Backup singer Sarah Jean Pixlie got her own song on the radio and that got her nominated for a coveted Patsy award. And that got her fired by country star Cindy-Lu Bender. What to do? Head home to California and the warm, weird embrace that awaited her at the Dewdrop Inn...

An Excerpt from And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You

By Kathi Kamen Goldmark

This was the first time in my life I’d ever been fired, and I didn’t even have my own home to go to. I’d given up a cute little San Francisco sublet and arranged to get calls and mail forwarded to my folks. That seemed easier than having to constantly check voicemail, or worry about what was happening to my stuff. So my parents’ address was my official home as far as Cindi–Lu’s business people were concerned, and they’d been so eager to get rid of me before I had a chance to talk to anyone that they’d booked a flight to San Francisco without asking if I’d prefer New York. As far as I knew, no one was expecting me. I figured I’d rent a car and make the three-hour drive up north by myself. It would give me a chance to catch up with local news and music, and maybe — deliciously — hear my song on the radio for the first time ever. I needed a little time to think things over quietly before entering the warm, chaotic embrace of my family.

Which is why I almost walked right past Aunt Perle, waiting for me with a bouquet of wilting roses, at SFO.

“Sarah Jean Pixlie! Who do you think you are, young lady, ignoring your old auntie?” she shrieked, jumping up and down in her hot–pink Reeboks.

A relentless New Yorker, Aunt Perle had been a semipro athlete in her youth, then quit sports to help her husband, my uncle Eddy, run his contracting business. After Eddy died tragically in a Little Italy restaurant shooting, she sold the business and went back to school to study Chinese herbal medicine and nutrition. She worked part–time as a yoga instructor at a New Age center, hosted an Internet conference on holistic health, and maintained her Living Well-Naturally Web site and newsletter. Her self–published book on Mexican wild yam cream sold steadily, supporting her idiosyncratic life.

“Perle, what are you doing in San Francisco? How did you know I was coming? What’s this?” She was thrusting a smudged copy of USA Today toward me.

MAN BASHING – C&W TREND OR NOVELTY? NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR NOMINEE SARAH JEAN PIXLIE SINGS ABOUT HEARTACHES FOR A GUY

The story included the lyrics to my entire song:

There was no cream for your coffee, and a wrinkle in your shirt
After everything you ate last night your stomach really hurt
Your buddies canceled bowling, didn’t even tell you why
Well, that’s a lot of heartaches for a guy

The mosquito in your bedroom nearly kept you up all night
And the TV cable conked out during Forman’s latest fight
And she made your Sunday breakfast over easy ’stead of fried
Well, that’s a lot of heartaches for a guy

Poor guy, just don’t see eye to eye
Didn’t anyone ever tell you life is hard and then you die?
Oh my, you’re doing the best you can
Better bite the bullet and take it like a man

Your woman wouldn’t treat you right because she was all bent
Out of shape about some trivia like the children and the rent
And the Giants lost the game last night, just makes you want to cry
Well, that’s a lot of heartaches for a guy

Apparently, USA Today had heard the news before I had! The article went on to say that radio stations were getting a record number of requests to play “Heartaches for a Guy, — mostly from disgruntled married women, that an established male country artist was about to release an answer song, and that I could not be reached for comment. There was even a snappy quote from a spokesman for Cindi–Lu Bender, five–time Country Legend nominee, saying that although she was sure the song was meant to be amusing, she wished that men and women could stop sniping at each other and just get along for once. She also wished me the best of luck in my solo career, and said she’d miss me and would be rooting for me to win the Patsy. What a total bunch of crap.

My resourceful auntie had read the story, figured out that I was leaving the Magnolia Heart tour, and called Cindi–Lu’s management office in Nashville to get my flight information.

I hadn’t been home in almost a year. Of course, the band got occasional time off and most everyone went home, but most everyone’s home was Memphis or Nashville. It didn’t make sense for me to waste two days just traveling, especially since Lake County isn’t near any major airports. I usually spent my free time in New York, visiting friends or staying with Aunt Perle.

On our way up Highway 101, Aunt Perle filled me in on the latest family gossip. She was visiting for a few months while her old SoHo loft was being renovated, keeping busy teaching vegan cooking and yoga classes at one of the small spiritual communes up in the hills. This particular group, the Bhalahdis, supported themselves with a thriving appliance repair business, and Perle felt appreciated and well paid. The Dewdrop Inn, my parents’ night–club, was doing fine. They were auditioning drummers this week because Pete Rawley, long–time family friend and the house band’s drummer, had broken his arm in a Laundromat accident.

Pete was a sweetheart and a good player, but wound up being the butt of the drummer jokes that Aunt Perle and my mom gleefully pulled off the Internet and e–mailed to each other. (How do you get a drummer off your doorstep? Pay for the pizza.)

"So, Sarah Jean," my aunt said, "there are some things you should know before we get home. The phone’s been ringing off the hook, darling. Everyone in the world wants an interview with my niece. Entertainment Tonight wants to come to the club with a TV crew. A People photographer has been lurking, claims he just wants to be a fly on the wall for a day or two. You’re gonna walk into the Photo Op from Hell, sweetie, and if you don’t mind my saying so, you look like shit."

“Hey,” I replied indignantly, “it’s been a pretty action-packed twenty-four hours — no time to freshen my lipstick.”

Aunt Perle had the perfect solution. We stopped at a shopping mall in Marin County for lunch, then hit the Lancôme department at Nordstrom. For the price of a Velvet Midnight mascara, I got a full makeover and the life story of the young cosmetician behind the counter. Then we slammed into the men’s department, where we bought an extra–large black T–shirt to replace what I suddenly realized with horror was still the stinky old George Thorogood and the Destroyers shirt I’d worn when I crossed the hall last night. With my jeans and boots, a little makeup and the new shirt, I could at least sort of pass for a Newcomer of the Year even if I didn’t exactly feel like one.

As a special treat, we made one more stop, at the Hopland Brewery for an ice cold local beer. Well, I had a beer. Aunt Perle had one of her special concoctions, something she called a “bio–beer,” consisting of a non–alcoholic brew and some horrid smelling green powder. Feeling refreshed and ready for anything, we took the turnoff for the road over the mountain, the last leg on my trip home.

Once a fashionable resort area, Lake County named its towns after elegant European retreats–by–the–sea. It’s a shock for first–time visitors to see road signs pointing the way to Nice and Lucerne. As the Lake Tahoe area became more popular with the social set, Lakeport and the neighboring towns became more year–round, blue–collar communities. A huge Colonial–style house with manicured lawns, the private residence of a retired doctor, might sit right next to a dirt lot on which a rusty trailer boasts signs advertising itself as "Fred’s Resort," offering a boat dock and cable TV. We passed California stucco houses, New England brick houses, suburban ranch houses, RV parks, Indian casinos, and everything else you could imagine, all jumbled together in comfortable proximity. The main attraction is Clear Lake, sparkling and welcoming in the afternoon sun despite rumors of dangerously high levels of mercury and other pollutants. Majestic Mount Konocti and the neighboring mountains keep the area protected or isolated, depending on how you look at it. That’s Lake County for you: more than its share of unemployment and the highest percentage of parolees in the entire state of California, alongside a large population of fun-loving working folks, and an assortment of old hippies, survivalists, and true believers maintaining religious communities up in the hills. This peculiar mix of people was one of the reasons my parents had been able to turn their little honky–tonk into a successful business and get themselves off the road.

We turned off the main road and there it was: the rambling old roadhouse I called home. Perle honked the horn as we pulled into the long gravel driveway that led around back to the kitchen door.

Next thing I knew, a mass of shrieking red curls came flying at the car, and I was smothered by my mom, Alice Cohen Pixlie. Like everyone else, I’ve always called her Allie, her official stage name. In her fifties, shorter and more athletically built than me, and incredibly young looking — people often assumed she was my sister. Allie has always been a bit dreamy and vague, the type who can remember who was playing at the Whiskey Au Go–Go on June 23, 1972, and what she wore to the show, but shows up late for an appointment because she forgot to iron her blouse and couldn’t find the car keys. In fact, she can never find her car keys! The only time I’ve ever seen her completely focused is when she’s onstage; otherwise she seems forgetful and distant — quiet until she comes out with some dramatic and heartfelt observation that lets you know she hasn’t missed a thing. No one in the world loves harder or cares more; it’s just that the pesky details of day to day life seem to mystify her. My aunt Perle, older by four years, is exactly the opposite: practical and bossy and always in control. The two of them together are a riot.

I saw them in the afternoon light: two short, slim women with wide smiles — Perle with her close–cropped, no–nonsense New York haircut in a natural–fiber drawstring getup and hot–pink Reeboks, and Allie with cascading auburn curls and bare feet, wearing cutoff jeans and a wrinkled lace blouse she’d accidentally put on inside out. They were doing a goofy secret handshake they’d invented as children, laughing, clearly thrilled that I was home.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, looking around for my father, Johnny Pixlie, leader of the Dewdrop Drifters, the club’s house band.

“Oh, he’s off playing at some music festival or other in Texas — or is it Oklahoma? You know — summers." Allie waved her hand dismissively, figuring that was all the explanation required after twenty–seven years of marriage to a fiddle legend. “He’ll be back in a week or so, I think.”

The next few hours were a blur. There was indeed some local press around, asking polite questions about country music and man–bashing. I soon got the hang of the sound bite. No, I do not really hate men. Yes, I’m still on good terms with my great pal Cindi–Lu Bender, and I wish her the best in the Patsy Awards. No, I don’t know who’s going to replace me on the Magnolia Heart tour, but I’m sure that whoever it is will do a fine job. No. I don’t expect to win Newcomer of the Year, of course not, what with all that great talent out there, but it’s a pleasure to be nominated. As for the male country star’s answer song, well, he certainly must be suffering from a heavy dose of PMS envy. I smiled for the cameras, and finally everyone left and we went inside.

The Dewdrop Inn hasn’t changed much since its glory days as a country music showcase club in the fifties. Back then, every major act on the county fair circuit played there. Autographed photos of Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and their peers line the walls, along with the stuffed moose heads and cowboy–and–Indian murals left by the original owners. There’s an enormous dance floor surrounded by booths and tables, a large open kitchen, and a long bar. Sparkling amber liquor bottles are lined up on a shelf under a large mirror, backlit as though on an altar, the liquid sacraments of fun.

The place had fallen into shabby disrepair before my folks bought it, when I was in high school. They had to do a lot of renovating to bring the building up to code, but in the interest of preserving what they felt was a historic monument to honky–tonk, they left the decor pretty much the way they found it. They added a mesquite grill for tourists and a jam night for local musicians. Johnny and Allie Pixlie were tired of traveling and wanted a place where they could keep playing without being on the road. Their band was great in the old country swing style, and the locals and summer boating crowd loved the place. They turned Thursday nights over to me, and I put together a little blues–rock band, Raisin D’etra and the Raisinettes, that appealed to a younger crowd, sometimes giving up my regular night to a touring act.

My absolutely favorite feature is the Ball of Love, a standard–issue revolving Saturday Night Fever disco ball suspended over the middle of the dance floor. But our Ball of Love is controlled by a switch on the floor of the bandstand; one of the great treats at the Dewdrop is stomping on that switch with the toe of your leather boot right on the downbeat of the first song. The room is suddenly transformed from dingy tavern into dazzling palace of romance. People meet, dance, and fall in love under that crystal ball. They also pout and punch each other out on occasion. The house rule is that the Ball of Love is turned on only while the band is playing, and the privilege of stomping on that switch belongs to the bandleader.

The bar and restaurant became our living room and kitchen years ago. A long picnic table separating the kitchen from the edge of the dance floor serves as our official gathering spot — off limits to customers, reserved for band members and family. Upstairs, where my family sleeps, are about a dozen bedrooms left over from a short Picturesque Country Inn period, and there’s always a friend or relative staying in one of the extra rooms. The Dewdrop is no longer a hotel because my dad said it would be unfair to charge people money to stay above a noisy club with live music playing till 2 A.M., but I think the real reason is that my mother needs to take in strays. She’s housed pregnant teenagers, itinerant musicians down on their luck, government officials from Borneo and other old Peace Corps buddies, an entire high school pep squad, and a psychic medium who put her in touch with my great–grandma Clara. She meets these people everywhere, they tell her their stories, and the next thing you know, they’re staying in one of the upstairs rooms, kept clean and ready at all times. Growing up, I called our home the Dewdrop Dorm. I got used to it, even grew to enjoy it. My dad put up with it; Allie can’t live without it. She makes a pot of jasmine tea and sits and listens and gives advice straight from the heart, which usually amounts to suggesting they get themselves a little band together and play music. She really thinks that the world’s problems would be solved if everyone could be in a band.

From And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You by Kathi Kamen Goldmark ©2002. Published in the U.S. by Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco.Used with permission. Visit http://www.chroniclebooks.com/andmyshoes/.

The writer: Perhaps best known in the publishing world for founding and performing with the all–author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders, Kathi Kamen Goldmark is co-author of Mid-Life Confidential (Viking/Signet, 1994) by and about the Rock Bottom Remainders and The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book (St. Martin’s Press, 1997) with Dave Marsh. Her novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, was released this fall. A former teacher with a Master of Arts degree in Drama and Education, Kathi has worked as a costume shop manager, family planning educator, media consultant to the government of Mexico, paid professional hippie, retail clerk, book publicist, and waitress. Kathi has written and produced dozens of songs, one of which was included in Stephen King’s miniseries The Stand. She performs regularly with her country–rock band Train Wreck, and hosts a monthly jam at a San Francisco nightclub.

The music: Download My Baby Used to Hold Me (And Now He’s Putting Me On Hold) and other original songs featured in the book.

The inspiration: “I wanted the book to be a love letter to honky-tonk music — a celebration of what has come to be called ‘roots music’ — and legends like Ray Price, Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, and Hank Williams. But the real inspiration came from the fine musicians who will never be inducted into the Hall of Fame or make million–selling records: the pickers and singers who provide the soundtracks to our real lives on Saturday night in neighborhood bars all over the USA. They are the real heroes of Shoes..."

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