Argh; it's the alternative life I've chosen...ack. But it's kind of cool.

Hi again. So a little over 30 years ago, I wrote this to Karen, describing the gig in St. Medard with Tormentia: "So, our second show with Eric-the-Dick (he says everyone calls him that) was in a suburb of Bordeaux called Saint Medard. We're on a four band bill, the headliners were bumped so we would headline. It was in this massive community center/multipurpose room on a sort of community living area (some sort of experiemnt in socialsim, or something...). They were very specific about being there at 2pm to soundcheck, so of course Laurant had us out 'til 6am drinking and meeting the locals. The guy is like No Means No unchained!! So we get to the show, mucho grouchy, at about 3pm. Don't soundcheck 'til 6pm. Hang out. Meet the guys in Tormentia, a bunch of 118 and 19 year olds in a thrash metal band (think Metallica)The bass player, whose name I never mastered was a cute one. Great blue eyes, dark hair, very friendly (he was excited that "the American band" were using their equipment and kept telling us how honored they were that they were playing with us..hee...see me loving that!). We do the soundcheck and then end up standing around watching the other bands check - typical. Of course , as we don't speak French, we do ALOT of standing. They did snag this Scottish guy to "speak English and translate" but of course the guy is the King of Sleaze and kept following us around shoving pate (ack!!) sandwiches at us. ETD loves pate, of course. Nasty stuff, this pate, smells (and looks) a bit too much like dogfood for this camper. So; the other two bands are a heinous Pat Benatar cover band (the woman singer toted her guitar around, but she barely played it. Not that it mattered to the teeming hoards of local youth. They played one Benatar song three times in their set...and no one cared. We were amused. Tormentia were good, plus EVERY friend they had was there screaming support - it was like a baby Metallica show. Then: Looker. These guys would have been perfect for Hammerjacks - full on Hard RocknBig Hair & goofy cowboy boots band...and they HATED us. So we, being the Americans we were (sometimes it's cool to not understand the language - you can imagine they are saying anything to you) just played dumb. After the show, before the show, during the show, they were typically French in that they were super snobby and we just flung it back at them. They were a decent band, but like I say, they belonged at Hammerjacks. By the time we played (1:30am, and needed to be in Paris by noon that day for another show) we were too drunk and way too tired. But the kids seemed to like us. I sucked and yelled a lot. Mostly 'cause I felt a wee bit embarrassed - I had been hitting on the little bass god a lot and then found out we wouldn't be staying the nught. Ooops. Anyway. Againd, I don't have any pictures, but ETD got some and if he ever lets me see 'em and get copies made maybe you will too!" Also, a little tidbit about a gig in Belguim: "In Belguim, our car window was smashed, (nothing stolen though) and fans at the gig showed us that the damage had happened. Onstage, after like the third song I'm thinkin' "wow, Mike's vocals sound really full tonight" and I turn to look over at him and see six guys all standing right in front of him onstage, singing along word-for-word to each song and jumping all over! Turns out, they're in a band and the band covers Agent86 songs! They demanded we play Devestation County, a song we hadn't taught Eric (Billy knows it) so we gave it a shot, and they loved it. Leige (Belguim) was a lot like Amsterdam, a lot of people waaaay fucked up. Very punk rock, the club was full of 'em - for a change I wasn't the only one with a nose ring; in fact, almost everyone there had 'em. It was a very British Punk Rock/German Punx looking crowd. The beer was better there. Food blew. Oh god." Which hilariously brought me to a story that is kind of lost in the context of telling it to Karen, as she didn't know all the socio-political nuances of the arcane DC scene, but she knows me well enough to know my level of sarcasam, and lord, though I forget this story every damn time until I read this letter, it so sums up where my head was at (really where all our heads were at). Remember the "Fugazi Chow" incident? God, I wish I had a picture of that huge stainless steel pot that Eric had written on that had the horrible veggie mush that they offered us as band meal in Leige or was it the show with Alice Donut (wait, god, did we play with Alice Donut. This makes me want to reach out to Eric, or at least message him!) MY favorite part of the whole letter is this bit where I finish explaining how you and I, though on the verge of breaking up, would rather hang on and go back to Europe on tour rather than staying in DC spinning our wheels. To that end: "I just don't dig this work, work, work - just to survive. Fuck that. I'm obviously never goig to be a home owner, or christmas club memeber, or that stuff".