OUR LIL' rabble of a rock 'n roll troupe are on tour in the US. It is, typically, a mix of the sublime and the infantile. The beauty and drudgery of travel, the majesty and profanity of performing. It keeps you thin, tired, and expectant. It's the Lost Highway.
Days off are a rarity, but more often than not I'll take those opportunities to visit sporting venues in whatever town I wake up in.
It's a break from pubs and noise, and they are often locations for awe and wonder; architecturally, historically, and on occasions, anthropologically. Nowt so queer as folk.
Today is Chicago, and when I wake post gig in a tangled torpor, it's only a stroll to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, that'll iron out my significantly creased body and mind.
As with any sport, I'd rather be playing it than talking about it, or watching, but baseball has always captivated me. When the Chappell brothers talked of their baseball coaching being complicit in their approach to cricket fielding regimes, I dove into it's history and procedures.
It's a beautiful game, occasionally frustrating and dull, but it's mixture of precision and power can be absorbing. It's not cricket, but....
The timing of our tour is unfortunate for one huge reason. It's finals time at home, and finding information or live scores, or, mercy me, televised games is perennially quixotic in extremis.
However, my default is to listen to radio broadcasts online. With world times as they are, I set myself a six pack and a smile in the early hours, soaking in the West Coast v Collingwood stoush the other night.
Vision would have been perfect, but enveloping myself in the familiar tones and terminologies of "expert" commentary had me aghast at modern technology, and at my powers of imagination. Because I was THERE baby...
I mention the Wrigley Field excursion as it stirred me into reflecting on footy. It is also the start of "football" season over here, and my hours in between flights, trains and soundchecks has been watching games of college ball, and the NFL.
And of course, listening in on the conversations in bars and fast food counters.
Conversations that have a "tone". Describing the tone has hitherto been difficult, as has how I find it differs from discussions on footy at home, or at a Chicago bar the other day when two dear friends, Paul and Dan, both musicians also with a night off, and our band met up to discuss the vagaries of the touring life, books, and inevitably, footy.
More often than not, the talk surrounding me about US football and baseball has been heavily statistical, anodyne and dry.
It is, perhaps, my non-interest in statistics and limited true knowledge of both sports that inform that judgment, but what has hit me consistently is the true "big" moments in both have been spaced apart by time as lengthy as Australian footy's goalmouth. And truly convivial conversations by fans of opposing teams are scarce.
I'm positing that given the vast majority of residents of the big cities go for the major geographically based team (save for Yankees/Mets, Cubs/ White Sox and a few others), but within the hour of meeting up at the aforementioned Chicago house of ill repute we had a high-spirited, passionate, jovial symposium in operation fleshed out by a Roo, a Crow, and a Lion (and don't you know i just love using THAT vernacular.....). Serving up highlights and follies with the rapidity of a Coney Island hot-dawg vendor.
Anyhoo, I'm based in Brooklyn for a week until my last show, and, as if lessons have not been learnt, a huge chunk of that time will be taken up searching for a joint to watch the upcoming preliminary finals. It's high farce. Many thanks to radio streams and afl.com.au's reliable ticker tape, but you've just gotta see this stuff.
The memories of the '94 Grannie watched in the lower east side of Manhattan, '97 in the Hollywood Hills, '98 in the south of France and the '99 in the Southern Stand only adding to the fervor and fabrication.
I need to discuss September travel with a manager.
Best,
Tim Rogers
