October '05

I don't know what to tell y'all... Just not very motivated for the site these days... it's not making me money and it's not getting me laid and it's definitely not helping my music... but that's not really why... My mind has just been elsewhere... Been busy with work stuff and when I'm not doing that, I'm exercising. Being very strict and disciplined with myself... running the arena stairs every day and going to the gym every day off. Other than that I've been sleeping alot... not sure why.

I'll recap what I can remember...

Chicago... Allstate arena. This venue has bad JUJU. No one that I know in the business has ever had a good show here. In fact, inevitably, someone always gets injured. Today was Sean's turn. The local union crew is IATSE local #2. The only union worse than these guys is New York Local #1. God I hope none of them read this. I'll get my ass kicked and it'll be impossible to get any work out of them... not that anyone gets much of anything from them anyway. These guys are fat and lazy or skinny and grumpy... or any other combination you can make of it except for fat and skinny. If you ask for help with anything, it's a coin flip whether you'll actually get it and if you do get help... it's a sure thing that you'll get an earfull of complaining. These union guys make bank too... they get four and eight hour minimums whether they work for four hours or ten minutes. They also get piles of overtime... double and triple time even. Medical and dental plans, retirement programs, and countless other benefits. These guys have nothing to complain about. But, I'm one to talk... I've got the best job on the planet and I whine like a sick puppy sometimes.

Anyway, I don't know where my head was that night... I was spacing out all day. Towards the end of "This is a Call" I came out of my daze in a panic... for some reason I thought it was four songs later when I have a guitar change with Dave. I frantically tuned his drop D guitar and when the song ended and ran out on stage to give him his next guitar... He looked at me funny and said "what's that?"... "uh, D... Everlong?" I said, unsure of what the hell I was doing. "Nope" said Dave as he fired into the next song with me just standing there on stage like a dumbass. Embarrassment and humiliation set in as I scurried off stage as invisibly as I could. God what a retard I am sometimes. I know... it seems small... but this is the kind of thing that really gets me down on myself. Well... Dave was really digging in to his guitar tonight... broke three A strings... strange. The last one caught me off guard... go figure. When he looked over at me and didn't see me looking back at him with an acknowledging nod... he went commando. Taking off his guitar and chucking it on the ground behind him, he grabbed his mic, ready to go into battle as a "lead singer". He lifted the mic and stand up, lurching forward over the monitors to sing on the edge of the stage or maybe in the pit... the mic cable got caught on something and yanked out of the end of the mic. He went to yell in the mic... but no surprise... no sound. He threw the mic and stand on the ground then bounded over to Chris's mic.

Now in these big arenas, Sean and I are very far away from the sound on stage and we can't hear very well what coming out of the guitars and amps so we use in-ear monitor systems just like the talent. Even though Nate is the only one still using in-ears... it really helps us know if they're in tune or if something is wrong or out of the ordinary. I listen to what Taylor's mix used to be cuz it's very guitar heavy... Dave's vocal loud and Dave's guitar in one ear and Chris's in the other. Sean listens to Chris's old mix... very heavy with his guitar and very heavy with his vocal. Do you see where I'm going with this? Chris's voice is ALOT quieter than Dave's so when he got hold of Chris's mic and screamed into it... it just about knocked Sean over... literally. The ringing was so loud in Sean's ear that after load out he went to the hospital. They told him that he had a small tear in his eardrum. Harsh. It'll heal... he'll be fine in a few weeks but it's just another bad memory from this stupid venue. That night I got stories from all the other departments...sound, video, lighting, lasers... about how shit was fucked for them... oh well... it's behind us now.

Next was Champaign, IL... good show... roadies did good with rock chicks for a change. Then off to a day off in Detroit... Gus and Stuart Ross (Weezer Tour Manager) set up a bonding evening for bands and crews at a local dive bowling alley. In the cab ride over we heard the radio station announce that the bands were partying it up at a local bowling alley... someone leaked it... I was bummed. I thought our evening would end quickly with a mob of people... but I was wrong... not very many creedlers showed up at all. Not everyone from our touring party showed up... but the 40 or so that did had a great time. When the cab I was in showed up at the crusty bowling alley... bands were already there getting lubed up and bowling like the true amateurs that they are. Towering scores of up to 130 were in plain view on the overhead displays. Lonnie... Weezer's security guy... as well as Yeti bowled like softball pitchers... throwing the ball almost all the way to the pins before the ball would hit the ground with a loud ka-thud. The real comedy started when about 15 or twenty off duty strippers showed up... well, I don't really know that they were strippers but... it sure looked like the local trailer park's baking club was gonna have they're weekly meeting at the bowling alley. All the roadie's ears perked up like puppies hearing a fire engine siren. A couple roadies in particular seemed to be having a loud obnoxious guy competition as if he who was the loudest and most obnoxious would get to go home with the finest of the swanky trailer girls. I tried to concentrate on my mediocre bowling. I think I bowled 10 games in all... the best of which was 184... pretty good for an asshole like myself. I left... proud of my fantastically average score and went back to the hotel. The next morning I went out to the bus... It was demoed on the inside. A party had happened at some point after bowling. There were beer cans and bottles everywhere... cigarette butts in most of them... it's a non-smoking bus. White powder crumbs on most of the smooth table top surfaces. Of course, no one fessed up to it. I don't give a shit about the party... I do give a shit that no one took responsibility for it and didn't clean up afterward. Even in the height of my dinking and drugging, I always kept it together enough to respect my roommates. I was to call a bus meeting after the show the next day.

Detroit show went well... Rock City brought out the old rock crowd... complete with sleazy, psycho, drunk rock sluts. Thank God for rock sluts. After the show, just as we were to leave and once everyone was on the bus... I sheepishly called the bus meeting to order. I explained that my purpose was not to scold anyone but to only get the communication flowing and to make sure that everyone was on the same page in respect to bus etiquette. The four main pieces of bus manners I wanted observed were...

1.) Bunk area is a sacred chamber of silence... phone ringers off, no talking, and keep the damn doors closed.

2.) Personal Items (shoes, jackets, computers, backpacks, etc.) are not to be left in common areas... put them away in junk bunks or closets.

3.) Fucking clean up after ourselves... simple as that.

4.) If you bring guests or family on the bus be respectful of the other fuckers that live on this bus... 10 people that live here makes space and privacy sparse. Add a couple or few guests and it can get uncomfortable quick.

The meeting seemed to go over pretty well. I hate having to be the bus mom... I felt like a dick for calling the meeting but it had to be done. Everybody was complaining but no one would confront each other. I knew that any courteous behavior would only last a couple of days but at least no one would have the excuse anymore that they didn't know.

Cleveland, Ohio.... Fine.

Day off in Virginia... Rented a car and drove into DC. Went to museum of natural history... then to a shi-shi lounge at a hotel across from the white house called the Hay-Adams... then to a crappy expensive dinner at a trendy Greek Fusion restaurant... then to the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. I swear... If any of the last few American presidents had visited the Jefferson memorial and read the profound words on the walls... the world would be a better place. Reading those words makes me misty. Actually, what makes me emotional is seeing others read it and seeing the reverence and awe in their faces as they do. These monuments command respect and are great memorials to halfway decent men... but the words... damn... great words.

Went back to the hotel and was pissed off that the maid service didn't clean my room. Called down for room service only to be informed that there was none after eleven. When I asked for a number of someplace that delivered pizzas or something... the guy chuckled into the phone saying... "this is Fairfax bro, there ain't nothin". I said "c'mon... this is a Hyatt Regency... you've gotta have at least a vending machine or something"... "no sir, this is a Hyatt business hotel" the guy on the phone said defiantly. Fuck that.

Fairfax show... Lot's of Dave's family and friends in attendance... the show was really good.

Connecticut... yeah, yeah... good show...

Day off in Philly... yikes. Sheraton... crap. Let me just make a quick list of lame.

1.) Front desk dude rude at check in cuz there were 50 of us trying to check in at the same time and he was the only one working.... you'd think the hotel would hire a couple extra knowing we were checking in.

2.) Room service delivered food without silverware... by the time they brought it, food was cold.

3.) almost got in a fight with night security dude when he tried to kick me out of hotel gym when I was working out ten minutes after it closed. I figured we're renting 50 rooms... they could wait 15 minutes for me to finish my workout.

4.) No one could break a hundred dollar bill... front desk, bar, restaurant.

5.) no maid service... even after I requested it earlier.

6.) Again... no late night room service or delivery food... in PHILLY... one of the biggest cities in the country.

7.) long line at checkout.

Today is Philly show... I'll let you know.

Here's some misc. pics of the last couple weeks.

10/1/05

Prologue

I joined the army when I was 18. People always ask me why. Well, I was a smart kid... pretty industrious as well. I was a working photographer at 16... one job taking photos of catalogue items for an import export company and another job taking photos of tourists coming into the Honolulu airport...I was a pretty self sufficient kid. Why the army? I was taking alot of acid at the time... dad had a stroke... found out mom was a lesbian... friends killing themselves... whatever... I think that at the time, my self esteem was pretty shaky. I was worried I was gonna end up in a gutter somewhere. The structure and discipline of the army was pretty attractive. After a year in the service... I deemed the gutter preferable to the army.

Let me start this story of poo by saying that I absolutely loved basic training... It was exactly what I was looking for. Intense, disorienting, traumatic, and challenging. I was in such good shape... I ran two miles in 12 minutes 15 seconds, 87 pushups in two minutes... lean, mean, fighting machine. The hardest physical challenges were the road marches... a 12, a 15, then a 10 mile speed march, fully combat loaded. This 10 mile march was the last thing you had to complete in order to pass basic training... if you dropped out of the march, you'd have to do the entire three months of basic training again. Georgia in august is brutally hot and humid. During this grueling march I saw strong men faint...a fellow soldier would grab the weapon, another would grab the pack and two others would pick the guy up and carry him. The thought of going through it all again was something you wouldn't wish on even someone you hated. At the end of this march there were bloody feet... grown men were crying... just knowing that it was finally over was a powerful thing. We pushed ourselves farther than we thought possible... God I loved it. I loved it so much that when it was over... I signed up for airborne school and went through three more weeks of training learning how to jump out of planes.

All of this naive gung ho attitude came to a grinding halt, the very second that I got shipped to my duty station. I was trained to jump out of planes and fire this wire guided missile called a TOW missile. So what does the army do? They sent me to a mechanized unit and made me a tank driver. Ft. Carson, Colorado... second to last on the deployment list. Which means that this is where they send all the brass that only has a short time to retirement so that there is no danger of them being called to any sort of war... it also this means that we get all the crappy, old, out of date equipment... seeing as it will never be used. I was shocked... meeting the other soldiers in my platoon... unlike the camaraderie that existed in basic training... these guys hated each other. So much racism as well... the black guys hated the white guys, the white guys hated the black guys, and I was quickly deemed a fag due to my love of alternative music, skateboarding, and lack of hatred for others. Let me tell you... everyone hated fags. It was a nightmare. My days were filled with meaningful tasks like mopping floors, cleaning guns, pointless guard duty, picking up garbage, changing the oil, air filters, and maintaining my tank. I was immediately miserable. I learned quickly that the whole point to being in the army at this juncture was "shamming"... which meant, finding a way to get out of work... whether it be pretending to be sick or lying about a family emergency or whatever you could come up with... I got pretty good at this.

Chapter 1 "downrange"

The worst part of my new reality was a monthly trip in my tank with four other dudes in my squad that did not like me much... or each other for that matter. It was called "going downrange" and was basically camping in a metal box with psychos and derelicts. We were to play war games and practice our trade. Yeah... not so much. These trips lasted anywhere from a few days to three weeks. The days were filled with the same hum drum menial tasks that they were back at base except there was no where to hide... no beds, no bathrooms, and no real food... you eat these things called M.R.E.'s.... Meals Ready to Eat. All this happened in southern Colorado. In the high desert around Pueblo. Hot as fuck or cold as fuck... not much in between. Lots of boredom out there... I usually took alot of acid... it was fun driving the tank then.

Chapter 2 "The bad idea"

In January of 1986 during one of the biggest snowstorms to hit the area in decades, we were sent downrange for ten days for chemical weapons training.... sweet. Every day during morning formation... we would be issued our dress SOP (standard operating procedure). Basically, how we had to dress. The SOP for the entire ten days would be chemical and cold weather dress. Starting at the skin was long "army issued" underwear, then your BDU's (battle dress uniform... your basic camouflage uniform). These first two layers are tucked into your combat boots. Then your cold weather gear goes on, then your chemical suit which is a charcoal lined, puffy suit that will do absolutely nothing for most of today chemical warfare agents. All of these layers are interlocked by a series of buttons, snaps, and zippers. If you had to pee, you just unbuttoned and unzipped a few layers, pulled your shit out and wrote your name in the snow.... but pooping, on the other hand, was an involved process that took a long time in the cold, waist deep snow. First, you had to find a spot... walk around in circles like a cat to pad down the deep snow... undo all the interlocked layers... freeze your balls off while you squat and try not to fall over or crap on your many pant layers... wipe, then put yourself back together. Maybe it was all the acid I was taking or maybe it was just suicidal depression... I decided that I would not poop for the entire ten days that I was to be downrange.

Chapter 3 "the road to dysentery"

I knew that I could not eat normally... I should've just stopped eating altogether... but honestly, that wouldn't have helped either... my doom was sealed already. This was not an intellectual decision... it was more of a moronic, desperate declaration of idiocy. I ate very little over that blurry ten days... I could not resist the corned beef hash though or the little blueberry desert tart thingies that they put in almost every vacuum sealed nuclear bag.... the little that I ate was the down fall of my ingenious plan. Over the next nine days I suppressed any urge to purge... I held in the hostages, and I did not drop the kids off at the pool. I thought I was home free on the ninth day. Feeling good... the bowels hadn't reminded me of their duty for a couple days now. I was to drive us the 9 hours back to base the next morning. That night I went to sleep... shoulder to shoulder in the tank with my squad mates... proud of myself for my wonderful new way of living.

Chapter 4 "Beautiful Brown Morning"

About 0400 hours (4am) I awoke. I was in labor... I have never felt pain like that. It was like in Alien when the little creature came busting out of that dudes stomach. Of course my grunting and moans of pain woke everyone else up... My sergeant was yelling at me to shut the hell up... and that I was just trying to sham out of driving for 9 hours to get a free ride in the medic track so I could sleep all the way back. I yelled back. He said get the fuck out and go find the medic track then. Well, this was not an easy task. I had no idea where the medics were camped. We were encamped in an area of about a mile in radius... a fresh couple feet of snow had fallen over night making my hunt for a tank with a big red cross on it quite challenging. I was wandering aimlessly doubled over in pain... cold sweats... feeling faint. I really thought if I passed out... I would be snowed over and die. I found the medics about forty five minutes later. I banged on the door. They were pissed off of course that I woke them up. The medic came outside, cursing me under his breath. He opened up a hatch on the outside of his track and pulled out a frozen bottle of Keopectate and threw it at me. Great... thanks for nothin'. Now I started to wander back to my tank on the verge of tears... mad at myself... not for my bad pooping decision, but for my bad decision to join the army in the first place. I wandered through the fresh snow for about 10 minutes when all hell started to break loose. I ran for the nearest tree well, trying to unbutton and unzip as I ran... to no avail... 9 days of stale army feces exploded into my long underwear... that of course is bloused into my boots. It was up to my knees. I strangely felt better all of a sudden.

Chapter 5 "Retribution"

In the eerie morning twilight and snowy silence I undressed... bare numb feet in the snow... I took off my clothes and emptied myself out, throwing away my army issue long undies. I cleaned myself up as best I could, re-dressed, then wandered back to my tank. By the time I got there, my squad was up and tearing down camp. I was immediately taken back to elementary school with their taunts of "what... did you shit your pants?" and " doo doo boy, doo doo boy". You know... the really clever stuff that only an adult US army soldier could dish out. Hell, I deserved it though... But... I got the last laugh...

As the driver of the tank... I'm the only guy that's allowed to ride with my head out of the hatch. Those guys had to ride for 9 hours in a closed metal box smelling my foul ass.

Epilogue

This experience along with others led me to go AWOL (absence without leave) for a few months. I turned myself in and spent three weeks in army jail (which is another story) before I was sectioned out. I got a general discharge... not dishonorable. It's kinda like they said "we made a mistake, you made a mistake, lets pretend this never happened".

The moral of the story? Hell... I'll send a free t-shirt to whoever posts the best "moral".

Denver show... good. Long drive to St. Paul.... I slept almost the whole way. But kinda grumpy due to some really bad bus etiquette. Having roomates is hard... but imagine having nine of them that all sleep in the same room.