How much fun can you really have in the car? Depends on how many hours you've been trapped there... 

Why is this mouse holding a sausage? 

live at University of Wisconsin. 

The first and only picture ever taken where it looks like I am totally rocking out on the guitar. 

The lovely Wisconsin landscape...ah, cows. 

indy superman, alt-street-parking, and uncle bill

hello dear readers of the sometimes-in-session-blog,

this week finds us in new york city where, much to my amazement, double-parking is sometimes perfectly legal. on street cleaning days there is apparently alternate-side-of-the-street-parking (it has a much shorter name in real life, i just can't remember it right now) in which you are completely and totally allowed to box in your friendly neighbors so that street cleaners can make the city shine. you just park and leave your cell phone number (if you want) on the dashboard. this totally amazed me and completely confounded manuel, who says that in italy he has read about people who got shot for doing such a thing. forgot to leave a cell # on the dash, apparently.

last week at my show in indy, a car accident happened on the street *right* outside the window of the cafe where we were playing. our friend darren went to go check on the situation and after an hour still hadn't come back. when we went outside, he was nowhere to be seen. about 90 minutes later he returned, rubbing his wrists. apparently the guy who started the 4-car chain collision took off running from the cops, who pursued. darren saw that they would never catch him, so he took off down a side street to cut him off. meanwhile, the police reinforcements were called and, seeing darren close in on our ne'er-do-well, mistook him for an accomplice who was also running. the officer pointed his taser at both of them and told them to get down, which of course they both did. it took almost an hour to get sorted out who was who, and darren spent that hour cuffed on the curb. actually, he spent part of it on his face with a foot in his back - the second half was spent on said curb.

then ohio, where we had good listeners, and pennsylvania, where we had good food and good, if very very few, listeners. a rough patch, ohio and penn. but onto the glories of nyc/brooklyn, where my friend vicki stuffs us with food and takes us to all the cool places, where pete's candy store rocked as a venue, and where we encountered uncle bill. my brother took us to a bagel shop/deli today for lunch and this adorable old man who literally shuffled when he walked made my sandwich...he cut my pickle into the shape of a heart and said, "ah, will you look at what happens to me when a pretty girl asks for a pickle!" he had this great older-guy-new-yawk accent that i loved. he was probably 80.

so we made a lap of town, so to speak, and a few hours later we were waiting on the corner of the street right outside the deli when uncle bill (that's what his nametag said) came out. i waved at him and he came over to say hi and see where we were headed. he ended up walking us to a nearby park, very very slowly, telling us about his great-great grandma, who was italian, and who apparently learned only enough english to curse. he then invited us to come to the deli for breakfast tomorrow and said the house specialty would be on him - a bagel with lox, eggs, and onions. when i translated those ingredients for manuel he turned a little green, so we may not be taking uncle bill up on the offer after all.

does anyone need a semi-permanent house-sitter? this is a career i am very very interested in, especially if you live in NY or Minneapolis, MN. :)
show in Brooklyn on Thursday, come on out and say hi.
love
vanessa

toll booth guy

I remembered what was funny.
I was trying to drive and eat a gyro at the same time (bad idea) and when we stopped at one of many tollbooths outside of Chicago (SO many tolls in Illinois), I had a napkin tucked into my shirt and my gyro in my lap so that I would have my hands free to pay.
I gave the guy my $2 and asked for a receipt (because I'm a good little bookkeeper) and the guy gave me a 2000-watt smile and said, "I ALWAYS give receipts to pretty girls with gyros in their laps! There ain't no need to even ask!"
Now THAT'S good customer service.

32,855 and counting - Indianapolis, IN

hello!

all week long i have been wanting to write in my blog...finally, i have exciting stories to tell! but the stories had all week to ferment in my muddled brain and now most of them have vanished or lost their original luster (what was funny about that guy at the toll booth anyhow?). but i will press onward and regale you all with many a tall tale of one girl's trip through the midwest...

1. Little Films is out! But you may have already known that.
2. Colette and I parted ways. It was a terrible, sad, painful separation, but she just couldn't handle my needs. I needed SPACE and all she could give me was love, which sometimes isn't enough.
3. So now I have Charlotte. I'll post pictures of her later. She is a Honda CR-V and holds ALL of our equipment, 3 guitars, 200 t-shirts, 300+ CDs, 3-4 suitcases, one guitar amp, and 3 people...plus gets great gas mileage to boot. Hard to beat that. She and I are getting along well (though of course this is still the honeymoon phase - we'll see).
4. New website! It'll be up by the end of the week and is too damn cool for its own goood.

This week we have been to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and back to Illinois. It was brutal but fun. Fun only because Heather and Manuel are with me and we spent most of that week cracking each other up, doing stupid stuff like playing the alphabet game (which apparently I have too many rules for - doesn't the word have to START with the letter and not just contain it?) and generally being nutty. When we got really really tired we started talking to inanimate objects in the car and on the 12-hour drive to Chicago we even taped a strand of my hair to the air-conditioning vent in my car, just to watch her blow in the wind. She's actually still there and we pet her like a dog or cat but she hasn't yet been named. I've always wanted a tour pet and now I think I have one. Yes, I realize we are insane.

The shows have all gone really well too. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, especially in Manhattan, KS (and thanks to Jake Fisher at Wildcat 91.9 for having us on air and promoting the heck out of our show). Amy Lotsberg in Minneapolis is the absolute bomb and we love her for letting us stay at her beautiful Victorian home - same goes for the Koenig family in KS, who had no problems with us arriving at 2 am one night and leaving 2 days later at 6 am. The McDonough family also wins a major prize for putting together an amazing house concert, providing excellent wine, and putting us in the car with homemade dessert.

Minneapolis is, as it turns out, a way cool city. Aside from being the home of Target and the The Jayhawks, it is entirely lovely, full of beautiful parks, lakes, trails, museums, and darn good food. May I most highly recommend Butter (a bakery and coffeeshop) the next time you are there? Really, we were all so impressed with that city.... if it weren't for the unGodly cold I bet I could even see myself living there (if I can see myself living anywhere).

Shows this week are in Indianapolis and Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Easy cheesy. Oh yeah, we bought cheese curds in Wisconsin (why do they squeak?) and took pictures next to a giant mouse holding a sausage. Good times.

Check out Chris Trapper. He is a great musician and super kind - we opened for him on Friday night and I really enjoyed his set. I got one of his CDs, "Songs from the Drive-in," and it is beautiful. www.myspace.com/christrapper

I'm out, folks. Thanks again to everyone who has come to the shows and made us feel like this is what we are supposed to be doing. More news from further on down the road.
lots of 28 mpg love,
vanessa