62) Coming Uppance

A new combo: humble and deserving.

This morning I woke up in my own bed, with the combined 30 lb weight of two purring cats balanced on my torso. I have a bad chest/head cold/cough, so it was both torture and delight. They missed me and they love me—whoever thinks cats are indifferent is wrong. Mine are obsessed with me, and not just 'human can opener’ obsessed. If you saw them with me vs how they are with anyone else on the planet, several of whom have fed them, you’d see this is true.

The last thing I felt like doing was going out, but a car was coming to fetch me for the British Fashion Awards, where Debbie Harry was doing a surprise appearance for Gucci. I got ready in 30 minutes—arriving with Blondie/Sex Pistols bassist and solo rocker extraordinaire Glen Matlock—where it was obvious most people had put much further consideration into their choice of attire. “I am a rock star” was my inner mantra, because lemmetellya, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of beautiful, perfect looking people in outfits, hair and makeup that ranged from exquisite and elegant to racy—although revealing one’s entire body may put racy in the prudish realm—to the outrageously bizarre and avant garde, haute couture. I loved it and cannot recall experiencing anything like this event. I’m not a fashion aficionado, although I do have the occasional opinion.¹

As I’ve posited many times in the two years since starting this Substack, I don’t want to write journal-day-to-day-I-did-this-then-I-did-that entries. But I’m overdue on getting this out and it’s been lots of motion in lots of directions so part of this dispatch is reflective and part of the process of changing directions again.

I made this tour video for the guys, it’s 4 minutes and captures so much. A labor of love and a memento of this incredible experience. Glen’s band went onstage to “Green Onions” by Booker T & the MGs each night, so that was my choice of soundtrack. And every night he closes the encore with the Small Faces “All or Nothing,” bringing me onstage to join the band. It was my favorite part of each gig.

More about the solo aspects forthcoming, but I think I’ll always love being a band member more than anything.

Next up are some bits ‘n pieces I wrote while we were out:

I thought I’d have some down time on this tour to keep up with writing, but it’s been a schedule much more suited to a 25 year old me. I’m keeping up—we’re all keeping up, but the only down time is when I crawl into the hotel bed, arrange my coat over the duvet for some extra warmth and get as much sleep as possible with the intermittent bathroom trips and parched dryness that the heating systems blow into the rooms.

Our daily drives might be considered grueling except for the conversation, company and scenery. I’m happy in my middle seat, front row of the van, rolling through stunning countrysides, the hills rising and falling, waves of grass, decorated with sheep looking like cockleburrs Velcro’ed to the fields. A montage of our pit stops would show travel-brochure-perfect English and Scottish hamlets for pub lunches, generic service areas with a maze of chain establishments, and funky local truck stops which are nothing like American truck stops; No gimme caps, plastic religious paraphernalia, or trashy silk screened slogans on T shirts.

The jokes and laughs are typical band-in-a-van fare—in my experience, which now includes being the only woman with six Englishmen—touring band camaraderie is virtually identical no matter who the components are. I suppose there are bands with bummer members but I’ve never had to deal with that. It’s like an unspoken, shared agreement that no matter how tired, hot, cold, cramped, repetitive, problematic or boring a day on the road can be, we’re all conscious of the fact that we signed up for this and feel lucky that our job, our work, is rock and roll. And that means when it’s a tour bus or when it’s a van, when it’s a Holiday Inn Express or when it’s a Ritz Carlton.

I’m having the best time—I want to say beyond what I imagined, but the truth is I was too terrified to imagine much. I honestly didn’t know how it would feel, how it would be, how I would pull anything off, how I’d fit in. I could hope for the best, but my imagination conjured nothing. Playing my set is the price of admission to get to hang out with these guys, be one of the guys. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing and craving rock and roll male energy. My USA friend circle always had a good share of musician guy pals, but here in the UK, along with all the other variety of friends I left behind, I’ve been bereft. Within days I felt like I had six brothers, it’s a delicious luxury, and nails the fact once again, how big a part that longing for family drives my love of being in a band. It’s “All I Ever Wanted”—>(my book in case you really have no idea why I would put that in quotes)—> this was a strong theme that emerged in memoir writing, and it’s never left. Some might want to be famous, some might be creatively driven, some might just wanna rock—but me, I want connection, I want family, I want to belong.

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I have traveled to some far flung places. Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. I love Wales. I love how the language hates vowels and is partial to the letter W. The clouds in Wales were unlike any I’ve seen anywhere before. Misshapen, dense streaks overlapping and merging into layers, like they were messily folded into a big sky drawer. Harrowgate, York, Stoke and Grimsby, Buckley and more well known destinations like Bristol and Birmingham. I’ve been coming to England as far back as I can remember, but always to stay with or visit family, so my geographical knowledge has always been limited. Always, of course, there’s the history; vertical slots carved into the Medieval York arches, and I’m imagining archers and crossbows flinging bolts and arrows during uprisings.

The climactic peak was of course the last show in London. I had ten family members and a couple of my favorite people I’ve met here show up and support me. It was one of the best gigs I’ve ever done, for completely new and different reasons than all the other best gigs I’ve ever done.

The way I handled being onstage by myself worked. I accepted however it felt and didn’t pretend that anything different was going on. I didn’t “act as if,” I didn’t “fake it til I make it.” Most of the time it felt both humbling and deserved and that’s sort of the best combination and part of the newness and difference from my prior decades of experience. There’s much to reflect on, but one thing’s clear; I want to make a new record and want to continue to play on my own. 2025 will be a coming uppance, one I’ve worked for and risked familiarity and security for.

photos from Glasgow by Christopher Hogge

One thing I would say sometimes, when it would just pop out—I didn’t stick with any format or set list—was this: I am doing this, alone, for the first time. I’m doing it at 65 years old, an age where the world sometimes makes us feel as though we should be getting smaller, winding down. Moving from your comfort zones is a way to upset the notion of aging. We still want to be thrilled, to be brave, to be proud and to challenge ourselves. And the room would roar. Every time.

I wrote a few dispatches ago “there are beginnings here.” I’m encased, surrounded, by a prevailing sense that this coming year will be one to prosper in. As we hunker down and tend to our individual self-care, our friends, family and community in this bizarre reality that humankind has somehow created—I have to believe that we aren’t just blindly careening into oblivion.

And even if we are, there’s music, art, literature and love to be made on the way, yes?

The wind is howling outside, the fire is burning, the cats are happy. I’ve strung lights and bought a black Christmas tree and made a garland out of rhinestone safety pins along with some more lights and I’m loving being home. But I leave in two days for LA, for some necessary time with my beloved friend. Returning, I have Audrey coming and holidays, then it’s a quick trip to Texas and another trip to LA, for the same reasons as this one. Everything interferes with creative pursuits and I try not consider whether I’ll get to them—the way the losses pile up and the time bleeds out, I feel it’s far too grandiose to assume I will. Sacrifice is noble and right and creativity is a luxury and a privilege: this is my opinion, one that could easily be argued and debated, but we each pick our moral compasses and depend on them to guide us.

I was thinking about details. They swing both ways; can bore you to tears; bury a listener or a reader with pointless excess to a death by insignificant, excruciating minutiae. Or, in the right measure and placement, details will add a sharpness that cuts through a perfunctory, polite attention and hold the same listener or reader in a rapt focus. I’m not sure if it’s a talent, if it’s something that can be developed, or if it’s an innate gift that makes a consummate storyteller. Why is it that one can describe something using words adjectives and have it be meaningless and boring? I’m thinking they need to conjure curiousity—the details themselves need to have a story or evoke a story.

When I was writing my book, I’d start to describe someone the way we think we are supposed to; height, hair color, what they did, what they wore. And then I read Dylan’s “Chronicles” and I had to go back, to all my descriptions of people and make them better. I was so struck by how he could bring a character in his story to life on the page. I don’t have his book with me—it’s in a box with tons of other books in Texas— or else I’d give an example. I suppose I could use one from my book but that seems weird.

“The devil’s in the details”

It’s a fantastic phrase, or if you prefer, idiom, isn’t it? And it’s even better that it was lifted from the original “God is in the details.” Interesting that the devil version won out over the God one.

Anyway.

I’ve had a lot of new Substack follower and subscriber notifications. So I felt the pressure was on to make this a doozy, but I’m a little spent and empty while simultaneously full and flush so it is what it is. I hope you’ll hang with me and I’m so happy to have readers and interest and a community here. I appreciate every single subscriber, share, notice, mention.

1. Like who on earth decided that “barrel pants” were a good idea? (If you have some and love them, that’s cool, I’m just baffled.)