Cool Hand Luke

After almost two months of no shows, I’m finally out on the road again. This tour has been an especially hard one to book. The days leading up to it were stressful as well.

Brandy and I recently decided that it is no longer necessary or advantageous for the two of us to tour in a gigantic, gas-chugging 15-passenger van. Our good friends in My Epic (whose new record “Yet” rules and features yours truly on drums for a few songs) needed a van so we decided to sell them ours. I realized last week that I had no idea where the title for the van was. So, I had to go to the Tennessee Department of something to get a title. I ended up coming on the day that every worker except one was on vacation. That meant that I had to wait for a really long time while a loud, redneck guy enlightened the entire room full of people on how to sell liquor to Muslims in Iraq when you’re a medic in the Air Force.

After I got home I was planning to pack and run over my songs before work. That’s when our smoke alarm in the music room went off. It was that ear-piercing kind of noise that gets in your head and is hard to localize. I put in earplugs and stood on a chair smacking the alarm while Brandy laughed.

After a few minutes I either got the alarm to stop, or it stopped of its own accord. But I could still hear it faintly. It beeped three times, paused, beeped three times, etc. Then I heard three additional beeps that were not in time with the other beeps coming from somewhere else.

We realized that the sound was coming from our duplex-mates’ house. It ceased to be funny at that point. We ran outside to see if they were home, and they weren’t. We couldn’t see or smell smoke but we feared the worst. Soon we heard a third alarm going off, also in our neighbors’ house.

I called our landlord while Brandy began to pack up important things and put them by the door. The landlord called me back to tell me that she had called the Fire Department and before we were even off the phone I heard sirens.

Two trucks rolled up and a bunch of firefighters hopped out. They asked a few questions and casually looked around the house as if they were looking for a kitten. After a bit, they said it was a false alarm and one alarm probably triggered the others. We were glad there was no fire, but we were not very satisfied with the weak explanation.

The next day I realized that two of the benches to the van were in our 120 degree attic. My good friend Bryan was nice enough to come over after work and help me force the benches through the tiny little opening in our ceiling and put them in the van. He also helped me put the piano in our little Element.

We left the keys and title to the van in a Ziploc bag in our grill and drove all night to get to Johnson City for our first show. We had to load in at a church the next morning at 7:30am to play in their youth service.  I decided to play a new song, and I was explaining it when I heard three loud beeps, a pause, and three more loud beeps. That was followed by a recording of a woman repeating “CAUTION! CAUTION! THERE HAS BEEN AN EMERGENCY IN THE BUILDING”.

Needless to say this killed the vibe and completely broke my concentration. It persisted for close to a minute then stopped. And then started again. And then stopped. I decided to skip the explanation and just play the song during which time the alarm, complete with the woman yelling caution, sounded an additional three times. God is constantly having a laugh at my expense, and I’m learning just to laugh with Him.