If any of you have made it to one of our shows recently, you might have heard Tasha tell the story behind the song “Lay Your Head Down“, that came from her exploiting my [not so] mild OCD tendencies…
If you have, this picture is for you (emailed to me yesterday from her phone):
Open Drawer - oh my!
(This is a repost from March 15th, 2009 - I didn’t want it to be lost in blog nothingness…) 
I came down to the lobby of our Romulus MI hotel this morning to do some work and let Justin rest.
An older man, a hotel employee, was moving around the room, gently wiping down tables and countertops from the continental breakfast which had ended about an hour before.
I’m an introvert and particularly so in the mornings; I like being alone with my thoughts and I had already considered shutting off the enormous TV that was shouting ESPN at me.
The cleaning man seemed harmless enough until he came around by my table. He clasped his hands behind his back and leaned over a bit, reading my computer screen over my shoulder.
This did not feel okay.
“What is this?” He asked, and I felt a bit annoyed. But I smiled. “Oh, just doing some work this morning.”
I noticed that this didn’t quite register. “You- student?”
Then I noticed his accent. Russian, lovely.
“No, just work.”
“What you do?”
My computer screen was on a Yoga site, so I answered, “Well, mainly I’m a musician, but I also teach Yoga.”
This is when I learned that he speaks very little English.
So we spent some time trying to talk about what I do.
I realized I’m not so good at charades.
After some work, I think we established that I perform music, but I don’t teach it… And what I do teach is “Yoga.”
He’s not sure what Yoga is:
“You teach — small children?”
“No, it’s more– people who want to lose weight (I hold my belly) or get strong (flex biceps).” (I didn’t think I should launch into stress relief.)
“Ooooh. So you teach– kind of therapy?”
“Kind of. Kind of.”
It was a good start.
We talked about children. “No, not yet” I say when he asks if we have any. “That’s okay, you young…”
“I have two children,” he says after a pause.
He described his daughter and son, 28 and 26, both in University. “It’s hard. Very expensive. Very hard on wife and me. We work– every day. Every day. But my wife, she’s um… optimistic? They’re good, no smoking, no drinking, good brain.”
I noticed that he looked tired.
I thought about his son, in the very expensive dental school, and wondered if he was thinking about his dad, wiping down tables at the Quality Inn. Mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms. I noticed that if I were his son, I’d feel guilty. And then I noticed that this man wouldn’t want that.
Appreciation doesn’t have to be followed by guilt. This is new and interesting to me.
“What about your parents?” He asked.
“My parents? Like what do they do?”
“No, what is their– ethnicity?”
“Ooh. Mostly British, German, Native American.”
“Ah,” he says. “I love the Europeans. And I do like the people American. But here, just so many.”
This was funny to me at the time, but funnier in retrospect. He’s surrounded. I feel for him.
We chatted for a while, a lovely, very real few minutes which he concluded by saying, “You a good girl. Maybe in 3 years, you birth baby.”
A little prophecy thrown out with love.
He went back to his work, but after a while he came back over again.
“You eat breakfast?”
“No, just having coffee.”
“You want doughnut? Cheerios?”
“No, it’s okay, I have food in the room.” (The continental breakfast was long gone by now.)
“What you like? Cheerios? Apple?”
“Oh, thank you, but I’m alright.” [Just to clarify, I was planning on eating. There's some hott Kashi Oatmeal Action in the hotel room. But I digress.]
“No, I serious. I get you something. You like my daughter: she skinny, but I like a bit more. (He gestures around his middle.) For strong brain, need strong body.”
“So - you are my daughter,” he continues. “Maybe you like that, maybe not? (shrugs) But I am your father. I take care of you. What you like?”
I think I conceded to dry Cheerios and an apple. Off he went.
So. There’s now a plate of bananas, apples, an orange, and a large bowl of cheerios on my table, all covered with a carefully folded napkin.
I came down here bristling against social interaction. In ten minutes this man went from nobody to one of the most deeply meaningful random connections I’ve experienced while touring.
Feels holy.
Derek and Justin discussing the finer points of Jeff Tweedy's awesomeness; pic by twitter.com/benbannister
We said hello to the month of May in Knoxville TN… A fine city we hadn’t played in years. We drove in on April 30th and woke early on May 1st to make our way to The Square Room downtown. Our load-in was at 10am that morning, for WDVX’s “Blue Plate Special” - a noon show performed live on-air with a live audience. Very fun. And on Fridays, it’s held at The Square Room.
So we couldn’t have asked for a better (re) introduction to Knoxville:
* Matt Morelock was a great host
* We saw the wonder that is J’s MegaMart on Gay Street (Thanks Matt — Who knew??!)
* We got to share the hour with the wildly-the-real-deal Malcolm Holcombe
* We were at The Square Room, which in addition to being one of the coolest rooms we’ve played in a while, has an amazing, amazing staff
* We had a great audience, and a lot of folks joined us from the adjacent cafe
* We were treated (oh so kindly) to an amazing lunch from Cafe 4. That place serves FOOD. And we partook. Oh my.
We took off and made our way to my family’s house just south of Knoxville, which is gloriously in the middle of nowhere, atop a high hill in the woods, right up against the Smokies.
My family was vacationing, so we spent some quality time with their animals: a dog that’s half wolf (appropriately named Wolf), an enormous cat named Blue, some horses, a peacock, a couple goats, several chickens, and some mysterious barn cats that didn’t show their faces.
Wolf the dog.
Blue The Cat
It mostly rained during our Knoxville stay, but we heard the area needed it, and it was a lovely sound - Splashing on the roof of that quiet house, singing to us over dinner, lulling us to sleep.
The next day (Saturday May 2) we headed back to The Square Room for our show that evening with Derek Webb. It was great to connect with Derek (great songwriter, defier of stereotypes, great conversationalist), and it was great to land at such a lovely venue again.
The beautiful artist lodging at The Square Room
Also, check it out: The Square Room offers an apartment for its performers, which we got to take advantage of that evening. Wow.
The apartment doubled as the Green Room for the afternoon, so it was a lovely place to prepare, to chat with Derek, to have some dinner and feel utterly at peace.
And after all that, we had an amazing audience that night; such attentive listeners, such kind folks. We can’t wait to come back.
And the story wouldn’t be complete without this:
Apparently while at my family’s house south of Nashville, we picked up a stowaway.
During our stay there, Justin had to rid us of two scorpions.
Yes, scorpions! Real ones!
Fortunately, we didn’t see them until Saturday, otherwise we wouldn’t have slept the two nights before…
Anyway, we had left that house on Saturday and stayed in the apt. in downtown Knoxville, then headed home on Sunday May 3rd. So:
Unpacking later that night. Pull something out of the inside lid pocket of my suitcase. See something small and dark. Look closer.
Yes, it’s a scorpion.
“It’s dead,” I assume, incorrectly. “I’ll have Justin get it out later.”
For whatever reason, I zip the pocket closed.
“It’s not dead,” he said a few minutes later. “Look.” He tapped the lid.
It wasn’t dead.
Justin's scorpion impression
Okay, so even dead, a scorpion in one’s suitcase is — SO worthy of the jibblies.
But alive??! In my suitcase??!
There was a lot of shaking-of-clothes and searching-through-bags.
Fortunately, this was our only stowaway, and I think he met his end in our driveway.
I’m just feeling lucky that Mr. Scorpion was in that one spot and not hiding out in the pocket of my jeans or something. Because seriously.
Alright, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’ve told the story.
There you have it Knoxville: We loved our visit, thank you, such a cool venue, such fine people, such a peaceful stay, and you gave us a scorpion. What more could we ask?
Can’t wait to see you again–