Oh, Albuquerque!

What an awesome town Albuquerque is... at least the Knob Hill area/few blocks that we explored during our stay. We rolled into Albuquerque really late Monday night/really early Tuesday morning after driving all night and pulled up in front of what the GPS thingy told us was Nirvan’s sister (and awesome jewelry designer) Dream Mullick’s house. Unfortunately, it was NOT Dream’s house that we pulled our noisy Road to Oprah tour bus in front of at 5am-ish. It was Susan’s. Fortunately, Susan was a real sweetheart. A stewardess for Southwest Airlines who offered us coffee, cereal, and a bed to sleep in if we needed it. No wonder her garbage man has a crush on her!

We all hit the hay pretty quickly after saying good morning and good night to Nirvan’s Mom, sister, and boyfriend Sterling. While I slept until the smell of food cooking woke me up in the afternoon, Brett (who slept on the bus), was awakened by Susan bringing him a cup of coffee. She then took him on a tour of Albuquerque. Oh yeah, and did I mention that she left 3 boxes of cereal and a carton of milk on the steps of our bus for us? God bless Susan the stewardess!

Upon awakening, we were off for some local promoting of that night’s event at the STOVE Gallery. There was a big animation festival in town, so we figured we’d hit that, and then the college. En route to the Animation Fest, we attempted an ill-advised U-turn, which caused our trailer to jackknife and busted the hitch. We stashed the caboose in a High School parking lot and called Dream, who proved to be our guardian angel on this stop. She took Levi to the auto shop while the rest of us hit the animation fest where we met some awesome folks from the Adobe company (who may donate some software for The 1 Second Film and website) as well as some nice Volunteers who really dug the project, the tour, and engaged us in a much-appreciated hug-fest.

Everything got fixed and we all regrouped to head to the space and set up, where we got to have our first “official” band practice with the current lineup (for 30 minutes) before the show started. At first it didn’t seem like many folks were going to turn up, but then the trickle turned into a stream and at one point in the evening we did have quite a nice, packed house.

At one point we had a crowd of people sitting at the edge of the stage (just like the old days!) playing all kinds of instruments – from tambourines to xylophones to sleigh bells to kazoos – for one of my favorite renditions of Home that the Evangenitals have ever played. Everyone was playing and singing at the top of their lungs and we got it all caught on tape… coming soon to YouTube!

It is my great hope that Mike and Nirvan will get the illusive “intro video” up on YouTube today so that we can start sharing the VIDEO version of all of our various and sundry adventures and encounters on the Road to Oprah, as well as my random ramblings.

It’s wonderful: I miss LA and I’m loving this life on the road. Ah, the miracle of simultaneity. We’re in the midst of a few brutal days of driving and playing. Texas is huge, and it’s where we’re heading and right smack in the middle of where we go after that. Right now, we’re closing in on Roswell, NM to shoot some footage of the Evangenitals and the Aliens (and impromptu Ode to Scientology video perhaps?) and then to Carlsbad Caverns to play in the caves. After that, we drive as far as we can before passing out for the night, in the hopes of behind close to Austin in the morning.

Oh Austin!

Albuquerque, here we come!

Brett is behind the wheel of the bio-bus and we’re driving to Albuquerque right now, after spending the day at the Grand Canyon. We intended to go see the giant meteor crater in Flagstaff after the Grand Canyon, alas… the canyon proved too grand and we had to stay there for hours and hours. It was amazing and it was my first time seeing it.

The shuttle drivers of the Grand Canyon National Park gave us the 411 on THE prime spot to park the bus right next to the canyon for the ultimate photo op. We played on the roof of the bus for tourists from Florida, Alabama, Sweden, and North Carolina. We shot a music video (Home) on the very edge of a cliff. We saw a rainbow and sang the “Rainbow Connection” which inspired a woman to give us a dollar. The moment was so beautiful it made Lisa Dee cry. That was the second time the kindness and open kindheartedness of a stranger made her cry today. I’d say that’s a pretty good day!

Sarah made another amazing dinner (vegan pasta!), Brett and Nirvan did the dishes, Lisa chopped the veggies (I helped), and Levi and Mike hung out with the missionaries in the converted school bus parked next to us (George was sleeping). It turned out that the missionaries (who seemed, at first glance, more like leftist hippies than missionaries) didn’t like the name of our band (The Evangenitals). So, we improvised a new song about the forgiveness of Jesus Christ that the folks back home in Los Angeles will truly love.

We’ve written two new songs so far about the trip, the film, and Nirvan (the creator of this whole beast!) that I’m pretty excited about. One is seriously gypsy inspired, and the other reminds me a bit of old Poi Dog Pondering.

Tomorrow night in Albuquerque is our first “official” performance/presentation at the STOVE gallery from 7pm-11pm. I hear there are going to be breakdancers and I’m pretty excited about that. Everybody is getting along well, so that’s awesome. You never know how it’s going to turn out when you put 8 people in a bus for several days with not a lot of sleep, not a lot of space, and no showers so far. Thankfully, in Albuquerque we’ll be staying at Nirvan’s sister’s house and there will be hot showers, hot meals, and beds that are bumpy and on wheels.