We’re two days into the trip and I’m nowhere near the end of the story about how we got here, so I’m just going to leave you in suspense… not. But here’s the Cliff Notes version. I discovered the movie’s impact hours before I saw it, when a fan rushed up to me on the snow-filled streets of Park City, Utah, grabbed the sleeve of my coat and said, in a thick accent, “You were in the movie. I love your music.”

Quelle surprise. But the big surprise was when I sat down, the theater got dark and up came the image, and the Missouri Waltz. Me, or at least my voice, on the big screen. I was stunned through most of the movie, not just because the music was such an integral part, but because the film was so damn good. And true, and all the other stuff they’ve said about it. When it ended, I just sat there for a long time, feeling the universe shift around me, and wondering if what I strongly suspected was true. Was I, in fact, about to enter a parallel universe. Well, yeah, kinda. In March they sent me to Austin, to the South by Southwest Film Festival. Then Kansas City in April. Then to New York in June for the film openings on the east coast. Then LIttle Rock, and Memphis, and all manner of places, culminating, I thought, in a trip to Italy to represent the film at the Torino International Film Festival. That was 2010.

This year started at the Moxie in Springfield to celebrate four Oscar nominations with the home crowd. Then in February, I got to join the crew for the big moment (which actually occurred the day before the Oscars at the Independent Film Awards. We got two. Something else happened as well. I was reunited with my old songwriting partner, Robin Frederick. And we began writing songs.

Oh, and there was the meeting set up by Matt Sullivan of Light in the Attic, who was hoping to generate a tour to promote the Winter’s Bone soundtrack, and Christian Bernard, booking agent for independent “Indie” rock bands. He said he thought he could book us a tour, I said sure, let’s try it. And now here we are in a motel in Denver, waiting  for our first gig out on the open road. So with this post, we’re up to date. The following is a post from the road hand written this morning, somewhere on the Kansas-Colorado line. It goes like this:

Colorado – Just like Kansas but with the beginnings of randomly scattered Ponderosa pines.. Yesterday, we crossed Kansas as far as Colby. No cheese, but a giant wind farm that was truly bizarre. Thousands of years from now in the next cycle of doomed civilizations, they will create new myths about the aliens who must have built these monoliths for unknown purposes, possibly to communicate with their kin on distant stars.

You already know Kansas is flat and wide, but to give an idea of the relentless sameness, we started a bird list a while ago, and have already descended into documenting roadkill.