mike watt + the secondmen
"el mar cura todo in europe too" tour 2005 diary
week 5

sunday, may 1, 2005 - le harve, france


from raul:

   The day got started before the sun was up, two hours to be exact, 4:30 in the morning. The idea was to get started early enough that we could make it to the top of france, and get the ferry across across the channel over to england. I hadn't slept for a day, but i also don't drive, so i took shot gun, so paul could rest up to take second shift. We've had two night drives, this is the first early morning. Getting outta town is the first part of the comedy. Uri had gotten a map from the front desk, and drew a line of our path. the funny part was he crossed out right over the names of the street, so it was a guessing game from the get. It was tough to stay alert, much less awake, i knew i had to, atleast for the first part, getting outta town,and on the right track is the main deal. On the highway, everything seems in order, then all the sudden the freeway just pushes us off, no warning, just cones and cement blocks in the middle of the highway. We had to exit, and the only thing to do was hang a port, and hope for some kinda detour. No detour, and were in the center of nowhere. no lights, no idea, we've only been on the road fiften minutes, it's almost defeating, not quit there, cuz we can still make jokes about it at five in the morning. Me and watt are trippin', but we can't just stay in the middle of the road wondering what to do. We notice cars keep comin' off, going down certain streets, and comin' back a few minutes later, so that's not the way to go, plus we already went the other direcion, and there was no option. The freeway is the dirtection that we came off in the first place, so that leaves one direction... success, even with the process of elimination, it still felt lucky to find the right way.

   I tried hard to stay awake, it seemed almost impossible. i was tryin' to read, but that would just eventually wear my eyes.I was in and out during the sunrise, it was a pretty sureal thing, and finally stayed awake when the sound of the camera started. Mike got some total drool shots, i could feel myself doing the nod off, and i couldn't control it... whiplash. Early on i was glad i had gottn food at the marchada the day before. Sardines and chips, i had also gotten a loaf of bread, so i made watt a sardine sandwhich outta that... sounds gross, so does a big mac, this, to me, is tour soul food, and it's great cuz you can eat without stopping the drive. Watt makes hella far, and has paul take over for a couple hour.

   About a hundred or so clicks from the top of france, we stopped in chartres, and visited the cathedral, scary looking place. Had a dark grey look, very gothic. Reminds me of where sauraman lived. Two gigantic towers, one with so much detail it was hard to take in, i couldn't believe what i was seeing, big stone half arches, that seemed to be holding it up. When i actually stepped in it was hard for my eyes to adjust, it was almosrt pitch black. It seems alot of the cathedrals i've seen have been modernized, not the case with this guy. lots of candles, and the mininmal light that came in thru the stained glass. That was another intense thing, the size of the whole pieces of glass had to be over twenty five feet tall, and there were tons of em', all diffrent from the next. It was all trippy, the confessionals were in the middle of the place so you'd circle em' and they had the tinyest doors. There where levels, obviously, but i couldn't find a set of steps anywhere, maybe behind one of those tiny doors, how else would you get the enormous pipe organ fifty feet up, jump. It was pretty amazing, alot diffrent from what i've seen so far, as far as cathedrals go. One deal that wasn't to good, the air was strange inside, sorta damp. It was hard to breath, smelled real strange.

   It's muggy as hell outside, it's like being in the south, the bugs are the same situation too, and there's smashed up buggies all over the boat. It's impossible to see out the window. The idea is, maybe we can stop and clean it, easy enough. It's been an issue all over europe to clean the windshield, i can count today as another. ata the station we stop at, there's squigees, but no soapy water in any of the deals, there all bone dry. We gotta take it to the spicket and turn the water on it. A lady from inside does come out to fill up the basins, by that time we had been going back and forth for ten minutes, she seemed so pissed she had to change the water, i felt like i disturbed her from something way more imporant, it was a hugh help, and we thanked her, it didn't help. The best is when we got the giant sponge and the bucket of exceedindly soapy agua, mike washed the boat right there.

   Made it to the port with time to spare, so it was a good idea to leave early. I'd so much rather be early than late, rushing sucks. When we stopped, i finished off the rest of the grub, medaterrainian vegetable medely, and a tuna sandwhich with chips, had a picnic in the grass. There was an hour or two before we had to board the ferry, but no walking around, i gotta finish this book so i can get back to the diaries. Had a cup of coffee, and a good conversation with paul, then it was time to board. It was neat to be driving inside of a big ship. I've been on a car ferry once before, somewhere in eastern canada, but we just parked on the deck, and it wasn't overnight, this is a first. It's pretty much a floatin' hotel, but the more excessive parts being a beauty salon, movie theatre, casino, it's only overnight, people cannot be bothered for even a day. Watt stayed in the room to sleep, he's been at it all day with a little rest, gotta give it up, he got us here. Paul and i on the other hand have never watched as a ferry of this size leave port, so regardless of tiredness, i gotta go to the top deck and check it out. It's a great view of the city and harbor, and we're way up there... Paul mentions hurling himself over the side of the ship, you'd freeze to death i tell him. Not if did it off the back and into the propellers he says... morbid shit, i love paul, he's a crack up. Once we're outta the port, and away from the city lights, it gets dark real fast, and real foggy. The tiredness is startin' to take over, there'e no stopping it, it's to strong. I think paulsy wanted to check out a flick, but i had to go back and sleep, and i had the only key.



from paul:

   The artist who's name I couldn't remember was Ricard Gelado. He is reproducing the works of Helios Gomez.

   Sleep restlessly till about noon, when Mike wakes me up to take over to drive. Probably missed some beautiful stuff between Barcelona and a coupla hunnrt clicks south of Bourges where I take over but it's rolling farmland with these yellow spiiled paint fields that are too well tended to be goldenrod, alternating with rich green. I've never seen a painter capture this, and if one did no one would believe s/he's being realistic. Poor Raul has to do a second shift in the passenger seat and his head rolls like a junkie on the nod. I just go straight for three hours and the gas tank is only at a half, when Mike wakes up and suggests we stop for lunch at Chartres.

   Which is so cool because I've been to Chartres many many years ago. Maybe it was a Mark Curry tour in the early 90's. I was asleep on a tour bus and one of the crew guys woke me up in the middle of the night and we went out and there was this huge cathedral, I don't know why I was allowed inside in the middle of the night, the whole memory is hazy, no one else from the band got up to look at it.

   It. It is old, with roots going back to 4th century. There are templar legends about it. It is one of the centers of Christendom. And it is huge. It's much bigger than the Duomo in Firenze, gloomier, more "gothic." There would be no point in Michaelangelo painting the ceiling, because the ceiling is so high you couldn't see anything, over 100 feet. In all that gloom and towering the long long stained glass windows, some 800 yrs old, really create the light and the mood, but there are also elaborate carvings and sculptures, saints, crosses, madonnas the whole cathedral thing. Sorry. When you walk in it is so awe inspiring you're just hushed. But I notice I have come as a tourist and not a pilgrim and I am missing out on how deep the experience can be. I'm a little rushed, afraid to lose Mike and Raul who are wandering around taking pictures, afraid we won't get back to the van in time because we only paid for an hour of parking. But I sit for a minute and try to allow the weight of the years to take me away and I do touch it a little, then I look over into one of the side areas where there was a big wooden cross on the wall and there is a young girl on her knees praying maybe eight years old. I don't know if she was real.

   We head back to the van and Mike takes over, Raul finally getting to lie down. It's about four now, and we're about three hours out of La Havre. Along the road are signs saying what famous chateaus are in the neighborhood but we can't see them from the road. After a while we sense the ocean, we cross the Seine and parallel it to where it empties into the Atlantic at Normandy. We are three hours early for the ferry. I think this is a testament to Mike's experience and discipline; it was the right decision to leave straight after the gig. I guess he's accomplished a few hell rides in his day.

   We wait around, then get in line to board, wait in a lounge for a while, complete the boarding process. Mike seems out of sorts, I'm sure he's exhausted, but I somehow piss him off trying to help find our room and he doesn't hide it. I try to not be thrown by this, but I will be insane for days. We get to our cabin, leave our bags and Raul and I go to explore the ship.

   It's neat to be on the huge ferry. We go to the top deck, aft and watch as we pull out. The whole experience of pulling out of a harbor on a big ship is so great. It's always kind of damp and windy and you're way up high in the air, the boat spreads the ocean and sends waves off from it's sides in geometric patterns. It's nighttime and all the lights of the shore mark the distance you would have to swim if you went overboard. And I do feel an almost uncontrollable urge to jump off the high deck. I do not want to die. I just want things to be better and I feel like I make all the wrong moves, say all the wrong lines. Drowning is the last way I would want to go, though. I keep my feet on the deck. Raul and I watch the view, he takes pictures. They're showing the Aviator in the theater but we've missed the start and we can't go in. I also have a strong desire to let Scorsese do my thinking for me for some hours, another total checkout. The ferry is like an ocean liner, casino, duty free shop. We get some pounds and I explain to Raul that even though he got half as many pounds as Euros or Dollars that doesn't mean he got less money. How wrong I am as the prices on the boat and London will prove.

   We gain an hour crossing the channel so it's only a little after 11 when we go down to the cabin. Even though there are four bunks Watt chooses to sleep on the floor. I roll into the bunk and can barely feel the movement of the ship; it's my second sleep in a row in a moving vehicle.

   It's not enough to think about Hellin. Thinking about her is medicine to my soul. But if there is a power in love then I need to tap into it, I feel like I'm drifting madly and helplessly again. It's sort of like prayer what I'm going to do. I'm going to love Hellin there in the dark for a while, but I'm going to love Alex and Adam. I've got to release this flood that I have damned up with fear and judgement and pain. And I am going to love the rest of the human beings in my life one by one till I fall asleep.

      The egocentric attempt to dominate the world, to bring as much of the world as possible under the control of the ego, has only to proceed for a little while before it raises the difficulty of the ego's controlling itself.
                  -Alan Watts



from watt:


   the sun coming up over the mediterranean is a righteous thing, bathing the boat starboard to port w/orangeness... love it so. raul's out again, he drifts from konk mostly when I spiel and then leaves wake time when I return to silent running - it's so reassuring w/him there like that for me, 'pert-near making this mission within a mission a real possibility. in the back of my mind I keep telling myself "if you're too tired, pull over." this is the lesson I must always keep deep ingrained me cuz of what happened to d. boon. I got gas just before leaving spanish land and w/fuel for the boat, I got some for me too - trippy long skinny sausage folded in half that I chow by squeezing it through an open end in chunks. kind of like a softer genoa salami w/pockets of what seems like pure salt - whoa. it gives me strength to wheel us down the road though.

   the first big town we roll through in france is perpignan, next is narbonne (again but from the other way) and a little past this, I pull over to leave a message on dutch dude carlos' machine saying we're ok and it's steady as she goes for us... I know he's worried about what has to be done but I wanna reassure him some. I turn us north before montpelier and head for millau - we're taking a route I've never done before, straight up through the middle of france - it's a road plan carlos faxed to me along w/the english work permits and I think it's a good one. us in this dutch boat pass through all the mountain stuff of puy-de-dome, having the good fortune of good weather mostly on us - some wind sometimes, even some sprinkles but not much and it being a little brisk is ok on helping to keep me alert. trippy how raul's body has mastered tour life - he can konk w/his head hanging forward w/out himself being slumped. sure, his mouth is wide opened but he is getting rest in this virtual semi-state. as I said before, if I need he pops right up and when I'm done he's back in sleepytown, amazing. paul's been konked the whole time though at one stop, he let his coffee-fiend thing get on him and was about to down when I begged him please to let it go and let konk take him so he'd be all rested for when I knew at sometime I'd need him to take over cuz there was no way I could do the whole 1157 klicks or whatever this road tally would add up to be (I got that number from the routing carlos flowed). much thanks to paul for taking some non-musical direction from me too. see, raul's a pedaler back in pedro and though he now owns the old boat (I sold my 1990 ford econoline e-250 to him for $500), he has no driver's license and his buddy kevin drives it. that leaves only paul to relieve me so I dearly want him rested up when that time must inevitably come. I watch the plates on the other cars on the road and they're completely french, this is not maybe so the tourist way to go though it's mainly family-loaded cars I see on this sunday, traffic not plugged or slowed but still enough to be far from empty. I take us through clermont-ferrand and then past vichy (a physical connection where before it was always a thing from history books that meant "collaboration") - we're past the mountains now, I pull us on over for fuel and let paul take over for about three hundred klicks, taking us through bourges, orleans and on to chartres. the whole of paul's shift, I was konked big time - from the moment he started his first and only drive of this tour to when I popped just before chartres (home of a huge old cathedral w/the town's name - he said he's been here before but I'm grateful again for him indulging me for a look-see of my own). it was three hours of much needed konk for me, I totally needed it and me going under that fast surely meant I trusted paul enough to have him wheel us. he did really good.

   the cathedral was built mostly in the twelfth century but there's later add-ons like a fifteenth century spire - you can imagine how works like this get appropriated by the current agenda of the day. I think of all the workers who toiled here who'll be forever anonymous but then I'm always thinking about that. this is an elaborate piece of work here though, damn - the stained glass, the chapel w/in a chapel and all the figures - outside around the hatches too. trippy how things are subordinated regarding this w/the three main ones: the beginning, middle and end (as in second coming, final judgement) of jesus aren't in that order but beginning, END and midlle where the center hatch has the biggest focus. we are a funny species that way. another thing I get to thinking on is stations (they're carved up on the walls) - lots of times I'm checking out VIII cuz that's where veronica might be seen - she's the one my ma took her confirmed name from and one story has jesus' face getting but in her veil. well, supposedly this place got started w/a relic that was a veil but though there's ladies by jesus, there's no veil scene. I'm prone to chasing down patterns that seem to cling on in me, like getting a foothold to gain a perspective - something like that. it's all too big for me to hold at once, more like finding myself bathing in than symbols rather getting self-righteous or definitive about them. what's definitely going down w/me though is kind of choke-out on my lungs - it's hard to breathe in here, maybe old old old dust is making itself truly felt on me. it clears up the second I get outside and breathe the air out there. neat pad though, lots to make me think about - damn, tons. I could stare at the carved faces and stuff on the outside alone for an infinity. lots of riddles for me to develop (notice I didn't say find!).

   paul is in the passenger seat now and navigates us through dreux, where we stop for chow but it's some serious chick-ching so we move on 'til a gas stop in vereux has paul chowing up but me and raul holding off. cuz of spring, bugs are making the windshield harder and harder to look through but the gas pad has no water for squeegie use so we make do w/using the spigot for radiator use a few islands away. a lady appears after a while to "refresh" the water reservoirs and looks kind of pissed off - we didn't mean any harm, just wanted to get a better look at france w/some clean windows. maybe a boss got on her case cuz they saw us improvising, shit - it's may day (fucked up I'm not playing on this date - can't remember when that happened last) and the last thing I want is to give a fellow worker hell. I wish I could speak french to apologize and explain. trippy but raul tells me the same thing when we get under way again, I guess it was running through both our minds. paul offers us his french fries (he had the people there throw all his chow in a plastic bag) so I chow some - no salt but his sister weened me off that years ago. did I already write about that this tour? there are things about kira I'll never forget, they're inscribed in me. I think she was the first really to get me to think about my health. we go through rouen and then pick up the autoroute again to le harve, the road since chartres was secondary but not too tiny. man, is it a relief to get to this port - whoa, the atlantic ocean and we've made it safe after fifteen hours of full road sail, blessed be. I get out and hoof after putting the boat in right before the ferry check-in gates cuz they'll be open for us in a bit. I go over to the bus terminal and make a call to dutch dude carlos and leave a message on his machine we've arrived safe, then go get some kebab at a turkish place, stopping at a gas station to get paul an ice cream cone cuz I know he likes sweets and he was saying how we're going to now go to england where gigs are more like u.s. ones and we're not as much "treated like kings" as he puts it, like on the continent here where hotels are part of the deal for playing. it's not such an issue for me cuz it's about doing gigs, this tour life but I want paul to know I appreciate him doing what he can for us. raul, I know is having his mind blown coming over to the parts for the first time ever and has no pre-conceptions, being used to hardcore tours and playing in living rooms, basements and garages anyway. we're a mixed bunch.

   I think it's the first time for both of my guys on a ferry so I tell them it's kind of like a floating konk pad, the way I've fit into our plan. we drive on and the hoof up to the cabin I got us, a little kranky cuz I need both some space and konk. they want to see the boat shove off from the upper decks but I'm quick on the deck so I don't join them and instead am prone and in snoresville seconds after they've sealed me in w/some hatchclose. the last day of the tour w/out a gig but not an empty day for sure.





monday, may 2, 2005 - london, england


from raul:

   Arrived at around six thirty in the morning, and we gained an hour. Watt woke me up and told me that we had just ported, so i ran upstairs to scope it out. Not quite yet to land, maybe fifteen more minutes. It was great being in the port so early in the morning, made me think of home. The diffrence from was the battle ships all over, cold morning with lots of moisture in the sky, and it's drizzling a bit. On they way down to the garage, i see the exchange booth, and decide to get some pounds. I'm not sure, and i'd like to give the lady the benifit of the doubt, but i think she tried to rip me off for eighty bucks. I called her out on it, and it was fixed. It's weird, she knew i had just woken up, was groggy, and even more in a hurry... seemed shady, whatever, no harm. I think paul took more offense than i did. To me, karma can be a bitch, and i believe in that crap, so she's rolling the dice, not me. While this was going on, there were inaudiable announcements over the loud speakers. I think they were saying was to hurry the hell up, get off the damn boat. We made it downstairs just as they were tellin' watt to start moving the line, perfect timing. The border check is a breeze, the nice lady checked our passports and sent up on thru. Instantly it's bizzare, were driving on the oppisite side of the road, it's tough to get used to even just sitting, i can't imagine driving like that. Every left turn, i gulp, and twist my head in all directions.. instinctivly, i think we're headed the wrong direction. Most the drive into london, i have my head buried doing some chimpin', so i don't get a look of how jacked the streets are, but i can hear paul call out street names every other second. The names change from block to block, watt had bought the london a-z, and it still seemed tough. The a-z list every street, ally way, drive way in london, it's our bible for the next two days.

   We're in town real early, it's nine thirty when we get to the club, and nobodys there till noon. It's right down the road from piccadilly circus, sorta like the manhatten part of london, or what manhatten copied from london, one was first. I take a walk up there to find somthing to eat. Everything is so expensive, it's unbelieveable, the dollar is turd, a pound is $1.95, so it's basically double, and all the prices are the same, this town can eat your money fast, four dollars for a cup of coffee, thats just way to much. Paul and i do a little searchin', and find a pad with reasonable deals, with good food. I wish i would've tried the avacado shake. While we're eatin' it's starts with the rain. Not uncommen for london, but it sucks, i got shit that can't get wet in my back pack, and we have lots of time to do whatever, i don't wanna spend it sittin' in the van watchin' it pour... i swear it was sunny five minutes ago. On the way back to put some things away, it stops, i'll come to find most of the days are like this, and the weather changes very frequintly, and with little warning. It's great though, cuz for now it's stopped. Got to see the cliche sites, big ben, parliment, and even walked thru the park to the palace. There was people all over the place, i mean herd like, flooded. The guards were putting on a show, drum lines, guards doing the marches with guns, i can't believe there'd be such a put on for tourist, then we remember, it's a bank holiday. Celebrating what, i'm not sure, maybe it's like the labor day that we have in the states. It's not to happening, it's way to crowded, and now of course my sweatshirt is a nusince, cuz it's pratically a hot summer day, for how long, i'm not sure, nobody is. All i know is im burning up. We both head back to the van to shed some clothes. After, paul decides to stay back, and read in the park, i'm gonna go check out the city.

   It reminds me of a smaller manhatten, even has the hugh televised advertisments. In L.a., we even got some of our own, right on hollywood blvd. The powers concept to make every big city the same is almost complete, at least i don't see a starbucks around. I'm sure they have the equally as evil counterpart, i just don't know what it is. I walked for hours, and it all stayed relitively the same, lots and lots of shops. Finally i had to give it a rest, i found a bookstore, and spent an hour reading. The promoter is suppossed to be there at three, and it's close to, so i should go back. When he shows, the boys move the van around the to the front, but paul tells me that they're going to the back, easy mistake. i'm in the back talkin' with sean for about ten minutes, when i decide to go 'round front to see where the hell they went. The last piece of equipment is being hauled out as i walk up, opps.

   One other band tonight, while they sound check, i go next door and get something to eat. It's not seperate, and along with a eatery, bar, and club, there's a gallery, theatre, and a book and movie store. I should of got the fish and chips, something traditional, it just seemed to greasy at the time, i opt for some greens, not enough on this tour. In the restarant is a 'puter, and it has free internet, so i write kid kevin back home, and me mum. Capricorn starts soon after. The first metal band we've played with. I thought they were awesome, very heavy, sometimes reminding me of federation x, but only briefly. In between the heaviness, the guitars would do these harmonies that were pretty epic, the sound track to fantasy a movie. Had some good old sounding thrash parts, good stuff. After the day off it's good to get to playin' again. Gig is a goodie, people that came to see the show were super friendly, it's great when folks are clapping for parts of songs, it breaks the ice, sometimes the whole club will be hushed, and we'll be playin' so quite you can hear people breathing. It's rad to get so much attention, but it can add to some already tense feelings, i'd like the crowd to be more at ease, tonight was the perfect mixture of that. It can go both ways, to much attention, and no atention span. After saying bye to the capricrn dudes, they were cool enough to give me a vinal copy of there record.. i hope it can survive two more weeks of tour and a plane flight. I've gotten albums home from tour before, but the only place to put this record is in a case that gets smashed around everyday. So enough of that, we say bye and head for the pad, it's not close, and we have no one to follow, but we do have the a-z. Paul does a fantastic job directing us there, he's great with the maps, i'm already thinkin' about how lost i'll be tomorrow.



from paul:

   I wake to Mike chimping at about 5 a.m. I go in and out and wake up again for good as he leaves the room. I get up because I want to see us pull in, get a little more seafarin' whatsit. Raul's right behind me as we go up; we check out to see if there's free breakfast; that's a laugh; more like chingching breakfast. We're basically too late to see much; we're practically berthing, but we do notice her majesties war fleet off the starboard bow. They keep making announcements that Raul and I miss, just can't quite catch what they're going on about, but I'm pretty sure are important; he decides to change some more money, $20 worth, gives the girl $100, she gives him 10 pounds! When he asks for his change she says: "How do you tell your money apart, it's all the same color and size!" uh huh, I've seen that grift before, especially considering we are totally fucking up late getting to the van. I ask the guy next to the scam artist change girl how to get to the van and he tells us, then says:"Sir, you have been called" like what the fuck are you still doing here. I had a feeling it was going down like that, so we rush down, and make it to the car just as Watt has to pull away. It could have been semi-ugly as we have to go through customs, but customs was a breeze so the whole thing was just very nerve wracking.

   We pick up the map book of London driving on the left side like we're trying to kill ourselves. It's scary. Mike does great, he just keeps telling himself "stay to the left, stay to the left" but there are a few times we pull into intersections with NO IDEA what we are doing; just kinda closing our eyes and saying "10 o'clock!!!" and hoping for the best. It is basically a sensation of driving the wrong way down a one way street, constantly. Meanwhile we're calling off every little alley and mew we pass, I'm trying to stay exactly on top of where we are, and it really goes pretty good considering we're playing NEXT DOOR TO THE QUEEN. Yes, the club is on the Mall which is the street that leads right to Buckingham Palace, it seems way too high falutin for us, like Mike is about to be knighted. We've really been lucky because it's a bank holiday and the nightmare of London traffic combined with London roads and London left handedness hasn't materialized. We find the club with remarkable ease although a slight nervous aneurism. I mean it went good but it was stressful. Anyway we find a parking spot around 9a.m. after getting into Portsmouth at six and clearing customs by 6:30 or 7. and Raul and I search for some food.

   The prices are a fucking shocker. Donuts and coffee is out, but we look a little and find a place where I can get a English breakfast for L3.75 which is over $7.50 but it has eggs, sausage, ham, vinegar beans, a slice of tomato and coffee, so cool, I'm fed, but I'm probably going to need more pounds. Then we head out to make the little tourist circuit; I've got the map book and want to figure things out, Raul just wants to keep moving. I saw nothing coming in because I was so focussed on the map, but Raul saw Big Ben and we go that way.

   I'm a dumbass, I don't even know that that's the House of Parliament. It's a REALLY impressive building, everybody's seen that I guess, ostentatious to say the least, right next to it is Westminster Abbey, a CATHEDRAL, but we've seen some bitchin cathedrals and we move on. There are a lot of statues of people, Cromwell, Richard the Lionhearted, Lincoln, some real british looking guys with british mustaches that got statues for ruling the Indian people. We follow the marching band sounds it turns out to be the Buckinham palace guard: the guys in the red suits and funny hair! They are doing their maneuvers, marching old school with their AK47's and their tubas then they all go marching off in front of Buckingham palace. It's really surreal, you see pictures your whole life but I never paid much attention. I guess those are the guys specifically charged with guarding the queen? There's lots of people, we fight through the crowd, Raul doesn't like crowds, then we head back to the van. It's unbelievably cool to be walking around in central London but am I anywhere in the vicinity? Of course not. I wind up getting a book and reading and falling asleep in the park. My head is ablaze in full glory with the horror of my self hatred that I was going on about earlier, absolute revulsion.

   At around three I go back into ICA which is now open. It's some kind of govt. sponsored museum or art thingy. They have a museum show called Beck's Futures going on, I don't know what that was about except Al English told me later that it's an annual presentation of a bunch of artists and one of them wins and gets money. I looked VERY briefly at some of it and it didn't grab me at all. But there were some good screensavers, that's art don't you think? The museum is open but the venue is still padlocked, the receptionist doesn't really seem to want me hanging around and calls the guy with the keys and points out the crew to me who are at a little bar drinking. Now we can load in. It's a big black room and Ian, Francis and I agree that it's a shame to be in this dark room when it's so beautiful outside. And it is really beautiful, but it's always like that in England, right?

   We check, its a bit verby, but we've dealt with that before, Sean and Al show up with some drinks and chips and fruit. Sean is older with a beard, he works for Barry who is the promoter, and who also I guess is the guy beyhind All Tomorrow's Parties. Al is younger, with cool hair, tells me later he works for Matador records, has a band called Youthmovie Soundtracks Strategies and is the contact at ACI. I get a feeling he's "skeptical" about us, but I ask him later and he says no and I believe him, he's shy or tired or something. And Sean points out...an internet connection!! I hop on, it's been two weeks! there are some pictures of Hellin and an email but not very much for so long. She says she's been having anxiety, I don't know why we get that, it's so random, it feels like when someone just snuck up behind you and yelled BOO!! And then you have this flood of nervousness not connected to anything it's so FUCKING UNPLEASANT. Watt finally gets two weeks of the diary up, I check my emails before we leave the club late and Hellin hasn't checked them yet. Hope she's OK.

   The opening band the Capricorns start checking and I feel like it's not a very good pairing. They are SUPER loud and heavy and metal based, tuned way down, octavers, baritone guits I dunno, low low low sludgy. Kinda cool too, instrumental, but so loud it's painful to stand in front of. I wonder a little if we'll sound all small, but the Coltrane should wash the ears.

   Raul and I have dinner with Al and Sean, I get some good fish and chips, not all greasy, shishi art institute fish and chips. They talk alot about all tomorrows parties, it sounds like a great thing, 2500 people (Mike says 6000) at a little resort near the water with lots of really cool music, the bands rubbing shoulders with the kids. I went to the one my friend Rick did in Long Beach at the Queen Mary, it was so cool, Iggy with Mike, one of his early ones; Mars Volta; Elliott Smith was supposed to play but he had just died so there was a tribute to him instead, James Chance and the Contortions plus lots of other cool underground music, but the setting was so neat and that's a big part of it, the Queen Mary towering, Long Beach lit up and beautiful. Rick died a few months after that, he was one of my best friends and I miss him a lot. I guess Barry knew Rick; Sean said Rick had done so great with the LA version. That was a bad year for losing people.

   After dinner Al takes me out for a walk to what he says is his favorite place in London; a bridge across the Thames with an awesome view, there's a wierd building, huge, shaped like a catapillar pupa, the insanely large ferris wheel of course, all the old stuff and the muddy filthy river sliding by below us. I like him a lot, his band is unapologetically prog, he says King Crimson and when I hear his CD it really is, kinda Genesis too. Good lyrics as well. I tell him what I've been saying lately, I'm starting to wonder if a good gig for me would be lighthouse keeper. He found out he's not going to keep his job booking ACI and he might move back to Oxford, work in a bar and concentrate on his band. That sounds nice although when he says that one of the great things about the job is you can drink there I just say; "I wouldn't want to drink that much!" He went to school in music business which he says didn't help him a bit, but that stuff gives you confidence.

   We get back and I go up and do diaries as the Capricorns get ready to go on. It is empty! Feel a cave coming. That's a drag because this is London etc. but I don't let those things get to me, I'm interested in a transcendent performance, if only one person sees it, that's cool. It really is, I've found that with my own music, I pick up "fans" one at a time. Few people give it a listen, but once in a while one person will hear my music exactly the way I heard it, it's rare and precious, and it has to be good enough for me cause it's never been any other way. The Capricorns finish, we set up quick and Watt gives us the pep talk: "OK, guys this is the total character builder" and we go on to a pretty empty house.

   Except when we hit the first chords, the people come in from the next room and it's pretty full!!! I was pretty surprised, I had no idea there were alot of people waiting outside. Raul knew and didn't say anything! Mike is great, smiling and seeming to have fun, even when the floor tom mike was abruptly unmuted halfway through the set changing things drastically. We played good, although when Mike whipped out "Riot Industry" which we haven't played for a while I didn't go to the bridge. Whoops.

   Apparently some bouncers fucked with people while Watt was talking and selling shirts to them after the show and he was really pissed. I didn't see it but I felt a wierd vibe in that place starting from the guy at reception when I first got there who was what you might call "snooty." Al and Sean were great, Ian and Francis were great, but it seemed like some of the ACI people weren't into rock gigs.

   Anyway while that was going on we were trying to load out, it seemed to take a long time; finally we hit the road with some directions through London and it's more Mr. Toads Wild Ride with me hunched over the map book, but we get there despite the fact that the numbering on the street the hotel is on is unorthodox, going 1-60 on one side and then back 61-100 on the other...did I explain that right? Anyway you just wouldn't see that in America.

   I get in bed and am able to deeply, deeply love Hellin, Alex and Adam, but before I get to the rest of you I'm out. Sorry. Tomorrow.



from watt:

   pop at six and half bells and panic some, then realize england's an hour behind so the six o'clock pull-in time is still a half hour late cuz I forgot to change my watch before konking. damn, I was tired last night that I was out 'pert-near immediately. am so glad we got into le harve safe though, so fucking grateful. now it being this early in morning, threre's no rush at all to get into london town, none at all and I can very much dig that. I don't need stress if I can help it in these years so I like to pad everything w/extra time. much respect to uri and his wishes to be free of time but I've found to help minus down the lack of freedom from stress due to time, a look at the watch to make sure you're way full of it for what you need is the best route for watt. hell, I konked in my outfit so it's just a matter of putting on my 'puter wacksack and hoofing down to the car hold deck and getting the boat - no morning supplement/mouth-body scrub/face steel scrape for watt this morning it's quite ok cuz we're safe now in england for this part of our mission. the front hatches are open and vehicle motors are coming on - where are my guys? vehicles are starting to roll when I'm so relieved to see raul and paul running to the boat... quick, they're in and we're off and onto dry land... en-land. the immigration officer takes our passports and work permits - thank god we those came through, thank carlos and barry - runs them through and we're allowed to pass in minutes, much MUCH gratitude. we've been so lucky w/the borders this tour, hallelujah!

   ok, next test on me is driving on the wrong side of the road cuz that's what they do here. the wrong side of the road if you come from where I do, that is. for them though, it's the right side (notice why I ask my guys to give directions w/port and starboard cuz that word "right" can get so confusing?) for them and I'm a guest here so I will learn. "keep to the left, whatever happens" I keep thinking to myself. it is a trip to do this, a big one - especially coming out of a driveway or on these round-abouts. compounding it some is I'm in a boat that's got it's wheel on the wrong side for this land, a left-side one like what's used in the u.s. and the continent just across the channel. what must be heavy also is the dilemma of the cat in the passenger - he's the one straddling the center line cuz usually the wheelman's the closest to that. I am so focused on keeping safe w/this "challenge" put forth on us - last night before konking I said a prayer even for help to keeping me aware and not fuck up. it's a mindblow to my eyes to see the cars coming the way they are but I gotta just jump in the water in swim. first task is to get a map of london cuz there's like four thousand roads at least and lots of them are just a block or two long. we stop at a gas station and I get a street atlas that's like 270 pages at a mile and a quarter wide each. the street layout is even more hilarious - no grid whatsoever, everything going every which way and one thing map doesn't tell you is the one ways and the do-no-enters which are all the way up the yang. pretty comical but it's part of what's called for to sally forth in these parts so we ain't gonna bitch about it. I get a sandwich that's got prawns (shrimps) on it and a sack of potato chips, stuffing them in w/the prawns to get some texture for me going. the coff is that instant stuff that's mainly for stomping on a caffeine jones, right? sure can't be for taste, not to sound all picky or whatever. I remember george berz (j mascis + the fog drummer w/me) making a big case out of coff that wasn't up to nyc standards when I toured w/him - too much. he even started bringing around his own french press coff maker 'til he did a donate on it in some town. good to think of george again - even for that silly reason cuz he's got a baby coming soon and I'm really happy for him and gim. anyway, we get down the road up north to london and are going to approach things from the south once we get on the m25 ring from portsmouth. last time I was here in london, I read about a "congestion charge" for some parts of town and pull over at a news stand to get one for the boat but the cat there can't get the dutch plates we got to register so I go to another one down the block and this guy says he'll sell me one for tomorrow (five pounds, about ten dollars!) but today's a "bank holiday" and you don't need one. damn, I was wondering why the traffic was way light to what I've come to expect! I get the piece of paper (camera's film your license plates to see if you're in compliance, damn!) and we continue on. paul's navigating and puts on a course that weaves us along pretty good 'til we get to the thames river where we're put into some pretzle-crazy intersection that leaves us clueless but somehow we end up on the vauxhall bridge, just where we wanted! bizarre. the gig's at a place called ica and it's on this grand "street" called the mall, real close to where the queen lives in buckingham palace and all kinds of fancy british royal stuff and monuments. it's on nine bells in the morning and we're not expected 'til three pm so I find a place to park behind the pad in pall mall square. no prob parking and there's no charge cuz of the holiday, my guys go hoof and sightsee while I go get a coff (non-instant) and tuna on a baguette after chimping diary after a few hours and damn if it ain't seven pounds (around fourteen dollars) - THIS IS AN EXPENSIVE TOWN! I'm not talking restaurant either, whoa. I notice the statue we're parked in front of (there's statues all over these parts), it's a guy dressed up in heavy winter gear and it says:

   "had we lived I should have had a tale
   to tell of the hardihood endurance and
   courage of my companions which would
   have stirred the heart of every englishman
   these rough notes and our dead bodies must
   tell the tale"

         - robert falcon scott

now that's some heavy tour spiel to have been chimped, I feel kind of puny doing my own right here though I believe raul and paul surely have some form of "hardihoood" to endure touring w/me so much resepct to them. it's a trip to keep things in some sort of perspective cuz man, you can get king of carried away w/yourself, being self-aborbed so in writing about how you see yourself and see others - how they see you. I notice how many folks look to the statue so much more than all the others that are about. even trippier is when raul starts chimping his diary on his 'puter, sitting at the base of this statue of captain scott (him and his guys failed on a mission to the south pole), I notice how he gets more attention than the statue - I see people's head first look to him, then up at the statue and then back to raul. it's surreal and puts in me a sense I can't articulate but nonetheless dig. it's living breathing life telling the tale though it'd be the last thing in the world people might think is thoughts from a punk drummer describing his tour w/the crazy pedro bassman.

   load in time and I bring the boat around and we unload. francis and ian help us out, they're surprised there's just three of us. francis does the soundcheck w/us (first time he's dealt w/a leslie!) and then I'm joyed-up much to find there's internet access (after eleven days!) and I can get the last two weeks of diary up. I know it's really important to paul cuz he's writing for his wife helen and I want help him so w/that. I know hoot page readers like it too. I've never had such trouble getting on to the net like this tour though last summer's stooges euro gigs were kind of tough too. barry's the gigboss for tonight (he's brought me on to play several all tomorrow's parties festivals) but here now are his helpermen sean and al who are nice cats. sean's got us some tobasco to go in the lameass salsa, his heart's in the right place. I also get to meet tonight's openers, capricorns who are english but have one guy from upstate new york. these are some nice guys and play a heavy powered chug w/their music. the bass player's got one of those eb-3 basses that have a slotted headstock, trippy. this lady writer named carol comes to do a spiel w/me regarding john lennon and I talk about my take on him. I was never a big beatles fan as a boy, maybe cuz everyone else was and I had none of their records... 'pert-near the only tune of theirs I liked was "glass onion" but I did like john lennon's stuff, especially "working class hero" and that live plastic ono band record. she asks me about where I was when he was shot to death and I tell her about being in the hospital and almost dying from pneumonia - it was right around when darby crash died too. I was burning up w/fever and puking my brains out when the tv up on the wall said he was killed and it shook me up, even if in the state I was in. al says I got a call from dutch dude carlos so I talk w/him and get the walkie-talkie leash coded up w/a new prepaid card and then al brings me to chow some very strange version of a falafel, like a mashed-up veggie burger on a bun. the good part is getting to talk to bossman barry - he just got here and told me some really good stooges news. I can't write about here though, am not supposed to speak of what's coming yet. sorry. I go back to the dressing room and carlton, the mainman from easy action who released "the secondman's middle stand" overseas here comes to say hi and I'm really glad to see him - big hugs. bassist steve lawson, one of those six string monsters says hi - me and kira did a weird namm gig w/him and were supposed to do stuff this last january but idiot watt hurt his arm flying over his bicycle handlebars. maybe this next one though. steve's a nice cat.

   I'm gonna play hard for my friends tonight. I also wanna keep the string of three good gigs we did in spain still going even if tonight looks like character builder time. it definitely is for capricorns but they put their heart way into it. our turn and the place fills up much more but I was committed whatever the case, I charge hard. it's a great crowd to play for, a good spirit even for a wack piece such as I could write - much respect to them. my guys put good focus on me too and do really well, even w/crazyass sound shit like feedback crazy floor tom flood and some notes from the bottom end of the organ shaking the stage like a drum head. I know I write a lot about the sound/acoustic stuff a bunch but I hope that doesn't sound like I'm so obsessive about cuz a good gig doesn't come from things only like that, there's a lot of untangibles in fact that have nothing to do w/any of that - like how am I delivering whatever from within me. like some young man says to me after the gig, "a bad builder blames his tools" (I think I've used a similar quote many times). it seems the biggest challenge is 'pert-near me getting over myself and out of the way w/the way I can get freaked out so and crumble - yep, even after all these fucking years. so I did ok tonight, much thanks to the folks helping me out w/the spirit I already mentioned, they brought in tons for us. I sling and talk w/them - one guy's got a shirt from the last u.s. tour (he flows me a live recording of john coltrane in copenhagen on november 20, 1961 - mucho gracias!), and he asked me earlier if he could tape the gig and of course I said sure - I was tripped out kind of that he liked the heidelberg show that's obviously made the rounds, courstesy of armyman ray and mac daddy (much respect to both of them) and I hope he like what's went down tonight too. damn, I thought I blew the heidelberg gig out of the water... well, maybe not as bad as ljubjana or terrecina but what do I know but what I think I seee fit to chimp in these diaries? I don't wanna take anything away from anyone as to what they feel. there's a cat here from buffalo, a big man - I'm sorry I didn't get an extra-larges made of the shrits but dutch dude carlos said euro folks don't much get them... I've been asked a lot though, oh well - sorry. one thing that really gets me pissed is the security people here are really rude to people and running them out - here we went on early and we're before curfew and these motherfuckers wanna treat people like cattle and herd them out - that ain't proper. I will not play here again. no offense to either frances or ian cuz they were great but these other guys are way out of line. gigboss barry just rented out the room so it's not his fault either, it's the dickheads themselves. there's an irish cat who was at the berlin gig and he wants me to sign some pictures. we have to go out into the hall to do it cuz of these pricks. I'm so sorry... I hate seeing people treated like shit after they've been so nice to us, aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrgggg... it makes me so mad.

   we load out as the capricorns are loading their stuff into their converted ambulance which are trippy - tall and narrow. we have some fun talking about how people from different places pronounce things different, how cool it is we're all not totally homogenous yet. there's differences in phrasing too, like this spiel I saw on an ad at a bus stop for a current sean penn movie: "a corker of a twist" - but fuck it, vive le' difference! I can dig it. safe seas to these cats, we pile into our own boat, paul navigates us to the columbia hotel and that's no small fete - this town is laid out so crazy as far as roads go, quite a mindblow... the street numbering too can be wild - like even and odd on the same side of the street and going up one end and then around the to the other side! we find it though and even have it easy w/parking on the street (this boat's too tall for parking structure stuff. as for the 'tel it's like $230 for us three to stay in one room, chick-ching! we're not talking bourgeois stuff either but that's this town. I forgot my re-chargable batteries and on my way back from the boat, some u.s. guys stop me in the lobby - they're a san diego band called the truckee brothers and are very nice cats. we have a lot of fun talking about stuff and have a friend in common w/me, a cat san diego way named o (no one know what the o stands for!) who's ubiquitous to that town's scene forever and someone I've always dug much. I like these guys' spirit - a young band not caught up in pretension and raring to go. I give them kind of pep talk cuz I like what they're saying and they kind of had a tough gig tonight so I relate the natural cycles like that if you're in this racket long enough. I'm way tired though cuz of all the hellride the last few two days so I wish them safe seas and go up to join my guys who must've wondered if I got waylaid in a dangerous way or something. I love my guys. I get on the deck, prop my head against a pillow against the wall and immediately konk, knowing I'm safe w/them.





tuesday, may 3, 2005 - liverpool, england


from raul:

    Okay, my turn with the london a-z, not to tough getting outta town, i've been lost in towns alot smaller than this. The streets do change from block to block, you gotta stay on it, that's really it, follow every street, you can't even take your eyes off the map, just call out names, and the two other dudes well tell you if your wrong or right. This method seems the best, cuz anytime i leave the map, it's near impossible to find where i'm at, streets are just flying by. Sucess, up north, thru b,ham, home of the great black sabbath, and then a bit further north up to liverpool. The streets weren't as sporadic as london, but it was a little trial to find the club, at one point we ended up in a bus depot in the middle of all the parked buses. After that going the wrong way on a one way, and almost getting side swiped, we figured our best bet would be to retrace our steps and start over again. Finally the directions started to add up. The only problem was we couldn't find the street we needed. After looking real hard, it's spotted, what ever genious painted the building, also painted the sigh, every thing was the same color... it was camo.

   The club was right under our noses. No ones gonna show for an hour, so to pass the time i go for awalk down to the water front. Think that maybe for a second i should go to the beatles musuem, then i think not. It sounds like a better idea to see liverpool now. The streets aren't that crowded, there's a hugh football game on, and everybody is crowding the pubs. Found a vegan cafe, and got outta the cold and had some caffine, nice lady gave it to me cuz i was on tour, thats sweet. It was a perfect place to catch up on some writin'. I like livepool, it's real, london was just a big city. Liverpool was beat, but there was something about it... there was way to many bars though. I thought i'd play it safe, and show up a half hour early. I can see the last of the equipment comin' out as i turn the corner. Don't worry watt says, we saved the stairs for you. I had to carry it all up by myself, even the leslie, we usually have the help of four people for that... by myself... Baahhah.. just kidding, there were like ten of us there, all helped and it was up quick. I set up speedy, did a check and went down stairs for some beans and rice... now were talking, only thing missin' is tortillas and hot sauce. The pad is called hell, downs stairs is heaven. Inside are paintings from horror movies, good ones too, like demons. Great one, check it out,even some susperia painting. boss knew a ton about all these good zombie flicks, turned me on to some japnesse movies, i guess there're doing some intense gore.

   It constantly looks like it's gonna rain, but i gotta find the liverpool art, it's around, just not in the obvious. It starts with seeing some stencils, just follow em' around, and see where it leads me. From across the street i can see what looks like a empty lot, and from the looks of liverpool, that seems wrong, from what i see, it's brick buildings in rows right next to each other. I walk across the street, and i notice it's not even a lot, so i peak myhead over the wall, a fifteen foot drop, and paintings all over the place.

   Walking back to the club, i notice that a lot of cops are grouping up, then i see em' parkin' in vans on the corners, looks like riot gear. Outta the pubs i can hear soccer chants, reminds me of ummagumma, it's all pretty trippy. Then it dawns on me, it's the fucking game, and from the sounds of it, liverpool won. I'm sure everyone's happy, but the thought of hundreds of skinheads roaming around after a game gives me the creeps... ten skins, and a long haired darky walk into an alley... not a funny joke, so going back to the club makes the most sense. Playing with a couple locals, 2000 b.c., it's the promoters band, and their first gig, also local heros, mugstar. First is 2000, out of control, the drummer has that animal style down, it was like a thirty minute drum solo, very moon. the sound was kinda like beefhearts magic band or something, really out there rhythms, and changes all over the place. They've only been around a few weeks, it shows in the best way. Mugstar is alot more strait forward, more rock and roll, but there's something kinda off about them too. At one point the dude wha was singin' and playin' guitar, swithched to the bass, the bass player went and picked up a sax. Did a bass drums and sax durge, but not slow, not funeral march, and not break neck. Real heavy though, like a fun house out take. The only guy on stage was the drummer, the rest of the group lurched around in between the audience.

   We've had some really good gigs, so it's gotta end sometime. Really it wasn't that bad, i'm being sacastic. The sound guy did have a problem with stage volume, he didn't want any of it, the loudest thing comin' off the stage was the snare drum. I gotta remember, what i hear and what everybody else hears is way diffrent. There was some nasty feed back goin' on, but phil was on it, atleast he was paying attention, some guys won't even be at their table.

   Staying at a hostel around the block from the club, with lots of help from everyone there, the gear gets lugged down two flights of stairs quick. Maybe that's why upstairs was hell, cuz you had to lug the gear up there. I had the thought of total drunken mayhem outside, i also had the same feelin' in boston last year when they won the world series, nothin' happened. That's not entirely true, that girl did get shot in the face, and that sad, but that was a few days before, and the fault of incompetant police, not base ball fans. Anyway, or van wasn't flipped, and the roaming gangs of skinheads didn't seem as threating than when i was alone. Still a threat, earlier i had met a gig goer, and his friend was skatin' by himself earlier that day, and got jumped by skins... what assholes. I guess those two little old ladies who hated the beatles were right when they told me to be careful, cuz liverpool was a scarey place.



from paul:

   It's so hard to write these diaries right now. I just force myself to try to narrate each days events, but it must be dry reading because I've really been in such a downer since Spain. Maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's depression, whatever, we know what it fucking is don't we. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I wanted to live a tale of hope. I could say a million things that we talk about or that happen that make me sad, or want to die or shake me with anxiety attacks which is a fancy word for being scared. I look at all the possible futures...unhealthy.

   Now is great. In Liverpool. Touring England. Less than two weeks before I go home. Happy to go home, sad to go home. Sad for the tour to be over. Don't know if I'll ever get back here. Don't know whats going to happen to us when I get back. Didn't know if I'd make it back to America. Made alot of "if something happens..." speeches. Listen you fuckers. I do my job. I don't moan or complain, except I guess in these diaries; I pull my weight I do a great show. No one knows whats going on. Maybe they all do. They wouldn't probably write in their diaries: "Paul is so depressing I'd like to put him out of his misery." I don't want to be like this. I'm trying to find joy. It's no use. I will hide it from everyone so well they'll have no idea. I can do it for ten more days.

   The Duomo. Remember the Duomo. Remember the Germs reunion when Pat and Lorna and Don played with the fake Darby, Shane. There are great days, great events, it doesn't matter what city you're in sometimes the spirit is just lifted and soars and flys. In between you make the best. Remember. This too shall pass. It's OK to be a little mad, you're doing your best, you're doing great. Go walk around and look for life.

   I do notice people avoiding me and keeping away from me. They can tell I'm not OK. If you read these diaries, please talk to me. You set me free and I won't bite.

   It sounded like we weren't going to get an early start, but I think Mike woke up at 7or 7:30 and I dunno we got up and got ready. There was a nice English breakfast with fried toast and eggs meat, coffee not too healthy maybe but HEAVY and filling, with a very nice very British old lady serving us. Then we're on the road trying to get out of London, Raul's in the hotseat but he does great and we get out without incident. It is a very big wierd messed up city, in a way it seems like Los Angeles, you can't possibly appreciate it unless you live there, although they do have that nice touristy British Empire stuff. Once we get out of London I pretty much crash for most of the drive to Liverpool.

   We wander a little getting into Liverpool, the directions are vague but we pull up in front of the club around three I think. The club owner appears, Kevin, and he's sort of strange, can't get a read on him, but we're really early and we just sit in the car. I don't think he's the promoter. I say he's strange because later I talk to people who say he's strange so I feel supported in my impressions. The sound guy, Phillip shows up, saying he needs to EQ the room, it was a problem last night, says it's a bad sounding room. Eventually they're all ready and we start loading in around 5, Raul shows up just in time.

   We carry the shit up the stairs. It's hard. It's fucking strenuous. It's a good workout! The club is called Heaven and Hell or something and it's a pub decorated with ghouls and flame. The liverpool accents are adorable. We soundcheck. There is one monitor. The room doesn't sound that bad to me, the PA sounds bad to me. I'm sorry. Liverpool seems kind of drab, but remember what I said about not judging cities from a few hours. The promoter Paul shows up, he's totally there for us, thats obvious; great guy although sometimes my American ears have trouble following. There is a huge soccer game tonight, we'll go on after. Liverpool played Chelsea to a tie and this is the revenge game. As someone says, " about time they be taken down a peg!"

   I've been going back and censoring myself right now, in a better mood deleting. Let's just say there were some little traces of self pity, wallowing, swallowing. I've been leaving everything till now, but this was too embarassing even for me and you. Sometimes I just take out words Like "fucking" if I say it over and over...sometimes I add phrases like: "it's a good workout!" which gives a totally different slant on whatever I'm complaining about.

   Do you see why it might not be advisable for me to drink and do drugs??

   There's some chips and fruit and a chili and rice concoction which is fine. I go walk around outside at around 8 but everything is closed and almost everyone is in pubs breathlessly watching a soccer game. It's cold and a mist is coming in but still no rain in England!

   I walk for a little while thinking I could find an interrnet cafe; that wasn't going to happen. Or a place to buy a phone card, because like I've said there's one sure fire way to feel better if it's an emergency. But no. So I keep walking to some sort of city center where there's museums and state buildings, big old gloomy 19th century loomers with pillars etc. And guys on pedestals. There were guys on pedestals in London too. Big 100 foot pedestals. I started wondering who gets the big pedestals. This one was Wellington. I didn't think I even knew who he was, but it sort of came back that he'd been the guy that the English kept throwing at Napoleon till eventually...Waterloo!! But even the guys on the 100 foot pedestals still have seagulls on their heads. There were other guys in this little park, which is the ONLY green spot in Liverpool it said on a plaque, which is pretty sad, because it wasn't much. There were statues of guys with names like Gladstone and Balfour, Liverpool's sons who had done things for the poor and for orphans and sick, guys that you'd think just spent their whole lives grinding money out of the underclass and here they are immortalized for good works. I'm not sure I'm buying it 100%, aren't these the guys who make sure there is an underclass? I dunno, I don't trust anything I say or think. Anyway they didn't get the 100 foot pillars, just regular statue stuff. And no seagulls that I saw.

   On the way back, I don't believe it an INTERNET PHONE BOOTH! I am able to check my emails but not send any which is VERY FRUSTRATING but anyway Hellin hasn't checked hers or sent any so no relief there, I guess she kind of gave up checking them regularly since it was so long since I was able to make contact.

   The worst thing about this is there is NOTHING ROMANTIC, NOTHING ATTRACTIVE, NOTHING NOBLE or ENDEARING about this just A MAD PERSON FALLING DOWN A SELFISH SELFCENTERED HOLE. IN FRONT OF YOU. I MAY HAVE TO STOP writing for a while.

   There, I left that, there was a bunch of that crap but bye bye, sorry.

   So, it's pretty chilly and I head back to the club which is getting hoppin'; I can tell it's going to be good. On the way back I pass seems like dozens and dozens of pubs with people watching soccer. I check and Liverpool is up 1 to 0 in the first few minutes which is probably an insurmountable lead. I'm kind of excited about seeing a possible soccer outbreak first hand. I go upstairs to the backstage, not well at all, and the first band is playing, 2000 BC, and they're wierd I have to go down and check them out. Raul says it was there first show, I thought they had this bizarre combination of primitive and polish. Raul mentioned Beefheart and yeah, the guitars had this Beefheart/Geza X arthritis style that I couldn't decide whether it was on purpose or just wonderfully amateur. I'm still not sure, but they were young and cool. After they got off, one of the guitarists came up and we hung out and I guess he was talking english. Or maybe I don't speak english, don't get me wrong he was totally sweet he even looked a little like John Lennon which made my Liverpool stay even more liverpudlian. Meanwhile the other band was on, Mudstar who really were going for a Hawkwind thing but Mike says were more Sonic Youth. It's amazing how it seems like a lot of bands don't really bother to sing too much anymore, maybe I'm slanted perception wise, but alot of the bands we play with are instrumental or sing once in a while, totally sporadically. As Mudstar draws to an ear splitting climax and ends their set, I can hear drunken singing from somewhere, it's the soccer hordes whooping it up; Liverpool triumphant.

   Most of my gear is in the upstairs dressing room (with the big fake Japanese widows that Kevin had been really proud of, what a tripper, I hardly talked to the guy but I liked him, he was young, good looking and so dry I don't even know if he was dry) so I carry it down and try to set up, my brain essentially boiling in oil. And it was wierd, the band had basically just left it's gear there and disappeared, so I started shuffling it around, it was a low, small very crowded stage, the music was really pumping, it was pretty crowded and I had to bring the gear through the crowd. Now Mike and Raul had to deal with all these factors too, and I don't think they felt apeshit, although I do remember Raul wishing the music was not so ear splitting. It takes a while to move gear and there just seems like there's millions of cords, direct boxes just a mess. But we get on and start.

   And I'm crappy. I never get comfortable, I make mistakes, I don't use the insanity I just flounder and can't get it together at least to my satisfaction at all. After, Mike says everybody has shows like that but I don't think I do, maybe this is the second or third of the whole tour to some degree or other, and the others had serious mitigating circumstances. I'm not sure this did and I'm pissed. Well maybe it did a little bit, but mostly just suck assed, and couldn't leave the fucking head at home. At one point I decided very seriously that I wasn't cut out to be a professional musician, I wasn't good enough and that from now on I would just do it as a hobby. That's the kind of thoughts I was having all day but it was nicely crystalized right there. I mentioned that to Raul and he said: "None of us are!" and thats why he's Raul and I'm psycho. Thanks Raul. And thanks Mike for saying everybody has bad shows, I believed you. But I remembered Manlio and Squartet/Neo and what I remembered about the joy of music watching them, I first learned it listening to Jimi Hendrix later Keith Richards and lots of others, it has power, and I have responsibility to use it, and it won't happen tomorrow no matter what.

   We have a lot of help loading down the steps thank god, but it's still a great workout! Drunken gaggles of singing Liverpudlians pass bombarding us with joyous renditions of a song that informs us that "We are Liverpudlians." I'm kinda making fun of soccerfan, but it was really neat to be here and see this cultural phenomenon first hand; and I've acted pretty pleased(idiotic) about the Lakers now and again.

   Paul takes us over to this hostel, we get a room with two bunkbeds, Mike drags a mattress on the floor. It's really different from hotels; the guy at the front desk recites a little litany of services and rules which I don't really focus on because I think I'm checking into a hotel and I wish I would have because it was interesting and other. Paul really wants us to come out drinking with him but there's no way Mike is and me too I guess and I ask Raul if he's gonna go, because i feel bad that none of us are partiers to hang out and forge bonds with the people we meet. That's really lame that I even fucking think about it probably. Mike, I think, takes this as me egging Raul on to drink and I can see why he would think that under the circumstances, but it's really not the case here. He says he's seen people get sober and then push others to drink, I really don't want to be a total wet blanket, but I don't think that's me, wanting to encourage Raul to fuck up. I'll see though if it is. Raul doesn't want to anyway so big deal.

   I lie down and think of Hellin of course, mostly worry, paranoia because I haven't been in touch with her and because I'm a sick puppy. And I think of Alex and Adam and how they're coming out of a rough time just like their Mom and Dad and I get to one other person before it's lights out: My incredible magnificent unbelievable sister who I hold in such respect and awe and sometimes envy and sometimes don't but more and more just want to be a big huge brother part of her life from now on. YAY KIRA!!! XOXO



from watt:

   pop at eight bells - still paying of the konk debt incurred from the hellride from la roca. I gotta get money in the parking meter so I hose off quick and then join my guys for a "full english breakfast" which means eggs, tomato, bacon, sausage (hotdog-like), baked beans and toast - all deep fried except the toast which I don't eat but shovel all the rest. we got sun, alright but that's how yesterday started too and then rain came - luckily it wore off at noon. you never know how weather will go in these parts, never. raul's in the navigator seat and uses the london map book to put us on a course for the northwest cuz tonight's gig is in liverpool. what a mission it is for him (but he does good), guiding us through the chicane of streets 'til we find the motorway out, taking 'pert-near an hour. we stop to get gas and for cleaning windows rather than a squeegie, they got a hug sponge which comes in handy cuz of a big spill up front in the coffeecup holder which soaks it up quick. fuel is way expensive here, like $6.88 u.s. a gallon and that's diesel cuz that's what this boat uses (and that's cheaper than gas) - holy shit! we go north through birmingham and catch the m6 towards liverpool. the sky starts to darken and then rain starts dumping down on us big time but cuts after an hour. it's supposed to be may FLOWERS not SHOWERS, right? no wonder it's so green where there's not town (which mostly is really beatdown gray). I get a chicken sandwich and stuff it w/"ham and english mustard" potato chips - they've got some wild flavors for potato chips here in england. back on the motorway, I see a truck w/an oocl can - that's a shipping company that flows containers to the port back in l.a. and it makes me a little homesick for my pedro town - avert your eyes, watt cuz there's still a week and a half of work to do. there's an election coming here in a couple days and the tories rather than show their candidate, show tony blair giggling w/"imagine five more years of this? are you thinking what we're thinking?" - basically the same simplistic "thinking" (yeah, right) buzztalk we've seen in other countries' nationalistic parties' billboards. do these guys have pow-wows about this stuff cuz it all seems to have a common thread, the image of someone brave saying what "what everyone is saying" w/out specifics to cloud things up. spooky. my buddy raymond's told me many times elections would lead to stuff like this, lowest common denominator marketing, preying on our most idiotic natures. almost makes you want to swear them off but you know you'd probably be the first to fight to bring them back. the human condition can sometimes be so insane!

   we get into liverpool and head for the docks, like our directions direct us. they're worded trippy, like:

"the venue is hev'n & hell, when you come into the city centre if you aim for hanover st. and follow the map on this site. hanover st. is close to the albert dock which all signs should direct you to, liverpool central is also on hanover st. and should be signposted. if you aim for pier head when you come into the city and if the river is on your right as you come in aim to turn left just as you can see the albert dock on your right then the road will take you into hanover street. this will obviously be a right turn if you are arriving from the other direction."