Do the Nooget, do the Nooget tonight!!!

Thus ending, for now, my tour of duty as a road musician.  The end.  But seriously, does anybody know where we left off?  In my defense, the last three weeks of tour we didn’t have free interwebs, we took 2 vacations, and the place we live now has no interwebs either (pronounced: i-ther), so it has taken me a moment to get back to reality and to writing.  So stop yelling.  Jeez.

 

Let’s hit the last-month-of-tour-highlight-reel shall we?  I’ve had to bring up the old itinerary to jar my memory so we’re going to be event spelunking together!  Exciting, no?

 

From Nampa we headed back to the west coast, again.  For those of you keeping track we have now crisscrossed our great nation at least three times.  If I think about it, which I can’t because it brings on a facial tic, it may be closer to four or five times.  We cross into Oregon.  My first time in this beautiful state.  It is number 48 in my travels and 47 that I have performed in.  Yippee. 

 

We played Salem, it rained muchly.  From there we headed back down the coast to Sacramento for a night and on to San Luis Obispo.  Another first visit to these two cities.  Sacramento had a good vibe and good food.  And beer.  Went to a local microbrewery.  Very nice and a block away from the Governator’s mansion.  We were going to swing by and say hello and perhaps share a laugh over the ridiculous nature of the fact that a be-steroided action star was the best choice for a majority of Californians to run there fair state which, by the way, has the 8th largest economy in the world.  IN THE WORLD!!!!  

 

San Luis Obispo was very pretty.

 

We then headed up to Bremerton WA, across the sound from Seattle.  Another first.  Real pretty like.  Again, we had friends in that very town and this worked greatly to the advantage of our sanity.  They came and saw the show and we stayed the night with them.  The next day, whilst the rest of the company started a 3 day 1500 mile trek to our next gig in Santa Fe, NM, we boarded the ferry to Seattle.  Another beautiful journey.  

 

We stayed with other friends there for a couple of days and got to explore the city a bit.  We went to the famous Pike’s Place Market, drove by the Space Needle, and ate more amazing food.  I dig Seattle.  My wife had been there several times as it was the “big city” kids in her Montana hometown dreamed of running away to.  

 

We flew to Albuquerque and took a shuttle to Santa Fe still arriving a full day ahead of the rest of the cast.  We enjoyed the best vegetarian Mexican food I have ever had that evening.  They had an actual dedicated veggie section to their menu.  This is unheard of and I offer suffer for want of a truly vegetarian enchilada or tamale.  They tend to sneak lard into a lot of their food.  Which my wife and countless friends argue that this addition is what makes the food delicious.  A battle for another day.

 

That brings us to the final hell week of this mammajamma.  Follow closely.  Santa Fe, NM to Cheyenne and Gillette, Wyoming.  Back to Greeley, CO.  Then 600 miles back to close to where we just were 4 days prior in Alto, NM.  This drive was also fun as it was my wife’s, our MD’s, and our assistant company manager/swing’s birthday.  It was an overnight venture and we arrived in Alto at about noon.  We were sharing our hotel and indeed the town with a full compliment of biker/musical theater fans.  Yes, there was a bike rally in this town.  What could mix better than a tired bus load of “entertainers” (shall we say) and copious chapters of Hell’s Angels from across the nation? Went to a local steakhouse for the birthday kids and were nearly turned away for not wearing our leathers.  Kickass salad bar though.  Who says H.A.’s don’t need there veggies? 

 

The final push into the beautiful, luxurious, clean-air-having, no-noise-making, no-you-don’t-get-per-diem-cause-we’re-gonna-give-you-this-card-that-gurantees-you-have-to-eat-here-so-we-don’t-lose-money-on-this-venture, NOOGET* Hotel and Casino in beautiful we-wish-we-were-as-cool-as-Reno Sparks, Nevada!!

 

*name has been changed

 

Yes folks, ten fun filled days with twelve scaled down performances in a room where the act following yours is literally a prize sheep competition to an audience who really can’t wait to get back to the Wizard of Oz slot machine.  

 

If it sounds as though I am a bit jaded towards the Nooget, it is because over the course of those ten days, I had an affair with the Top Gun slot machine and Maverick broke this guy’s heart.  Again and again.  The problem with the Nooget, Sparks, and the whole deal was location.  There was literally nothing else to do but hang out in the casino and lose money.  Of course, that is our fault as well because we could have gotten up and gone places with friends with rental cars but the night time, that fickle mistress, sucked many of us in, over and over and over. And over.  When you have to work for 90 minutes a day, 2 hours if you have to put on a costume and makeup (which clearly for the drummer is a must), you need the other 22 and a half hours to blow off steam.  But we’re talking 6 months on the bus kinda steam.  Get it?

 

In all, the Noog as the hipsters call it, wasn’t such a bad ending to the story.  The “Star Card” (seriously) had more that enough credit on it for food and drinks.  The restaurants weren’t half bad, and the steakhouse was amazing.  Which is weird to say as a militant vegetarian but they had a top five of a lifetime mac and cheese there and did asparagus up right yo. The staff was generally very friendly and happy to have us there.  If nothing else, we can all say we’ve made it to Broadway as that is how the show was billed at the Noog.  Not entirely certain of the legalities of such things but being thrust suddenly into a “Broadway Production” of our tired skit certainly added an extra spring in the weary company step.  Or maybe it’s because the “Broadway” version was cut to one act of ninety minutes.  Either way, feels good to be here…..

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~ by davejolley on July 12, 2009.