FlamingText

"But this bread will not fit in my toaster..."

Winnipeg, Manitoba:
We asked them if they had any regular-sized foods, but they just laughed at us.

Saturday July 17th, 2004

Things I saw on my walk in Winnipeg:

1. A group of kids on bicycles. One of them stopped and asked me if I was Puddle of Mudd. I told him no.
"Because you look just like him." he said.
"Is that a rock star?" I asked. He nodded yes.
"Then thanks."

2.Pollock's Hardware, Nails 2000, Jumbo Foods, and Super Boy Hamburgers.

3.A green Ford Windstar, just like the one we're driving, wrapped around a tree. Some cops were talking to the residents of the house that now had a wrecked car parked on the front lawn. They all seemed to be in agreement that it was fucked up, but what are you gonna do?
I think the car was stolen.

4. An immaculate two-story colonial house with distorted guitar emanating from a second-story window. Somebody inside was playing Master of Puppets in its entirety.

5.A little old lady leaning off of a wheelchair ramp, tossing bread crumbs to a squirrel.

6. An old man in a wheelchair on his way home with a bag of groceries. He had no feet.

7. A bunch of kids playing in a sprinkler.

Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Moose of Ontario are notorious pickpockets, prompting this cautionary signage:

The Pirate Ship "Vanity" is visible in the background.

"Hello, Thunder Bay!"

You wanna know what's more embarassing than accidentally setting off a fire alarm? Accidentally setting off the fire alarm in a public library.

Highway 10, Moorhead Minnesota

This one is pretty self-explanatory

Inflatable Hammer

  Rehearsals for the pirate play were at the Seattle Center, and since it was a warm June (not a given in Seattle by any means) we could regularly hear the sounds of the Center's amusement park rides through the open windows. The sound of screaming kids on a roller coaster or the occasional marching band were a normal part of the sonic backdrop to our play about life on a 1720 sailing ship in the Caribbean. Good practice of playing through distractions in case everybody's cellphone goes off at once some performance night.

  Coming out from rehearsal one night, carrying my massive tube amp (I've since put wheels on it) and straining a bit under the weight, I saw a little nuclear family unit of Mom, Dad and Son go strolling by me on their way to the ice cream stand. Both father and son were carrying what appeared to be newly-purchased inflatable sledgehammers. The father's hammer had some sort of sports logo on it that I couldn't quite make out (NFL? Nascar?), and junior's version was covered with the stars and stripes of Old Glory. While I puffed along behind them I witnessed as Dad demonstrated to his son how much fun it could be to smack Mom on the rear end with an inflatable sledgehammer, and Junior immediately followed his lead till they were both gleefully whaling away. Mom seemed irritated by this but seemed to do little to discourage the spanking other than feebly trying to turn her buttocks away from the blows. This did nothing to discourage Junior, who at this point had discovered the most fun game in the world.

  I'm not sure why the sight of that sweet-looking little tow-headed kid whooping his mama's ass with a star-spangled hammer should keep coming back to me, but there it is.

Tales from the Drum Pt 1

When John Galt lent us his drum, we promised to keep him up to date on its whereabouts with photos from the road. Here is the first such image, taken at the Bismarck, North Dakota Big Boy Drive-Thru.

“OTTER” is Hotter.

    I think that the otter has gotten short shrift in the euphemism department. I know that “beaver” has won out in popular usage, but based on my own informal polling, I think most women would prefer to have their genitalia compared to the lovable, frolicsome otter. Which would you rather pet: the sharp-toothed, stand-offish (albeit industrious) beaver, or the carefree, fun-loving vaudevillian of the ocean, the adorable otter?

Uh-huh. Thought so.

Why not otter?

Take My License and All That Jive

July 2nd, 2004:
    Talked to John Galt while stopped at the CarQuest auto parts store in Butte Montana. Mr. Galt is Fed Ex-ing my passport to Bismarck North Dakota, where I must rendezvous with it by 1PM (Central Time) tomorrow. Thank God for Mr. Galt.

    Inside the auto parts store the radio is playing “I Can’t Drive 55.” This song seems quaint in hindsight, considering we are currently traveling through a state that only recently lowered the posted speed limit from “A Safe and Reasonable Speed” to a more enforceable 75 MPH. Considering how much better time we’re making on this journey than I ever did in previous trips, I understand the outrage of Eighties-era Sammy Hagar (back before his tragic downhill slide into the best-forgotten travesty that was Van Hagar.) I feel sympathetic pangs of righteous indignation time-transported twenty years forward. Damn straight, dude! Why would they make a speedometer that goes all the way to 120 mph if they didn’t intend the needle to ever get past 12 O’clock? They might as well call it a slowometer! Downright cruel.

    This song has all the elements of a classic teenage rebellion anthem circa 1984. First, the presence of Sammy “Red Rocker” Hagar, the man who rightly pointed out that there’s only one way to rock and that heavy metal noise was a one-way ticket to paradise.

    Second, it possesses a strong sense of righteous outrage at uptight authority – We’re not gonna take it because there are no stop signs or speed limits on the Highway to Hell -- we’re breaking the law and if you think you can stand in the way of us getting wild, wild, wild then you’ve got another thing comin’.

And herein lies the crucial distinction between a buttrock rebellion song and say, a punk song. Because the Red Rocker isn’t encouraging his listeners to overthrow the government or set fire to police cars. He doesn’t want to turn the world on its head. This is no “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” or “Hinckley had a vision.” Sammy’s just pissed that under the new federally-mandated speed limit it now takes him sixteen hours to reach L.A.

    Realizing that teenagers have a generalized sense of anger at anything that inconveniences them or impinges on their sense of autonomy in any way, the pied pipers of buttrock obligingly turned out songs that rebelled against everything and yet nothing at all. Satan was regularly and unironically invoked in songs of the era because he signified an affront to Christian straightness and scared the hell out of god-fearing parents. According to buttrock, the world is just teeming with conformity-worshipping straights who want to stand in the way of your having good time, and it is your right, nay your moral imperative, to rock on despite their feeble imprecations. Amusingly, the Tipper Gores of the world obligingly leapt in to fill this role, acting like real-life versions of the fun-hating authorities of Rock and Roll High School or the stodgy town elders in Footloose, seemingly unaware that in so doing they completed the fantasy of righteous rebellion that the teens were buying as fast as the records could be pressed.

    For these American teens, Running with the Devil served as just as effective a pressure valve as any call to anarchy spewing forth from the spittle-flecked gobs of those guitar-solo-challenged British lads with odd haircuts. You say you want a revolution? Whatever, Nigel. I just wanna drive my Camaro fast!

July 1st 2004, AM

    Before we left Seattle we stopped at the QFC on Broadway, otherwise known as The Hippest QFC In the Whole World. Some bathroom evangelist had scrawled "SIN IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE" above the urinal. Fortunately I always carry a pen inside my jacket pocket for just such occasions, and within seconds it read "PISSIN' IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE."

Because Jesus wants you to hold it in.

July 1st, PM.

    We are in a teepee in Montana, at a national park called Beaver Tail. Des picked the place based on its name. The teepee is pretty swanky in its way, spacious and light, artificial turf covering the ground. Of course, building a fire is out of the question, since that would burn a hole clean through the lovely beige groundcover. The teepee cost ten dollars more than the regular campsite, but it's our first night out and we're feeling extravagant and besides nobody really felt like setting up a tent tonight.

    My first night's accounting of important things which I forgot to pack includes:
        My passport.
        A pillow.

The nice ranger came by on his little tractor to tell us the rates and give us instructions on payment; we are to place our fee into an envelope and then place the envelope into something called "the Iron Ranger", which is apparently the name of the payment receptacle.

         Tangent Number Two
The Iron Ranger sounds like a good name for a pro wrestling villain from the glory years of Hulk Hogan. As usual, he would be a symbol of some primal American fear, in this case the Canadian Menace. He would sit in his corner eating pancakes slathered in maple syrup before coming out to unleash the dreaded Yukon Mooselock on unsuspecting corn-fed American wrestlers. He would leave a trail of devastation in his wake before the inevitable climactic showdown with the Hulkster, where he would be soundly thrashed by that symbol of all that is good and pure and right about the U.S.A.

    Lying on my back in the astroturf teepee I can see an oblong patch of sky at the apex where the tent-poles converge in roughly the shape of a human eye. The eye is a deep blue now with occasional wisps of white, but last night the eye was filled with lightning as an electrical storm thundered by overhead. It is good to be out in thunderstorm country again. I believe while the Pirate Girls are still asleep I'll go outside and steal a few minutes of solitary guitar practice....