Posted May 30th 2004
Bon jour mes amies! Je veux vous dire une
histoire interessante. In case you don't speak french I just asked you about
the color of your underwear. If you do speak french you know the proper response
is 'Mon aeroglisseur est rempli avec les anguilles.'
Hello again my friends, I've returned, late as usual, to regale you with mostly
true tales of life in the world of both rock and roll.
Why am I all of a sudden speaking to you in another language? Well here's the
deal --this weeks message is about trust. You know-the old fashion 'he said
it, it must be true' kind of trust that people build up with one another. Can
I expect that kind of trust from you people, given the fact that practically
nothing I've ever told you from the moment I've started writing this column
is true? I think we both know that the answer to that is yes-I can and do expect
you to believe me. Why would I lie? Sadly we both also know the answer to that
question too. I would lie for any reason at any time, sometimes just to make
up a good story and at other times just to stay in practice. Having confessed
to that, I must tell you that most of this weeks story is mostly true. But why
begin this message in french you ask? Two reasons. no.- I'm investigating my
ancestors and as it turns out I'm 1/2 scot, 1/4 French, 1/8 Portuguese, and
1/8 Mic Mac indian. How's that for a genetic cocktail. And reason no. 2 is that
I spoke in french to prove that I can lie in more than one language. The first
french sentence says nothing about underwear but does say that I'm going to
tell you an interesting story. The answering sentence also says nothing about
underwear but does in fact say 'my hovercraft is filled with eels.' If you don't
believe me (and why at this point should you) go to free translation.com and
you'll see that for once at least I'm telling the truth. But enough of this
game playing let's get to this weeks tale. You've often made it clear that to
me that the nitty gritty band -on- the- road tales are what you most hunger
for. If that's true then this story should curl your shorthairs as the pirates
used to say. And actually the pirate analogy works well in this scenario because
what else is a traveling rock band but a bunch of hairy, tattooed, sex-crazed,
drunken morons moving from town to town in a systematic effort to undermine
the local authority.
Give us your women and we won't hurt you. I remember feeling that scary respect,
even from bikers, who should have known better. Because let's face it The Fools
are about as physically intimidating as that french poodle that your aunt had
put down for snapping at people. But this ladies and gentlemen is ROCK N' ROLL
and for some reason it's always scared the straighter types. We in the world
of bands (if we told you the truth) would say that even the meekest of us dig
this vibe. You walk into an all-night diner full of truckers at 3 in the morning
after 10 hours on the road and if you got your band with ya - you feel respect
and equal footing. And it's all because of that rock thing-like if you're a
rocker you could go mental at any point. We've played on the same bill with
probably a few hundred bands but the band I remember as scaring the most people
is The Ramones. Please understand what I mean-in any audience there is a general
breakdown of fandom. Some true believers and some casual concert goers. Unlike
me, Joey Ramone never dressed like a nun, brought women on stage, or took his
clothes off, but damn that skinny bastard seemed to scare the casuals. Did they
sense chaos in his music, or maybe the simplicity and power was too much for
them. Who knows but not long after our first gig with them (we would end up,
over the years, on the same bill about 10 times) we were headed west on our
first american tour with the the band that sold millions of records but still
nobody remembers liking-The Knack. As I recall they treated us quite nicely
but treated the rest of the world like shit. What this meant for us was that
all of the media sources that they were saying fuck you to (gee how could that
come back to hurt you) would then interview us. Anyhow, it was on this trip
that we hit one of those traveling in the bus stretches that truly screw with
the mind. Because they were The Knack (and at the time on top of the world )
a trip from New Orleans to Albuquerque could be done in hours (plane time) but
for us it was a mind bending 20 hours on the bus. If it sounds like I'm complaining
believe me I'm not because in retrospect these were the journeys that can truly
define a band. In our case, after growing tired of porn videos , scrabble, and
warm beer and heading into the panhandle area of Texas we started to take notice
of the 'BIG TEX' signs that seemed to occur every mile or two. 'BIG TEX-BEST
BAR IN TEXAS-50 MILES' 'BIG TEX- BEST BAR IN TEXAS-49 MILES' 'BIG TEX- BEST
BAR IN TEXAS 48 MILES' well you get the idea. By the time we got to 'BIG TEX'
we were sold. You must understand that this part of Texas is so friggin empty
and flat that if they told you there was a bug infested outhouse in 10 miles
you'd probably want to stop and see it. In any event we stopped and had our
way with the place. Or it had its way with us. The feature of this place (aside
from the 64 oz. steaks and the cowboys on stilts made to look like giants) was
a drink called 'THE BIG TEX.' It was 24 oz. of some potent alcoholic concoction
that came in a huge glass and was supposed to be shared by at least a few people.
But they don't call us Fools for nothing-we all ordered or own 'BIG TEX' drink.
It can be quite alarming to see people you've entrusted your musical career
with crawling around under tables and behaving like pinheads -but at the same
time (if you toss away all hopes of survival) it can be quite stupidly uplifting.
As luck would have it, next to the biggest bar in Texas was a huge (if not the
biggest) fireworks store. This is the genius of Texas-put a fireworks store
next to a bar. So, exiting the bar we went like happy, drunken, lemmings to
the place of big loud noises. Where I live now in New Hampshire you must claim
to have a rodent problem to acquire fireworks of any power and noise. But in
Texas then, and probably still now, you just have to walk up and burble a drunken
sound or two and you can purchase the kind of fire power that would have made
Sadam jealous. We're not talking 'weapons of mass destruction' here but we are
talking big loud crazy shit. I remember that we opened the air vent in the roof
of our tour bus and shot fireworks into the sky as we headed back out into that
Texas night. Our bus driver, the only sober person on board, had long since
come to the realization that we were not only insane but uncontrollable. Being
a professional driver he naturally tried to distance himself from our antics
but after about an hour of driving to the continuous sounds of massive explosions
and with the bus gradually filling with smoke even he had to pull over and call
it quits. The place he chose to stop at appeared to be an abandoned gas station
out in the middle of Wherethehellarewe, Texas. I mean there was nothing for
miles in any direction. As we all spilled out of the bus -drunk, laughing and
coughing, our clothes dotted with tiny burn marks, I had the realization that
goddammit this was what rock n' roll was all about. As I stumbled around the
corner to answer natures call, I felt like any pirate captain must have felt
when thinking about the next port of call. Look out Albuquerque here we come!!
My joy was short lived however because when I came back around the corner I
was just in time to see the bus roll off into the night without me. You must
remember that this was before cell phones so I had no way of contacting anyone
on the bus. There is nothing so deflating as feeling like a pirate captain one
moment, and watching your ship sail away without you the next. As I sat there
alone on top of a dumpster I began to think that maybe this was all part of
some sinister plan concocted by the bus driver. He would 'lose' us one at a
time across Texas and when he finally arrived in Albuquerque with an empty bus
and someone would say "where's the band” he would look at them blankly
and say "band-what band?" Maybe this was even the kind of thing he'd
done before to other bands, dispersing them individually around America where
there dazed and confused looks would only get them mistaken for homeless people.
Who knows how many bands went trustingly out into the world with this maniac
never to be heard from again. Now it all made sense! All the while we were drunkenly
attacking the Texas sky with fireworks he was quietly planning this moment.
I even convinced myself that it wasn't our idea to stop at 'Big Tex' but his.
I felt sure that if I looked around that abandoned gas station I might even
find a skeleton or two from one of the bastard's previous road trips. It was
while I was laying there on top of the dumpster, planning some hideous revenge
on him that I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was
waking up around sunrise and there he was looking down at me with a look of
incredible relief on his face. He'd apparently stopped somewhere to get gas
and done a head check and realized he was one Fool short of a full band. My
band mates
thought I'd gone to sleep in one of the bunks and never gave it a second thought.
Not only did he return for me, I later learned that he prevented Rich from tossing
one of the remaining m-80 (only slightly less powerful than a grenade) firecrackers
into the dumpster to wake me up. There you have it friends--a lesson learned
by yours truly about trust. And while we had many different bus drivers over
the years (we tended to go through them at an alarming rate) we never had one
I trusted more than that guy t get us where we were supposed to be. Well that's
all for this week, we'll see you at the shows and by the way make sure someone
sober drives you home.....adios amigos...Mike
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