Miles on Our Roller Bags

Hello friends,

Greetings from the Cool Gray City of Love.

I thought twice about sending one of my whimsical missives. In light of the horror show happening in Southern California. Where the devastation is impossible to take in. Just block after block of neighborhoods completely leveled. And then, the inevitable blame game going around. I just want to spit.

I have nothing but love and respect for all the emergency responders. And, anyone in the fires’ path. Everybody is doing their best. But Mother Nature is having its way. And the response from President-Elect Trump? More disinformation. And political nonsense. Trump should man up and come out and walk the streets. Governor Newsom has extended his hand.

It’s been a while now since Mar-a-Lago has become the Ellis Island of the patently perverse and with Don and Elonia smearing Big Macs all over each other's naked bodies on a private jet, I think I’m finally beyond grossed out and am now just flat-out bored with what passes for news. So after that last mega 25-shows-in-9-countries tour I’m back to my old habits, which include, but are not limited to: True Crime, Record Collecting, The Criterion Channel, and hunting for weird Van Morrison videos on YouTube.

This is my current jam. Added bonus: Van on drums. And for the button counters, that's one time Green On Red bass player James Blennerhassett on upright. The clip’s got borderline Public Access production values. But, it will rock your gypsy soul. And if it doesn’t, check yourself for a pulse.

I gave her gifts of the mind
I gave her the secret signs
That's known to all the artists
of sound and stone and time

On the record collecting front, there’s a pretty clean copy of Los Originales by Los Shapis that just showed up on Discogs that I’m hemming and hawing over. I’ve got one eye on that and the other on the weather.

Oh, and I'm not forgetting True Crime. I don’t know if anyone is following the story of the British "Angel Of Death," but The New Yorker published an excellent piece about it:

Some time back, my friend Nicola read it, and all this time later I still remember exactly what her take was. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s easier to blame the individual than to blame the system.”

I’m still chewing on that.

Meanwhile, me and the Cumbia Shoes are headed for another joint. The shows have gone over like a storm. Daniel Strickland at the home office has used the word "magic" more than once to describe the shows. And honestly, I never get tired of hearing it.

We’re heading out now for a tour starting in New Orleans, down to Florida with East Coast dates and more.

I guess we all needed to put a few more miles on our roller bags. We’ve got our own loyalty program going here.

Getting some rest at the Tough Enough Festival in Brussels

SIDEBAR: There was a time when I just carried a cardboard suitcase around. At least until the GOR days, when the van backed up over it, crushing it.

I gimped along with what was left of that suitcase until we had a day off in London and I woke up with one thought, “I'm going to buy a new suitcase today.” I think I asked the desk clerk at the Columbia Hotel where I could find a department store and was directed to Harrod’s, which unbeknownst to me at the time is the biggest luxury department store in the Western world or universe or something like that.

Who came up with rollers for luggage? How did we get by for so long without them?

Meanwhile the verdict is in regarding folding vs. rolling. Daniel at the Home Office is adamant that the merch sellers fold the T-shirts into bundles by size. It may seem more efficient to roll the shirts, but it turns out it’s not. He can get very passionate about these things. To realize we’ve been doing it wrong all this time is hard to swallow, but we press on.

It makes me think of the roller bag revolution. Roller bags are relatively new. I mean, we put a monkey in orbit, but still had to wait years for a roller bag. I don’t remember the first time I saw one, but it seems like it must have been an airline pilot.

That might coincide with the time I made the transition to duffel bags, going back to my first tour of Canada (more on that later). Derek Richey derided me for rocking a hardshell Samsonite. Very uncool. It was all about the duffel bag back then. Naturally, they’re easier to squish into crevices. These days I’ve got a tight carry-on, and I can hoist that baby up into the overhead compartment (wheels out) like a champ.

But yeah, roller bags. First it was the pilots. Smartly dressed in their uniforms. With those cool hats. And now it’s little tikes with Barney the Dinosaur roller bags. But back in my day? Er, never mind.

Not much else has changed about flying. You get checked in. You sit next to a guy picking his ear. And just when you think you’re home free, it’s the baggage claim that really brings out the worst in people.

Oh the humanity!

Onwards,

-CP