matter what you thought at the time.

gh
Sept 19, 2022, Boulder, Colorado.

Dark Road Diary, Part 31: Older

on By

I am 53 years old.

Somewhere on the Australian coast in 2017, SJ and I sit watching a group of young people cavorting on the beach we share. I look down at my bloated self and complain about the passage of time, yearning for the form and function of youth.

“That shit is gone,” SJ says, “and it ain’t coming back.” Spoken like a man who knows.

I am 56 years old.

During a 60 Second Answer session I remind SJ of the beach, of the gone-ness of youth.

“What takes its’ place, then?” I ask.

“If you’re lucky, nothing at all,” he tells me. “If you work your ass off, nothing takes its place. It’s a BIG thing in life: Going, going, gone…but not everything goes at once, so you’ve no obligation to scramble to try to reassemble all the parts you started with. You’ve got fewer, you’re lucky. It’s less to carry around. The room for manoeuvering increases the less you’re bound to of the stuff you used to understand yourself to be.”

I am 58 years old.

Every night on stage on this tour is a chance for me to be fully that age, but it’s not granted as a guarantee. Often, the first notes I play are like a key that unlocks the door behind which is every self-immolating thought, every failure I’ve stored away during the run up to the gig, and they pour through. And there I am, taking a public shower under a torrent of insecurity. It’s a precarious moment, and one would think, at my age and with as much time in as I’ve had in the scenario, I’d have a sure fire way of handling it. 

I don’t. I throw myself on the mercy of the moment. Hardly a sure fire way of doing anything, a kind of reactivity of a 15 year old.

We talk about this on the drive from Salt Lake City to Moab, Utah, where we will play tonight. As we talk, the landscape starts to be accompanied by the red sandstone monoliths the area is renowned for. Older is in the truck with me, and older is surrounding me outside.

Would that I have all I need to remind me to manoeuvre tonight.

gh

Darr Road Diary, Part 32: Plugged Out

on By

The first thing we do after walking on to stage is plug into our in-ears monitors. The price of being able to hear ourselves in glorious clarity is not being able to hear the gathered crowd, or us talking to each other off-mic. By plugging into the system, we unplug from the world. The irony is not lost.

“Blame Bowman,” SJ says.  It’s true…it’s all drummer Adam Bowman’s fault. It was a sure fire way to make the stage experience more musical for us, he said. It cut way down on sound check time, and it meant we didn’t have to carry expensive and heavy wedges around. All true and we are grateful for his expertise.

But the isolation is utterly complete. It’s a weird first move to make on stage. And, as with any added bit of tech, it’s another thing that can go awry, as happened in Boise. Stephen’s in-ears feed completely disappeared somewhere between soundcheck and the downbeat of the Night.

“I’ve got nothing…” Stephen managed to tell me. Under the gaze of the watching crowd, I tried twisting a few virtual knobs and buttons, still nothing. Unable to fix the problem, I basically threw him under the bus. 

“Looks like you’re going old, old school, man,” I said on mic.

And he did, the whole Night long. He rose…he more than rose…to the challenge. As one person wrote in the next day, “Tears filled my eyes many times and overflowed …such an enlightening and soul touching evening…”

Ah, adversity: the faithful companion of every Night.

gh

Photo Credit:

Dark Road Diary, Part 30: “If my car was clean, I could come and get you.”

on By

What kind of a world is it when… is a phrase often invoked in the face of a once-and-supposed good thing gone bad, the corruption of a formally (seemingly) innocent act, a kindness that gets dissected to see what cancer really lays beneath, or a eulogy for choices once easy now hamstrung by doubt.

Waiting out a layover in Chicago’s O’Hare airport en route to Boise, Idaho, I thought it’d prudent to call ahead to the hotel to let them know we’d be checking in late. The conversation with Jane the Hotel Clerk was standard front desk fare, but it veered suddenly when I inquired about an airport shuttle and was informed the hotel had none.

“If my car was clean, I could come and get you,” says the young voice on the other end of the line. I stumble a bit and asked her to repeat, stammering that it was a kind offer but way out of the line of duty “and, anyway, we are musicians with a lot of gear.”

“We’ll work it out,” she says and I find myself on the receiving end of a plan that includes a shift ending, a car cleaning, a co-worker, a plea not to tell anybody about the offer, and an exchange of cell numbers.

Should I have been so thrown? It was a small-town kindness, but is Boise a small town? Is it kind? One stranger offers another stranger a ride—there’s  something glorious there, and some shadowy thing right behind the glory. Optics, optics, optics is all I can think about. That and, this young woman shouldn’t be offering strange men a lift anywhere these days. “Let me talk this over with my partner,” I say, and beneath our masks Stephen and I whisper back-and-forth.

Let’s just say it: nobody knows the rules anymore.

“Could be a good caper,” SJ says.
“Could be a trap,” I say.
“Could be the Gods offering a little help in the face of adversity,” he says.
“Could be a trap,” I say.

What kind of world is it when you have to second-guess every surprising thing that floats your way? The answer: a world that demands you make the right choice – every time – and sometimes you have to choose for everyone.

In the end gently refused the offer, and in order to say ‘sorry’ and ‘thanks’ in the same move, I let her know that we would set aside a couple of tickets in her name at the door to this thing we’ve come to town to do, something called A Night of Grief & Mystery.
“Google it,” I texted.
“OMG… tysm!” she texted back. 

It took me a few seconds to figure out what the jumble of letters meant and I signed off as any good father would:
“Make good choices, Jane.”

gh
Boise, Idaho, Sept. 13, 2:00am

The Wide Shot of Truth

on By
Árneshreppur, Iceland. Photo by Colleen Hodgson

Early on, Stephen described what we did on stage in the US and Australia as “carving in the air”. We’d walk on to a silent stage, just the two of us, with no idea what we’re going to do, so his description of what followed is bang on. We still walk on to silent stages, and I’ve come to describe the current edition of NOGM -— which boasts 7 people on stage— as “sauntering on a tightrope.”

We are always on the tightrope on this tour, and any unbalanced movement feels like jeopardy. I suppose there is a pressure to “know things” on a tour like this. Then again, for most of the last decade I’ve been thinking there comes a time in life that one is invited to plant a flag in what they’ve become certain of, even if it seems dangerous —as it does these days —to know things. If you’ve been lucky enough to have lived a life that has brought you into contact with vulnerability (your own and that of others) then you might not screw this up.

Standing in what you know doesn’t look anything like power. Quite the opposite. It leads to more vulnerability. It can lead to a lot of “not knowing”. That’s why it’s not for the faint of heart.

Or politicians. Or celebrities.

I’m trying to learn to not be faint of heart. Useful in a war and all that.

The wide shot of Truth.

Good thing I’m not alone in the learning.

gh