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,
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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