Over the Rhine Tour Diary
Dave Nixon (the Merch Guy)
Day Nine: December 14, 2000
Cleveland and Encores
I'm at the Symposium and it's the second song of the tonight's set, right on the heels of "Latter Days," the opener for every tour gig so far. In front of me is a wall of butts. A welter of people on the outskirts of the center tables extend all the way back to the edge of my merch table. Mid-show isn't a huge buying time, but for the few who do buy at this time, it would be almost impossible to reach me. This is a desperate hour: I can't sell and I'm forced to look at a row of butts. And now that the band has launched into "Sleep Baby Jane," they're all wiggling in unison. The view is more surreal than a Salvador Dali painting.
This is the tightest squeeze I've had for the whole tour: only inches to move around in on either side of the space I'm given to work with. Fortunately, everything is just a lean away. The gang was kind enough to bring me dinner from Maria's, an Italian restaurant just down the block. Linford also scored me a bottle of water and a pint of Guinness, so I'm set for the night. Let the games begin.
I wondered if I would grow tired of their music with these nocturnal shows strung together like Christmas lights, but the answer so far is no. This is good music and these are great people to travel with. I could say they're almost kind to a fault, but there is no fault in kindness. Their behavior isn't always saintly -- not that I needed convincing -- but their spirits are typically generous. E.g., this morning Linford, Karin, Jack and Spinner rose at 6 a.m. to make a 7 a.m. appearance on the TV show "Good Morning, Cleveland!" After less than four hours sleep they waited an hour in vain for a taxi and consequently missed the show. (Why the TV station didn't send someone to get them is beyond me.) What do you do? Well, go back to bed for certain, but that kind of interruption to sleep takes a toll on you, especially during a tour where good sleep is naturally scarce. But there was no whining afterwards. Later I asked Karin in the hotel room to sum up her feelings about the show that never was. There was no tirade, just the sole adjective: "Lame." Then later: "Okay, I've thought about it more and here's what I want to say (I think she realized her previous comment might make it to print): This reflects on the state of public transportation in Ohio." Aside from this official pronouncement, I didn't hear a sustained whine throughout the day about the lost sleep or lost opportunity. I think they have a decent ability to draw back and look at these fluctuations in a larger context.
When we woke up either late this morning or early this afternoon (after a while you just lose interest; you sleep until you wake or get woken up), we were surrounded by a plush, ankle-deep snow and a mostly deserted street. Individually or in small groups we went off in search of breakfast or lunch at some local diner. I found "The Shore," a cozy spot one block down, and chowed on three large blueberry pancakes, an order of hash browns, bowl of fruit, eggs and toast, juice and coffee. In the wait for my food, I struck up a conversation with the co-owner, a gregarious, cheerful Greek woman. I found out that she and her husband have run the diner for 17 years. For those 17 years she's worked 7 days a week. For 6 of those days each week she's put in 10 hours shifts, with a 5-hour shift on Sunday. That's 65 hours a week . . . in the same diner on the same unlovely street for 17 straight years. Assuming two weeks of vacation per year, she's spent 55,250 hours working alongside her husband and cultivating their little urban diner. And she's very happy. Just a little time with her made that evident.
I walked back to the bus in the snow afterwards thinking hard about this Greek woman's manifest cheerfulness and contentment. Right before boarding, some posters on the windows of a music store next to the Symposium caught my eye. Here was the offering. A poster for the band Incantation, featuring their CDs "The Infernal Storm," ""Onward to Golgotha," and "Forsaken Mourning." A poster for the band Morbid Angel and their CD "Gateways to Annihilation." A spread for Cryptopsy's new CD, "And Then You'll Beg." It showed the backside of a man on his knees chained by hand to railroad tracks. His head was thrown back in terror as a speeding train rushed toward him. After talking to the Greek woman, the macabre posters and dark CD titles look more than a little silly. I tried to imagine Incantation, Morbid Angel, and Cryptopsy working 65 hours a week in a cafe, maintaining smiles on their faces, but the picture dissolved quickly.
Today Big talked about heavy metal bands and country music. He's traveled extensively among both camps and seen each from the inside out. "If my daughter was 16 and asked to go to a concert, I'd rather let her go on the Warp Tour than see some redneck country show. Blue hair and tattoos are just for shock value, if ya ask me, but the people themselves aren't all that bad. Country music shows have way too much nudity and violence. Hell, I'm from West Virginia, but those redneck crowds are all into drinking, wrestlin' -- I mean wrasslin' -- and all their other shit, not doin' anything to better their minds." This is a serious, unguarded moment from a driver who normally loves to joke. Earlier he said that while we were asleep he was wearing sunglasses and a thong bikini while driving. Then later, after returning from the drugstore just down the street, he announced to said in mock astonishment, "That drugstore down 'round the corner? It's got @$!#?! paint! I thought I'd seen it all. I've been to all kinds of big music shows, driven all over the country, been to several NASCAR races, but a drug store with paint!? Hey, hon, I've got a little headache. Could you run down to the drugstore and pick me up some aspirin? And while you're at it, how 'bout two gallons of that latex paint."
Today Farns designed Christmas cards on his computer. One of them is a cartoon figure of Santa getting ready to go down a chimney. Red-eyed and smoking a doobie, he says, "Ho, ho, ho, Dude."
Alisha Merrick, wherever you are, Karin thanks you for the beautiful handmade necklace. She's shown it to everyone and it now hangs like mistletoe from the Christmas lights in the front lounge.
. . .