Baby, It's Cold Outside - 12-13-02

Hey folkses --

Just got back from a great trip to the Great Lakes area for 6 shows -- Chicago, Springfield, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Oconto, and Minneapolis. Needless to say... BRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! Did I mention *^%$ing BRRRRR!!????

Many thanks to all those kind folks who gave Big Blue a jump EVERY SINGLE MORNING because she was FROZEN SOLID. But good ol' Blue pulled on through, and got us where we needed to go on our big Country Music Bonanza and Traveling Jubilee. I think it got down to about -5 degrees the night we were in Oconto, WI (about 30 minutes NORTH of Green Bay). And after some extremely kind (and insane) folks from the Main St. Bar came and gave me a jump that night (and all she had to say about the below-zero weather was "Jeez it's cold oot here, eh?"), I was able to get some Taco Bell and let the car get charged and warmed up. Then Timmy and I ventured out to try and watch the end of the Packers game at the bar, only to find it was closed! It looked as though all the bar-goin' people in town just decided to consolidate their merry-making and congregate in the one bar that was open down the street. But with no guarantee of finding the friends we had made the night before, we decided to go for another round of what was turning out to be our Ice Tour sponsor -- Broaster's Chicken!!

This is just convenient-store fried chicken at first glance, but oh no.... the folks at Main St. Bar were kind enugh to make a run and get us this chicken the night before while we were playing at their place, and we were hooked. Damn fine stuff, with some perfectly cooked fried potato wedges to boot. And we also discovered that Broasters chicken (along with beer, sodas, snacks, and the like) will stay cold and perfectly preserved up there for days while sitting in the sill of a hotel room window. So, as Timmy and I pull up to the Kwik-E Mart to get round two of that damned chicken, we witnessed a site you just can't see down here in Texas. I'll put it this way... if you ever are at the Kwik-E Mart for Broasters Chicken after a Sunday night Packers' home game while anywhere around Green Bay, WI about 11:00 p.m. -- you pretty much should just stay in the damn car. Cold, half-blitzed, some bundled up like eskimos, others wearing only shorts and painted head to toe in green-and-yellow body paint, the ravenous Packer Fans raided the poor little store, stripping it bare of all beer, snacks, and chicken, like a school of pirhanas on a drowning steer. Through the door constantIy swinging open and closed, I could here the exasperated cries of the nice little ladies behing the counter, sounding something like -- Lady: "Janice, get out here!" Janice: "What's up?" Lady: "NOW!!!!!" Me & Timmy decided it would be best for everybody if we just stayed clear, being foreigners and all... After the first couple waves had come and gone, I ventured in. Standing pitifully by the ravaged chicken bin, I asked the bedraggled lady behind the counter; "Will there... be more... chicken?" She nods, "7 and a half minutes". I went back to the car, watching the next wave come in, some leaving in a pissed off desparation, mouthing "They're..out..of...chicken!" to their friends in the car as they came back to break the sad news on the Great Broasters Chicken Famine. Me & TC just hung low, with our secret knowledge of what the future held. After exactly 7 and a half minutes, I ran in, got all the chicken I could carry, and we hi-tailed it back to the hotel before we were lynched for hoarding. Mmmmmm.... Brooooaaasters....

Oh yeah, there were some cool gigs, great folks, and more goofy stories on the tour, too. More of that to come...

Y'all take it easy --

Roger