Hey, I'm gonna do some more transcribing of stuff from letters I wrote to Karen from tour, and since they are really just unhinged conversational venting (the more I read through them as I get older, the more arrogant and inssufferable I realize I was (LOL, it's true now as it was then, I'm just less vengeful. But poor Karen - it's amazing she has stayed friends with me all these years; imagine reading this shit and not thinking: holy shit my friend is really an asshole) she is solid gold.
So many parenthetical asides. LOL, again.
Anyway, let's get into it:
August 1992
Hey, it's me. And I'm currently trundling around rural France in a big red van. Neato. Not...we're on our way to Holland, 'cause the Agent86 luck, holding firm as always, finds us facing 12 days (underlined for effect) without shows. As usual, our French contacts blew it and this time it's us and Punishment Park who suffer. So who knows when I'll finally send this - it's Saturday - the 29th or 30th right? Yeow, how time flies when you are totally consumed with survival in a foreign country. As usual things are falling in on top of us. It started with me losing my coinpurse (containing my driver's license, $80 cash and my "lucky" 10ff coin. Fucking frog money jinx) followed immediately by losing my sunglasses at the first German gas rest stop we come to. Ooh yeah, I'm lovin' it, and YOU KNOW Mike's real happy with me by then!!! When Punishment Park meet us at the airport the first thing out of their mouths was that the three German gigs they had scheduled for Weds-Saturday aren't happening. Follow this up with a call to our boy in Paris, Marc, and finding out he's in TUNESIA. Yes, Tunisia (or however you spell the goddamn place) on "holiday" and our first show on his schedule isn't until the 10th of September. Unfuckingbelieveable, no? I expected it to be sort of chaotic but this is too surreal. We spent two days in Paris surviving off the kindness of others - Marc's girlfriend's mother put us (eight grungey punx) up, and the woman speaks NO English. [she was an angel].Amazing. So we find out we have a whopping six shows in September...so now we're in Holland where it's a bit cheaper to exist, and are trying to get some last-minute shows in Poland. what a life. I have $200 to last me until December - you gotta love that. Ack. Punishment Park are nice, although their female singer is 17 (she and Rob have already done the kissy-face stuff...gonna be a long month), but tolerable. The rest of them all hover around the 20-22 bracket with the drummer being the old man at 24. Yay. Romper room on wheels. Yay. Oh yeah, last night after we blow into Rotterdam and get some of Holland's notorious hash, we all get very goofy. Rob and Leni (girl singer) are going at it and Leni's brother, Claes (heheheheh, fucking Norse dudes: Sven, Peirs, Kell and Claes) gets all huggy with me, so I go with that and he freaks out and tells me no; blah, blah, blah, girlfriend, blah de blah, engaged, blah, blah. I'm not likin' these Euroheadgames. I think I'm just going to cool my jets until Slovenia [wink wink]. Then, things'll be ok. We hope. Italy starts October 8th, and Slovenia too. Yay. One MONTH from now. Fucking ack.
Look it's 8.30.92 OR 30,08,92 if you're a descendant of these over-educated, under-bathed cave-dwellers. Can't even write dates correctly, no wonder it's so hard to book a tour.
Well, day #3 in Holland is almost done. We are staying at Pieter and Thee's town-house-sorta set up. These Holland abodes are cool. Designs waste no space, gas heated, really cool. Imagine, doors separating areas so heat stays in one place, lights...oh, jeez I'm outta control. Getting kinda stir-crazy. We got to practice today. Thee and Pieter are in Jet Lag, they wear spandex and have big hair and neon guitars - we are literally staying with the Whitesnake of Holland.....YESSSSS. They let both bands use their practice space. Only about a week since we last played and already we were shaky. Yay. But it was fun. Mmmmm, looks like we may have shows in "New Yugoslavia" (Serbia). Hope I'll be able to let you know more about that before we go. As there is a US travel ban on Americans to Serbia, we'll see. Also, maybe Poland gigs, and some more Holland dates. Whee!
Mike. This bunch of white-power Christian zealots is not even pretending anymore. We are actively deporting residents from other countries who have lived and worked here for decades, students who have been protesting the invasion of Gaza, AND....AND frigging British tourists and Uber drivers who take a wrong turn on a bridge and end up in Canada because there is no turnaround, and when they re-enter they are being detained. And then yetsterday the vampire Nazi Stephen Miller announced they are "looking into" suspending hebeas corpus and...and allowing Afrikkaner "refusgees" (you know, rich, white people who exploited Apartheid and now hate the fact that they are required by law to pay taxes and share land ownership) to "seek asylum" here. I fucking cannot take this. They have undone Roe, they are purging the population, and the Supreme Court is about to also make Christianity the only religion (apparently) with any right to freely practicing. I fucking hat...
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