The Wake

It was snowing on Friday when I stepped on a plane in MSP. It was snowing in Chicago when I transferred to a connecting flight. But it wasn’t snowing in sunny California, where I was the guitar player for Blues Traveler during spring break.

Since this is the first websclusive View From the Bench, I felt it was necessary to make it special, to make it different. So I’m in San Francisco, and I figure now is as good of a time as any to begin bringing the masses an extra column, every fortnight, exclusively on the website.

And what better way to start than by telling you about my new profession: the guitarist of Blue Traveler. Or so I was introduced as at 3:30am Sunday morning at an after hours party to a woman I thought would see through the lie. But apparently not.

As I walked from a deck, packed with smokers, into a large room crowded with neon lights and techno music, a hand grabbed my upper arm to stop me. The woman, maybe ten years older than me, pulled me over to her.

“So tell me what it’s like to be in Blues Traveler!” She said. I was stunned. I was sure she didn’t believe the lie when it first hit her. I even felt kind of dumb for not denying it, figuring she thought I was some pathetic tourist resorting to elaborate lies to impress her in light of my not-as-impressive good looks.

But no. She grabbed my arm, pulled me aside and started asking me all sorts of questions. “So, what’s your everyday life like when you’re on the road? Is it really crazy with tons of groupies and drugs?”

Taken aback by her forwardness, I stood stunned for a split second before realizing I had to continue the lie. This was just too good!

“Yea, I just joined the group a few months ago,” I told her as smugly as possible. “I’m on a little vacation right now. Gotta go back to L.A. in a week and start practicing for our next tour.”

I soon realized that I was running out of things to make up on the spot. I made an excuse to leave her presence and went to another room, going over my back story again and again and again. I went back out on the crowded deck nervous that the woman would find me again and start asking me more questions.

All of the sudden, a different woman pulls me aside. “Hey, you play in Blues Traveler?” I nervously nodded. “Jeff! Come here, this is the guy in Blues Traveler.” A tall, thin man with long brown hair and a scruffy beard came over to us.

“Hey man!” he said. “What’s up? I love your band, man. I’ve seen you guys like three times. You always put on a stellar show.” I was being sucked into a drain of my own lies and fabrication. I had to get out. I left for the door, people stopping me left and right, asking me about John Popper, and what kind of guitar I play. I shrugged them off with goodbyes and high fives.

As I left the party, I was still known as the guitarist for Blues Traveler. And to top it all off, when I woke up the next afternoon and watched the NCAA selection show, the Gophers men’s basketball team got an eight seed in the big dance. Now that’s what I call good spring break. Go Gophers and Blues Traveler!