Cold and Cold

If there's one thing I have a pretty severe hatred for, it's the cold. That and round shoelaces because it takes quadruple knots to keep them tied for more than twenty steps. It's like- come on, shoelace, this is your destiny, just embrace it like the rest of us.

Anyway, so at the moment I'm in Bloomington/Normal, IN. As is the custom on Farewell Flight tours, the worst weather seems to follow us. The high today was a balmy 17 degrees, with the wind chill making feel like 5. I have yet to go outside today (it's 5 p.m.). If cold wants to fight me, bring it, but you're not drawing me into your trap. (I wonder if when people start addressing "cold" as a person, it's a sign they're losing their mind).

Here's the thing about cold: everyone that lives where it's cold is in total denial that it sucks, because no one wants to admit they're dumb for not moving somewhere warmer. Excuses are as follows:

1) In the winter, you can always get warmer, just add more layers. False. I've added more layers than a Taco Bell Gordita Crunch Wrap Supreme and unless there's a way to put insulation over my eyes, nose, and mouth and still live, I still can't get warm. If that were the case, we'd be able to have tiki deck parties, ride go karts*, and play miniature golf all year round.

2) The snow is nice. Nope. Well, the first snow is nice. Nope. Well the first hour after the first snow is nice...until you have to shovel it, until it sticks to your shoes and follows you into your house and car, until salt from the road covers your car, until it blinds you when driving, until it sits for a week and gets gray and gross and why is snow nice? Exactly.

3) But the summers are cooler. Unless you live in Colorado or Vermont, there's a thing called humidity. That thing makes the summers just as bad as many other places in the south, minus Texas. And that place doesn't count because it's just weird hot there. Like morph-the-brain into thinking where you live is a different country hot. Doesn't count.

Right now I'm a hypocrite because I'm moored in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That said, at some point this band will probably drive me to homelessness. And when I'm free of all possessions and my lovely wife-to-be excuses me from her existence, you can be guaranteed I will hop the nearest train south or west and settle down with a nice Kroger shopping cart and a wind-up AM/FM radio.

So take a vacation to San Diego in five years and visit me on the Ocean Beach boardwalk. I'll be the one holding the cardboard "Beer or Food or Wine" sign wearing nothing but Hyper-Color swim trunks. Tanned and warm.

*really why I hate winter, you can disregard the rest

Oh Michigan, The Superglued Fingers of the U.S.

My favorite things about Michigan, and my friends. (Note: many of my favorite Michigan things may involve drinking, drinking with others, drinking alone, drinking for cheap, etc. But seriously what else are you going to do when you don't have a job and live outside Detroit? Oh yeah, cheer for the Lions.)

1) Crossing the border from Ohio. Every time I cross the border in winter coming from somewhere like Toledo, the Michigan sky looms bigger than any sky I know of. A huge grayness sits on the horizon, like a guard to the Upper Peninsula, and I just feel like I'm north, in a place separate from the U.S. where it takes more than living just to live. Part depression and part overwhelm, it feels like you have to dig in, bundle up, and just grind it out. That or find a good bar stool, which isn't hard considering there will be a dive called Rick's or something about 50 feet from wherever you're standing at any given moment.

2) The frozen waves on Lake Michigan. Sometime in the dead of winter (i.e. from September to June on the Lake), places all along Lake Michigan start to resemble the Ice Planet Hoth. Due to the tide of the Lake coming in and freezing small wave by small wave, the ice and snow pile up until there's 15 foot mini-mountains of ice, with corresponding valleys and ridges that extend up the shoreline, resembling waves frozen in place. Standing on top of one feels like you're somewhere at the beginning or end of the earth and that you endured it all, similar to the ocean at the end of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Or that you're going to slip and fall down and crash through the ice and die. (The picture on the left if from Grand Haven. I found the picture online, but was actually at the exact same place in February).


3) Founders and Bell's Breweries: Grand Rapids has two of the best breweries in the midwest, maybe the country. The Founders Centennial IPA and Bell's Two Hearted Ale are especially delicious.

4) The people. Michiganers (that's the technical name, right?) are probably the best people I know. They go out en masse on any night and will hang anywhere, any time. Our friends in Michigan make it feel like home again, and will go out of their way for us in any situation, whether it's finding a floor for us to sleep on, a show to play, or a $2 PBR pitcher to drink. It's almost an attitude of "life sucks, it's cold out, but let's forget about today and have fun tonight." And when all those things come together in a little place called Rack and Roll in Downriver (outside Detroit), it's a party. Example:




Thanks Michigan.

Nicki Minaj, Kanye, and Tiger Woods (A "Minaj-a-trois"???)

This has been my bedroom the past two days. It's been fun, but I must move on to another land, as 9 more horcruxes (shows) await me on this journey (tour).

Last night I was pretty bored (this will be a common theme throughout this blog, trust me), and thought I'd try to check out some new music, since I hadn't done that in awhile and I always try to make a mix CD for each tour. Rewind eight years in the life of Robbe Reddinger and replace "each tour" with "any girl I was remotely attracted to" and you have a history of my musical life. Note: any Gavin Degraw or OAR song placements were anomalies over which I had no control. I'll take responsibility for John Mayer though.


Anyway, so I kind of came across the new Kanye West album (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy), and listened to Monster, since I was pretty intrigued that Justin Vernon of Bon Iver is featured on it, as well as a handful of other songs on the album. I listened to it. I listened to it again. And again. Because I couldn't wait for the verse from Nicki Minaj, the one that's schizophrenic and back and forth and sweet and terrifying all at the same time. I feel like it would've been amazing to be in the studio when she was laying it down, because you can tell she's totally immersed in what she's doing. Her voice changing freaks me out a bit and I probably would've pulled myself into a fetal position on the control room sofa and peeked out between my fingers until she left the studio. But still, to hear that in someone's voice is always refreshing, because it's real and raw in a way that many artists are not. Also I just googled a picture of her and I'm pretty sure she could break my face just by looking at me.

That said, although I'm not the hugest hip-hop fan, I'm a fan of Kanye West in the same way I'm a fan of Tiger Woods. They're both the best at what they do (or at least very close), and despite their personal shortcomings, their work is undeniable in that it has 'wow' moments that occur time and time again. Their work ethic is borderline psychotic, and once they have a goal, they set out and achieve it. I don't not listen to Kanye West because his favorite knock-knock joke is the interrupting cow one, or stop rooting for Tiger Woods because his favorite pastime is ordering the grand slam on a Perkins waitress. I enjoy them as artists, which is what they are to us and what they should only be to us. I think a lot of time people love to bash them because most people will never dedicate themselves to something so much that they push their art as close as they can to perfection. People love to see the hero lose his cape. Tiger misplaced his in a moving box when he left the house, but he'll find it soon enough. Kanye has his tied securely around his neck and he's saving us from a lot of shit that's on the radio. That's good enough for me. I'll leave the morality judging for the afterlife.

The Comeback

I'm Robert Lee Reddinger.

I'm in a band called Farewell Flight, but we're changing our name to Indian Summer on this tour. Our shirts will all be designed around images of firewater, headdresses, and casinos*. In other words, an illustration of a typical tour night when we were young and full of rock star dreams and sleeping in a van in Oklahoma, trying to get drunk off 3.2% beer.

In the last five years, this band has seeped into my pores and lined my veins and filled in the wrinkles appearing around my eyes and has somewhat become me, for better or for worse.

When I was in college, my favorite professor would pray before each class. And he would always ask God to forgive him and us for our sins of commission, but also our sins of omission. That always struck me, because it's hard to realize that it's a sin to not act on what you know is right, or even not use what you've been given in your life. I don't have any regrets for things I've done, but I have a hell of a lot of regrets for things that I haven't done. One of those things I'm attempting to repair right now, on here.

I've forgotten how to write and how to love to write, and I want to remember again.

I hope to begin again because I used to love words and love sharing my words with others, but I think I've just forgotten what it means to me because I've been trying so hard to keep going at this other art (music), and it takes more air from me than I can bear to breathe and I just don't want it to drag me under because I can't take the failure of what I've wasted in my own mediocrity. I want this to be my life vest, and even if it doesn't save me, it'll at least let me float for a little while.

I also hope I don't write any more run-on sentences like I did at the beginning of that last paragraph.

Right now I'm in Akron, Ohio. I watched football today, I played darts today, I drank beer today, and I ate a delicious Galley Boy burger from Swenson's Drive-In. Tomorrow I'll be in Riverview, Michigan.

And now I will sleep.





*but not really