Salem, Oregon. Crystal blue skies. 72 degrees. Killer horseflies the size of a baby’s head…. okay, I’m kidding about the horseflies. I had to come up with something negative about this place so I don’t sell our house and move here tomorrow. This was an outdoor fair with rides and sock monkeys and everything. Downside? No opening act. If we were gonna play we would have to come out during Kenny’s show and do three songs. Is it worth it? Can we get across to the crowd the magic and wonder that is Blue Sky Riders in only twelve minutes?

Now ordinarily I can do some pretty decent things in under twelve minutes. Just ask Georgia. But our show? Don’t we need at least forty minutes to bring the charm and the jokes? And we certainly have no reason to go to the merch table after we play. If we went to the merch table it would be in the middle of Kenny’s show and people would have to miss Angry Eyes to stand in line and buy a CD of a band they only heard for a nanosecond. Maybe we play our three songs and run back to the hotel in time for Craig Ferguson.

Well, we played. We rocked the Tilt a Whirl! People sang along. We hit them with the hits (or what WOULD be hits if radio would play them). We said, “What the hell,” and went to the merch table to see if anyone was willing to forgo Angry Eyes. They lined up, baby! We would have been happy saying hello to four people. We sold 80 CDs! Now I’m not great at math but I think that comes out to approximately 600 CDs per song. Boy, I am REALLY not great at math.

I consider tonight a personal and professional triumph. Any other band would have taken the easy route. Not Blue Sky Riders.

By the way… Georgia got off the joke of the night tonight. She told me that she read that thirty percent of the Billboard country chart was songs that had the artist rapping or had a guest rapper on it. Being the cynical purist that I am, I said, “Yeah, that’s what ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ needed… someone talking in the middle of it!”

Then she said ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’ DOES have someone talking in it!”
That’s my girl.