Note: This is a journal entry — it was written on paper or on my computer, then transferred to my website, maybe years later.

Hello!  Just got home (haha) to Sevilla, from the show in Puerto Real (Cadiz), a seaside town.  Or anyway, we saw a beach and some water, but I’m not sure if that was the actual ocean.  It’s only a little over an hour’s drive from Sevilla so we just drove back and forth.  We’re staying in the same hotel we we were at last night, called La Muralla.  We have these rooms tomorrow night too.  It’s real nice to be able to stay in the same place for a little stretch, you don’t have to spend so much time draggin’ yer suitcase around.  I think me and Ryan are starting to drive poor Andy a little bit batty, but that’s okay.  There are only a few days left for him to put up with our dumbass jokes, and I’m pretty sure he’ll forgive us our weirdnesses and not end up completely disgusted with us and never wanting to see us again.  (Believe me, it can happen!)

The show tonight was a little weird.  None of us could put our finger on exactly why.  Surely couldn’t have had anything to do with all the rocket-fuel coffee I drank earlier today, or the beers we had while waiting for the guy to show up with the PA.  And it definitely wasn’t the beer we drank before and during soundcheck, or the Manzanilla wine we had at dinner, or the triple-shots of coffee we had after dinner, or the beers we drank when we got back to the club.  It was just weird, that’s all.  The club was cool, and the people were just so very very nice.  The show was sponsored by the local university (I never thought to ask which) so there were a lot of teachers around, and very smart-looking young people.  Guess there were about 40 people in there.  It was a beachside bar, and it had that feeling, you know… very laid-back, with a very slightly nautical theme.  There was a sort of a patio-garden area in the back which was closed off to the public, but they let me go back there to fix up my setlists.  Yeah, in the PLURAL.  They wanted me to do two sets just because they figured it would work out better that way, and it really did.  I broke up the batch of songs we’d been doing and threw in a few that we hadn’t tried yet, like "Wash of Water", "You’re Decided", and "Through the Trees".  Each set was only about a half-hour or forty minutes.  I did the Lydia Mendoza song at the very end, and everybody really liked it, even though I kinda screwed up in the middle and laughed.  I had quite a few fuckups tonight actually.  And Ryan did too, so at least I was in good company!!  Heheh.  Good thing it’s a seaside town, the audience didn’t mind at all.  I always laugh when I fuck up; what else are you gonna do?  I even said "shit!!" right into the microphone in the middle of a song, I forget which.  And omigod, during "Wonder Wonder" I changed the words to say "…when everybody’s fuckin’ with your mind…" Just came out my mouth that way, but it fit perfectly.  Heheheheheh.

Salvador, the guy that organized the show, is the director of cultural events (or something) at the university there.  He was REALLY fun to talk to because he had a super good knowledge of classic country and oldtimey music.  He actually knew about Jean Shepard… yessss!!!  We were talking shop and saying "have you heard this? how about this?" and telling each other which of the Bear Family box sets we had.  Far as the modern stuff, he loves Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams, same as me.  I told him to get some Danielle Howle records, and his recommendation for me was Mary Gauthier (sp?).  I think I’ve heard that name before but definitely never heard the music.  He said Stacey Earle had just played there recently and I tried to act like I was familiar with her music, though I really can’t say that I’ve ever heard it.  So many records, so little time… ::sigh::  I will definitely seek that out, and Mary Gauthier too.  Salvador was very pleased with the show I think.  I love it when they use the word "encantado"… it translates to "enchanted", which is a word we don’t seem to use often enough in English.  I would like to believe that my music enchants the audience but that’s not really for me to say.  :-)

Oh yeah… I did YET another live interview (entrevista) on the radio today.  It wasn’t national radio this time, gracias a dios, just a local Sevilla station with maybe 500 people listening to that particular show as opposed to 20 zillion or however many listeners the Radio 3 show had.  Good thing because it was a little bit more difficult of an interview for me this time.  I was doing it on Andy’s mobile phone… the reception inside the bar wasn’t very good so I ran outside and tried to do it there, but the cars and motorcycles passing by sort of fucked with my ability to understand what the guy was trying to ask me.  At one point I THOUGHT I sort of understood a question, I gave him an answer and then said… "did I just answer the right question?" He said no, but that it was okay.  He sure had a funny accent… I guess it’s un acento muy Sevillano.  Another dumbass thing was the fact that I couldn’t remember the name of fucking Granada.  He was trying to ask me what shows I had left in Spain.  I sez… "esta noche estamos en Puerto Real… manana hay un concierto en Sevilla… y luego… y luego… ummmmm…. duhhhhh….  es una ciudad que empieza con una ‘G’… ummmm…." ("it’s a city that starts with the letter G…") He paused and said "Granada?" and I’m all… "ESO, SI!!! Granada!!  Lo siento, se me olivido porque nunca he ido ahi!!!" (Sorry dude, I forgot the name ‘cuz I’ve never been there yet.) Fucking shit!!!  Man, phoning in an interview on live radio, that shit’s for the birds.  I’ve never had to do that in the States, never.  And just to fuck me harder they want me to do it all in Spanish.  Hijole!!  Well… I tried my bestest, and it seems people always, ALWAYS really appreciate the effort.  They understand I’m having a hard time and struggling with my Spanish but they’d much rather hear broken Spanish than perfect English.  Um… I think I already talked about that a few days ago.  :-) I’m not trying to brag at all, I’m just saying it’s a bit of a relief both for me and for everyone else, that I can at least struggle my way through it.  I can understand 95% of what people say to me, it’s the talking that I have a problem with.  The accent is pretty fucking good, because I learned Spanish when I was a little kid, so I guess my tongue learned how to do that shit straightaway.  I.e., I can say "ferrocarril" with no problem.  It’s just the words and the sentences that give me a problem.  My vocabulary isn’t as extensive as it used to be and I keep having to ask… "what’s the word for this, what’s the word for that?"

I did another interview today as well, for a Sevilla newspaper, before we left for Puerto Real.  I had done a newspaper interview the other day as well, but this was a different paper.  Newspaper interviews are always a little boring, it’s not like talking to a fan of your music or anything.  Or anyway, they might like the record well enough, but they’ve only ever heard it a few times.  It’s something the editor throws at them and says "you need to review this, and the deadline is tomorrow." Or maybe some promotions person gave it to them and they’ve got nothing better to write about that week. Really the ideal interview for me is done by somebody who knows my music already, and the better they know my music, the better the interview.  Duhhh… I know, it seems obvious but it never fails to strike me as a little… well… a bit sad.  The guy is doing his job as opposed to doing something for the love of it.  It always makes me work a little bit harder to charm the writers and make sure it’s at least a halfway interesting encounter for them.  I want it to be worth their time, you know?  These are some fucking busy people after all.

Gotta get some sleep now.  Hope I don’t have any weird scary dreams like I did last night.  I don’t think I will; I think it was that fucking guy banging on the door and scaring me so bad I practically crapped my pants right before I went to sleep!!  When we came in the hotel lobby tonight (at 2 in the morning) I told the night clerk… "we’re going to be VERY very very quiet tonight, don’t worry." But he just smiled and acted like it was no biggie.  Which definitely leads me to believe that THAT was not the same guy who banged on Ryan’s door last night.  Had to have been the guy staying in the room next to Ryan’s.  I can tell now that the walls are really fucking thin here, and with all these tile floors, every sound we make just bounces around the whole hotel.  I can even hear it when Ryan coughs over there in the room next door.  He said he could also hear me moving around in my room last night.  So… tonight we were very very quiet and only hung out smoking and whispering for like fifteen minutes instead of two hours.  Dude-man, it would suck if we got kicked out of here for being too noisy.  Ain’t gonna happen on my watch.  :-)