February 14, 2004 - Tempe, AZ

Well here it is,...the last journal entry on the '04 Victor Wooten winter tour.

We originally scheduled to play at Nita's Hideaway - the same place we played last year, but Nita's Hideaway folded while we were on the road. Our gig got moved to the Marquee Theater. I later found out that a lot of the local venues have been closing because the Marquee has been doing so well.

We arrived in Tempe very early. Only one room was ready. Jeff, Danette, Derico and Joseph weren't in a rush to get a room, since I had to shave. It takes me quite a while to shave since I'm doing my face and my head at the same time. I could sense that Danette was a little frustrated that the rooms weren't ready. She works so hard to assure that our rooms are ready when we arrive into town. I could sense her disappointment that they weren't. Fortunately this was the last show and she wasn't going to have to deal with this kind of thing for a while. At least with this band, anyway.

I checked into my room, totally emptied out my suitcase. I was going to have to repack everything for my flight tomorrow. I lit some candles and burned some incense and went straight to sleep. After I woke up I went down to the bus and got the rest of my stuff off the bus. Jeff was going to be heading out tonight and I didn't want to have to scramble to try to get my stuff out before he left. Since I don't sleep on a bunk, I had been using mine as sort of a storage space. There were all kinds of books, magazines and clothes strewn everywhere. I loaded all that stuff into my new luggage bag and carried it all upstairs.

When I finished shaving and showering it was time for bus call. There was some kind of car rally happening in the parking lot of the hotel. There were a bunch of Plymouth Prowlers and Dodge Vipers in the lot. In the next parking lot, there was a gathering of old VW Beetles. As we left the parking lot, there were a couple more Plymouth Prowlers pulling in. As we were riding to the venue I immediately recognized the area. My wife and I got to hang out in this town quite a bit last year when she came out to visit while I was out on tour. Fortunately the new venue is on Mill Ave. That area is considered the 'hip' part of town. We pulled up to the Marquee Theater and wouldn't you know it, there was no marquee to be found. Kind of ironic, don't you think? I had Victor's gear set up in record time. Sound check wasn't scheduled till 3:30. All the bass stuff was ready to go at 1:30. The runner the venue had provided had already gotten us sandwiches from Subway. I asked her if she would mind running me to one of the two local Ducati dealerships. I figured I had an hour and a half to kill so I might as well get it done now. Our runner's name was Erin. She reminded me a lot of Olive Oil from the Popeye cartoon. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way - she was actually quite cute. Just imagine if Olive Oil was into punk rock. She was tall and thin. She had her hair pulled back. The skirt she had on even reminded me of Olive Oil's skirt, except that it was well above the knees. She had on these cool burgundy suede tennis shoes that had an inch and a half heel on them. She didn't have Olive Oil's personality, but she was kind of aloof. You could tell she was the kind of person that took life one event at a time. We chatted a bit and she told me that she toured with her boyfriend's band. They had even been to Europe.

The Ducati dealer had cool stuff. They had plenty of bikes and some apparel that I probably will eventually get. When we got back to the venue it was not quite time for sound check. Ted and Joseph decided to get their last game of duct tape basketball in. I think Ted ended up winning the last game 7 to 3, or something like that. The band decided to push sound check up so we could have more free time before the gig. Victor wasn't around, so I got to play bass again for sound check. Victor came in towards the end and checked out the basses really fast, then he told us that he had Valentine's Day gifts for all of us on the bus. He had picked up some things for all of us from the local novelty/sex shop. He gave me and my wife some edible underwear. Or as the comedian Larry the Cable Guy would say, some 'edible eatn' britches'. YUMMY! I hope my mom doesn't read this. My wife called me the other day and told me that my mom said she wished I didn't use the word 'ass' in the tour journal. Funny thing is,...I don't remember ever using the word 'ass'. In my mom's eyes, I'll always be 14 years old. By the way, I can't even begin to mention the gifts the other guys and girls got. I'll just say this,...I sure do wish I could find that store.

Divinity and I decided we were going to walk down Mill Street to get something to eat and do some shopping. We were actually looking for a tattoo parlor. I was hoping I could find a good image of Mighty Mouse to get tattooed on me. She wanted to get her other tragus pierced. I had taken her and my wife to get their tragus pierced in Flagstaff, AZ. My tragus has been pierced for about 4 or 5 years. In case you don't know, the tragus is that flap of cartilage at the middle in the front of your ear. While we were walking, a guy heard us talking about piercings and tattoos and he stopped us to recommend a place. But while we were walking, we say another place. Right next door to the tattoo place was a cool restaurant so we decided to eat out. Divinity got her tragus pierced, but I never found a good Mighty Mouse image, so we went next door and ate. On the way back we stopped at a poster shop. I saw a very cool poster that I thought Victor would like. It was a landscape design with yin yang images on it. One of the yin yangs was draped over the branch of a tree. It almost looked like a round yin yang rug drying on the branch of a tree. At the bottom of the poster were the words 'Persistence of Mellow'. I thought that was the perfect description of Victor. Divinity and I decided to go half on the poster. The salesman told us that it had been there for years and years. When we got back to the bus we gave it to him. He really liked it. He had both of us sign and date the back of it.

The show went great. Victor was playing his ASS off (sorry mom). At one point I walked over to him and jokingly whispered in his ear, "You're just flashy - you can't really play." He looked at me with a sly grin on his face, and then played one of the most amazing licks I ever heard. Then every couple of minutes he would look over at me with that same look in his eyes and do something equally as amazing. My solo was pretty good. But more importantly, I felt that the 'pocket' that was laid down on the other songs that I played on were tight and funky. After the show, during the meet and greet, I showed a couple of people my basses. I chatted with Paul Underwood from Bass Camp for a while. Before we left, a very cool thing happened. One of the guys that hung around for the meet and greet screamed up to me on stage. He said, "Anthony, you're the man! You laid it down tonight!" Then he started clapping. A lot of the other folks who had been hanging around started clapping also. That made me feel really good. I didn't get a lot of time to spend with the fans since I was busy packing up gear. On the last show of every tour, the gear has to go in a certain order. All of the guys have to be able to get to gear when the bus arrives in Nashville.

Once we got back to the hotel, Ted, Joseph and I decided to walk about a block away to a local club. We were just going to hang out a while, since the tour was over. Everybody went up to their room and we 3 agreed to meet back in the lobby a little bit later. When I got in the room I remembered that Jeff was heading back to Nashville that night. I decided that I wanted to go down and tell him good-bye and let him know that I enjoyed hanging out with him on the last 2 tours. When I got down to the bus, Victor was the only one there. He told me Jeff decided to get a couple of hours sleep before he started driving. Oh well - I guess I'll call him in a couple of days.

When Joseph, Ted and I met in the lobby, we asked the concierge about the club down the street. He said every place in this town shuts down at 1:00AM. We looked at the clock. It was 12:55. We just started laughing. I guess it wasn't meant to be. We all just went back to our rooms. The hotel provided shuttle buses to take us all to the airport. Most of us had an 8:00AM shuttle call. I think Divinity's shuttle was at 5:00AM and Danette's was much later.

Victor, Regi, Joseph, Derico, Kurt and I rode the shuttle to the airport at 8:00AM. All of our flights were scheduled roughly around 10:00AM. They all were headed to Nashville with a stop in Denver. I was flying straight to Dulles airport just outside of DC. Of course we all were laughing and joking and being silly while we were waiting to board the plane. Joseph had all of us cracking up as usual. Kurt decided to not fly all the way to Nashville. He was going to get off in Denver and hang out in Denver for a week or two. I think our friend Michael Kott was driving up from New Mexico to hang out with him. At some point I realized Ted was missing. He had overslept and was going to catch a later flight. When it was time to board my plane I said my good-byes to everybody.

I called my wife to let her know that I was on my way. Then I went to sleep.

I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this. I enjoy doing these journals. It's very therapeutic for me. And it allows me and my wife to interact even when we're thousands of miles apart. I had promised myself that I would start using my voice recorder so I wouldn't forget as many details as I usually forget, but of course I didn't do that. Sometimes details will come to me days after an entry was done, but it was too late to do something about it. Sometimes I would forget people's names - especially people from Bass Camp. There were people from Bass Camp at every show except the show in Spokane, WA. I'd like to thank all the Bass Campers for coming out. Especially the people I forgot to mention like AJ in San Francisco, and the guy at the Santa Ana show who wore the bandana and plays the 4 string Fodera. If I forgot to mention your name, it's not because I forgot who you are because I recognize everyone's face. There was another guy at the Santa Ana show from Bass Camp. I think he may have been with his mom. Sorry I didn't get the chance to say hello to you. I want to say thanks to the many friends who came out to the shows. I want to say thanks to all the people that drove me around in various cities. I want to thank all the people who gave me books as gifts. Russ & Robin Hodges gave me 'Emissary of Light' (a Vision of Peace) by James F. Twyman. Mark Mallard gave me 'Ghost Rider' by Neil Peart from the band Rush. Thanks to my many students who called and checked up on me while I was on the road. Thanks to the Victor Wooten band (my extended family) for the many memories and stories I'll be able to tell. Can't wait till we do it again! Thanks to my wife for 'letting me go out and play with the boys' for a couple of weeks. This whole tour journal thing was her idea and it's only possible because she's willing to stay up half the night waiting for a phone call from me.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did.

peace & blessings

anthony

"SMELLS LIKE FUNK"