Marooned In Minnesota

Saturday January 3rd, 2009 - St. Cloud, MN

Two for two in St. Cloud. I think tonight‘s audience was even hotter than last night and last night’s group was a total scorcher. It was smaller in size tonight but they came out to see a show and those are the kind of people I live for. They made this trip worth the drive.

I’m glad I came even though there are still some reasons I probably shouldn’t have. The money is low and the drive is far and there’s nothing attached to this gig that makes it pay more for the week. In fact normally the gigs attached to this run are Dickinson, ND and a couple other nights out in the hinterlands that probably require pelts to trade and a kayak.

I have another lone wolf gig next week in Duluth at the Black Bear Casino and that’s on Wednesday and booked by a different agent. If I can put that one in front of this one I may do this run again later in the year but only if I don’t have to go to Dickinson in between.

The thought of driving all the way home now and back and forth to Duluth next week is not thrilling me but I said yes to the bookers and they both treat me as well as can be done on long runs like these. This is the most these runs can pay and I understand that. I love to do the shows when the audiences are like last night and tonight but the drives are brutal.

I was going to leave after the show tonight because there was only one but it snowed for much of the day and there were several inches of accumulation. Cars were sliding all over the roads and that was in the city. It’s a few miles to the interstate and I didn’t think it was smart to risk driving all night and following this storm that just pelted all of Minnesota.

The weather reports said it was going to be hitting Wisconsin all night and there isn’t a real reason why I have to be home by morning. I have the Mothership Connection show at 8pm and that gives me a little leeway to get some rest and wait for the roads to be plowed more than those who are driving on them. This is late night drunk time as well as snowy.

Getting marooned on the side of the road until morning or having to sleep in my car at a truck stop isn’t my idea of excitement anymore and getting a hotel room would cut a hole in my already tight budget and defeat the purpose of me taking this gig in the first place.

It looks like I’m stuck here one more night. I’ve got a warm clean bed and cable TV but the apartment they put us in is above a college bar that’s blaring loud music right now and probably will be until way late like they did yesterday. I heard swearing and fighting and a guy throwing up outside my window all during the time I was trying to nod off to sleep.

I forgot about the guy throwing up until this morning when I was greeted by a big nasty frozen puke mural on the glass door of where we’re staying. Nice. It reminded me of how I was still in the minor leagues but it still didn’t break my sprits. This was still a fun run.

I’ll get some sleep and be refreshed and drive back during the day tomorrow. I have lots of tapes to listen to about mail order and I can already tell I made the right choice to stay.