Taking The Show On The Road Two

Whatever friendship Ellie and I had forged in our week-long pen pal relationship was cemented during our six and a half hour lunch at Lucy's. I liked her even more in person...as I said, we ate, we drank, we laughed, we cried. It doesn't get any better than that.

We continued to check in with each other, Although some of our correspondence waned slightly - mostly my fault - as I was super-crazed with wet proof corrections and all other pre-publishing nightmares and fires that needed to be extinguished with regards to the book. But when I called her from the airport in Phoenix, while on my way to the Austin Film Festival, and told her I really wanted her to come to the book/gallery opening in Vancouver...all the way from Florida. More on that later.

For now, I need to get back to where I left off on the Vancouver trip... Wednesday (one week ago today) started off with some calls, continued work on retrieving my email files and prepping for the impending show. Then I had a phone interview for a print article with Sarah Rowlands (which reminds me, I need to follow up on that), followed by another phone interview with Robin Larose for Rock 101, Vancouver's classic rock station (more about that later). After the interviews I headed over to the framers to check on the arrival of the lost prints. They finally arrived around 4:30pm, a full 24 hours after I arrived with the hand-carried prints and four full days after they were supposed to arrive via FedEx.

Meet the folks that somehow managed to frame close to 90 prints in less than four days:

Wilfried used to be the owner of the shop before he sold it to Gerry, but he came in to help out the last minute crisis for my show.

This is Gerry, sizing matte windows for the late arrivals.

Kent couldn't resist trying out his Marc Bolan pose.

Kent mounts the front window posters for the gallery.

After I was done there, I headed over to the gallery to drop off some of the finished pieces, then it was back to the hotel to meet up with one of my favorite pro-writer friends for a drink and chat. Unfortunately, he had dinner plans, but fortunately it gave me one last night of quiet before the onslaught of out-of-town arrivals...beginning at 10:30am Thursday morning when I picked up my mother, sister, brother-in-law and niece at the airport.

We had agreed on a curbside pick-up and somwhow I arrived a little earlier than the plane. Have you ever tried to hang out curbside at your local airport, or say, LAX? You know, where you sit in the "the white zone is for the loading and unloading of passengers only"? And if you stop for more than five seconds some gorilla security guard bangs on the car and yells, "Get the fuck out of here1"

I stopped in the "white zone" at the Vancouver International airport, and it took at least five minutes before the security guy moseyed over to my car window. I rolled the window down and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi, I'm just waiting for some passengers. they should be here any minute now."

"Where are they coming from?"

"Calgary. On West Jet."

"Okay. Well, I can give you a few more minutes but then I'm going to have to ask you to drive around the loop...if you wouldn't mind."

"Hey, no, that's okay. I don't mind driving around now." He then went on to explain exactly how to get around the loop. Why are Canadians so damn polite? asks the Canadian who has lived in L.A. far too long.

I finally load the gang in the car, drive back too the hotel and get everyone settled into their rooms. Wait. How did my relatives get rooms on the 27th floor with the great views when I was relegated to the 10th floor? When I checked in they told me I couldn't go higher because of the group rate we had... liar.

Anyway, we ended up somewhere for lunch before I had to meet my son and his girlfriend, who were arriving by car via Seattle (she didn't have a passport either), at the framers because they had the last two prints and a suitcase full of t-shirts that I needed to get to the gallery.

Okay, this story seems to be getting long and boring...my humble apologies. Dinner plans with the family members got ditched so I ate with my son and the g.f. then made my final run of the day to the airport to pick up...yup, you guessed it...my special guest, Ellie Gibbins! It was around 10:50pm and I was such a space case by then I didn't even see her arrive through the customs doors. She found me staring blankly at a display of tourist brochures.

We ran into my niece in the lobby when we got back to the hotel. She had just put my sister to bed and was on her way back to the bar next door (don't tell anyone she's only 17) where the rest of the gang was knocking back drinks. I checked Ellie in and then we made our way to Shenanigans. All these words just to get to the pictures:

Mark (husband of my friend Carla - they came all the way from L.A. just for my show and somehow hooked up with my family while I was picking up Ellie), brother-in-law Larry, niece Kristy.

My mother and Tyler (he's mine).

My mother, Ellie and Carla Cowan.

Half a beer and I was done at the bar. I knew I still had a bunch of stuff to get done before the show and only a day and a half left to do it. The saga continues...