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Right after work on Friday, June 8th I set out for Florida. I was breaking up my drive to Daytona Beach by stopping in Jacksonville, my hometown, for the night. My plan for Saturday morning was to have breakfast with a high school friend with whom I had recently reunited, visit my parents’ graves at the cemetery in Jacksonville and then head for Daytona. I got to my Motel 6 of choice around 11:00pm and all of the above went according to plan. It was really great to see “Jacksonville Lori” again even though my other high school friend, Nancy, wasn’t able to drive up and join us (I have two good friends in Florida named Lori so I’m avoiding confusion here… Red Elvises Lori lives in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area).
The drive to Daytona Beach was very pleasant and the skies were sunny and blue. It was going to be a good day. Following my mapquest directions, I reached the hotel sometime between 2:00pm and 3:00pm. I saw Chris Mundwiler’s car – he’s the one who had organized this show and found us the great hotel where we would relax and hang out till time to go to the Bank and Blues Club. Soon the rest of the comrades were there – Lori from St. Pete along with her friend Marisol and Rebecca from Key West with her sweet little dog Lilly. We were in Lori’s and Marisol’s room, out on the balcony with our alcoholic beverages, when a familiar-looking big red van pulled into the parking lot. The passengers opened the doors and looked up at us. We showed them our beers and said we’d already started partying. “Now you have to catch up!” I called down to them.
We all gathered in Chris’ suite to hang out for awhile and enjoy the beautiful afternoon. Most of us, except Igor who wasn’t drinking for most (all?) of that weekend, had beer or mojitos or Bacardi Limon, Lori’s liquor of choice. We had music and food and alcohol and Red Elvises and gorgeous sunny weather at the beach…who could ask for more? It sure didn’t suck! I remember that afternoon in a bit of a blur, actually, because I think I was too excited and happy to relax very much.
At one point I had to drive to a bank and then stop at a store to buy some crackers Chris needed, so I did that. When I got back from that errand (or maybe these things happened in the reverse order, the sun must have gotten to me because now I’m not too clear on the details!) I wanted to get my CDs from my car but couldn’t find my keys. Trying not to panic, I remembered that when Rebecca had arrived I had gone outside with the small dog carrying case for Lilly (so cute, it looks like a bowling bag and she fit perfectly in it!) and we had put our stuff down on a concrete surface on one side of the hotel in order to put Lilly in the carrier. So I thought maybe I’d left my keys down there. When I got out there I did find some keys! But they weren’t mine, they were Rebecca’s! Good thing I went out there! I took them up to her. The only thing was, mine were still missing… but back upstairs when I looked in my purse again I found them in an inside pocket where they never normally are…just a little strangeness mixed in with all the good stuff. So then I went to get my CDs to share, and after that just tried to relax. Most of the girls put on bikinis but I opted not to scare anybody by showing that much skin! We ate cold cuts and just hung out, and that’s where I gave Oleg his early birthday present, the big red furry stuffed crawdaddy that made me think of him the second I saw it. I figured it could double as a pillow in the van, since, of course, anything given to any of them on the road has to travel well in the van until they get home.
Later on, most of the band members left to go relax in their rooms before time to go to the Bank & Blues Club. Everybody just kind of did their own thing. Rebecca went down to the beach and called me to come down there too… “Bring beer…and matches,” she requested. I poured some beer into a plastic cup to take down but couldn’t find the matches anywhere. I finally made it down to the sand and found her sitting on a towel in her green swimsuit. I knew I’d forgotten something! I had no towel! So, made bold by beer at that point, I just yanked up my long white gauzy hippie skirt and sat down on the sand, forgetting that the combination of sand and underwear is usually not a marriage made in Heaven. When Rebecca went down to the water she had to walk past two cute guys playing catch with a football and one of them spoke to her. “I like you,” he said. Then he looked in my direction and called out “And I like you! Do you like me?” I laughed and called back, “Yeah, you’re hot!” Life is so simple at the beach… and you can’t take anybody too seriously there.
Soon we went back to the hotel, stopping by the pool to try to wash off some of the sand with the outdoor shower thingy there. I didn’t want to get my clothes wet so I didn’t get quite all the sand off either, but it helped a little.
I kept losing track of everyone and we all kept scattering all over the place, it seemed. It was a crazy afternoon of running around and calling everyone all the time, it seemed, to figure out where everyone else was – except for the band; we knew they were resting – and what people were doing. Finally though, it was time to get ready for the show.
Rebecca and I were going to go the Bank & Blues together but then I needed to bring the merchandise I’d brought down there in my car, so we ended up taking two cars. For the past couple of years I’ve had one of Oleg’s red and yellow flowered suitcases – the last surviving one -- in my possession. At first it was full of CDs to fill orders with, but eventually I got tired of unzipping it all the time so now I have a big wire storage rack in my room that holds nearly all the merchandise I have on hand. The suitcase only had a few things in it, so I decided that would be the most logical way to transport the t-shirts Igor had asked me to bring down. That and a really big box I also had, plus another box of CDs. So I was returning the suitcase to its rightful owner, and as it turned out, not a moment too soon, because one of their merchandise suitcases broke a zipper that night! So that worked out very well and they were quite happy to have that suitcase back. I thought I’d miss it but actually now I have a little more space in my room so it’s all good. So I added the merch I’d brought to what was at the table. Lori and Chris, assisted by Marisol, were handling the selling that night. I love selling but I also love running around and dancing and taking pictures, so it was a really fun night. I pitched in a tiny bit with watching the table near the end of the show. We all had a good time that night I think.
I was dancing when a familiar guy ran over to me. “Do you remember me? I was Borat!” he said. Yes, I certainly did remember him! Last October when I won the Halloween costume contest at that very club, this guy, dressed up as Borat, had been Second Runnerup. It was lots of fun to see him again. I danced with him and his friend, all at the same time, or tried to (I readily admit I don’t have that much rhythm!), and when I looked up at the stage Igor looked like he was laughing at us. A couple of other people there also said they remembered me from October, so that was sweet.
The band sounded wonderful and played with tons of energy. I didn’t write down any of the songs but they did just about all the ones you’d expect, plus “Burning For You” that I had practically begged Igor for at the hotel that afternoon. I’ve finally learned how to shoot little videos with my digital camera, a skill everyone else with a digital camera has known how to do since dirt was invented, I think. So I did that with “Burning For You,” just for my own personal enjoyment. The sound on my little camera doesn’t do too well so I’d never want to share it with anyone, even if I could figure out how to upload such a huge file. But it’s nice to be able to more or less hear the song for now, until they record it. Oleg told me to go up to the balcony and get some shots so I did, but the lighting wasn’t too kind up there so actually those I took on the floor turned out better. It was fun toddling up and down the stairs there in my heels, though. It’s amazing how beer makes a person fearless sometimes!
It was a great show and well worth the long drive. I even met a couple of guys for future Fan of the Month interviews and managed to take one picture of each of them with Beth before filling up my 1mg camera card. You can see Jeff’s photo with Beth in this month’s Fan of the Month feature. The band played three sets there, to everyone’s great enjoyment, and then I think a few of us had tired feet. We went back to the hotel and hung out till all hours eating oysters and the biggest shrimp I’d ever seen…they were the size of silver dollar pancakes, at least! Pretty amazing; Chris outdid himself on that spread! By the end of the night Oleg was, well, so full of beer that he only had one eye open, yet we were still drinking. Finally though, it was time to seek some sleep.
The next day we were all stirring by check out time and were all outside by the van at the time the guys had said they were going to leave. We all went to eat together. When we got to the Chinese buffet Oleg’s GPS had directed us to, though, we found it was closed. Oh no! Where to go next? We ended up at an IHOP restaurant, after a couple of wrong turns had us turning around – van and trailer and about three other cars containing Rebecca, Lori, Marisol and me. Chris wasn’t there by then because he’d had to leave early that morning to take Elena to the airport in Orlando to catch a flight to Russia. With eight people we filled two tables at IHOP. Oleg, Igor, Rebecca (with Lilly smuggled discreetly in her new dog carrier bag on a chair next to Rebecca) and I were at one table and Adam, Beth, Lori and Marisol were at the other one across from us. We talked and ate and it was lots of fun.
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After breakfast, or lunch if you go by the time, it was that time again… time to say goodbye to the band. Once again, they had to head south while I had to go north. Rebecca was going to see the show that night since they were playing at a place about twenty miles from her mother’s house. But everyone else had to go home. We took some pictures and shared hugs all around. I knew I’d see the band again in two days in Charlotte but didn’t know when I’d see my friends Lori or Rebecca again (probably October). I followed Rebecca and the van for a little while but then realized they actually weren’t going to the road I needed to reach to get back to I-95, so I had to turn around and go back the other way so I wouldn’t get too mixed up or end up in Ft. Pierce! This van following could get to be addictive!
Well anyway, I had a really great time and was glad I went down for that show and weekend partying. It was great and I look forward to doing it again.