Rules of the Road -originally broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered, 2004 (audio link here) When I was a teenager I worked backstage at Godfrey Daniels, the legendary folk and acoustic club on the south side of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I was in awe of the musicians passing through. They were all very mysterious and romantic, colorful souls, driving and playing then driving some more -- life on the road. I'm on the other side of the experience now, and truth is the deeper knowledge I gained on the road was not so much Kerouac-spiritual as Waffle House-practical. Like at Caffe Lena, in Saratoga Springs, the little club where Dylan once slept on the couch. In the Caffe Lena men's room, remember to cup your hand carefully when pushing on the soap dispenser or you'll get a shirt-full of blue liquid two minutes before you walk onstage. At Godfrey Daniels, the only bathroom lies on the far side of the audience -- plan accordingly. At Passim, in Cambridge, there's no real green room, so remember to make for the side door as you walk off stage for a break, and take your smokes and your coffee around the corner to a bench in Harvard Square. It's the simple things you learn, practical necessities. The last ferry from Cape Cod to Nantucket won't get you to the Cross-Rip in time for the show. Watch your beer intake at CBGB's -- they're going to charge you for it. Conversely, bring nothing to the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas -- any half-decent guitar slinger can eat and drink free the whole month there if you're polite and quick with a song. Remember the names of waitresses. Treat the sound man like the god he thinks he is. If you're the opener be nice to the feature, if you're the feature be nice to the opener -- what goes up must come down and these things will haunt you later. I'm a writer now. Writers tour, too, sort of; book tours, they call them. But it's not the same. You're well taken care of. There are airplanes involved, and hotels where they change the sheets on a regular basis. More important is what a book tour doesn't have: anything you have to remember, rules for survival. I make a modest living now, something I never did playing the folk circuit, and I'm appreciative. But lying awake late at night in a sterile hotel bed I am forced to remember that I never slept as soundly as I did on the road in my guitar days. Any barn, any couch, any backseat is comfortable -- if you've worked hard to earn your sleep, and can remember the rules of the road.