Michael Gregory, Photographer

Here are my miss-and-hit impressions of my week driving to and living in Jackpot, NV. I am currently on the casino circuit playing with Matt D. Ward and Random Tuesday (that's one band). 2008.01.23 Super Marathon Drive I don't know whether it is bad blog form to do so, but I am going back through some of what I wrote almost a week ago and editing it before I upload this entry. Looking back most of the memories I cite leave no lasting impression.

What has stuck most with me from the super colossal 18-hour drive to Jackpot, NV is the quiet majesty of the rocky mountains as seen from the high passes that Interstate 80 cuts through them. The effect was amplified by obscurity in the sparse light of the full moon as we passed through the mountains from dusk to the early hours of the morning. Sorry – no pictures. 2008.01.24 First Full Day in Jackpot, NV Wow - talk about a faraway place - this place is far away from anywhere. Jackpot, NV is far away from the closest town, Twin Falls, ID, which is the hometown of the our server at breakfast. A woman six-and-a-half months pregnant, she seemed to be in a unique state of acuity about her little corner of the world; either that or she is unusually observant. She gave us a quick rundown of both Jackpot and Twin Falls, ID. Jackpot is basically a strip of casinos on a highway between small towns. Most of the businesses on this end of "town" are owned by Ameristar, from the two casinos where Random Tuesday is playing to the general store that serves as the sole grocer/retailer. The general store reminds me so much of the little grocery in the tiny map dot/farm town where I grew up. The lighting is spartan and of course fluorescent. The selection of groceries is a dense fruitcake of paradoxes: the shelves are packed to capacity in tight formation barely spacious enough to accomodate a single cart but there is no more than two of any particular item; the shelves are characteristically stuffed with branded, manufactured foods, but an unusually high proportion of the brand names are unfamiliar (I learned later that nearby Twin Falls, ID is home to a big production facility for food manufacturer Glanbia, which explains some of that); the grocery seemed generously overstaffed and the prices are higher than at a big city grocery chain - and on and on. Same feeling as a tiny grocery in a resort area, too.

I was told that "nobody" lives here, but I got caught in a stampede of schoolchildren walking home from somewhere at about 3:30 in the afternoon, so apparently there is a school and there is at least one neighborhood. The one neighborhood may be the one in which the casino has put up the band; it has the feeling of military barracks, well- but spartanly-built, furnished but I would hesitate to say decorated. At a glance the little shoebox strips of apartments look like mobile homes, but they are permanent structures. Today I was too chilly and too sick [with a cold and sore throat] to explore much. I went to the general store to get a 750 of good scotch for my throat and came home right after breakfast. I am going to woodshed a little and take a nap before it is time to go play. First Performance We played to a total of 7 people the entire night, including casino staff. They told us that Thursdays are always dead. They let us go an hour early after we rehearsed "Senorita" several times in a row onstage. 2008.01.25 Brush with greatness: I had an order from American Musical Supply delivered to the hotel because I realized too late that I needed a couple items for this leg of the tour. For some reason or another it got delivered to the casino concert venue, where the Oak Ridge Boys are playing tonite. The guy who must have been their road manager called me and told me he had my package. As I walked in, seeing, the marquee, I realized who was setting up inside, and I fantasized that maybe somehow I could finagle my way into getting to sing that part on "Elvira" that goes, "Giddy up-p-oom-pa-pa-oom-pa-pa-mau-mau...". I wasn't able to put that together. NOTE: I learned later that nobody was playing that night, and the sign I saw advertising the Oak Ridge Bodys at the entrance to the venue was for a concert in February. 2008.01.26 The most remarkable thing I encountered today was an armed security guard for the casino who is almost certainly called "The Kid" by the senior security staff. He looked to be about 16 years old [I assume he's older]. In the few minutes I spent shooting the breeze with The Kid, waiting for “The Band Key” to get into the backstage area, he told me that it was his third day on the job. At the time of writing, he must have more than tripled the number of hours on the job, so he's probably learned by now to not give away his weaknesses to strangers. He did get called into action on that, his third night, first when one of the cowboys manhandling his woman handled her a little too hard, and later when a druuuuuunk redneck literally fell off his barstool.

2008.01.27 Smiley and I went to Ameristar's elaborate brunch and then on a hike around 1/2 of the circumference of the entire town of Jackpot. We ran out of road about a mile into the hike and hopped a fence to the airstrip that the casino had doubtless built in hopes of attracting high rollers. I had seen rabbit tracks in the hotel parking lot, which got me thinking that I really hadn't seen any wildlife other than birds in Nevada. But then on the airstrip we did stumble upon a big jackrabbit with even bigger ears. Tonight's was a gig of contrasts. I was sucking wind, watching the clock, trying to remember why I liked music – or whether I did really like music. It was a genuinely horrible circumstance: small, unengaged crowd, my own ego-crushing bad improvisations. During a break Smiley, presumably to cheer me up, broke into a unbelievably hilarious, ironic application of the Kenny Chesney song "Shift Work". I was so down I was at my wits' end, laughing off bad energy I could have used to start a fight or cry in a corner. Then in walks the band from the gig across the street. The bass player got up with us first, and eventually the whole band minus guitar and drums was up onstage with us. I was on fire – it was about the best time I've ever had playing music, and I played extremely well for where I am in my musical quest right now. It's funny how wanting to play makes such a big difference. On the way home I pledged to myself to find my own means and my own reasons to enjoy music, regardless of the circumstances. 2008.01.28 Today was a very poor practice day – I spent maybe an hour of actual focused time shedding, but I'm still marking it up as a win. I got a new [nearly free] phone that is a decent music player [LG “Chocolate”], including headphones that sound reasonably detailed and balanced. It has already started a deep change in my listening habits.

We did go to Twin Falls, ID as a band, (so far we haven't done many things as an ensemble other than perform onstage). We were officially going on a turnaround trip to Wal-Mart, and I was hoping to talk the rest of the guys into seeing a few historic locales in this most fascinating city. We ended up going to Target, which was much closer, after which we went to a couple of shabby mom-and-pop music stores and then to the mall, where we kicked it high school style, being idle, loud, and cheap. I didn't even get my phone at the mall – I walked from the strip mall on the corner of the same block. It turned out that Matt was meeting up with a girl he had met at the venue Friday night, so we gave him time and space for that.

How You Can Tell You're in a Budget Hotel You can easily rank all six of your bath towels on criteria like age, whiteness, and softness, as well as overall suitability. It's crystal clear: "Man, it's gonna be hard times when I get down to number 4."