Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Continuing the long-promised last-weekend weekend-before-last entry (I'm actually up to last-weekend at this point (and it's only Thursday) ...)

I had thought that Monday-last-week's illness was a stomach was a stomach virus, but when I mentioned my symptoms and how those symptoms responded to my reverting to the drug regimen of the previous week to the doc^[1] at the free clinic, her reaction made me wonder whether the whole thing was an adverse drug reaction instead of just being the drugs slowing my recovery from something else. Anyhow, we're trying something different instead of putting me back on the drug that seemed to cause-or-exacerbate the nausea and diarrhea. And I'm staying on the beta blocker until I get some sort of pharmacy assistance that'll pay for a more expensive, migraine-specific drug.

By Friday, I was feeling a lot more functional again; the improvement was slow enough that I wasn't sure until then that I'd be able to play on Saturday. But I got better, so joining the rest of The Homespun Ceilidh Band Saturday (at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival) was on.

Except that I hadn't begun to carve the replacement nut for my broken guitar yet, and the microphone I use in my 12-string needed repair but was not in my hands, so I had to borrow an axe (justgus37 brought his 6-string for me; he hadn't played it in ages because he pretty much sticks to bouzouki, flute, and whistle these days) and I lugged the toolbox and soldering iron with me. I wanted to get there nice and early, to fix that mic.

So, as noted in a post from my cell phone when it happened, I lost a tire on the way to the gig. Flying down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, a bang, a change in the road noise, slightly mushier handling, and I knew I had a problem. Feh.

Actually, it only cost me 23 minutes: fifteen to change it, and the rest for slowing down to accomodate the "toy spare". (I hate those things. When I have a spare $40, I'll buy a used rim and a used tire and have a full-size spare.) So it did more damage to my blood pressure^[2] than my schedule. I started trying to figure out where to plug in the soldering iron, and before I sorted that out justgus had the thing open and was poking at its innards. We couldn't see the bad spot (at a previous gig it had developed a hum, as though the shield of the cable from the element to the battery pack had developed an intermittent break at the battery-pack end), nor could we find the problem with an ohmmeter, so we put it back together and figured maybe it had fixed itself. Fortunately we also found ourselves with a backup plan: the borrowed guitar had a pickup un it, so if needed I could use my soundhole pickup in my 12-string. (I don'y like the sound of it as much on the 12-string, but it'll do in a pinch.)

I'll get the bad points out of the way in a batch: The sound system was cranked up pretty loud, so conversation was difficult near the stage and tuning had to wait until the band before us finished. At least they were good (a 70s/80s cover band). The stage was rather small, and flimsy enough that the folks in our front row cautioned me against leaping about with my usual vigor. We'd been asked for a sound plan -- channel requirements etc. -- weeks earlier, but the folks who requested that never forwarded the info to the soundman, so our requirements were a compete surprise to him. (No, this is not the first festival to do that to us; some have been extremely formal about requiring documentation which never goes where it's needed.) We usually use thirteen or fourteen channels. They had eleven. If I'd known that, I could have trivially brought along an extra four or eight channels to be mixed either in the soundbooth (okay, tent) or on stage. I've had lots of practice patching boards to each other and making the combination straightforward to use. I wound up with one channel between two guitars with very different levels (a coil in the six, a condenser in the twelve) and a nasty *POP* every time I switched the cable from one to the other. The soundman compensated well on his end, but it was an f'ing mess for me on stage. The volume being high didn't bother me on stage, but being in that environment constantly the rest of the day was awfully draining despite the quality of the various bands.

There, got that out of my system.

Anyhow, we had a pretty good set despite the crowded conditions and not enough inputs. Despite starting late because an earlier band had been tardy, they gave us our full time. There was a little dancing. It all felt pretty good except for my frustration with the setup and a little discomfort from not getting the strap on the borrowed guitar adjusted quite right. There were a few familiar faces in the audience, including a few I hadn't seen in far too long. And apparently folks in parts of the festival clear out of sight from the stage could hear us clearly.

The festival itself was pretty cool, though I probably would have appreciated it more if I hadn't been too tired to move shortly after getting off stage. I spent a while catching up with old friends and meeting a few new people, seated behind the sound-tent. (I was still feeling drained from being sick, and playing a proper Homespun Ceilidh Band gig is exhausting at the best of times.) If I understood correctly, this was only the second year of this festival, and it had a very "together" feel to it.

I've been to a bunch of different events that featured a Green Man. At this festival, fittingly, there were several Green Men.

I stuck around a lot longer than I had planned to, so I could catch Kiva's performance. On the one hand, that was more spoons than I really should have spent, and I felt the ramifications of that extra time on Sunday and Monday; on the other hand, it'd been way too long since I'd gotten to hear them, and they're really really good. I took turns with someone else, manning their CD-sales table during their set; I also shot photos of them on stage.

All in all, I hope we're invited back to play that festival again. (And if we are, I'll bring along extra channels just in case.) And I really need to start keeping in touch with some nifty people I've drifted away from over the years.

I hope Mom will forgive me for not making it out to Bowie on Mothers Day; I was still recovering from Saturday and thus didn't get out early enough to try to buy a tire. I'd already gone sixty miles on the donut spare, which says not to exceed fifty miles (or go faster than 50 MPH) on it. (Have I mentioned how much I dislike toy-spares?)

Tuesday and yesterday I did make it to rehearsals -- both under my own power in the same week, and less tardy than usual (I can't call it a good thing until I start getting there on time, but at least it's less-bad; that's something). I started feeling headachy yesterday, but it feels different from the migrainey ones -- I suspect weather-related sinus issues. At least I'm more alert than I was before going on the beta blocker (though I spaced pretty badly on an old friend's name in Trader Joe's yesterday -- argh). It was a rather long couple of days, with a clinic appointment and finding a replacement tire (rather louder than the old one was, alas, but cost was my main criterion) and getting to rehearsal on Tuesday; then an unscheduled trip to the doctor with anniemal who woke up with something wrong with her lip, and the aforementioned trip to TJ's, and dragging myself to rehearsal last night. So I'm pretty drained today. But I can tell I'm doing better than most of the last several months, because as difficult as it was to drag myself through yesterday, it was possible despite having had such a long Tuesday. That's progress.

*whew* Nearly caught up.

[1] Not an MD, but still a primary medical practitioner; I didn't catch this one's title, so I don't know whether she's an NP or a PA or what. She answers to the NP I'd seen previously and checks with her before giving me drugs. Apparently, whom I'll be seen by depends on how busy the clinic is and how much paperwork the NP I saw the first time has to wade through.

[2] Probably not literally, as the beta blocker I'm taking as a migraine preventative is primarily used as a blood-pressure drug.