O. M. G.

You remember, a few months back, I narrowly missed attending an Amanda Palmer ninja concert at the Carillon in the middle of a savage thunderstorm?

Well, I guess if the same thing happened now, I’d happily go get soaked.

It was somewhere in Illinois when the subject came up.

“Oh, hang on,” said Discoverylover, “I’ve got her album on my ipod.”

And we plugged Amanda Palmer into the van’s sound as we headed into downtown Springfield, aiming for Lincoln’s home and another of those National Park Service passport stamps.

We didn’t make it by about five minutes. It had been a late start, we’d bumbled our happy way along Route 66, and by the time we realised that it was a long way to St Louis, the sun was going down.

But I didn’t care too much. Discoverylover was playing the songs, and I was particularly fascinated by one called Map of Tasmania. There were other songs, but the image of Amanda Palmer “walking down the street, showing off my map of Tasmania” just cracked me up. The refrain, “Oh. My. God!” was about all I could say for the next week and a half as a response to anything.

“Here’s your salad, sir.”

“Oh. My. God!”

Swatt! – sound of Pete being hit over the head with rolled up beer bottle by Discoverylover.

She had actually been to a couple of Amanda Palmer concerts in New Zealand. Dragged her mother along to one, as well. DL’s Mum is one cool lady, I must say, having met and hugged her once or twice, and they must have had a ball together. My mother would never have taken any of her children to a show where the lead act is introduced as “Amanda Fucking Palmer!”

We got a coffee and continued on into the dusk. The story of what happened when we stopped for dinner in Litchfield and asked for “a local beer, not any of those big national brands like Coors or Millers” will be told later. In the meantime, I was wobbling all over the road. If I wasn’t laughing, I was beating time to the music.

 There’s some wonderful songs on the album, including a new national anthem for New Zealand, which frankly I think would be an improvement on their current dirge, albeit overly focused on one particular person’s menstrual cycle. There would be smiles all round as the New Zealand flag was hoisted at the Olympics, the majestic ukelele playing, hands on hearts, stars in eyes etcetera.

I immediately went off to iTunes and bought the album. It’s a cracker!

There’s a new version of the old standard Makin’ Whoopee and a delightful ode aimed at Vegemite, which is apparently Australia’s national food. Her husband, Neil Gaiman, loves the spread. Amanda doesn’t.

I love you, and no matter what you eat,
I’ll always love you completely,
I might just always leave the room at meal times,
Or refuse to touch or kiss you for a week,
If you insist on putting that foul death paste in your mouth.

Magic stuff!

We found a fantastic hotel in St Louis, just a Tim Tam toss from that amazing arch, where next morning we squelched over wet grass to get the stamp. Would have taken the lift up, but we were late and had to be on the road. It was about noon by the time we got our Drewes Frozen Custards and headed west out past Shrewsbury along Route 66. Drewes Frozen Custard is the exact antithesis to Vegemite. There was a line about a mile long, and it was a very soggy workday, but Oh. My. God! it was so worth it!

We had moved on to a Neil Gaiman book by that time, just to keep it in the family. The Graveyard Book on audio, ghouls and ghosts and assassins making a charmingly offbeat children’s story.

That’s one thing about modern roadtrips. It’s more than the scratchy AM radio the original Route 66 voyagers would have seen as an effete luxury. It’s ipods and ipads, DVDs and audio books, computer games and mobile internet nowadays.

We were never bored.

And next time Amanda Palmer and I and Discoverylover and her mum occupy the same nation, we’ll be there in the mosh pit.

–Skyring