Roman Edirisinghe

I’m moving again, sometime in January. I have very mixed feelings about it, because I’m quite tired of moving all my junk. And it will be quite a hassle, especially because it will be freezing. On another note, change is always good. And although my initial response to change is based in fear, I know there is much to be learned from transformation. I will likely move into Jesse Sheehan’s space (shared with Rueven) and rent the space while he is in India. He expects to be gone 6 or more months. Hopefully, by that time, I could either find a house or figure out a way to blow the hell out of Dodge.

Overall, aside from the impending move, I feel rather unhappy. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It seems that everything in my life is a farce, and that I’m not really being myself. This may be a result of the weather (cold weather and cloudy days give me the blues), or I may be genuinely stuck. Either way, it sucks. It would be nice to be involved in a career that actually feels fulfilling, where the work I do would actually have a positive impact on this world. Heck, maybe everyone wants that, but doesn’t know how to get it. I sure don’t.

I’m back in Milwaukee now, well rested, and I now have the energy to complete my tale.

After we checked out of the hotel, we made our way to the college. On the way there, we stopped by at Atomic Coffee to get some caffeine. While I was waiting for the cappuchino and mocha, my eye was drawn to a large green apple. I grabbed it, and was holding it in my hand when the coffee was brought to the counter. I paid for the coffee and left.

En route to the college, I discovered I had the apple in my pocket. Which was strange, because I didn’t remember paying for it. Which essentially meant that I had inadvertently pinched the apple right under the cashier’s nose! I didn’t have time to return the apple. I was going to have to chew on the karmic debt later.

We arrived at Concordia and met an extremely diverse group of students, who seemed excited to have us perform. Unfortunately, the scenario was extremely disorganized. No one seemed to have any idea of what was going on. The sound crew seemed taxed by our requests. And all the students there were eager to start their talent show, which made us realize how secondary our presence was going to be. On a brighter note, I discovered there were a lot of Sri Lankan students at Concordia, which was quite startling to me. I was unloading my gear when I heard “Nah bhang…machang…etc,” and I thought I was in a different country.

Overall, the show was a success, but it was not without some inherent hitches. The best songs were Invocations and Malaika. Everything else was passable, but certainly not the best One Drum fare. I always find it a challenge to play without a drum set player. It’s hard to keep consistent tempos without a good timekeeper. The audience seemed to enjoy the show, but wanted us stop far short of our contracted two hours. Which was fine. In the end we drove for 21+ hours to perform for a little longer than an hour.

Don’t get me wrong…the students were great, and seemed really nice. They could benefit from some organizational skills, or some coaching from experienced advisors. Either way, they were unprepared for our band, even though we had forwarded full spec sheets, stage plots, requirements, etc. We live and learn.

One Drum packed up our stuff and were right about to leave when Dave Wake discovered he was missing his wallet. Time passed. He finally found it in his bag…

We were about to drive off when we discovered the back door was open. Much congenial laughter was shared over that episode. We ended up leaving Moorhead at midnight, Friday night.

The return trip was extremely foggy, and I was driving. In the end, I decided it was best to simply ride the center line, which left me a good buffer of road in case the road curved. I had three Red Bulls during my shift, which ended at 5:00 am. I was wiped out. I don’t recall much of what transpired thereafter. I tried to sleep, with mixed success.

Hours later, we arrived in Madison and dropped of David and Ian Stocker. And a little later, we arrived back home in Milwaukee, exhausted, but with heavy pockets.

That was the shortest nap. Or the longest blink of an eye. One moment, I was closing my eyes, and it seemed like only a moment had passed before I opened them again. Four hours had passed. It’s time for us to go set up for the show.

We’re finally here. One Drum is in Moorhead, Minnesota. I can barely type anything, I’m so tired.

We checked into the hotel, got some breakfast, and our plan is to sleep for a few hours, then go set up for the show. While the drive was grueling, it was not as bad as I thought it would be, and it was made so much more enjoyable by the company. We covered a lot of ground in the last 12 hours: terrestrial and celestial…

We’ve seen 3 or 4 cars in ditches by this point.

We seem to be going in and out of patches of mild snow flurries in the neighborhood of Tomah, Wisconsin. The Afro-Cuban All-Stars provide musical themes for us. Dave Stocker is driving.

We are finally moving again after waiting for about 45 minutes at the Perkins parking lot in Madison. Eight more hours to go? We have barely slept.

We finally leave Milwaukee.

We picked up Jahmes’ stuff (not him), and got food at Qdoba. I’m tired & grumpy.

Just picked up Cory Coleman. We just spent 10 minutes deciding which of his dun-dun drums to bring. We are in Urban Empress’ killer 15 passenger van. The incense smells nice (golden sandalwood).