California Love:


We get to the LA venue. The crew there are talking a good game. The venue is beautiful, an old dance-hall style room with big chandeliers. On the surface, it’s all good. There’s a strange vibe though, and much macho posturing and butch roadie talk; we’re a step up the evolutionary ladder from people wearing all their old laminates or utility belts with every type of wrench and bat-shark repellent attached. Everything is going okay, the doors open, the support band play and then there’s change-over. Suddenly everything goes to shit. The monitor guy can’t remember where anything goes, the lead vocal mic’ is pulling shocks, no one knows how or why but suddenly all these “experienced” guys have all fucked-off, only to come back later when the problem has been solved to dance behind the curtain on stage like twats. Bunch of c***s. I’m not so surprised, it’s LA and everyone here talks a better game than they deliver, but it’s tedious. Frankly, if some wanker wants to stomp around a venue posing and competing in the world’s most roadiest roadie competition I’m happy to let him. I’m not playing. But when they can’t deliver or spend more time competing with their own vanity than they do doing the job at hand it’s a waste of everyone’s time and fucks up the show.

[I am redacting the comments I previously posted about certain people from the Music Business in LA. I think those comments were probably illegal, although the description of someone having the intelligence and finesse of a drunk, spastic moose still stands]. Suffice is to say that I never have any respect for people who work in music with the sole aim of hanging out with the band. It's no surprise that people are like that, it's the other side of the coin of what I do to some degree, but one has to be about the music first. If you're not then you're a bit of twat in my book.

However, I will still admit to the following: At least my enraged feeling is better than last year where there was a lighting guy who’s head I wanted to slam in a car door until it popped every single day when he opened his fat mouth, just like Vinnie Jones does in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Whatev’s. The world is full of dickheads, right? I’m just meeting all mine this week… But I’m setting myself a personal goal of not slapping [person's name removed] before the end of the tour. I have to remember I’m not in Coventry anymore.

We drive to San Francisco. I always get sad leaving LA. I feel like there’s another life I’m not living there, and that maybe I should be.

I couldn't work there though. I always feel like I need to shower in scalding hot bleach when I leave LA music people.


Heart Of Darkness:

Albert plays a show in San Francisco. The morning after I take the rental vans back to U-Haul and Avis respectively. I get into arguments at both locations. At U-Haul although I’m five hours early for my 24 hour rental, the girl claims I’m 30 minutes late as I said I’d be back at 9AM. Silly moo. At Avis the guy checking the car tells me to tell the office the mileage. The office guy gives me a hard time because I didn’t check the car in correctly. I tell him I gave the keys to the van to a man I met on the street outside who was smoking crack cocaine. He believes me. Eventually he gets the guy from the garage to vouch for me. Fuckwit. By 10AM I’ve had two arguments wile returning rental vehicles back in perfect condition five hours early. Boredom.

My skin is falling off, it's pretty disgusting. I think it’s because I’m biting back lots of bad words I want to say and they’re coming out through my epidermis. It takes so much energy to be so pissed off all the time and not let it out. It’s like having a toothache or trying to hold a basketball under water the whole time. I’ve realized if I hang out with solely the traveling party it helps some.

I had a dream last night about a friend of mine I’m hoping to catch up with at SXSW (A dull, hellish drinking festival in Texas) and I woke up feeling happy. We won't have time to catch up, but I’ll take anything I can get these days by way of a good feeling.