Santa Fe, where every building looks like an episode of the Flintsones

My ears continually pop from the elevation change from the high desert of New Mexico to the valley of Phoenix. Sleeping on this particular run has not been easy or restful. Load in is in a couple of hours, then the show, and then as X-Zibit would say "Off to the West Coast".

Story time

This is TRUE and it happened just yesterday in Santa Fe, NM. Sage Francis (note the pics from the Chicago blog) had a runner drive him to the hotel for a quick shower and rest before the show. We had three shared rooms, which roughly translates to one per bus. These rooms are for shitting, showering, and/or shaving. We all share, we all get along. We leave the door latch in the door to eliminate the tracking down of keys.

Sage arrives at the Holiday Inn Express, trudges up the stairs to room 205, and finds the door latch holding the door open, peeks in to see if anyone else is using the facilities, and eventually hops in the shower and cleans up. After his shower, he is sitting at the desk browsing the internet on his laptop when Santa Fe's finest come in and arrest him. Handcuffs, nightsticks, and hood of the car slam… he got the works. He was arrested for burglary. The runner had taken him to the wrong hotel. We were at the Holiday INN, not the Express. After about 30 minutes of explaining to the idiotic cops and jackass hotel manager, he was let go to BARELY make it to the venue in time to perform. The police wanted this bust badly. They would not listen to reason for the longest time. They could not fathom why someone would share a hotel room like we do and were convinced that he was there plotting something more sinister than taking a morning shit.

The moral to this story is obvious: Fuck the police.

End story time

Regarding the gig... This was one of the more interesting venues on the schedule. Paolo Soleri Amphitheatre is on the campus of an Indian (feather not dot) School on a reservation. It is cut out of and into the desert so it is basically a miniature of red rocks. I also learned that this time of the year is the monsoon season in the Southwest American Desert region. When I initially opened the door of the bus to explore the outside world, I was greeted with bright sun and 100 degrees. As the day progressed, the wind picked up and brought the sand and dirt storms with it, but eventually the clouds came and dropped the temperature 25 degrees before the sky opened up for 10 minutes. Humidity rose, temperatures cooled more as the sun set, the desert got a drink, we all got cold.

The next update will be after the gig in Mesa, AZ. I can't wait to get out of here, I hate the desert…