we hit the road a little after 7pm on friday evening. I-95 – my least favorite highway in the world – was clear of standstill traffic, so we thought for sure we’d cruise into jersey without a hitch and call it a night at some trendy roadside inn. our final destination was ultimately the great city of providence, but we weren’t expected there until late evening saturday. so we took our time making the drive… heaven forbid we have to travel 9 hours in a single day… all hours occupied by bloody I-95.
just past baltimore, my cell phone sounded out it’s funky ringtone beat. hello?! it was our friend ellen up in connecticut: how are you? how’s the drive? i heard your show was cancelled. is it true?
uh… wtf?
i could hear the squealing brakes in my head. don’t panic, andy. just make a few calls. i asked ellen to check my email. any word from the venue? nothing. rats! um… I called john at the venue. nothing. rats! um… i handed the phone to pema, who quickly dialed our buddy darth todd up in concord, mass. after slaloming thru dead end websites for any venue information – pema and i were now coming upon delaware at this point – todd finally found our nugget of truth: yes, indeed, the venue was closed for the weekend because of frozen waterlines.
boy.
i always knew that gig contracts carried the “all agreements are final pending an act of god” clause, but holy bejeezus. i never realized that it actually happened… the act of god, that is. yes, i’ve had shows cancelled before for numerous reasons: change of management, sickness, et cetera. unfortunately, most last minute show cancellations are even unbeknownst to me until only hours before the scheduled gig time. in fact, on more than one occasion, i’ve found myself frantically calling peeps or searching online trying to get to the truth because a friend of a friend of a friend heard that some guy said there was a 43% chance the show might be cancelled. so, in this particularly act-of-god case, i’m glad that it was god who was responsible for the cancellation… and that it was his gossip train that got word back to me. go god.
back to my point. pema and I were now faced with the challenge of making a weekend out of our now-in-the-middle-of-jersey reality. enter: the ever-beloved i-cut girls. Our wonderful friends in seymour, CT and their gang of buddies. they said we could crash at their place, so crash we did!
we drove into the night. just after 2am saturday morning, we arrived at the home of jenn, ellen, tamrah, and 4 fine cats. we drank, we ate, we played redonkulous games, (we bought golf shoes!) and we simply had a blast that weekend… even without getting paid for the drive! :) just goes to show you what good peeps can do! we didn’t leave until sunday afternoon, just in time to avoid the superbowl and stupid bad traffic all the way home to richmond. freakin’ i-95.
andy
