7. En Route to Ottawa: part ii

Thursday Doug had to stop at Staples to make some cd covers. Inside the wonderful stationary shoppe - Owen and I stumbled upon a ‘book
sale’. How appropriate of us to stumble upon a book entitled “1,001 Great Jokes
– from the delightfully droll to the totally tasteless” which we figured would
undoubtedly help us with the awkward silent pauses on stage. We paid a loonie –
no tax – for it and the money went to the Special Olympics. Turns out it’s one
of the raunchiest, dirtiest, foulest joke books I’ve ever read. Just crude –
and wonderful. Makes for some nice spirit uplifting whilst in the car. There’s
topics from Accents to Zoos.

What did the grape say after it got stepped on by an elephant?

Nothing, just let out a little wiiiiiiiine.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Just wait for the ones about hookers and morons.

Anyway, we hit up the market in Saint John for some snacks and treats which made my belly very happy. Then we attended and preformed at a
little afternoon show at Backstreet Records. Gordy was a great host. Doug, Owen
& his Royal Highnesses, Pat LePoisdevin, and Jadea Kelly +band all played.
It was a lovely little spectacle. And we met a lovely qubecoise who was in
Saint John doing some French teaching for a few months. And a jigging writer
named Greg who loved our stuff. Both of them came to see us later at the
Bourbon Quarter. Apparently, the Bourboun Quarter was a seedy, kick ass
rock/gay bar. It is now a mocha bar/new Orleans flair
restaurant. We got to order off 2 of 3 pages of the menu. The Jambalaya, Gumbo,
Catfish and Ribs were all chosen. It was spicy as hell, but some of the best
Jambalaya I’ve ever had! Jadea played a great set and some restaurant goers
stopped me on the street to tell me so. Before we went on, Mumble and I ran up
to the Big Tide Brewery for a taster. We got an Seafarers IPA, Wild Weed Summer Ale, Honey Brown Hazelnut,
Raspberry, and the Honey Brown. My thimble on the counter struck up a conversation that turned
into us plugging our show. Some people from there actually showed up. It was an
awesome show. When we finished up with Old Man Lamus – Shawn/steve the man in
charge asked us if we could keep going. We ended up shoddily attempting some
cover songs which went over alright with the spectators. Some cool looking
folks walked in around our last songs who didn’t seem to be from Saint John.
Getting to talk with them at the bar after – turns out they were with Romi
Mayes – a rocker woman from Winnipeg who was supposed to play at the Vintage
Bistro that night. It didn’t work out so they came to visit with us and Jadea +
co. That sure as hell worked out. yes""> A convoy of four vehicles, over the hills and across on the
ferry boat led us up to Babette’s camp on the Kingston Penninsula for a little
partay. We attempted some drinking games with Mexican names which didn’t last
past the first spilled drink that soaked the cards. Into the later hours the
instruments came out. Mumble thoroughly enjoyed the washboard. He hit the hay
and Owen, Doug, and I lulled him to sleep with our banjo, accordian, guitar,
singing, and foot stomping.

Friday was a rough day for yours truly. It pissed rain. Jadea’s drummer Pat disappeared but materialized eventually, or so we assume. I
left my fancy shoes at Babs’ but we didn’t go back for them this time.
Hopefully I will get them back some day. I cured my sadness with a delicious
in-car made bagel sandwich. Turkey, hot pepper jelly, cheese, sprouts, lettuce
all on a Montréal style bagel. It’s not easy to make such a sandwich on a
bumping bouncy winding backseat ride, but it happened. We headed to St. Martins
for a house show. We popped into Jere’s family restaurant and coffee shop for
my first glass of water and coffee of the day. The woman working was very
pleasant which harbored my hangover very nicely. The restaurant was on Beach
Road so we checked it out. Beautiful beach. Some lobster boats chasing each
other around. Loud waves at my feet and in the distance were splashing up in
spraying whites on the cliffs. The sun peaked out for a little bit.

Running on ‘Plenty of Time’ as usual – we got to Richard’s (our host) around dinner time. He had the most amazing spread of cheese and
homemade bread! And not just plain bread either – there was sundried tomato,
fig, olive, nuts in there and he said he couldn’t even remember what he’d put
in some of them. There was also a plethora of spreads and some slow cooked
chicken and veggies…I rifled through some of his bread books as he told me
bread making has been in his family for generations. He had begun the works of
a ‘Bread Shed’ a little heated shed out back of the house where he would have a
fridge, counter, and space he could mess up and make his bread, starters, and
let it sit. Outside, not far from that was a newly built wood fired oven where
the bread would be made. This is all still a work in progress – but I could
definitely see it coming along. And he no doubt has the right recipes, as my
taste buds informed me, which is a great start. He didn’t make the loaves we
got to try in the wood oven because it was too windy that day.

Richard was in a bit of a tiff because he had been expecting 30 people – many of whom had cancelled within the last short while due to
pathetic reasons. There was a bit of torrential downpour that night which I
might be hesitant to drive in so that scared some people off. Nonetheless there
was a nice little crowd of 10 or so and a great spread of food and wine. It was
a very intimate setting – and had there been more people there, we probably
wouldn’t have had to play at all. In between songs we’d get a story and very
entertaining monologue from Richard who we thought about bringing along with
us. When we finished up the little audience had received us well and we were
rewarded with wood-fired oven pizzas. Many of the guests parted and we were
left with Richard and his friend Dale, both as equally entertaining. An
unusually wonderful jam session happened in the following hours -

Mumble on the guitbox, Doug on the ‘dolin, Owen on the ‘jo, and I on the cahone. It was a sweet sounding groove with some made up words
that Richard and Dale grooved out hard to. I think we made them nostalgic of
their former days for they began telling us tales of the circus-like, food
filled, crazy parties they used to have in their twenties. We stayed up late
drinking fancy liquer, eating cheese, talking of Dill-dough buns and laughing
like none of us have laughed in awhile. Richard is an actor of sorts – his
stage is the room you are in with him. I walked up a staircase to reach the
guest bed that night. Comfort, dark and fabulous dreams, and a beautiful
sunrise over the ocean came to me.