Onederlust Tour 6/16-6/17 Buffalo "The city of good neighbors"
To my wonderful, constant readers and friends and AllOne Family-members, I apologize for being a week behind on these travel journal posts, I am actually all caught up with accounts of the spectacular and peculiar events that have been occurring but the internet access has been spotty, and when Megabus does have wi-fi I've discovered they've banned my blogging website from their access, so I'm unable to make use of the time posting while on these lengthy trips. Ah, so it goes. I appreciate your patience and even remote amount of consideration and concern for my whereabouts and well-being! As I write this preface, it is Monday June, 23rd and I'm currently in "Awake cafe" in Chicago awaiting my impending performance at a nearby venue and am finally able to update these mobile memoirs! Lets get into it shall we... Where were we? Ah yes, Buffalo New York....
Getting Lost, Getting
Help,
Monday afternoon I arrived in Buffalo, which turns out to be a pretty
big city! Weirdly, several people I'd intended to meet up with
including some work friends from back home and my cousin Erica, just
happened to be out of town when I arrived. I meandered in circles
trying to find my way to Nietzche's open mic, having no GPS and
trying to find Wi-fi was no good in the sweltering heat dragging my
suitcase, briefcase and backpack around. Luckily my cousin Erica
sent me a photo of the walking directions to the venue. While I was
walking around I had the luck to have my friend Tony Iannone agreed
to let me stay at his house with his roommates during the show. I
know Tony from Oswego, a composer and musician, who actually recorded
and mixed my vocals for “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”! It stuck
me that aside from being a larger city than I'd anticipated, Buffalo
was unique with it's active trolley cars and it's seeming
consideration for nature and a similar concern to Rochester's as far
as art. While looking for the venue I encountered a character named
“Chief” who was tall with a gruff voice, a wrinkle, pockmarked,
with long sweaty hair and a smile like Indian corn. He opened up our
interaction complimenting my bags which made me uneasy but we walked
and he helped me find my way to the venue. It turned out he just
wanted money from me which I was unwilling to give him, especially as
he asked saying “I'm an alcoholic and I'm on E, can ya help me buy
a beer?” but I appreciated his honesty and he didn't have any
ornery comments once I couldn't help him.
Nietzche's
is a quirky building in a decoratively artful part of town. People in
groups on the sidewalk were greeting me despite not knowing me, they
were smiling and inviting and I felt very comfortable. There were
maybe two dozen people lining the length of the L shaped bar. The
place was dim lit and all sorts of trinkets, it boasts 7 nights of
music a week. The open mic feature was Erica, a piano player
and beautiful singer. The room was tattooed with stickers, clothed
with flyers blemished with stains. The ceiling covered in signatures
from musicians and listeners alike, lit by strands of Christmas
lights posted up among dozens of trinkets and music and art
memorabilia. The windows looked out onto the street like cataracts
with yellow filth like the glass of unkempt fish tanks in city
apartments. Still, there was community there, talent, heart and
warmth. I sat alone and wrote and listened to music. Aside from
Erica's impressive feature performance with her Alexa Dexa
reminiscent operatic voice and personal lyrics over intriguing piano
playing, one other stand-out performance was a great
singer-songwriter named Tom. I went up and performed “Quality Vs.
Quarantine”, “Needle Kiss” and “What's Your Problem?” to
the approval of the room. Tom approached me afterwards to
congratulate me on my performance and we got to talking and exchanged
histories and compliments.Two other friends that sat at the bar directly in front of me ended up joining me at the table and introducing themselves as Kervin and Ryan. They were newly locals from a nearby church, loved my performance and bought a CD, we spoke and got to know one another. They run another open mic on Wednesday nights, which I wouldn't be around for but they let me know about a Tuesday night open mic at a places called Milkies. which we agreed to meet one another at the following day! I was dismayed to find that Tony's house where I'd be staying was not within walking distance, but Kervin offered to drive me, I couldn't have thanked him more. We spoke about a lot of great topics and agreed aloud about a lot of things as we ruminated on various philosophical, social, financial and other considerations and it was great company.
Twenty
minutes later we arrived at Tony and his roommates house, said our
goodbyes and thank yous. Tony wasn't there and my phone was dead but
Ian and his girlfriend Sarah let me into their home with smiles.
Their gregarious portly white and black cat, Max, greeted me by
massaging my ankles in figure eights. Ian and Sarah are both great
people, their home is filled with art that Ian made, vinyls he's
collected, full bookshelves and a friendly home-like aura. Ian raps
in a group named Natural Ingredients. He got an email when I arrived
of a first draft of a music video for a fun and sarcastic song called
“Pink and Green” that was well shot and it was somehow comforting
to see my host triumph as the emcee to shine in the song in his
writing and performance. Natural Ingredients is working on an album,
so look out for that! He and Sarah spoke with me and told me where
all the facilities were in the house, offered me lemon squares and
set their couch up for me to sleep.
Tuesday 6/17 “The City Of Good Neighbors” with Tony
I
woke up and read “One”. A quote that stood out to me enough to
write in my notebook was:
“The truth lies waiting for those who wish
to find it”, which I agree with thoroughly! After some reading, I
had a few story ideas in my head. I ate a breakfast from the
miscellaneous bag of goodies that Mike had sent me to Buffalo with.
Eventually around midday Tony descended from the stairs, it was good
to see him after several years apart! We caught up for a while out
on his back porch in the too-generous sunlight, its always good to
know friends are doing well for themselves however distance your
lives become. He's a producer in a studio with the second singer
from the Goo Goo Dolls, whom I learned are Buffalo natives!
He
showed me his own excellent home studio in their basement as well. I
learned a few things about the area as we decided to go enjoy the day
before he had work at four. I could have guessed it based on my
experience the day before with all of the helpfulness but Buffalo is
considered “The city of good neighbors”, and Rick James hails
from there! We went to an immense old beautiful cemetery called
Forest Lawn, where even a pin drop could be heard. We examined the
graves and ornate mausoleums and commemorative statues and played a
little Frisbee, despite feeling sort of disrespectful whenever people
visiting relatives would walk by. We then ate Puerto Rican food at
Niagara Cafe, fried chicken and plantains that were excellent. I had
the Milkies' open mic in town at 8 and Tony had work so he dropped me
off nearby early. I wandered around until I found a nice clean
little cafe that felt a bit like a chain called “Coffee Culture”.
While waiting for the open mic to start, I hung out at Coffee
Culture, bought a drink and got some work done utilizing the wi-fi. I
read a few chapters of “One” and also finished a first draft of
my new song. I spoke to my Dad on the phone and also got an email
confirmation of an event that I'd be performing in a week at Beauty
Bar in Chicago!
Seven eventually rolled around, and I left Coffee Culture, not
without pocketing several honey packets from their Coffee decorating
station for the road! Milkies has a sort of 70's lounge vibe with
mirrors on the walls and carpet on the floor. I ended up being
remarkably early to the event and soaked in a place and wrote a poem
while I sat there called “Cultivating”, feeling particularly dour
about myself and a perceived path of romantic wreckage that lay in my
heart's wake for some reason. The open mic is Jam oriented and run
by an artist named Eddie. The open mic ended up being pretty barren,
with about fifteen people in the bar altogether. I performed “Work
In Progress” “Pennsylvanian Patriarch” and “Needle Kiss”
and a lot of people had nice things to say and eagerly took some
information from me and signed my mailing list. A handful of singer
songwriters performed, One young kid Kevin Allan was visiting his
cousins from Michigan was particularly heartfelt and talented in his
performance and we got to speaking for a while. Several of the
guitar players jumped up for a Jam once the thin open mic had
exhausted itself, Eddie a self-professed drum novice adequately
provided a beat for a blues jam that I ended up singing improvised
lyrics. It was a fun time, in between songs, I got a text from Tony
saying he was outside being that he was kind enough to pick me up! I
waved farewell to my new friends and musical mates and hopped in the
car with Tony. We chatted about music and listened to soul and R&B
on his little radio. We watched a few episodes of The Office until I
passed out on the couch, anticipating the 20 hour drive that would
take me to Atlanta.
We travel to seek new
experiences, and find so much comforting familiarity along the way,
It strikes me that the
more new places I see, the more I feel cozily at home in the world.
-AllOne
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