The Misadventures of Göran Wallen

So we have had our last night in Gotland. The show was in a reception hall. A horrible sounding reception hall. Of course we waited until the last night on Gotland to play such a small venue that we were actually turning people away at the door as well as making the mistake of bringing far too few CDs. Hopefully we can remember the vibe of last night in Finland and Norway as I would imagine the crowds will be a lot more tame and less ravenous for Theresa.

Yesterday, Goran, 66, sat in the middle of the road stopped in front of the venue with no blinker just waiting on something or looking at something or really doing nothing is what it was. Either way, when he did finally decide to turn off this very narrow one lane road into the venue, a Vespa was passing him and he clipped the back tire, nearly throwing the young woman from the scooter. However, she was so scooter saavy that she quickly regained balance, remained upright, and kept driving. I, of course, was inwardly furious at his constant neglect for the safety of others, the rules of the road, and his general surroundings. Thus, I have reached the conclusion that barring flight delays, the only reason Iwouldn't be home on July 29th would be a car wreck caused by our bumbling octogenarian promoter.

After the show, we arrived back at the house near 1am with plans to be up and at 'em to leave at 7am in order to catch the ferry back to the mainland. I undress, climb into bed, and close my eyes, exhausted. Suddenly, my door opens, the light comes on, and Goran asks me if I can get into the car.

I ask, "why? You have the keys."

"No," he says "I locked them inside just now."

I think about this for a second, realize that I made sure that all the doors and windows were well locked on the van when I came inside and told him "Guess you'd better call a locksmith now then to make sure we can leave promptly at 7." I then, having solved the issue, fell asleep.

Ten minutes later, Theresa wakes me up. Apparently on Gotland locksmiths are most certainly not available 24 hours a day and we wouldn't be able to catch the morning ferry unless we got the keys soon and would I mind trying my hand at getting in since Goran is doing nothing but circling the car trying all the windows and doors again in a textbook case of insanity: repeating an action expecting different results. So, my next 20 minutes were spent in the pre-dawn chill, with eventual success, feeding a crooked coathanger in the window to unlock the door.

Now, this is not the first time Goran has locked us out, but I'm having trouble deciding on which time was more troubling. The first time he locked us out of both his car and his house in one fell swoop while it was raining heavily and we were in a rush. All in all, I'm beginning to fear my safety as a passenger and/or guest in this man's care. It is a miracle we haven't missed a show yet. I believe I could have an entirely separate blog entitled "The Misadventures of Göran Wallen" and it would probably have more readers and more comments than this one but the subject just depresses me.

On a happier note, I finally got him back for taking numerous unwanted candid photos of me against my wishes by snapping a shot of him snoring loudly, mouth open, head back.