February 13, 2004 - Santa Ana, CA

Even thought the trip to Santa Ana was only about an hour away, I fell asleep on the trip. Ted and Jeff had spent some time changing one of the tires on the trailer back in Solano Beach. As soon as we arrived in Santa Ana I checked into my hotel room. I'm not sure what happened with Sandra. I don't know if she was still on the bus when I got off or if she had already been dropped off somewhere else. I was extremely tired and I just remember my hotel room being so far away from the lobby. Santa Ana is a suburb of Anaheim. I'm sure it's a beautiful city, but where we were staying was in an area that seemed more like an industrial park. It didn't matter to me - I just needed some sleep. Since we weren't staying the night I didn't unpack my suitcase. Usually when we're staying the night I'll unpack a lot of the things in my suitcase and spread them out over the hotel room like I live there. I'll usually light the candles that I travel with and burn some incense. But I didn't do that this time because I figured I wouldn't be coming back to the room after sound check.

I got a decent amount of sleep then I showered and got ready for the 12:45 bus call. I rode shotgun on the bus just to see how close the venue was to the hotel, just in case I wanted to walk back later. The venue was only about a mile away.

Load in didn't go as smooth as it could have. The venue didn't provide a lot of competent help. Victor didn't ride the bus over to the venue, so I got to play during the first half of sound check. He showed up for the end of sound check and interrupted my 'headliner' fantasy. But I kept playing the bass for a while and he just soloed around me. In a lot of the venues we have what is called a 'buy out'. That's when the venue provides a certain amount of money for each band member for meals. Some of the venues that have restaurants in them will provide us with food instead of 'buy outs'. This was one of those cases. Most of us ordered sandwiches. They were kind of bland. Joseph Wooten is a vegetarian so he ordered a grill cheese. His sandwich had to be the worst grill cheese I had ever seen in my life. It was a hamburger roll with a slice of American cheese on it. And if you know anything about Joseph, you know that he made a million jokes about the situation. After sound check I decided that I would walk back to the hotel and get some rest. Joseph didn't realize that we were keeping our rooms for showering later, so he checked out of his at bus call. I gave him the other key to my room so he would have some place to chill if he wanted to. When I started walking back I noticed a beautiful gun metal gray Thunderbird coming toward me. It was one of the new ones with the hard top and the soft convertible top underneath it. When the car pulled up alongside me, I saw that Danette's aunt Flo was driving. We just love her to death. She's so animated and she claims everybody in the band is her niece and nephew. I told her that Danette was hanging out on the bus and I continued along my way.

When I got back to the hotel lobby I asked the person behind the desk if there were any interesting stores or restaurants within walking distance of the hotel. Of course there weren't any. There wasn't even a place for me to get a postcard to mail to my wife. When I got to the room my phone rang. It was Joseph. He was calling to let me know that he was on the way. When he got there we chatted for a bit. Some friends of his were on their way to pick him up. I asked him if he would pick up a postcard for me to mail to my wife. He said he would take care of that for me. After he left, I called my wife. She checked all my email accounts for me and then we did a tour diary entry. We're like 3 days behind. After we finished the entry, I told her that I was going to relax a little while and call her back to do another. Of course when I woke up it was almost show time. I had to hurry up and get back to the venue. Tonight we had an opening band. I don't know why, but I guess it was because,...I don't even want to speculate. Sometimes there is more politics involved in music than people realize. I just knew that when the opening band finished I would have to go into my 'zone' and make sure that we were set up in time to start at 9:00. That would only leave me 15 minutes to put out and tune 9 basses and set up Victor's pedals, and check the monitor mixes for everybody in the band. And that's not including waiting for the opening band to get all their gear out of the way. I suspect that most people think that my job is an easy one, but if you ever get the chance to watch me before, during and after the show, you'll know that it's not. Of course, while I'm trying to set all the stuff up, that's when all the people that know me are trying to get my attention. I didn't want to seem rude or like I was ignoring anyone, but I didn't acknowledge any of the people that were calling my name. I had to make sure the show would get started on time.

Of course the show was great. Kerry Lathon was in town to check out his 3rd show in a row. Tonight was his birthday. Earlier during the day he had taken pictures of Victor in front of the tour bus wearing the jersey that he had made for him. He's was taking pictures for the updated web site. He wanted to take pictures of me in the hat that he made for me, but we didn't have a lot of time. So he asked me to have my wife take pictures of me in the hat and send them to him. Victor mentioned Danette's Aunt Flo and the rest of her family many times during the show. Danette even brought her very cute cousin back stage to announce to us that she was going to dance during the show. Aunt Flo's son, Timothy, who had served in the military in Iran, was finally going to get to see the Victor Wooten band. Danette even brought him on stage at one point.

After the show, there seemed to be hundreds of people back stage. I ran into Cielito from the first bass camp. She helped out with the instruction on upright bass. Her and her husband live not too far from here. I hadn't seen Cielito in a couple of years and it was nice to see her.

While Cielito and her husband were helping me take the basses out to the bus, I ran into my friend Smitty. Smitty is actually the brother of a very good friend of mine named Jerrold Smith. Jerrold told me that his brother was going to try to make the show. I was glad Smitty got a chance to see the show. I wish we would have had more time to hang. After all the gear was on board and we said good-bye to our guests, we headed on our way to the hotel to shower, then we were on way to Arizona.

Here's a picture of Danette....

Here's the same picture of Danette but with Jeff's face...some more of Ted's handiwork...

Like Joseph Wooten always says, "You gotta' make your own fun when you're on the road."

peace & blessings

anthony