We arrive and awaken on the bus in a motel parking lot. There are only 2 rooms available, as it is graduation day at Cornell and I guess someone didn't book ahead. So we investigate a kind offer from Wade, a local kid who houses visiting bands at a house in the country. After a half-hour drive we stop at a dirt road with a funky house at the end. The porch is wrapped in plastic sheeting. Paul asks, "Did anyone ever see the movie Wrong Turn?"
Sure enough, there are bedrooms and a kitchen and even a drum set up in the entrance for impromptu rehearsals. It's a very kind offer from Wade but, well, we're not prepared for this adventure today. Thunderstorms are rolling in and the rain is threatening.
Daniel's Seneca Nation pals show up at the Ithaca show, as they did in Buffalo. They come bearing gifts - rattles made of turtles, including the head. I am also given a top hat decorated with eagle feathers, which is illegal for a white man to wear as it's an endangered species. One man demonstrates the use of the rattle by loudly singing a Seneca song in the theater after the show, while hammering the rattle against his palm. It's touching, moving, and ridiculously surreal.
We do an audience participation Scrabble game using theater marquis letters to start the show. It's kind of silly and doesn't work as well as I'd hoped, though the prize of one of the lady's undies merch items - autographed by the whole band - boosts sales of that item considerably.
A real estate company in UK wanted to use the song "Glass Concrete and Stone" in an ad. The scene would be a drive-by of modern soulless housing while the lyrics "well it's glass and concrete and stone, and it's just a house not a home" are heard. Presumably these images would be followed by images of the nice wooden charming homes represented by said real estate company.
It worked wonders for Sting and Moby - licensing songs to commercials increased general awareness of their CDs - but somehow I don't think this is the same kind of thing.
Oil is up to $40 a barrel, the highest it's been since 1990 (when Iraq invaded Kuwait). [today it passed even that – it reached $41] Blame is laid to various acts of sabotage on the pipelines in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It seems the invaders can't even get this right. One would assume that the Americans would at least prioritize their oil prices, but maybe Halliburton and Co. don't really mind. It's an excuse to raise prices and increase "security."
It has come out (NY Times) that Afghan officials who were detained by the Americans were abused and tortured in almost exactly the same ways as the Iraqis - further proof that it was not just some wild guards out of control, but a systematic methodology and policy. U.S. military promises an investigation and says it's the first they've heard of it. According to local human rights organizations, it's all lies.
