February 4, 2003 - Missoula, Montana

Even though I was tired I woke up very early this morning. I just had to get some laundry done before bus call. I was down to my last pair of socks. So Steve Schaeffer gave me a ride on the shuttle to the laundry mat. After I put my clothes in the dryer he came back and took me to the Uptown Diner for breakfast. I had another very good vegetarian omelet. The diner was only 2 blocks away from the hotel, so I walked back to the hotel. Then Steve gave me a ride to go back and pick up my clothes.

It was roughly 11:00 so I still had an hour and a half before bus call. When we arrived at the venue (the Wilma Theater), the load in didn't go very well and the bus almost got a ticket for being parked illegally while we unloaded. Once we got set up we realized that not only was it a difficult room to work with because of acoustics, but the PA gear wasn't up to par. A lot of times historical theaters don't want to add acoustic treatment because they don't want to tamper with what's there originally and take the chance of ruining it's historical significance. Zach Newton had a very hard time "EQing" the room and he expressed that verbally. Zach's not a person of many words, but when he says something, he definitely means it.

Back east my wife was boarding a plane to Denver. She's supposed to go visit friends of ours, Seth Recarde & Hilary Lauer (who by the way are nature teachers at Bass Camp), but knowing her she could be right outside my hotel door! She's coming to the Ft. Collins and Boulder shows Friday and Saturday and we are flying home together. Today's and yesterday's entries are being posted late because of her traveling.

After sound check Victor & I went to have dinner with a friend of his Suzanne MacKillop. We went to a very good Thai restaurant in Missoula. We all had a great conversation. She's a very lovely person. We went straight from the restaurant to the tour bus outside of the venue. Victor showed her a copy of the new Playboy Magazine because the Flecktones have a picture with Hugh Hefner in the newest issue. They were invited to the Playboy mansion because they won the reader's poll for best jazz group maybe 5 times in a row (or something like that). The funny thing is they said there were NO women there at all the day they were there. By the way guys, you have a legitimate reason to go out and buy this month's issue of Playboy Magazine because there is a picture of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones in it.

I also showed Suzanne that there's always a bunny hidden on the front cover of every Playboy Magazine. I guess a lot of people really don't know about that and she found it fascinating. I don't PERSONALLY read Playboy because I'm married, but my wife allows me to look at the magazine covers when we're in book stores together just so we can find the hidden bunny. I ONLY know about the hidden bunny because a friend told me about it, because I've NEVER seen the inside of a Playboy Magazine in my WHOLE life!

(…uh huh…right...)

After UNWILLINGLY looking at the Playboy magazine I figured it was time for me to go into the venue. Despite the equipment in the venue the show went very well. The crowd was very lively. It was mostly a "hippie" crowd and they immediately flooded the isles and started dancing. The band sounded really good. At one point we had to remove one lady from the stage after she jumped up on it. After the show I explained to her why I had done it. I just had to make her see that if the crowd saw that one person was allowed to do that, then eventually everybody would get up on stage and it would get out of hand. Then she said she understood and immediately started crying. I put my hand on her shoulder and asked her what was wrong and she said she always gets emotional when she's drunk.

During the show, Divinity asked me if I would go to the hotel bar with her and bring in her birthday with her. I told her of course I would. I also told Zach, Ted, Danette & Regi about it. So we all showed up at the bar with a bunch of employees from the hotel and at midnight we sang Happy Birthday to her.

I met a hotel employee at the bar who told me that out of a population of 20,000 in Missoula there are only 101 black people. That's a hell of a ratio! When I get back to DC I'm gonna' see if I can talk some of the "bruhvahz" into moving to Montana.

When I got back to my hotel room my wife called to let me know that she made it to Seth & Hilary's place OK. I'm really looking forward to seeing her on Friday & Saturday. I'm looking forward to being home…I really miss having home cooked meals. Even though the restaurant cooking has been good, there's nothing like having a meal made with love. I think I want my first home cooked meal to be 2 fried eggs with cheese and 2 morning star vegetarian sausage patties and a buttered wheat English muffin with jelly on it. That sounds really good.

Goodnight!

peace & blessings,

anthony