Before I head out to my new music room/summer cottage/sanctuary, (formerly the tool shed) for some more painting and floor laying, I wanted to run a couple of "travelling musicians' time wasting road games" by you. When you're on the road with others it can get a bit tedious (even with generally good company) so a lot of these time wasters get made up.

"Boticelli" WARNING! This particular game can make some people VERY angry. The folks that play it get used to being dumped on for being "too well informed for your own good", but boy, you can eat up about 200 miles with just one go around. Here's how it works (in the musician's version)

Think of a famous person dead, alive, or fictional. Give the other players the initial of the last name. For example, lets use "Babe Ruth". The others have "R" to start with.

They in turn must try to stump YOU with a famous person who's name starts with "R", by giving a fact about that person. Eg: Player #2: "I was the Singing Brakeman" who am I? If you (the person with the original "R" identity) says "Easy, Jimmie Rodgers", you get one point,(10 points win) and it goes to the next person. If you don't know the answer, the other person gets to ask you a "true or false" question. Eg: "Are you real or fictional?" You of course (being Babe Ruth) say "real". (they have 9 true or false questions left to discover your identity..and hence, win)

On a lengthy tour with Sandy and Caroline Paton, Caroline incurred our wrath by giving us the last initial "H". We tried for hours until giving up. "ROBIN HOOD"! she says! Dirty pool! said Sandy and I.

********************************************

Another goodie (and MUCH simpler) although you can still get a lot of flack for it, is "connect the names". Someone starts with a name, eg: Jimmie Rodgers, the next person has to give (quickly) a new name with either the first or last names of the previous one in it (we don't worry about similar spellings). So I might say "Rogers Hornsby" (baseball player), next might say "Bruce Hornsby", then "Robert The Bruce" etc, etc,. It wears pretty fast but is good for a 50-80 mile jaunt.

****************************************************

"Talkin with lines from songs". This particular little game got a friend of the Patons and myself furious with us! (that in itself made a few miles pass by rather quickly)

Start with a song line: "I'll be Damned, here comes your ghost again" (Dylan). The next person has to either identify the song....OR...come up with something from another song that sounds connected, ie: "I'm looking through you" (Beatles) perhaps followed by "I can see clearly now" (Johnny Nash), then maybe "These Eyes" (Guess Who) and possibly "I'se The b'y that builds the boat" (told you we don't worry about spelling!)

*********************************

There must be hundreds of these "driving time wasters". Anyone else got any?

Rick