As the Fourth of July approached, Joan and I had decided to go over to Kauai for a break. We rented a house on Anahola Bay, near the beach. We started wandering around the area to get the lay of the land, and discovered the one Mexican restaurant on the island. It had a humorously straightforward name. The El Cafe (The “the coffee” in Spanish). Good Mexican food. It quickly became our default restaurant. We were both creatures of habit when it came to restaurants. If we were traveling, once we found one that was comfortable, informal, and a place that Joan could smoke in that had pretty good food, it became our local. Our joint. I always thought that it saved us a daily decision to make. I still do.
The second night that we had dinner in our joint, as we were leaving we saw a small Tabby kitten on the sidewalk. It was lingering near the entrance, watching the street action and probably waiting for someone to give it something to eat. There are a lot of cats on Kauai that live on the street, searching out a bit of food here and there, relying on the kindness of strangers. At the exact moment that we walked out of the door a pitbull quickly appeared out of the dark, ambled into the glow of the streetlight, and approached the kitten. The kitten was unfazed. A fearless little soul. The dog and kitten were apparently faced off, and Joan quickly picked the kitten up, fearing that the pitbull would attack the little cat. As we soothed the kitten, a ponytailed regular walked up the sidewalk. “Oh, don’t worry about that dog, that’s just Horace….. he won’t hurt it..” As we started to think about what we were going to do with the kitten Horace came up, smelling us, then looking up at the kitten. We had mistakenly thought that the we had heroically saved the kitten’s life. We stood there wondering what to do next. Do we just send our new friend back onto the street? The ponytailed native watched us with the kitten for a minute. “Take it home! Those cats live all over the streets around here!” We now had a fearless kitten in our possession.
On the 4th we decided to mark the holiday with an archetypal tourist activity and go to a nearby hotel luau. A pretty good little band with hula dancers, a traditional dinner… an utterly Hawaiian 4th of July. We left our new pet at the house. The night before, fireworks were already being set off around the house.
The drive back home had the kind of mundane magic that you can never know will occur. Sometimes it just descends on you without warning. You take a wrong turn, the light changes, the moon, the lights on the road; you see and hear a combination of things that are related but unrelated. The music of chance occurrence. Happens all of the time. I’ve learned to be more aware of those collisions. It happens with life as with music.
We got back to the house to discover that a little rocket had landed on the roof and had burned a little hole in it. Thankfully it had started raining; another great bit of lucky synchronicity.
We named the magical kitten El Cafe. We brought her back to the mainland. We also brought back the poetic experiences that served as a genesis and centerpoint for a new song and album.
Postscript
My life has been, and continues to be, divided into chapters that are delineated by the albums and projects that I’ve worked on. This is the first part of assorted recollections and reminiscences of the album of Joni’s that came to be titled “Night Ride Home”. Stay tuned for more.
Hi Larry, I have a copy of “ Night Ride Home”.
It’s black paper with a string that holds it together. Inside are prints of Joni’s artwork. It’s so beat up now after all these years but I treasure it.
The music the 2 of you made on that album will always be an important part of mine and other peoples lives that know how special
that recording truly is.
Everlove,
Phil
Though I've listened to Joni from the beginning, Night Ride Home is one of my favorites. Glad to see you writing about it. Enjoyed this first bit. BTW, we have the smallest of tangential connections. As a producer, I was courting Don and Karen Peris (Innocence Mission) when you entered the picture. How could I possibly compete with your talents + proximity to the genius of Joan? :-) Peace to you, Larry.