SXSW TOUR March 12-Morning of the 13th "HORSEFACED"

March 12th- First day of tour entering the world of rest stops and eye strain from the constant illusion that this road will never end. The remnants of whatever low grade gas station food we could scrounge up for less than two bucks lay across the floor of our van like a kid who went wild with his toys and left them all over the house. We talk about HEAT, TEXAS, SUNSHINE, TIME ZONES, GIRLS, DOES LOVE EXISTS OR IS IT ALL CHEMICALS, EERIE INDIANA, OPRAH, AND NEURALGIA. Brian curses aloud when we find a Krystal fast food restaurant (it is essentially WHite Castle without onions) We were on our way to Knoxville Tennessee creaking down 75 with our styrofoam cooler on wheels that we call a trailer when a woman made a face like Large Marge in Pee Wees big Adventure and pointed to our trailer. Our first thought was crap our instruments are flying out the back and being crushed under the tires of a Serpent from hell on 18 Wheels. So we pull off to the shoulder of the freeway with bile in our throats and and Jeff going into cardiac arrest. Me and Mark check the trailer and nothing looks worse than it usually does until we get to the left side. Our axle had cracked and the wheel was bent at a 45 degree angle reminding of the scene in Herbie Goes Bananas where Herbie is all beat up from battling a group of thieves stealing Mayan artifacts. His wheels are bent to the side and his friend yells out to him "Ocho you just have to get up." Sadly life isn't always a Disney movie about VW Bugs and our little trailer was as dead as a mummy. With less than 4 hours to get to the show we called every auto repair place in town and no one serviced trailers. So we called U Haul and detached our trailer from the van. Drove to U Haul and rented a trailer. So it all worked out. If it ever sounds like what I am saying or the way that I am saying it is untruth or embellished in any way I want you to know that no matter how fantastic Serpents with 18 wheels on them sounds it really did happen that way and your disbelief could be a sign of myopia.
When we got to the show people seemed to be getting impatient, a couple left while we were setting up. The show went off well in the normal fashion of a pagan ritual marked by a constant pain in the top part of my brain caused by the telepathic abilities that I possess whenever I am on stage. When I was a kid I prayed for years that I could be God's prophet. That he would send me wherever there was anyone hurting, that he would speak to me in visions telling me where to find them so I could let them know that they are not a lone ( I hope that is what I am ). After the show we were met with overwhelming accolades of applause and praise. People came out of the rafters wanting to shake our hands. I was a little annoyed because I had flung my glasses off when I had a self inflicted seizure on stage. I found them on the ground as broken as the Industrial Revolution. This was a little disheartening to me because I just gotten these and my last pair had befallen the same fate. Actually Mark the guitar player in my band is wearing my old pair that has only one arm and mine are held together with neon green drum tape. We stayed with these guys who didn't even see us play Nick and CJ, they lived with their best friend Tommy's Aunt. Brian (our bass player) had an allergic reaction cause their aunt had like 5 cats even though she said she hates them (life works that way sometime you just have to laugh). We stayed up till about 4:30 listening to 70's records on vinyl, they had a couple thousand lp's.
The house struck me like thunder. It made me realize what a lot of the homes in the Northern Cities in areas with a high quota of yuppies and their Suburbs were missing. They are like transplants. A mass produced, aluminum exterior stuffed with IKEA furniture and paintings of fruit. I am not a negative person anyone who knows me you will tell you that. I like horses and have been getting into Newfoundlands lately (any one who loves a dog like that has a good heart I say), I cry during the sad parts of movies and get so excited for my friends' birthdays that my face burns red. This women made almost everything in her house. There was a painting on her living room table, there were broken records in the sink that she was washing to make later into some kind of tile. Everything in her house felt so much like her that you got the instant feeling you were old friends. Maybe it is because they still have nature in parts of the South. Our cities in the North remind me of when I had pink eye as a child it feels like egoism in some ways. Does the modern man ever grow tired of his own buildings. At some point you have to be the participator instead of the creator to really enjoy yourself. Of course there are exceptions everywhere and I would rather focus on those things that are good so I won't dawdle.
Nick is joining the army and has been in and out of foster care homes his whole life. Yet he never missed a beat, he has dreams of someday becoming a Nuclear Physicist. He was one of those people whose eyes seemed very old. The kind you believe really could become a Nuclear Physicist or a Molecular Biologist or a Paleolithic Archaeologist. My heart felt like it was flowing with milk, honey and sky vodka when I left. Like days when for some reason you can feel the surface of your skin concisely.