One of the great things about working for this band is the fact that it's
never the same setup too often... there's always something different whether
it's the amount of drums or the keys or Lisa or where everyone's standing on
the stage... it's constantly changing up and so I rarely get bored because
it's sort of like a different band every night...
Change is good... and so in keeping with that, here's a little different Road
Rash... it doesn't feature any band members, just myself and Jennifer...
... a "Dark Star spin-off", if you will...
Jennifer and I stayed out in Nederland with some friends of ours after the
Western tour... we wanted to see the Spearhead shows at the Fox and Aggie
theaters, after which we planned to take the Greyhound Bus home from Denver
to Chicago...
When I got home, friends asked "So how was the bus trip?"
... this is like asking someone how a funeral was... you KNOW how it went,
you're just being kind, making conversation... but you know the answer...
... It SUCKED, for cryin' out loud... but as always, the worse it gets for me
the more entertained YOU are...
... so... enjoy, I guess...
We finished the fifth show in Colorado in Ft. Collins after which we were
left at the hotel to fend for ourselves, the rest of the band piling into the
vans for home right after the gig... I took Bustar's room and flopped down on
one of the beds to watch TV while Jennifer crashed in another room.
There was nothing on, for a change.
I fell asleep and when the phone rang Monday morning I barely registered long
enough to make it stop, after which I went right back to sleep... I woke up
again to the maid storming into my room like the Marines at Anzio Beach...
she apologized profusely and genuflected her way out of my sight, closing the
door firmly...
... back to her well-armored amphibious maid cart/landing craft...
Note To Self: Don't eat baked goods from the audience EVER AGAIN.
Where WAS I?
Oh yeah... Colorado...
Our friends drove over (they had stayed at a different hotel) to pick us up
and we were off across the plains to the foot of the mountains again.
The drive from Ft. Collins to Nederland was a pretty quiet one... our hosts
had been hanging out with the band for the last five nights solid and they
were shells of themselves... still, they were going to be troopers and try to
do two more shows with us...
... maybe...
I got the distinct impression that they had had enough, really...
To tell the truth, the Fox or the Aggie were really the last places I wanted
to spend an evening after being in the two venues for a combined week...
don't get me wrong, I love both places immensely... it's just that when you
do this sort of thing for a living it's like going to an office party... you
know everyone's gonna be swingin', but it's still around that same break room
table you just had lunch on a few hours ago, booze or no booze...
During the drive it started to snow and it didn't stop until morning...
... WEDNESDAY morning.
It snowed for over a day SOLID... stopping only once on Monday afternoon, and
for about a half-hour if that... by Monday evening Canyon Road from Ned to
Boulder was looking like an invitation to Donner Party 2000 so instead of
jumpin' with the sold-out crowd at the Fox Nej, Colleen, and I went to Acid
Jazz night at the Wolf's Tongue Brewery in the heart of Nederland's "business
district"... Gary, as I suspected earlier in the day, had had enough and
stayed home to quietly slip into a coma... an idea which we all had but some
of us were just too stupid to listen to...
People... I love Nederland.
Ever seen that TV show 'Northern Exposure'? That's about what life is like in
Nederland, Colorado... there's a few bars, one gas station, a grocery
store-and-a-half... and not much else... there are two cops for this little
blot on the mountain maps and most of the time they're dealing with such
serious legal infractions as not having one's dog on a leash or the local
drunk needing a ride home...
... "Laid Back" is not the term, y'know?
Anyway... the last time I was out at the Wolf's Tongue for Acid Jazz Night it
was two of the guys from String Cheese Incident and two from Tony Furtado's
band, and they tore it UP... the bar was packed that night with a rockin'
crowd and MAN was the music hot... we were having a great time but had to
leave a bit early as I had a flight out of Denver at some ungodly hour, so it
was nice to be able to sit this time for an entire evening not having to
worry about a timetable...
On this particular night it was only three musicians (keys, guitar, and sax)
because all the other regulars were snowed into Denver... but really, it was
perfect for the mood of the night... kicked-back mellow jazz while the snow
came down in steady, tiny, beautiful flakes... covering everything with a
soft white blanket... inside, folks huddled around candlelit tables and
drank in quiet conversation...
... quiet all except for this one guy in a fake beard, mustache, and wig who
kept bellowing "MAY I???" at the top of his lungs, approximately every
forty-five seconds or so for about a half-hour, tapering off to the
occasional outburst followed by drunken giggling all around his table... but
even his cohorts began to find it tedious to put up with him and started
telling him to shut up... Life seems to have this nice self-governor up there
and stuff just seems to naturally take care of itself... I can't really put
into words how balanced that part of Colorado feels... I attribute it to
something in the rock...
We stayed until closing and then walked home in the hushing effect of drifts
and drifts of pure white snow... Colleen made a fire for Jennifer and me
before turning in that had us sitting around sweating like the living room
was actually a steam room... the only thing missing was the redwood benches...
That's the way it was for the next two days, really... we missed the second
show as well but Nej and I hung out in Ned during the day and we sat around
with a fire and a movie at night, which was fine by me (and Colleen curbed
her penchant for blast-furnace fires, making them more pleasant)... honestly,
it was great to relax after the solid breakneck pace of the last five weeks.
When Thursday rolled around we took the bus down to Boulder and Gary and
Colleen picked us up for the ride to Denver, saving us some ridiculous bus
fee which Gary later extorted from us at knife-point before dropping us at
the Greyhound station around 5pm...
... I'm kidding, of course... and BIG thanks to our hosts for everything, you
kids are the tops, you and that menagerie of shedding machines of yours...
(Three dogs and two cats in a house the size of a Photo-Mat, people... I kid
you NOT.)
But back to the show... we had arrived.
Aaaahhhhhhhh the Bus Terminal.
My guess is that the one in Denver is actually PAST "terminal" and is now
quite dead... I say this because, well... quite frankly it smelled like it
inside... it was like the smell of stale sweat, dirty laundry, garbage, that
sorta sour new paint smell, and for lack of a better word... "butt"... all
rolled into one throat-collapsing supernatural entity that possessed your
nostrils and made you want to react like Linda Blair in 'The Exorcist'...
Remember when you were a kid around a campfire and you got a face full of
smoke?
OK... Same deal here.
Right down to the temporary blindness.
And we almost didn't make it onto the bus we had planned on taking, folks...
Jennifer has taken the 'Hound more than a few times so she's a seasoned
veteran of the sort of "Cage-Match Meets Amusement Park" mentality that goes
with getting on a chosen bus... it's a little like what I used to do for
concert tickets before they started up with the whole 'Wristband Lottery'
sham... y'know... "Get there two days ahead and camp out, DUDE"...
I've always driven, flown, or taken a train when I've traveled... all of
which take their passengers into full account more or less (at least as far
as the 'Plane' or 'Train' modes are concerned - following tour in an '89
Mazda 323 with five other unwashed hippies for a few weeks is about the most
maddening mode of travel imaginable)... but they generally sell only as many
tickets as there are seats (again, this doesn't really apply to the 'Car
Mode' all the time - ever SEEN the back seat of an '89 Mazda 323?)...
Not so on a bus. They'll keep selling tickets for a run and if you're not in
line early enough you might have to wait for the next one... and in our
particular case the next bus was around MIDNIGHT... so the challenge is to
keep your place in line while keeping a toehold on your SANITY, which means
one of you stays with the baggage at all times while the other goes to the
can, has a smoke, or just plain gets some FRESH AIR...
Jennifer got in line, which stretched from the gate around sixty-five yards
across the terminal to the opposite doors, while I went to get our tickets.
The zombies behind the ticket desk are even worse than the malcontents in the
airline business - my guess is due to the deplorable conditions they work in
- but I'm telling you I've seen sewer workers who seem more alive and into
what they do... these poor souls probably wouldn't show much of a PULSE... so
after answering a few monotone questions about myself and the nature of my
companion and her age I was issued tickets which resembled the receipt you
get at the grocery store... sort of a long piece of poorly printed paper with
a coat-check ticket stapled to it... and I rejoined lil' Nej in line.
Jennifer aka "Nej" is one of those hippies that has an aura of peace about
her even though her life is usually in complete chaos... she was one of the
original DSO fans like Beau who came out every week - actually, in Beau's
case he was tending bar - and we just picked them up and eventually started
paying them... our crew is the reason we can keep our marbles on the road and
focus on the job we're in town to do, and Jennifer is a HUGE part of our
public relations machine because she has to sit in the merchandise booth from
the time doors open until the last person leaves the hall at the end of the
night... probably the longest "shift" of work in the DSO day... and we love
her for it.
At one point while it was my turn to hold our place in line, the girl in front
of me sat down on her rather sizable suitcase which held her weight just
fine... I looked at my rolling "Overhead Sized" bag and decided it wouldn't
hold my bulk, only to look up and catch her squinting at me with a pinched
smile, as if to say "I don't think so there, SLIM..."
... why-I-oughta...
The whole experience in the terminal was pretty much a study on assaulting the
senses with repulsive or at the very least painful or uncomfortable stimuli...
Josef Mengele had NOTHING on the bus terminal, y'all...
Woof.
So we stood there, contemplating the line that seemed to stretch on forever
to the gate, and that's when I started praying.
I haven't prayed for anything in a long, long time... but at this point,
looking at all the people ahead of us in line... I decided that if there was
ever a time when divine intervention was needed, it was this bus ride.
I didn't want all that much, if you think about it... I only had TWO
specifications, really... and so I said a prayer that kind of went like this:
"Oh Big Powerful Divine Whatever... if you could see fit to keep me from
sitting in the back row next to the toilet door or some smelly motherf*cker
I'd sure appreciate it... amen."
I guess in hindsight I shoulda toned down the language seeing as it was a
PRAYER an' all... but I was tired and it just slipped out... and before you
get all offended and say 'Dude you are just SO on yer way ta HELL fer
that'... the Big Powerful Divine Whatever has a sense of humor, y'all...
check it out...
They opened the gate to begin letting us on the bus about ten minutes after
the bus was SCHEDULED (regular readers know how I love that word) to have
departed Denver... not a good start to be sure... but as we got closer we
were asked what our tickets said in the cryptic boxes filled with even more
arcane abbreviations... showing the conductor (or whatever his title was) our
tickets like tourists with a Berlitz Common Phrases card, he nodded and waved
us to a different, shorter line... I had to allow myself a little thrill of
expectation as we wheeled past the pinch-smiled girl and here luggage/ Barca
Lounger (who I guess didn't have the correct Masonic code on her ticket like
we did)...
COULD IT BE THAT WE WERE GOING TO MAKE IT ON OUR BUS???
As we got out the door, my hopes were dashed by the sight of seemingly every
window seat taken by an already glossy-eyed 'Hounder... and upon further
scrutiny most or all of the inside aisle seats...
... and there were three women ahead of us who began to sound off menacingly
about how they were "getting on THIS bus", as well...
My head hurt.
Just as I was running out of thoughts on ways to amuse myself with the local
populace of the bus terminal until midnight, we were allowed onto the bus...
and as I walked up the steps behind Jennifer I turned to take one last look
at the outside before shuffling into the bowels of the 'Hound...
I'm going to take a lot of heat from the band for that last bit of imagery. I
just know it.
... anyway, it's like time slowed down... this tends to happen in my dreams
just before 'The Bad Thing' happens, whatever flavor 'Bad Thing' my twisted
psyche has churned up for me that particular evening... it never bodes well...
This was no exception.
As I walked further into the bus I looked from seat to seat, seeing the faces
but not really REGISTERING them... they just passed through my visual
field... but it was then that I saw Jennifer take an aisle seat and I looked
past her to see that there was only one seat left back there...
The Back Row.
Right next to the TOILET DOOR.
My feet began to back-peddle and I nearly lost my footing as I turned to head
for the front of the bus, to a seat I was SURE I had seen right behind the
driver... clunking some poor sot in the head with my laptop as I did so...
*CHUFF*
"Sorry, dude."
I was almost to my sanctuary away from the Shitter Seat when a large man
stood in my way and asked in a booming voice "just where the HELL I thought I
was going..."
As I began to lay my plight at this guy's feet he loudly dismissed my hippie
ass to the "seats back THERE..."
I turned, clipped another innocent by-stander with my laptop, and hung my
head in shame as I walked to the Back Row.
Why is it so bad sitting back there, you ask?
Well, aside from the OBVIOUS problem of location right next to the W.C., the
backs of the seats are fixed in the upright position... and when I say
"upright", I mean like 'the back of an electric chair' upright... SITTING
RIGHT OVER THE ENGINE... so it's like, about a million degrees HOTTER sitting
there... and loud, like a broken washer stuck on spin cycle for hours...
It's just the PITS.
If the COMPANY SUCKS...
Well...
THAT'S one area I guess I sort of lucked out on... it didn't SEEM that way to
begin with... but it turned out alright I suppose...
I'm not going to use these guys' real names because I don't want to embarrass
them unnecessarily...
Oh screw that... I'll use real names, maybe... like they'll ever read this...
depends on how I get this down... but there were three of them, nice guys and
a more diverse cross-cut you couldn't ask for...
One (my bench-mate) was a skinny, seemingly perpetually stoned hippie,
another was a flat-top (Rockabilly Fan), and the last was your average
"Hooters" patron (draw your own conclusions - He was self-professed)... as I
threw my laptop into the overhead carrier (missing all fellow passengers this
time) they looked me up and down, the hippie saying "Hya" while chewing on
his thumb... I mumbled a response and sat down, returning their scan for life
forms...
"Nope." said the hippie in a New York accent, "He ain' gonna need the Binaca."
They all had a healthy laugh... and not liking to be left out on any good
gut-buster (not to mention figuring out if I had to defend against some sort
of "Greyhound Passenger Territorial Pissings" insult contest to establish
dominance), I asked if my breath was that bad.
"No... jus' the guy who sat there on the leg before you smelled so f-in' BAD
that we haddah spray him a few times with that breath-spray shit...
maaaaan... dude was FOUL... an' he kept eatin' EGGS, hard-boiled EGGS...
which is what the dude SMELLED like..."
They all fell into hysterics again as I wondered if it was too late to put
plastic down between me and the Egg Seat... I figured these guys were going
to make the time go by a bit faster... and I was glad... at the very least,
they were gonna give me something to write about, right? Oh, and one more
thing that made me feel better about "Sittin' Watch At The Well"...
Jennifer got stuck sitting next to a guy that was SO HUGE his ass was forcing
her legs out into the aisle... I mean, the girl is TINY... to get crowded
out... you can only imagine if I had gotten that seat...
*SHIVER*
Nah.
I'll take the Three Misfit Toys... even if I DID have to sit absolutely
STRAIGHT UP, in the HEAT, next to the Chairman's Quarters, with a shake,
rattle, and roll...
For TWENTY-ONE HOURS.
COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!!!
Cameron & Jennifer star in the action-packed thriller 'Greyhound - Pray For
Death!' ... Roger Ebert says "... not since 'Thin Red Line' has a film
demonstrated such remorselessly slow pacing and lack of any meaningful
event..."
Actually, now that I sit here and re-read that... war and riding on the bus
are a lot alike... you are thrown together with people for a time who you
don't know and normally probably wouldn't hang out with... it's nasty,
sometimes scary, IT SMELLS BAD, you don't sleep much and if you're lucky
enough to get through it with all of your stuff still intact it's something
you just want to put behind you and never speak of again... except with a
fellow veteran, and only then if you're both hammered...
As the bus left the Denver terminal, I tried to figure out just how I was
going to get comfortable in this chair designed by DeSade... I eventually got
my jacket balled up under my back and stretched my legs up the aisle (one
advantage to this seat) enough that I could lean my head against the toilet
wall...
This worked fine until the first person came back to use the facilities.
My legs were rudely kicked out of the way by this person, waking me from my
almost-slumber... I was thankful in a way because my neck had bent at an odd
angle and I was losing all the feeling in my right side, which could get
serious... but anyway, every time I would get close to sleep, something would
happen... the bus would swerve (I can only really sleep when Beau's
driving... another shell-shock holdover from touring in a Mazda 323 - I don't
trust ANYONE behind the wheel as a result of those hazy days)... someone
would gingerly step over my legs only to slam the shitter door, jarring my
skull like a bellringer...
... having foot odor that would STRIP VARNISH OFF A TABLE...
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaannnn.
I woke up at one point, and the hippie dude next to me, Greg, had his shoes
off. I thought I was back in the Denver terminal.
"Where are those damned yellow plastic cups that're supposed to deploy from
the overhead panel at a time like this???"
Acting quickly I pulled my shirt over my mouth and nose and continued to
breath normally... but my heart was racing... that was too CLOSE...
"OK, dude" I said, "We're gonna have to have us an understanding. You need to
keep your shoes ON."
"Is it really that bad?"
"Oh yeah."
"Huh."
He got up and went into the toilet.
"That what that is? His FEET?" asked Mike the Hooters Guy.
"Yep."
"Well, he shouldn't be surprised... he's been in those socks for THREE DAYS."
"He wha-?" ... I could feel my vision beginning to tunnel...
"Look, he's been on this bus as long as we have and that's three days... I
just changed mine last night and washed 'em, but Greg... I don't think so..."
With this appetizing information festering in my head, I moved my legs aside
for the recently returned subject of our discussion. He sat down, produced a
handful of those "moist towel-ette" packets (he had cleaned out the dispenser
in the can), ripped a few open, and began scrubbing his delicate little
tootsies down.
I know.
We.. uh... informed him we'd STILL prefer the shoes, thanks so much...
The first stop was several hours away at a McDonald's and we all clamored off
the bus, invading the tranquility the workers had been enjoying... it was
around 10pm and us bus folks were bitchy... I felt so bad for these poor saps
working this burger place in the middle of absolute-ass-end NOWHERE
Nebraska... I grabbed my bag of food and ran out the door, huddling with Nej
on a curb and wolfing down a cheeseburger (a move I would regret later but
will not describe, seeing as I got such a harsh critique of the automated
toilet story in the first San Francisco Fillmore Road Rash)... we got
underway again and I battled my way back into some semblance of comfort,
extending my legs into the aisle boldly for the other riders to kick...
Random Weird Scene: I woke up at one point to find Mike asleep in the aisle,
stretched out and a much juicier target than my legs...
Of course, no one went to the wash room while he was down there... but then
again I don't blame anyone for holding it... I wouldn't want to step over the
guy either...
That was pretty much all that happened... we stopped a few more times, some
stops lasting up to an hour... but these were generally spent milling around
or eating... we picked up a Mexican guy who was here in the country illegally
and didn't speak English (luckily Greg spoke fluent Spanish) who sat with us
on the Back Row for a stretch... he shared his pornographic comic books
(again... I couldn't make this stuff up) and explained the Egg Eater that
smelled bad as a man who was trying to save money by bringing his own food on
the journey, as well as agreeing wholeheartedly with the "Binaca
Treatment"... Greg told him he had passed as well, I guess...
But that's about it...
If you've ever driven through Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois, you know what it
looked like...
"Fairly Non-Descript."
We were just outside of Chicago when disaster was narrowly averted one last
time... the large man who had scolded me into the back of the bus at the
beginning of the trip came back, stuck his head in the door of the toilet,
and went back up to the bus driver to whisper in his ear...
The driver blew his stack.
"Now... whoever's smokin' back there... now... you KNOW you aren't supposed
to be SMOKIN' BACK THERE IN THE TOILET and..."
Great.
And the thing was, there WAS NO SMOKE. I was sitting right there, I think I
would have NOTICED. But am I going to say anything? Make trouble?
For ONCE... No.
But Greg was not me.
"Dude... ain't nobody SMOKIN' back here..."
"WHAT DID- WHAT DID I HEAR???"
"A double-negative?" I asked under my breath.
"I'm jus' sayin' there ain't no smokin' going on back here, that's a-"
The bus made a sharp bid for the shoulder in rush hour traffic crossing three
lanes... in a heartbeat the driver was up out of his seat and headed towards
the back, looking directly at ME...
As he spouted off like an Army drill instructor about "who was REALLY in
charge on this BUS" and how he'd settle any arguments by leaving the objector
to thumb the rest of the way into town, I sat there and tried to remember how
I did that invisibility trick as a kid... satisfied he had terrified the
dope-addled longhairs into submission, he turned on his heal and got us back
into traffic.
"Dick." shot Greg.
Our bud Rick came down to pick us up at the station, the Chicago terminal
being JUST as bad as Denver... when I got home I burned my clothes and sat in
the tub like that guy in "The Crying Game"... I was home, in one piece more
or less, and it was only a week before we left to tour the Midwest...
I'll never travel that way again... but a great man once said "What doesn't
kill me gives me writing fodder", or something to that effect... so I'm glad
I did it.
OK... next Road Rash I'll get you all back to your favorite characters...
more music, mayhem, and you our weird friends... something's BOUND to
happen...
Peez.