She Was Standing On Home Plate

Frank's Power Plant on Sunday night in Milwaukee was…a thing that happened. Glad for the opportunity. Still in a daze how some unattended shows can be far more brutal than others.

I'm writing from an absolutely frozen Panera in Iowa City. Haven't had reliable internet for a few days to do any updates. Sorry about that. I appreciate you checking in on me. Here's a couple of quick hits.

#1. The Super 8 by the Milwaukee airport. You’re gonna get what you pay for.

#2. It's been awesome driving weather all trip. Mild, sunny skies. What a bright spot.

#3. Chicago traffic was a 4 out of 10 this time around. Not a 9. Turning over a new leaf?

#4. Played for some nice fellows in Chicago there in attendance on a whim.

#5. Every single venue has hung up the posters I mailed to them. This is a HUGE deal. Makes me very happy. In my experience it is not guaranteed they’ll arrive at the venue. And if they do get them it’s dice game odds if they actually get hung up.

#6. Had an anxiety attack once we got done with Daytrotter and drove into Dyersville for a day and a half off. Ya wouldn't think panic would set in entering a break. Maybe that’s exactly when it does. The hard truth is it is just tough when you're not making money to keep spending it. Dinner time trip to the Dyersville ER to make sure I wasn't having some kind of heart problem. I'm still here. The bill will be waiting for me in Nashville.

#7. Had a great day at The Field of Dreams yesterday.

Field of Dreams — Dyersville, Iowa, 2014. Photographer unknown

#8 Shoulder's not much for long toss anymore but I'm probably still good for a 70mph two-seamer.

#9 Ross and I talked at length about how we would survive a post-apocalyptic zombie attack. Seems you'd have to set up base around a major food source like a super market. You'd have to be willing to be led by military/police-styled people who have an idea how to patrol and set up perimeters. Your world would be chaos - so you'd all have to buy in to order in that chaos for it to work. We'd all have to get real good at farming real fast. And hunting. But what zombie variables would you allow in your world? Say you get zombie blood on your skin. Are you ok or will you turn? What about if it's in your eyes or mouth? These things you think about.

Field of Dreams — Dyersville, Iowa, 2014. Photo by me

#10 I can still rope a baseball. Always was a contact hitter. Line drives. Feels so good to smoke a ball into the outfield. The number of people wandering the field while batting practice is going on not paying any attention is astounding. I’m lucky the 8 year old girl standing at 3rd base without a glove only got dropped by my accidental line drive to her thigh. Could have been much worse...

#11 Oh I love this one. I'm taking my last batting practice in Baseball Heaven on Earth of my entire trip that I've been waiting to make since I left in 2006. So the seconds are being savored. The sounds, the view, the smells. A tour bus full of people was getting ready to leave and I'm in the batter's box and a lady walks right up to me and starts telling me about her granddaughter and how awesome a singer she is and she sang "Hallelujah" at the county fair and she wonders how her granddaughter is gonna make it in the music industry. One of the actors walking around in White Sox uniforms guiding some tours and taking pictures had mentioned to her that I was a Nashville musician on tour. She was standing on HOME PLATE asking me how to make her granddaughter famous.

In my mind she was a zombie who'd turned and I gripped the bat tightly and knocked her block off.

I came to knowing I won’t really do that. Gave her my card and told her to email me and we'll talk about it later. The odds of her actually emailing me are 0%. Why are people?