Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Monday October 14, 2024 - Longmont, CO

Road Blog
October 14, 2024
Longmont, Colorado

I had the luxury of downtime yesterday morning with no travel and not even a gig booked for Monday night. I had the same motel for 2 nights, which is a mid-tour treat I always try to work in, to have a little extra `laxin before the second half of the run. I watched some Sports Center and Seinfeld, which I haven’t seen in a long time, and found that it holds up surprisingly well, as opposed to, say, Friends, which feels pretty cringe to me these days. I had a little episode in the room where I lost the remote control and couldn’t find it anywhere. I tore the room and the bed apart about 3 times and even went back to the breakfast bar in the lobby to see if I’d left it out there. Just as I was giving up I found it sitting in plain sight, next to my keys, phone, and laptop. Thing is I was searching for the white remote with grey buttons from Salt Lake City, not the black remote with white buttons from Denver. Shit is starting to get blurry from day to day.

I filled up my rental and drove into Boulder, a city I’ve never been to before. First stop was past the giant and popular open park at the foot of the mountains and up Flagstaff Road to Panorama Point – a pull-off and viewing area that presents an amazing view of Boulder and the valley beyond. There is a layer of smoke in the air from some wildfires in Utah and Wyoming, but the view was still spectacular and I took it in for a few minutes before moving on.

From there I went halfway back down the mountain, took a left into the city, then up Sunshine Canyon Road and this is where things got intense. Karen Jacobsen - The GPS Girl did her best to keep me on the right track but at one point she told me to turn off the main road onto something like looked more like a mountain bike trail than a road, and I missed it. Next thing I know I’m climbing these steep hills and navigating hairpin turns on a shaky gravel road that skirted a cliff that would mean certain doom should a mishap occur. I stuck with it, Ozzy Osbourne’s Diary of a Madman album prodding me forward, and eventually made it to the top. Phew, glad that was over. It was one of the more intense drives I’ve done.

The Sunshine Canyon Road Viewpoint is just a small, dirt parking area that was mostly vacant except for a young couple with mountain bikes on their Subaru either getting ready to leave or stay, it wasn’t clear, but there may have been shenanigans of one sort or another involved. I waked through a few pine trees and boulders and took in the amazing panorama view of the Sawtooth and Reed Deer Mountains and other summits in the India Peaks Range. The wind was blowing and the cool, mountain air tasted great. I did my best to pause and appreciate the moment, as these times in the mountains are few and far between for this midwestern kid. The view looks so much like the opening credits of Grizzly Adams that I had to google where that was filmed, and turns out it was Utah. I took one last long inhale and exhale and walked back to the rental and prepared for the ascent.

Karen took me down the opposite way I came, which I assume is the way I would have come up had I not missed that half-ass road she told me about. Well, things were going ok for the first mile or so, then Karen says to take a right on 85 or something, and there’s no real road in sight, just some sorry excuse for an overgrown driveway, but still, I didn’t want to get myself into another situation, so I backed up and went down the “road” she suggested. That was a mistake. That last disaster of a road was the Autobahn compared to this thing. I literally feared for my life as I descended down a steep hill on loose, single-lane gravel, next to a drop-off that had to be 1000 feet or more. It was terrifying. There was nowhere to turn around, and if a car came at me there was literally nothing I could do. Welp, the decent into Hades ended at the cinder block foundation of someone’s mountain home in the early days of construction. The road just ended. I got out and looked for the road just to see if I was missing it, but nope, it was gone. I had one choice – turn around and go back up that goddamn trail to the main road. I didn’t allow myself to think much about it, I just got in, and did it. I cranked the gas and I cranked Ozzy and just somehow zig-zagged back up that sucker, spinning out around those hairpin turns, and somehow got back to the main road, feeling relieved and a little proud that I’d survived. I also chuckled at the beating this rental car was taking. I stayed on the main road that quickly turned into some welcome pavement, and easily made it back into the city from there.

My first stop in Boulder has been on my list for about 45 years – the Mork & Mindy House. A nice tourist lady and I took photos of each other in front and exchanged pleasantries, then moved on. It’s a nice house, and a checkmark I’m not chasing anymore. From there I parked off the main drag – Pearl Street, where I hit a record store and some local boutique craft, vintage, and local goods stores. I passed on an original pressing of KISS – Love Gun that even had the original cardboard gun in it. I had plans to meet my niece Ella and her boyfriend Quincy with about an hour to kill so I popped into the Boulder Illegal Pete's location for a pint and a call home. I’m happy to support Pete’s after they fed me the night before, and the setting was good for my needs. TrooperGirl22 was still at work, gave me a lengthy checklist of things I had to aske Ella and Quincy about, and we had a nice chat.

I met Q & E at the The West End Tavern at the opposite end of Pearl Street for dinner. My niece is going to CU Law School and we’re all very proud of her. Quincy is doing some amazing work around underwater sonar sounds (it gets a bit technical for me, basically studying sonar ocean floor mapping and the noises and sounds of the oceans). It’s all very exciting, and by all counts they’re doing fantastic out here, away from Michigan and seeing the world through wide, young eyes. It was a fantastic visit, and good to see that they’re adjusting so well. I told them about the remote control incident and the near-death gravel road descent/ascent. We took a photo and said our goodbyes, grateful that we’d had the time to connect.

From there I headed about 20 miles north up to Longmont, where I popped into a cool bar called The Speakeasy on their main street. It’s a literal old speakeasy that has access to the tunnels under the city that were used for booze storage, movement, and consumption during prohibition. There was an “Open Blues Jam” scheduled, and if you know me, you know that ain’t my thing, but after my Boulder show for last night was cancelled a couple weeks ago I was unable to land anything else, so I thought maybe I’d crash their open jam and sell a record or something. This old timer shook my hand and asked me what I “did,” and I explained that I play my own songs solo-acoustic, and depending on how militant your definition of the blues is, I could hold my own. The songs are certainly depressing enough, if not that 12-bar formula these guys are after. “Well, that’s what I thought.” He said with a concerned grimace. “Here’s the thing, you gotta play with the band. We don’t just let people play solo.” Yea that wasn’t gonna work, and we both knew it. “But, you know fella…” he says, “you should head over to Bootstrap Brewing around the corner. I think they have an open mic going tonight, and that’s probably more of what you are after.” The moment I starting thinking about getting into my jammies and taking in some bad TV, he throws that out, so what the hell?

I drove over to BootStrap Brewery and met Denny, the host of the open-mic. He looked a little concerned at first, this rat-haired, bug-eyed stranger from Detroit asking about his open-mic night, but pointed me to the sign-up board and told me I’d be on around 8:20. I ordered a pint and watched some of the other participants do their best, playing great covers and originals, and one dude doing about 10 minutes of comedy. It was loose and fun, low-stress, and a friendly vibe. I went on as scheduled and played a short set of my A-list stuff. A couple songs in my friends from the area Angie and Andrew came in and helped to elevate the energy.

As I was wrapping up, the bassist from one of the previous acts got on stage, strapped on a Tele and started noodling. Under normal circumstances I’d have booted his ass like Pete Townsend did to Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock, but that didn’t seem advisable under the current situation, so I rolled with it, turning a bit so he could see my fret-board. He played some tasty, reverb-drenched country/western licks that fit well with my material, and it was a lot of fun! My time was up, but there was no one scheduled after, so we did another one of mine and he kept right up. It was a cool little moment, and I thanked him with a fist bump and smile.

I got a couple tips, had a beer with Angie and Andrew, and drove back down to my motel, where – after getting my room key reset – my black remote with the white buttons was waiting. I had a nightcap, always welcome after a night of beer, and crashed out around midnight.

Boulder is a beautiful city and I definitely want to spend some more time there, and in the surrounding mountains. I’m still pissed that my show got cancelled, and can’t believe how little value the word of some people holds. But, for two nights in a row, we made the best of it, played some songs, had some fun, made some friends, and now we’re moving on for the last five shows.

Tonight I am in Laramie, Wyoming, which I believe will be my 40th state played. I’m at The Great Untamed, opening for the Deacon Brown Blues Band, with doors around 7:30 I think, and music at 8. See ya there Laramie! Thanks for reading. Solo long, Colorado, `til next time. Xx