Austin360 blogs > The Personals road diary > Archives > 2006 > June > 13 > Entry
Chefs! Sand-mud! Fist!
GREEN BAY: I totally forgot to mention a key Ponderosa moment in the last post. This came after a somewhat lengthy discussion in which all the members of the touring version of The Personals agreed that there is no way in the world anyone was actually “cooking” the “food” in the kitchen of the Pondo — if they had a “kitchen” at all. Surely, we decided, there is a rather giant freezer full of boxes of “steaks” and each box is labeled “rare,” “well-done,” etc. and when someone orders such a “steak,” a Pondo employee reaches into the corresponding freezer box, pulls out a slab of meat with the appropriate amount of redness to it, and flings it in a microwave. Yep, we were certain that was how it was going down behind the curtain. Hilarity ensued, then, when Adam looked up not long after the freezer-box/microwave agreement and saw a guy who — even to those of us who had spent a lifetime total of 30 minutes here — appeared to be a definite Ponderosa regular. “Man, I bet the chefs panic when they see that guy coming,” Adam said. And I almost sprayed him with my Sprite. “CHEFS!?!?” I said. “What chefs!?!? Are you seriously picturing guys in puffy white hats back there?” We spent several minutes laughing and pretending to talk like French chefs throwing frozen dinners in microwaves in the back of a Pondo in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It almost made the scary food worth it.
KANSAS: Somewhere between Wichita and Lawrence, we stopped at El Dorado Lake. We had almost no driving to do that day, so we made the most of it. We bought floaties at a Walgreens, and Adam was nice enough to let me have the yellow (our favorite color and, thus, the official color of The Personals). The floaties did present a challenge for him, inasmuch as chain-smoking and raft-inflating don’t really mix. But he survived. (I turned out to be just as bad at deflating my raft at the end of the day. Toby eventually took over to help me. I think subconciously I just didn’t want to leave the lake.) Anyway, as I said in a previous entry, the experience was glorious. For a long time, we had the entire lake to ourselves. Maybe that’s because most people in the heartland don’t want to take their changes with swimming in sewage. I say this because while driving through the park, trying to find the best area for swimming, there were signs directing people to various campgrounds and trails. When we finally saw a sign for a “swim beach” it was listed with only one other item — the “dump station.” The arrows were pointing the exact same way. Awesome! We would be swimming at a dump station, apparently. And when we got to the swim beach, the shoreline was lined with a mysterious, industrial-looking yellow hose. If I grow a third eye or flippers in the coming weeks, I think we’ll know why. (We now refer to restrooms as the “dump station,” by the way.)
So, eventually people started to show up at the lake, mostly families with loud, cranky kids. I did pick out one cute little girl right away who looked about first grade age (the grade I teach). I love this age. The kids are game for all kinds of ridiculous hijinx. I was on my back on my raft and I asked her some questions — yes, she was 6 and would be in 1st grade in the fall (I rule at the Which Kid Is Six? game!). She held up a handful of muddy sand, grinned a proud, snaggle-toothed grin and exclaimed, “Sand-mud!” “Oh, cool,” I said. “Where’d you get that?” “Down here!” she said, “In this spot!” Kids do love mud. I asked her what she was going to do with the sand-mud and when she didn’t know, I suggested that I was in need of a mud wrap. She put in on my stomach and we both laughed a bunch. “Have you considered a career in massage?” I asked her. She smiled and started karate chopping my belly button. I’m sure the guys, who were reading at a picnic table a ways from the beach, were thinking something along the lines of, “What is Erin doing with that kid? She is so weird! We would not let her come on tour with us if she didn’t, ya know, book the thing and sell the merch and stuff.” As the little girl and her mom were leaving, I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. “A teacher!” she said, and my heart got big. Then she grabbed her towel, flug it over her shoulder in a dramatic fashion and added, “A VAMPIRE TEACHER!!” Rad.
NASHVILLE: I learned something in Music City, USA. And that something is: The Personals are not the only band obsessed with VH1’s genius show “Supergroup.” Thank god! Have you seen this display of weekly half-hour awesomeness? It’s five washed-up rock dudes, forced to live in a house, have their lives taped, to see what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. No, I mean, what happens when five washed-up rock dudes try to make a band in less than two weeks! And it rules! Sebastian Bach, Ted Nugent (who talks that way even when buying socks!), Scott Ian, Jason Bonham (whose comparitively legitimate band is currently Foreigner!), and Evan Seinfeld (of course, the lamest, least-known member of the band is the bassist … and if you can find a rocker more in need of an alias, let me know). Anyway, although it was totally worth it to see Kristen and share the tour with her, the Nashville show had not been our favorite. There were no free drinks for the band and playing anywhere on a Monday night is not ideal. Travis Nelsen had even warned us (and this is a direct quote from a saved e-mail): “No one will come to your show in Nashville, but you get to say you played there.” Lamest of all, when we went next door to what appeared to be a decent bar with Austin-style patrons (tattoos, piercings, Betty Page bangs, etc.), three well shots were $19. I know! Crazy! But still, after we played we ended up back at that bar. And when I walked in, members of the other bands from our show were down the bar from me, clearly talking about “Supergroup.” This made me instantly happy, like when you make a friend who likes yellow almost as much as you do, when all your life it seemed like the world was full of people who like blue and red. (My students do not count! They are always trying to say their favorite color is yellow because they like me and/or want me to give them candy. I see through their ruse.) But I digress. I slid down the bar and was all, “Supergroup rules!” The band guys concurred and we all shouted “FIST!” (This was the supergroup’s name for a couple episodes.) We raised our hands, fingers spread, and tried to recite the supergroup motto through drunken laughter: “Five fingers coming together make one FIST!” As Sebastian Bach says, a name like Skid Row doesn’t come along every day. ;)
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