Columbia SC

What's Columbia got to do with Egypt?

I know - what kind of dumb question is that, right?. I hear you , but there I was , strolling along a meandering country road on the outskirts of Columbia South Carolina, taking in the afternoon sun, and hearing the sounds of the far off State Fair wafting across the September breeze, when I follow the road around the tree-lined bend only to be met with a 20 foot fresco of the ancient Pharaoh Rameses, or someone who looks just like him, peering down from his throne, and surrounded by heiroglyphs of due respect, his face weatherd away by the elements. I was left with only one thought - "What the....?"
Maybe I had some preconceived notions about what traveling in the Carolinas might be like, and maybe it's my own fault for not being open minded, but Pharaohs?
The image is painted on a concrete slab which is clearly the remaining wall of some considerably less ancient structure than a pyramid or catacomb, but has a few seating benches and tables set at its base for the casual wanderer to sit and enjoy their diet coke and fritos, safe in the knowledge that the ancient gods of Egypt are watching out for them.
The jarring visual stimuli didn't stop there.Carrying on my stroll and slowly recovering from my impromptu date with a Pharaoh, I was soon met with a white two story building that boasted the painted image of the Incredible Hulk (sure, why not?) punching his way through the wall and snarling at me. Over his left shoulder near the corner of the building , was the word 'GROW' in grey letters and groovy script.

At the green super hero's feet, a small table soaked up the sun, with an arrangement of blackened and burned engine parts resting on top, and beneath, between it's legs and in the shade, a burned out bird cage. You heard me. Wondering if maybe I had wandered into a Terry Gilliam movie, I dedided to head back to base, and quiz my host - a Columbia native - about these odd sightings.
My host, Davey, at the Redbird School of Irish Music, assured me that I wasn't losing it just yet, and that the white two story building was an artist's collective, once known as the Grow Cafe - a coffeehouse and venue/artist space, now just a studio , although still it would seem very much inhabited by the ghosts of it's former glory.
As for the Pharaoh, Davey could shed no light.......hmmmm...

The Mississippi Mud House

The above picture is just to get your attention and has nothing to do with the following post - just something spotted in O'Fallon MO.
Speaking of MO....

The Mississippi Mud House

....in St Louis MO, on Cherokee and Illinois, is one of the coolest coffeehouses in the mid west : great menu (check out the Portabello Rueben) , great coffee (duh) and a very hip ambience. The salad greens are grown out back, for the most part, and the emphasis is on local produce.

A back wall houses books for sale while surrounding brownstone walls are adorned with local art and retro advertising, and it's WAY easy just to sit back, put it all off 'til tomorrow, and just while away the hours with a hot coffee or three, watching the local Cherokee Street traffic as they stop in for lunch, meet a few buddies, chat with staff, or just sit back and watch you watch the local.....well you get what I mean.

Oh yeah, the French Toast is also top notch.

I first wandered in there with my buddy Kevin after a hard morning recording. Two coffees and a lunch hour later, we found ourselves wandering back to the studio saying, " wow, cool place". We dont say that too often. When I was back in town about a year later, I headed down for breakfast, and ordered the aforementioned  French toast. Hot syrup. Bananas. Hot coffee. Mmm. 
Me and Kevin headed in for lunch  after a morning gig , and man, they did it again . I reacquainted myself with the Portabello Rueben ( we're an item now) while Kevin inhaled the Club Sandwich with emphatic nods of approval.
I'm telling you. You should go. Really cool place.

Knoxville TN

Knoxville stood there waiting for us to have lunch somewhere in it's quiet clean downtown while we wasted time just soaking up the sun and stretching our legs along Gay St ( insert obvious jokes here ). We sauntered as far as the river, and back onto market square where we finally decided on a place to satiate our growing appetites.

Cafe 4, we figured was as good as any , feeling a little o erwhelmed by the array of choices the square spread before us - pub grub, Thai and strictly vegetarian being among the many options. Sensing a slight chill in the air, but still enjoying the cloudless sky, we opted for outside seating with a hearty grilled cheese and tomato bisque, refered to on the menu as The Grilled Cheese Dip and dip we did. Mmmm. Also, the fried green tomatoes with goat cheese and balsamic reduction ( dont know what that means) pretty much rocked our world. Service was super friendly and the hanging out stretched long until we finally decided it was time we explored some more.
Ok, Knoxville, what you got?
The Sunsphere (above), to give it it's proper title ( more respectful than my own description of "big goldy thingumee" ) was designed and built by a local architectural firm for the 1982 worlds fair, and offers a 360 degree view of the city and provides the skyline with something unique and instantly recognizable to the approaching tourist, incoming college kids And conference goers, all of which dominate knoxvilles human traffic .



Old city seems to be on the cusp of a Renaissance , with new bars and cafes nestled into the turn-of-the-century buildings, with an eye firmly on the college demographic; coffee shops, vintage clothing stores pepper this growing area, and somewhere we found ourselves popping into The Crown and Goose for refreshment. Finding the place virtually empty, we sat at the bar and tried their own house IPA, brewed for them by the smoky mountain Brewing Company.
The IPA was light and refreshing , and with a spring in our step , it was time to mooch on......hmm, we thought, so far so good. I'll bet the student area is SUPER- cool... Right?

Well, not really. The strip through campus where we expected to find the head shops , hookah bars , vintage clothing and killer vinyl was actually populated by all the major franchises and peddlers of plastic food and shaky tables. They were all here in a line, so if that's your thing, you just roll out of your dorm and into a bucket o' chicken for just SOMETHING 99!!! YEAH!!
underwhelmed by the over abundance of colorfully packaged nothing, we headed back into downtown for a stroll through it's oak lined streets and maybe half an idea to come back and say hi again sometime soon. Not least of all , to check out the Blue Plate Special. - a free concert from local and touring acts at the visitors center, hosted and broadcast every afternoon by WDVX . If acoustic music is your thing, check this one out, preferably live, but you can always catch it online.



From here we headed west through the Smoky Mountains to ......

Asheville NC

This, my second trip to Asheville, luckily allowed me a little more time to soak up the atmosphere and charms of this mountain town which has become synonymous with the arts and local artisans, as well as touring artists eager to put Asheville on their schedule.
As such, Asheville feels like a very mellow sleeping Gulliver, unphased by us langouring Lilliputians running along it's limbs, admiring the galleries , browsing the bookstores and slurping from the coffee houses along it's winding streets.
Actually , Asheville has an embarrassment of coffee houses, enough to inspire my wife to utter the words " man, if you can't find a coffeehouse here , there's something wrong with you." So true. I guess in such a throng of choices it pays to stand out , and arguably the most memorable coffeehouse is The Big Bus, the appropriately monickered London Double Decker forever parked and catering to all your caffeination needs on the first level, with ample seating on the top deck, just a thin spiral staircase away. "How long have you been here?" I asked the Barista, to which she replied "'Me, or the bus?", clearly a comedian. Once I'd sewn my sides back together she informed me that they'd been in business since 1996. Not bad,
And the coffee is pretty durn good.


After a leisurely noodle around the "Downtown Books and News" Bookstore - one of the best we've ever seen, we thought we should hook up with my bandmates; The HiBs. Hannah Flanagans sounded like a good spot, situated as it is close to downtown.
Once again , we walk into an empty bar, so with elbows on bar , we inquire of the barman, what's local and what's good? He points us at what is , in his opinion , the best IPA on the east coast , the Highland IPA from the Highland Brewing Co. Taking him at his word , I had to sample , and indeed found it to be most tasty. I wondered if our friendly barkeeper recommended everything this highly , as some might do in the name of dedicated salesmanship, but my suspicions were swiflty quashed when a girl came inquiring about a particular beer available on tap. " How is it?" she inquired. " it's crap." replied our dedicated bartender, without blinking an eye.
We basked in the honesty, quoffing at a leisurely pace, me on my Highland IPA, my wife on another local brew ; Pisgah Pale Ale, completely organic - even their trucks run on vegetable oil, a factoid I believe wholeheartedly as I heard it from - you got it - our honest barman.
It would be impossible to leave the subject of Asheville without mentioning some of it's many eateries . Every bit as numerous as the coffee houses , the streets fill with a variety of aromas from around the globe . Caribbean , Indian, Thai, and in a town populated by so many hippies, artists and loveable leftys of every stripe , a fine array of vegetarian options.

We grabbed a late breakfast at The Early Girl Eatery, who use all local produce and, man - the banana walnut pancakes blew my mind. Great food In a great atmosphere.

The next day , lunch at The Laughing Seed, a completely vegetarian restaurant served me a veggie Sloppy Joe that, according to my carnivorous buddies, beat the 'real thing' hands down.
Sometime after lunch , it was time to hit the road......

DEADWOOD SD

It was August 11th. We rolled into Deadwood on the way east from a gig in Montana, and in that neck of the woods at that time of year the road is heavy with swarms of Harley Davidson owners heading to or coming from Sturgis; Harley Mecca, whose summer festival draws Harley owners in the hundreds of thousands.
Deadwood sounded like a good place to brush some road off just like so many ranchers, pioneers and gunslingers of the old west had done before.
The horses had been replaced by minivans and bikes, but the roadside pastimes of drinking and gambling are still intact, albeit in a more generic form ; the gut rot that once passed for whiskey has thankfully been replaced by a cold beer, and the sometimes violent poker games the like of which brought Wild Bill Hickock to meet his maker in this very town are only reproduced in museums. If you want to lose or win money here, your options are slot machines in the bars, slot machines in the hotels or , across the street, slot machines in the.......ummm......slot machine......place.
The town itself is laid out on old cow paths, lending a relaxed, ramshackle feel as you mooch around the winding streets of historic buildings, shop fronts of western memorabilia, and bars boasting exhibits and some or other claim to various snippets of Wild West legend: "here's where Wild Bill was shot" , "Here's where the guy that shot him got shot", "Here's where he had his last drink".

Although that might be a little too hokey for some, for anyone with even a passing interest in the lore of the Wilds West, there are plenty of opportunities as you browse the crumbling photographs and artifacts to revert to the wide-eyed days of childhood, when The Lone Ranger not only saved the day, but rode the coolest horse ever.

It was a hot summer night, and after a cold beer to ease the saddle sores, me 'n' my pardner tipped our hats to Wild Bill and the town of Deadwood, and hit the trail........

New York Mills, MN

New York Mills in North MN is small, quiet and interesting - a truly blink-and-you'll-miss-it, kind of place, it is the home of the ANNUAL GREAT AMERICAN THINK-OFF. Now in it's seventeenth year, the Think-Off ooccupies one summer night to pose one question for debate to three rounds of debaters. The audience chooses the winner. The 2009 Question: "Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?"

The Think Off is the brain child of the New york MIlls Cultural Center , and more specifically it's founder John Davis. The center is responsible fror bringing touring musical acts into the community as well as art exhibits and crafts from the surrounding area, and acts as a sort of Arts Oasis in this heavily agricultural town with vast expanses of corn fields in every direction, and at the time of my visit in October, huddled groups of deer hunters in flatbed trucks were either hitting the town's one bar for a beer on the way out to the woods, or hitting the town's one bar for a beer on their way back in. We watched them come and go from our bar-side perch, and as the cheap beer flowed and the loud '80s hair metal blaired from the jukebox it was hard to imagine that just around the corner on the main street stood the home of the GREAT AMERICAN THINK-OFF, but there it is. The competition logo is Rodin's "Thinker" sitting atop a tractor. It's motto:
"bringing philosophy from the ivory towers of academia into the lives of thinking americans."

I enjoy a place like New York Mills for the peace and quiet and the pace of life, where the main street is quieter than my back yard, and given that the town has one bar , two coffee houses and a bowling alley, with little else protruding from the landscape, not to mention a place to hear music and absorb art and craft, i'm guessing the locals enjoy it for pretty much the same reasons.

Old Faithful

As North American National Parks go, Yellowstone is pretty high in the popularity stakes - everyone has heard of it, so everyone comes - the hard-travelling, long hiking nature advocate rubs shoulders with the clueless nose picker who's only here 'cos they followed the dog into the car.
I fall somewhere betrween those two : to be surrounded by the uninterupted grace and serenity of nature is pretty much my favorite place to be. On the other hand, I'm only here because I'm on my way back from a gig in Montana.

Within Yellowstone, Old Faithful is the star performer, delivering to sell out crowds numerous times a day for about a century.

We sat waiting for the next appearance by the volcanic phenomenon, along with 250 or so nature enthusiast, nose pickers and their families and significant others.
About twenty minutes into our wait, from our place in the circled seating, we heard and saw from the circle's center the first gurglings from beneath the earth.
I have to admit, after spending about a day and a half in Yellowstone I had started to feel like this place was my own and that the droves of people were eating into the solitude and quiet that I value in these natural oases; "How dare they," the devil on my shoulder would whisper "don't they know you need your space?" .
My selfish surliness, however, was soon quashed as Old Faithful steadily rose into a shimmering plume of water and vapor, over a hundred feet into the air, flanked on all sides by open blue prairie sky, distant mountains and proud, towering pines. In an abstract way, the most famous geyser in the world does resemble a stage performer, like Lily Langtry in a shimmering gown of pearly white sequins, shoulders broad and held high as she sways seductively. And there I sat - her Judge Roy Bean, slack jawed and bug-eyed like a foolish school boy, transfixed by her unadorned beauty.
After about 5 minutes, she slowly brought the show to a close , retreating to her underground dressing room. No encores, and the kids, dogs, families and loners dispersed, making room for the next audience, and finding the occasional pearly white sequin in their hair.

Incidentally, if you are planning a trip to Yellowstone, pack a lunch - the food available within the park is over priced and terrible. Pity, but the stunning diversity of the scenery and wildlife more than makes up for it, and although a lot of folks focus on the volcanic splendor of the parks west side , do not leave without experiencing the north east corridor - wide open grassland that the bison call home.

Badlands

Interior, South Dakota - a frontier town on the edge of the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation, and less than a mile from the Badlands National Park, was going to be home for a few days. Larry, the ranch and campground owner, checked us in and warned us of the 105 degree forecast for the day. Warning duly noted, we headed for the desert.
The stillness here is intoxicating, and it's a tonic for body and soul just to immerse oneself in the quiet barren tranquility. Peach cactus sprung at our feet, kingbirds seemed to guide us, perching a few yards ahead, then fluttering on only to be found further down the trail, and swallows made there homes in the baked desert mounds.
The temperature did climb as predicted, and after a few hours in the sun and constant hot breeze, the idea of an ice cold beer in the shade started to sound pretty good - time for a stroll to the Wagon Wheel , downtown Interior , where a few of the locals along with some passing bikers, sat in the quiet one-room bar shooting the breeze, while the friendly barmaid swatted flies. A crock pot full of burgers , along with some fixings were set on the pool table with a handwritten sign that said "all u can eat, $8.00".
The bikers were just a few of literally hundreds of thousands that were heading to Sturgis that week for the annual Harley Davidson Rally, and the road west would soon turn into a long stream of chrome and beard from morning to night and as far as the eye could see into the horizon.
The locals were just a handful of Interior's population, which totals at 67.

After washing the dust down, it was back to the Campground for "Cowboy Stew", and here a word of warning for the vegetarian. If you are heading this direction, and I recommend you do - be prepared; options are slim, and in some cases, non-existent.
I keep to a vegetarian diet , but come dinner time, I found myself with a choice; stew or no stew, and after a few miles hiking in the desert heat, I knew that my road-food stash of nuts and berries just wouldn't cut it, so with a shrug of my shoulders and a belly that just needed filling, i grabbed a plate.
The stew was cooked slow over 8 hours- steak chunks and nine vegetables. Hearty stuff. Uncomplicated and delicious. Barb, the quiet spoken woman of the house, made sure the plate was full until I said stop.

Laying in the tent in the growing dark, I listened to the constant wind across the barren land and drifted off with images of ancient peoples with their ancient songs and stories shimmering in my mind's eye.

In the mornings, the sourdough pancakes and coffee formed the foundation for a good days hiking, and a sign in the kitchen proclaimed that the sourdough starter for the pancakes was used on a frontier wagon train over a hundred years ago. I'm glad they left the recipe here. Barb was once again at the ready with coffee pot and watchful eye for any empty plates and cups that needed filling, while in the background the matriarch, a small slight grey haired woman, hovered at the stove with a pitcher of pancake batter.
Bleary eyed bikers and fellow road trippers filed in from the morning sun, and we ate our fill before heading out to explore.



Jeremiah Smith , in 1823, gazed upon the badlands for the first time and was the first white man to do so.
One hundred and eighty six years later I looked out onto that eery moonlike landscaoe for the first time, but how strange it must have been for Jeremiah. I at least had heard and read about the badlands and so had an incling as to what I could expect, but for Jeremiah, he may well have wondered if he'd somehow slipped into another world.
It is at once prairie and desert, submerged and elevated; canyons formed by ancient rivers long dried up, and hills eroded over centuries of inexhaustable winds, blindly taking everything but the hardest substances with it. Jeremiah could have been forgiven for turning and running.

This was a hunting ground of the Lakota, who had named it "White HIlls"- a neighbor to the Black HIlls further West. French trappers referred to it as "les mauvaises terres a traverse" or "bad lands to cross". The name " Bad Lands" stuck. So much so that the Lakota began to use the term, due to the new trading relationships that were cultivated with the trappers.

Once again while laying in a tent in the shadow of the main ridge later that night, my mind wandered to the bare feet, moccasins and bison hoof that had trod right where my head lay , now part of a working ranch with a campground attached. How many had woken as I had that morning to a sunrise over an open grassland, the distant landscape eroded over aeons; the quiet , eery mounds pressing into the sky above ? And over how many centuries? Once again, the constant, gentle wind lulled me to sleep.



The wind seems to own the land here; 20 million years of it rushing across the sandstone and prairie had created it's unique moonlike character, and I 'm guessing it must be a force that man and beast has to reckon with every day out here - the flat landscape lending itself to snowdrifts in the winter, and rapidly changing conditions in general, but of course these are the very things that bring us here - the unique serenity, the bejeweled night sky unlike anything a city dweller can possibly see, and the wide open window to another time.