By now, the little Brookstone toy helicopter has become a staple of most soundchecks. Peter Thompson (the tour monitor mixer) and Ricardo Alvarez (the backstage coordinator) took the initiative to download some heavy duty helicopter sound effects which they blast through the pristine PA system as soon as my little chopper gets airborne.

Roger Rosenberg (bari sax) has on one or two occasions provided subtle underscoring by playing an acapella version of “Suicide is Painless” (aka the Theme from M.A.S.H.).

Donald took the controls for the first time the other day and showed great promise.

It’s like we’re all 7 years old again…

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Tonight was another “Royal Scam” night over at the Riverside Theater.

I got a message forty-five minutes before the show from the wonderful trumpet player Curt Ramm that he and the rest of Bruce Sprinsteen’s band were in town and were coming to the show. Curt and I met last year when we played together in the horn section (along with Dan Levine on trombone and Stan Harrison/Jonathan Levine on saxes) for They Might Be Giants’ children’s dvd/cd “Here Comes Science”.

Also in the house that night (and in town singing with The Boss) was Steely Dan alumni Cindy Mizelle. She came up for the last few songs and joined the other backup singers- Catherine Russell, Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery and Tawatha Agee.

What a section!

Whenever I’m in Cincinnati, I can’t help but think about “WKRP In Cincinnati”. That’s the price I pay for growing up in the 1970’s.

Sure enough, as I walked back to the hotel after soundcheck today, I heard the unmistakable voices of Loni Anderson and Howard Hessman coming out of loudspeakers in a plaza. I thought I was going crazy, when all of a sudden I saw a large drive-in type screen on the far end of the plaza. On the screen they were playing classic episodes of WKRP!

Turns out they have something like a “Happy Hour WKRP” afternoon from time to time in downtown Cincinnati. And I was lucky enough to stumble upon it.

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I got a message from some of the guys at Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar, the record label who put out my 2007 album, “Hotel Music” on their St. Ives label.

A few of the guys were interested in making the 3 hour drive from Bloomington, Indiana (where the record label is based) to see the Cincinnati show (”Royal Scam” night). I managed to score some tickets for them, and they thanked me by bringing a stash of some their recent releases. I have to say, they’re one of those rare labels that goes out of their way to release only quality music.

Among my favorites:

ML

Another day, another flight. However, never have I exited baggage claim only to be greeted curbside by Santa Claus himself waiting to drive me to the hotel!

Turns out this doppelganger (or is it?) makes a living, between January 2nd and December 23th, as a limousine driver in Cincinnati.  At first, everyone in the band was basically left speechless by the absurdity of the whole thing. But by the third day, we started in with a little Q and A.

Turns out he recognized his calling many years ago.

Yes, his hair is all natural.

Yes, he goes frequently to a personal beautician to maintain that magical North Pole ‘luster’.

Yes, there is a “MRS. CLAUS”- his lovely wife Bonnie.

And yes, they have a website:

http://www.santanky.com/

“SANTA” Ron says that he and the MRS. have around 60 gigs between December 24th and January 1st of each year.

Go figure…

Back in the trenches, we played AJA in it’s entirety again last night. Always a good time.

As for my recent aviation exploits, I’m proud to report we had a very successful lift off at the theater. My morning “flight check” consisted of opening up the box, charging up the batteries and then taking an over-eager test run in my hotel room, which sadly resulted in me crashing the helicopter into the television set. I apologized repeatedly to the tiny pilot.

But my pre-soundcheck flight at the STAR PLAZA THEATER faired much better. I had the whole band cheering me on. And check out all the airspace…

This morning we woke up early for a flight to Minneapolis and a show tonight at the Northrop Auditorium. Turns out we’re staying right across the street from “FIRST AVENUE”. This club has been the starting point for virtually every single band to come out of the Twin Cities.  The club played a large role in Prince’s 1984 film “Purple Rain”.

Well, after a week long break in the tour, we headed back out on the road. After the somewhat exhausting security check at LaGuardia airport, the New York members of the band found ourselves at Gate 6 with a little time to catch up on each other’s week off. While talking with Catherine Russell (one of the exquisite backup singers on the tour), I saw out of the corner of my eye  what looked like a psychedelic mosquito flying around the terminal about 20 feet away. I wasn’t the only one hypnotized by the strange sight, as a bunch of us quickly turned to see two excited employees of Brookstone taking a very sophisticated toy helicopter for a joy ride around the terminal.

To the annoyance of people rushing to their gates, now forced to dodge a tiny red helicopter with flashing lights, and the absolute childlike delight of the rest of us with nothing but time on our hands, this little insect-like flying machine weaved in and out of  the small Brookstone displays, expertly piloted by the young man masterfully maneuvering the small remote.

Ever transfixed, I watched for another 10 minutes before going in for a closer look . I was impressed by the fact that unlike the remote planes and helicopters that my friends and I had messed around with in our childhood years, this toy helicopter actually worked! So after graciously being handed the controls, I took the little beast for a flight. Sure I may have had a few control issues, and yes, I was thrown a few dirty looks by people in my flightpath trying not to miss their flights, but all in all I would call my maiden voyage a success. I threw down my credit card and bought the sucker.

I have to admit, as I closed my eyes to sleep on the plane, I was excited at the prospect of flying the little guy around the Star Plaza Theater after soundcheck the following day…

     Well, I could never have dreamt up the cast of colorful characters I would meet on this first leg of the Steely Dan fall tour. Case in point:

Waldemar, the passionate coffee barrista from San Jose

and now,

Crazy Ivan, the cobbler from Phoenix.

     We landed in Arizona mid afternoon on the 26th, and found ourselves in hot downtown Phoenix. After having walked around the treacherous hills of San Francisco for four days, I saw that my main pair of shoes (a pair of brown 60s beatle boots I proudly discovered in a thrift store while on tour in New Zealand a few years back) were a little worse for the wear. I asked the concierge if she could recommend a shoe repair place downtown, preferably within walking distance of the hotel. 

    Looking back, you could argue I would have known what I was in for had I taken the time to investigate from the street before walking into Ivan’s store. There was no one in there and one whole wall of the store was taped up floor to ceiling with newspaper cutouts of what appeared to be very obscure 1950s and 1960s Russian boxers pummeling each other mid-fight.  

     So…

ACT I

     I walked in, and Ivan said to me (in a very thick russian accent), “what it is you’d like?”. I showed him the beatle boots I was wearing, and motioned to the tips of both boots which were pretty worn down and scuffed. My hope was that he would take 10 minutes, polish ‘em up a touch, maybe throw on some conditioner and I’d be on my way. Then when I got back to NYC, I’d have my regular ’shoe guy’ fix the heels, etc. Alas, this was Not Meant To Be.

     Ivan said (or commanded) “Sit Down Here” and pointed to an old school elevated shoe-shine bench like one would find in Grand Central Station. As I sat down, Ivan closed one eye to properly assess my shoe size, said “size 10, yes?” to which I replied “10 1/2 , 11″. He took off my boots, turned around, picked up a pair of hideous loafers from the wall display and said something like “try these on for comfort”. Then he escaped with my shoes to his back workstation.

     It’s at this point that I’d like to take a moment and accurately describe to you Ivan’s appearance. He was a man in his mid-late 60’s, with tattoos on both arms, the kind you might receive while stationed on a Russian U-boat. The guy was right out of central casting. I half expected an L.A. casting agent to walk right through the front door and cast him to play Telly Savalas’ evil twin in a remake of Kojak.

     Except, that doesn’t quite describe his magical charm. One of the newspaper cutouts on the wall was of the legendary 7-foot Russian boxer Nikloay Valeuv. As I took a closer look, I did a double take. The boxer could have been his younger (slightly taller) brother!

    Once Ivan was back at his workstation, I heard him mumbling to himself about the utter lack of responsibility I had taken with

these gorgeous boots. And then , the magic moment!

     Out of the corner of my eye, he reached for a small tool, started messing around with one of the heels of my boots, and with the flick of the wrist, he popped one of the heels completely off and said, “Yes, we’re going to have to fix this!”. A little in shock, I said “what did you just do?! He said “sir, this needed to be fixed”. Now, he wasn’t completely wrong, the shoes were in need of getting fixed, it was more his bedside manner that I had a problem with. I calmly said “sir, please hold it a second before you do anything else to my boots.” He went on to plead with me that these boots were in major need of full repair. I took a second to think, asked him what he wanted to do and how much he wanted to charge. He said “$75 full repair”. I said, how about “$50″? He looked hurt at my bartering, but then agreed. I asked him how long it would take, he assured me about 10 minutes, so we had a deal.

ACT II

     I went over to shoe-shine station, took a seat and started gazing around the small shop. Through a small hole in the wall I could see Crazy Ivan hard at work in the back. The more I thought about it, I felt like I was in some surreal Boris and Natasha cartoon come to life. Almost as if Ivan’s accomplices were in a back room waiting to come out.

     After about 15 minutes, I realized Ivan was only half way done and I was stuck in my socks on a shoe-shine bench in Phoenix.

     I took a glance at a pile of six magazines located on the bench next to me. On top was the recent Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, face up. Underneath, was an issue of Maxim, also face up. The next magazine was face down (I started laughing to myself a little). Sure enough, it was a 2 year old issue of Playboy. Of course I had to venture a little further down the rabbit hole, so I began to flip the remaining magazines half expecting to find a 1985 issue of “Barely Legal” at the bottom. I assure you, it stayed pretty pg-13 right up to the 6th magazine. But, as I applied whatever purell I could find in my bag, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of crazy scene I had walked into. 

 Act III

     Crazy Ivan finished with my boots 15 minutes later. I have to say, they looked incredible. Almost brought back to life.

     He tried, to no avail, to sell me two pairs of extremely overpriced boots on the wall across from me. He also tried to throw in some extra fees. Although I had to wonder what heinous acts my man Ivan might be capable of (was he perhaps in the witness relocation program? had he ever killed a man? might he be a member of a Steely Dan fan club- Russian chapter?), I stood my ground and talked him down to only a moderately overpriced fee.

     As I left, I saw one final photo on the wall which summed up the whole experience.

     In the end, I made it out of there alive and my boots got some good lovin’.

     We played the first of three shows tonight at Masonic Hall (1111 California St.) right across the street from the incredible Grace Cathedral.

  The view from this part of San Francisco is amazing. The hall was only a few blocks walk from one of the craziest streets in the whole world. Lombard Street:

     The audience for the first night (”AJA” night) had to be one of the most enthusiastic audiences I’ve ever played for. I got an email from someone the next day saying they sat next to David Crosby at the show and that he was groovin’.

     Judging from the various and pungent odors that started to waft over the audience as early as the second song straight through to the end of the last encore 135 minute later, I started to wonder if we were playing for a Glaucoma convention.

     Woke up early to go rent a car and take a road trip, with my sister Carolyn, up to San Francisco. For those of you who don’t already know, Carolyn is also out here on the tour providing stellar backup vocal work. She and I both started working with Steely Dan in the summer of ‘96 and have gotten in the habit of using the frequent abundance of “downtime” on the road as a great excuse to hang out and catch up. My sis’ and I have a shared love of movies that take place on the west coast between 1955 and 1985 (Vertigo, The Birds, Foul Play, Play Misty For Me, Play It Again Sam, Seems Like Old Times…).

     We headed to the coast and started our adventure up Highway One. Unfortunately, the weather was quite overcast, so visibility was pretty limited for the first half of the trip. But we rolled the windows down, blasted a little Rotary Connection “Songs”,

and enjoyed the sound of the waves striking seventy-five feet from the highway along with the smell of the salt air.

     We even found this freaky-deaky pumpkin display. Just in time for Halloween…