2001-02-24 - 08:02:19
On the bus heading to Asheville. Today started out pretty weird. There was a bookstore across from the hotel and after breakfast I went in with one agenda, to buy Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks. When I went to the music section, it turned out that Dylan was on sale, so I bought Free Wheelin’, The Times They Are A-changin’, and Blonde On Blonde. Blood On The Tracks is a big record in my life. When my band, Clang, broke up in ’88 or ’89, I was so devastated that I couldn’t get out of bed for three days. I had a tape deck with auto-reverse and for three days Blood On The Tracks played continuously. I don’t think I would have made it through without it. I haven’t written about Clang yet. That’s a whole story in itself. So here I sit on the bus, tap tapping on Matt’s laptop, with “If You See Her, Say Hello” pouring into my ears through my trusty Discman. It took me a while to get to this blissful point today. After I bought the CDs this morning, I realized that my Discman batteries were dead. Mikey said “Hey you can use my Discman.” Of course, his batteries were dead as well. There were no batteries on the entire fucking bus. You know that frustration when you want to hear a song but can’t? So I’m driving, no tunes, trying not to smoke because my throat is ragged, the baby is crying and every once in a while, I hear this annoying BEEP BEEP BEEP that lasts for about 15 seconds and then stops. Then about 2 minutes later – BEEP BEEP BEEP.
Me – Hey, what the fuck is that beeping?
Manager John – I don’t hear anything.
(Two minutes later) BEEP BEEP BEEP
Me – There it is again! Jesus! What is that! Somebody make it stop!
(Mikey walks to the front of the bus. Waits around for it to beep again.) BEEP BEEP BEEP
Me – There it is. Make it stop!
Manager John (simultaneously trying to console crying baby) - What the fuck is that?
Mikey – It’s around the driver’s seat somewhere.
(Two minutes later) BEEP BEEP BEEP
Me – Man I’m gonna wreck this fucking bus if somebody doesn’t make that shit stop.
Mikey – It’s coming from you, dude.
Me – What?
Mikey – Do you have some sort of device on you?
Me – Only my cel pho- OH SHIT!
Mikey and John – AH HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!!!!!
Me – AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I’M SUCH AN IDIOT!!!!
Yep, my phone was beeping at me to tell me that I had a message. Duh. Like the song says, “Either I’m too sensitive or else I’m getting soft.” Or perhaps the right quote would be, “You’re an idiot wind, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”
OK now I’m driving to West Virginia. I posted an entry at the nice people who put us up’s house. But I still haven’t posted this one. I’ll just keep it going. I left my phone in Richmond. Duh. What an idiot. That’s how the day began. Then we went to a bus mechanic to have the breaks tightened and the clutch adjusted. While we were all standing around the mechanic’s place, somehow the bus popped into reverse with no one behind the wheel. It rolled backwards and smashed into the garage doorframe. Yippy. There goes are insurance premium. We visited a bus graveyard somewhere in North Carolina. That was amazing. All kinds of cool busses in various states of disrepair. It was beautiful. I shot a lot of video tape out there. Now we are barreling down the highway trying to get to the next gig. Which kinda sucked by the way. Tomorrow is Lexington, that should rock in the rockness of everlasting rockdom.
