Southeastern Tour Set to Begin

And we're off...almost. Before we leave on our 2-week drive to Florida, we have some logistics to sort out. By "some" I mean "an unbeleivably overwhelming amount." However, we're accustomed to that. We have to send CDs out to the radio stations near the gigs. We have to line up 11 hotels. We have to pay next month's bills this month. The car is at the car spa, getting a mud bath, facial, and tune-up befitting its 100,000 mile status. It's going to take a little longer than usual because they're breaking ground for the Annie Raines wing on the service station.

We're trying to use up all the milk, eggs, and bread - but not too soon. It's no fun living out of a suitcase before you've left home. There are stockpiles of cat food to buy and multiple notes for the house sitters. We have ordered boxes of CDs to bring on the road with us but have no idea at this point if they will arrive before we leave. We need to get the emailer out to the 900 people on our email list (thank you again for switching over!). We're trying to fill dates on our next three tours this spring and we're already several weeks behind, losing out on tens of dollars worth of work to cleverer, better organized musicians and booking agents. All this and a million more things not fit to mention, yet somehow, I don't feel I can elicit any sympathy from you, dear reader, since your eye has settled on one word in this narrative. Your mind has affixed itself to it and there will be not one ounce of sympathy for poor Paul and Annie. The word? Florida. Every New Englander reading this is bristling at our arrogance in even mentioning the F-word. "Yeh goin' to Flahrida? You ahsholle! I gotta stay heah ran' fveeze my bahlls aff!" is a typical response heard around Bahstin, or even the Greateh Bahstin Arier. I don't want to dwell on my hometown. It's just a town like any other, somewhere to grow up, a place where old friends try to remember your name.