|
With
only a few days at home after the first leg of the Snakes and
Arrows tour (16 shows, 7,257 miles of motorcycling), this
will definitely be the “short version.” Still,
I wanted to try to put up something new.
Photographs
of the performances are plentifully available elsewhere (my view
of the audience this tour is studded with innumerable cell-phone
cameras, sticking up like periscopes), so I thought I might just
display a couple of motorcycling photos. On this tour Michael and
I haven’t even carried cameras with us on the bikes, let
alone bothering to ease our steady pace to take photos, but recently
we had a camera-happy “guest rider,” Richard S. Foster.
The name might ring a bell to dedicated readers of album credits — our
song “Red Barchetta” had a note on the lyric sheet, “Inspired
by ‘A Nice Morning Drive’ by Richard S. Foster.”
I
know that Rick (as he is known to his friends, among whom I now
number myself) plans to tell our story himself in another forum,
and it’s quite an amazing sequence of coincidences and synchronicities.
The
short version (I keep saying that) is that despite my attempts
back in 1980 to contact the author of the short story that had
inspired “Red Barchetta” — a story I had read
in a 1973 issue of Road & Track — we only recently
managed to actually make contact.
Rick
rode with Michael and me through the back roads (the very back
roads) of West Virginia for a couple of days between shows in near-DC
and near-Pittsburgh (so many of those amphitheaters are in the
exurbs), and then he attended his first Rush concert in (or near)
Boston.
But
that’s his story, and I’ll leave it to him to tell.
Michael only left Rick with one request, from the movie Almost
Famous, when the singer says to the young journalist, “Just
make us look cool.”
How
well Rick succeeded with that challenge, the reader may judge at
this location:
http://www.bmwbmw.org/bmwforums/viewtopic.php?t=8693
For
Michael and me, it was great just to have some photographs
of us riding — something we do every day, after all, so it
is nice to have it documented like that. After last tour, when
I was constantly so intent on note-gathering for the book that
became Roadshow, this time I have been feeling a real
sense of freedom — the freedom of not having to
document anything. I can simply experience it, think about it or
not, and let the day flow by me as it will.
That
being said, so far this tour has certainly been worthy of a book,
too, in its way. I kind of wish someone else was writing
one about it, but I don’t think it will be me. My journal
notes consist only of our daily mileages — though I couldn’t
resist noting a couple of church signs: “Give
Satan an Inch, Soon He’ll Be a Ruler,” and one
I just love: “To
Err is Human, But It Can Be Overdone.” So
good. And I admire it not only for the worthy sentiment, but for
the perfect phrasing, too.
Another
church sign caught my eye because of the word “faithless,” as
in our song on Snakes and Arrows. This one seemed kind
of mean, though: “And Jesus Replied, saying, ‘You
Are a Faithless and Perverse Generation.’”
I
assured Michael that he was the only one of us who was both.
Also,
we now know that “VBS” stands for “Vacation Bible
School,” as the back roads and small towns of America are
full of signs for that exciting-sounding activity. We were once
bemused at passing a yellow schoolbus full of kids, the side of
the bus carrying a banner reading “Soccer With Jesus.” (What
position do you suppose the Son of God would play? Have to be the
coach, I suppose. And would that make Mary, the Mother of God,
a soccer mom?)
(And
if that’s sacrilegious, it’s certainly not more so
than the banner on that bus.)
One
Sunday morning in southern Pennsylvania, Michael commented on the
Amish carriages we had been passing, with the little boys in their
blue shirts and straw hats waving shyly at us from the back. Michael
said he wanted to “save” those kids — by buying
each of them a BMW R1200 GS motorcycle.
Different
prophets have different ideas about saving others— but I
guess even “motorcycling with Michael” might be more
fun than “soccer with Jesus.”
But
let’s talk about the weather.
“Weather-wise,
it’s such a lovely day” would be an appropriate line
from Big Frank’s “Come Fly With Me,” as Michael
and I have had fairly unbelievable weather on our travels up the
East Coast. It was often very hot, mostly in the 90s, but — even
in an armored leather suit, boots, gloves, and full-face helmet— you
adapt to that, basically by facing the fact, “it’s
hot,” and carrying on. It’s the same onstage, where
I was also often working in very hot conditions — you just
play the song, wipe away the sweat, drink some water, and carry
on.
In
all those thousands of miles, and dozens of days, Michael and I
had exactly one day of rain — on a country-road
ramble from Tupper Lake, New York, to a show near Buffalo. Riding
in the rain is not bad when you’re not in traffic, and you’re
not in a hurry. You can relax into a smooth, cautious pace (though
Michael thinks I ride too fast in the rain— but I think he
rides too fast in freeway traffic). I enjoyed those damp, quiet
roads through the Adirondacks and the farming country of Western
New York.
We
often saw deer in our travels around the East, and once a black
bear cub in the Delaware Water Gap area of Pennsylvania — and
I almost forgot the huge alligator we encountered on a
flooded dirt road through the Everglades. Later we agreed it had
stretched the entire width of the single-lane road, so maybe twelve
feet long, and so thick it looked as though it had swallowed a
cow. As I had experienced in Africa before, it’s always a
thrill seeing animals in the wild, but quite a different experience
getting close to wildlife that can eat you.
However,
early that morning in the Adirondacks, we saw something even rarer
than deer, bear, or alligator — an animal called a fisher,
a large, dark member of the weasel family, darting across the road
ahead of us.
The
Smithsonian Web site offers an enlightening entry about the fisher
(I’m a member, so presume I’m allowed to use it).
(A
warning to the squeamish, who might want to skip this paragraph — the
fisher is a pretty badass little beast, ripping the faces off porcupines
and such).
Fisher Martes
pennanti
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
The
fisher is a forest-loving predator that eats anything it can
catch, usually small-to-medium-sized rodents, rabbits, hares,
and birds. It also eats carrion. Fishers are among the few predators
able to kill porcupines. They do it by biting the face, where
there are no quills, until the animal is too weak to prevent
being rolled over and attacked in the soft underbelly. Fishers
are active by day or night. They tend to be solitary and defend
territories. They were once hunted for their lustrous, chocolate-brown
fur, and the range of this species has been reduced greatly in
the United States. They are still hunted in some places, but
some states and provinces of Canada list the fisher as endangered,
and the population has recovered from extreme lows in the last
century.
Also
known as: Pekan, Fisher Cat, Black Cat, Wejack, American Sable
I
have written before that every tour’s itinerary varies greatly,
and how on previous tours I have found myself riding often through,
say, Virginia, and falling in love with it. So far this tour’s
East Coast revelation has been Pennsylvania, where I have enjoyed
riding before, but never had so much of either riding or enjoyment
as this tour’s itinerary occasioned.
From
the Delaware to the Susquehanna to the Three Rivers, the long-ridged
mountains and dense woodlands, the old mining and factory towns,
and the fantastically beautiful farms of Lancaster County, all
have been delightful when seen from the little gray roads (as they
are depicted on the Rand McNally maps). Our GPS units have evolved
since those I wrote about in Roadshow, and though still
called Doofus II and Dingus II, I must say they have learned a
lot since the R30 tour. (We sent them to VBS.)
Despite
my usual apprehension before embarking on another long concert
tour, I have been enjoying this one so far (don’t tell our
manager, Ray — he’ll immediately start pitching more
shows to me!). Each show is a little shorter this time, and doesn’t
drain me quite so much, so I have a little energy left over to
enjoy life offstage. We’re also having a few more days off
this time, because Geddy found that last tour’s schedule,
where we often had pairs of shows with a single day off between
them, was too hard on his voice. So we’re playing fewer shows
per week, and though they remain tiring, of course, they’re
not quite so draining. So that’s all good.
Here’s
an excerpt from today’s letter to my friend Mendelson Joe:
Finally,
here’s another photo of Michael and me on a little one-lane
West Virginia road — this one paved.
Our
next big ride will carry us through Montana, Idaho, and Washington
state, as our Western swing begins in Calgary and proceeds to Seattle.
I will try to report on that wonderful part of the country next
time.
Meanwhile,
those of you attending the shows, enjoy them, and those of you
riding motorcycles, remember something I learned from bicycling,
and try to keep reminding myself: “YOU ARE INVISIBLE.”
My
new motto (so new I just made it up), “Be as safe as you
can while still having fun.”
That
is deep advice, and, as number-one soul brother Michael likes to
say, snapping his middle fingers, “That’s the way we roll.”
|
|