There and Back Again

Friday, July 14

I’m finally back in my office, and let me tell ya, it’s not nearly as much fun as the Werewolves’ van. I mean, you can’t even smoke in here. There’s no one here asleep who I can bother by cranking Dungen on the stereo. There are no empty bottles of gin or Hustler magazines on the floor — only a bunch of press releases and shit from publicists I’ve never met. I guess what I’m saying is I miss being on the road. Or maybe I just don’t want to be back at work.

Anyway, I apologize for not posting yesterday. I wrote an entry, but we didn’t stop anywhere that had wireless, which is really frustrating — I mean, shouldn’t the Internet be as available as bottled water and fried chicken nowadays? I don’t know how bands on the road manage to keep up their business. Oh, wait, I guess they have full-time publicists and managers working for them. (Note to Werewolves: getcha some a’ those.)

In the end, I had a fabulous time. I could not have found four sweeter guys to hit the road with for so long, roughing it like fuckin’ pioneers. There was no drama to speak of between members, and each of them were welcoming as hell to me. I’ve been on trips like that with old high school friends who turned into assholes on the road. Not the Werewolves. That whole fucking trip was basically all about survival, I mean, when it came down to it, and still everyone got along great. True gentlemen, those ‘wolves. For example, it didn’t matter what time of night or day it was, if you had to crawl from the front of the van to the back, legs and backpacks would be moved out of your way and excuse-mes would be issued. I guess the Werewolves’ mamma just raised her boys right, and that’s all there is to it. If I were actually a useful roadie — one who knew how to handle musical equipment and shit — and if the Werewolves could pay me a meager living, then there’s no band I’d rather work for. Absolutely.

Below is the entry I wrote yesterday. Thanks for reading while I was away. I’m glad that the city didn’t collapse in my absence. If you want any more details, I’ll be holed up drunk all weekend in one of our fine local bars. If the cigarette in my mouth is getting close to the filter, looking like it might burn me, just pour a beer on my face. That’ll put it out. Don’t expect it to rouse me, though.

Thursday, July 13

Compared to the ocean breezes, indoor plumbing and beer gardens of the Ventura Warped Tour stop, yesterday’s gig outside Dodger Stadium was the ninth level of Hell http://www.iupui.edu/~engw132/main1.html. The festival grounds, parking, camping, everything was spread across an immense parking lot on the side of a hill by the stadium that was overlooked by giant blue letters, kind of like the Hollywood sign, that spelled the meaningless phrase “Think Blue.” Guess it was a Dodgers thing.

When it finally came time to play, we had to roll the Werewolves’ equipment at least half a mile across the cracked, hot pavement to the stage, through swarms of sweaty California kids. We loaded in around 6 for a 7:25 show time — dead last on the roster for the day, basically. Originally, they’d been scheduled to play at 5:40. Around noon, we wrote that time on several dozen posters. Tommy and I had postered two rows of portapotties and hit various other visible landmarks (fences, ATMs, passed-out emokids) when Skeet called and said we’d been bumped nearly two hours later. All those posters — worthless.

The reason this happened was because, after waking up in the van this morning, peeing on some bushes, then being told by security to move our van clear across the grounds, and then sleeping some more, we couldn’t locate the staff member we were supposed to check in with. It wasn’t for lack of trying; Skeet, Shifty and I went in search of the lady (Shannon Saturday was her name) twice before 10 a.m., to no avail either time. So, when Nero finally did find her, well after the day had begun, she had bumped the ‘wolves from the schedule because she thought we hadn’t shown up. Rather than cutting them altogether, she put them dead last, which was both frustrating and relieving. At least they’d still get to play.

But oh, what a long afternoon we had to kill. All of us were neatly sunburned from the day before. Merely standing in direct sunlight made my forearms sting. I was probably the worst off because when I was a teenager I took this hardcore acne medication that pretty much destroyed my resistance to sunburns. Throughout the day, I slathered so much sunblock on myself that my arms looked like frosted crullers. Rather than sweat out the day on the festival grounds — which, by the way, had not a drop of beer for sale, $7 or otherwise — we spent a lot of time hanging out in the van with the motor running and the A/C on. It smelled like a dirty sock, but at least it was cool. Both days, Tommy scored a couple cases of Glaceau Vitamin Water, these little 10-oz. bottles of hummingbird feeder juice supposedly fortified with vitamins. We may not have had running water, but, hell, we had the vitamin water, which, now that this is over, I am never drinking again.

Around lunchtime, a friend of the Werewolves named Jason Henry came to hang out with us. He was an A&R guy at Epitaph back when the ‘wolves were on that label (they had a different name then). In fact, he worked there when the band was dropped from the label — “he was there for gallows humor the day we got dropped,” says Nero — but he and the Wolf brothers are great friends now. After Epitaph, Henry worked for three years writing sick stunts for Fear Factor, and he had some utterly insane stories from those days. He was part of a team of three stunt devisers: one was a specialist in the vehicular/daredevil stuff, another was a jack-of-all-trades, and Jason Henry was the gross-out man. One of his stunts involved contestants chewing meat off the jawbone of a cow, wading through a trench of cooked cattle entrails, spitting the meat into a grinder and drinking whatever came out. The trouble came when the caterer who was supposed to cook the entrails didn’t get them quite done. As the contestants waded through the trench, they got a lot of minor cuts on their bodies, which in turn became infected with flesh-eating bacteria. Also, it was about 30 degrees outside. The next morning, the contestants basically couldn’t move their limbs and their cuts were swollen and badly infected. They were taken to the hospital, and three months later, brought back to finish the episode. Ah, what people won’t do for a million bucks and fifteen minutes of fame.

That day, the Werewolves got neither, but they weren’t really expecting much. Questions of the worthwhileness of this trip had already begun to arise before they took the stage to a parking lot full of way more garbage than live bodies. Two screamo bands screeched like pterodactyls and hammered out their immature angst on detuned guitars across the way from the ‘wolves stage. At the merch table, I was facing the screamo and could barely hear my band’s set. It was a lot better in front of the stage, but I was irrationally fearful people would steal (or perhaps even want to buy) one of the CDs I was guarding, so I endured the screamo to hold down the fort. As always, the Werewolves destroyed, slinging their guitars and sweat, howling and rocking like they were on the Vans main stage before a thousand electrified fans. At least one good fan was present — longtime Warped Tour staffer, current Epitaph tour gypsy and Kansas City native Keanon Nichols came to the show and brought a few cans of Bud for the boys. Keanon, with his various headwear, curly handlebar mustache, and ready smile was our strength on this tour. A Warped veteran and native Texan, he always had a smile, a beer and friendly words of commiseration to share. The poor guy doesn’t get to come back home to KC for another month.

We, on the other hand, have just crossed the border into Arizona. It’s 10 a.m. We took showers last night — our first since leaving Sunday night — at a friend’s apartment in Hollywood. We left just past midnight, but Nero pulled over the van at a rest stop to sleep for a few hours. It’s strange to think we’ll be driving all day and night and still won’t be home. But at least when we get there it’ll be home. There’s no place like it, dude.