i have returned from atlanta to orlando. these 48 hours feel like far less, because of how many of them i spent awake, and disoriented my sleeping was upon my return. i may be getting too old for this kind of thing, but that won't keep me from trying.
so,
tuesday i woke at the tragic hour of 5am. we got on the road by about 6am, and other than the few hours between gainesville and the georgia border, i drove almost the entire way there and back (sara, though younger than me, was a sleepy little sister). we arrived in HOTlanta after noon, and our first order of business was to explore the
world of coca-cola. there, i felt shame to have abandoned my addiction. i mean, after all, this
brain tonic is specific for headache, relieves mental & physical exhaustion; how can i deny thee? the world of coke museum was okay, but maybe a little disappointing, seeing as it was mostly rooms full of vintage advertisements and not really
a factory like i had hoped. even the sampling rooms left a little to be desired (sure all-you-can-drink coke is a blessing)--epcot had the same (if not more) of the "foreign" soda samples last time i went.
afterwards, i called micah, and we made our way to
little 5 points. sara and i bumped into some orlando-friends outside of
junkman's daughter. we then did a quick bit of shopping, met up with micah and his friends (members of his jazz band and coworkers, but all in all a very eclectic group who thought
it was "hot" that us young ladies liked waits), got some vegetarian/mexican, and finally ended up at micah's apartment for the tom-waits-tour-caravan: 6 people crammed inside of a car, sara in my lap, bound for
the tabernacle (a converted african-church-turned-fantastic-venue in downtown atlanta).
we arrived at the venue around 5pm. we had heard, through rumors that swept through atlanta, that the line was insanely long, that there was high security, that you were escorted in and never given a ticket, etc. like everyone else, we had anxiety that perhaps our tickets didn't go through on ticketmaster
that fateful day; i was delighted when, after just 30 minutes of queue-waiting, we were called alphabetically and handed our tickets. sara and i made our way into
the tabernacle, waiting for the other shoe to drop. we later met up with our group--and asked why everyone was looking up towards the stairs, not at the (empty) stage where sara and i had strategically placed ourselves. "because this is the cotton club, the venue is through another set of doors," micah replied. the place was huge.
we finally got in and situated very near the stage, far left. we were essentially two "rows" deep, so much so that when tom waits finally came on stage, we were close enough to hear his finger-snapping. but i'm getting ahead of myself. we continued to wait for waits (!) inside, arm-to-arm with many
eccentric mustache-men and
music geeks (it was said, by one of the guys we were there with, that the crowd actually contained characters from some fictitious
choose your own adventure book, where you can see what type of music nerd you will become in your future). there, suddenly, i felt
very ignorant about music, as though i was there as a tourist, having heard a waits song in a movie and thinking he'd be "funky" to see live: it was that kind of crowd.
another few passed. waits was still nowhere to be seen (though we were close enough to spot the youngest waits kid offstage, waiting for dad). a man came out to make an announcement, that there was still a line around the building (! at 8:30!), and they wanted to get everybody in. at this point, i was just exhausted...from the drive, from standing, from the heat. it wasn't for another hour that tom finally came out, but when he did, i forgot all about the temperature and the pain.
...first off, the set was full of musical instruments of all kinds: drum-set far left (by us; waits' other son played them for the show) with a wooden marching drum connected, keyboards, a baby grand piano, several guitars, upright bass, some strange percussion instruments, etc. the center-piece was a collection of old phonograph horns (only cloth), which never were used but looked pretty fantastic. waits came out, entering through the tall back-curtain of the stage, where the footlights projected his mammoth shadow against the fabric--perfectly suited as the "backdrop" for the many strange positions he held while he sang. the band came out (larry taylor was noteworthy to the crowd but i don't know who he is), and so it began.
( complete setlist beneath... )suffice it to say there was a pretty good mix from all his LPs. two encores, lots off
real gone (hoist that rag, make it rain, day after tomorrow, don't go into that barn, etc.), some new stuff (or stuff i wasn't familiar with), "house where nobody lived" solo on the piano, "get behind the mule," "blue valentine," and "november," to mention a few. we were really close, too--i could see his laugh lines, the way his bottom-row of teeth jutted out as his sang in total discoordination with the rest of his face, the sweat and spit that flew off of him as he moved. regretfully, tom didn't play anything i was hoping for, but it was worth the experience of seeing him nonetheless.
after the show micah was pretty trashed (not sure how literally to take his offer of my sister, him and i "getting a room"), but we had already planned to drive home that night instead of blowing $100 on a hotel so close to FL. we stopped at a grocery store for some caffeine and snacks, and got on the road near midnight. i promised to do the driving that involved navigation (or changing roads), and sara was supposed to do the "straight-shot" of i-75. by 2:00am, i knew i was too tired to continue, so sara started...and i quickly realized she, too, was not ok to drive. we pulled over at a rest stop, dozed for 30 minutes, then tried again; ended up pulling over one last time for about an hour, and after that i was good to drive for the rest of the trip while sara slept the whole way home. this should serve as my reminder to
never rely on a second driver, and never bite off more more than i can drive myself, because people are, by and large, not the determined insomniac i am when it comes to road-trippin' (this used to happen with sasha, too, which was the worst when she had a manual/stick i couldn't drive). we arrived in orlando around 10am: 31 hours on 1 hour of sleep. after a shower and a bite to eat, i slept away the day yesterday (it's never enough), and am paying for it today.
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