The California Tour and Nobody's Quest

After opening for Raina Rose and John Elliot at Lestats in San Diego, they invited me to continue with them on the road for the shows in Joshua Tree, Pescadero and San Francisco. It was an amazing drive up the coast, and my first time going up that stretch of Highway One. We slept in a dessert ranch, camped out in the forest just South of Big Sur, got breakfast in Monterey and made it to Gazo's Grill in Pescadero just in time for the 1PM show. The intimate crowd seemed to really enjoy the music, and we got invited to "rockstar Jeff's" land in La Honda, up in the redwoods and well outside of cell phone range. It was about a mile from the ranch where Ken Kesey and his merry band of pranksters used to have the homebase for their psychadelic adventures back in the day. The winding road lead us up through the woods to a house on a green mountain looking out towards the pacific. When we got inside the house we found an upright piano and a double bass waiting in the living room, and what was to become a two day mountain music retreat began.

Near Half Moon Bay I picked up a hitchhiker named Nobody and we immediately got pulled over by a cute but serious looking female California cop. I explained who I was and gave her my ID and registration, but Nobody had a little more trouble convincing her who he was. He gave her his real name, and when she went back to her squad car to check his name, he asked me to swear that I wouldn't tell anyone his real name. Turns out that cop and me are the only two people in California who know Nobody's name. He'd had a revelation two weeks before and decided to go on "Nobody's Quest," leaving behind his central Texas life to travel and spread his music and poetry. He cut up his IDs, changed his name to Nobody, got rid of his vehicles and debt and took a bus from Dallas to San Diego, where he made sixty dollars a day playing music on the wall in Ocean Beach. He explained to me how he had made some people in Ocean Beach cry with his music and they had confide in him that they had always felt like nobody and that he was giving them hope by giving a voice to nobody. He told me that there would eventually be a "Book of Nobody," as if prophecizing his own biography.

When the cop returned to the car having found no record of Nobody's existence, she began asking questions. We explained that we were musicians on our way to San Francisco for a show.

"What kind of music do you play?" she asked.
"Folk, kinda....spiritual" replied Nobody. "Would you like to hear a poem?"
"No, not right now," replied the officer.
"Are you sure? It changes some people's lives," insisted Nobody.

But the cop wouldn't hear it and sent us on our way, unscathed. We smoked to calm out nerves after the close call and carried on to San Fran, where me met up with Raina, John and Howard. After the show I met up with Chrystal and we had a little party at my friend Mitch's house. The next day I dropped off Nobody in Santa Cruz and drove all the way back down the coast... arriving in San Diego changed and inspired from the trip.