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"haru tour 2022"
tour diary
 from watt: ok, maybe first time I start in pedro? maybe a real good idea! why should the first sally forth be a hellride? why not eight or nine fuckin blocks from my pad?! mike baggetta's idea and it's his band - I'm into it... I'm in it, me w/hodge - we're in it! we're doing the tour we planned two years ago but got postponed cuz of the covid19 sitch but you know what orson welles said: "no wine before its time" so maybe it was meant to be. mike baggetta booked this tour himself: fortyeight gigs in fortyeight days - much respect to him. he also wrote me and hodge lots of great music to be a part of: the music of mssv, main steam stop valve. earlier this morning I washed the boat. ain't been used much in the last two years - got her maintenance'd at "mike and joe's" here in pedro near where the old "pazquaro's" mexican chow pad used to be on pacific av. last pack of my tour stuff. at one pm I go to hodge's pad in east long beach where we've been doing all but one pracs to get a tetris pack going on how the stuff's gonna go in the boat and damn if everything fits just right, yatta! we're set for the mssv "haru tour 2022" to get underway. back to pedro w/the boat and then I washed her up at the car wash on sixth street. "a clean boat is a happy boat" a wise person once said. six and a half is load-in at the sardine - used to be "ramona's bakery" where all the great bread was baked for "busy bee sandwiches" but after it closed, toddski from recess records and toys that kill bought it and turned it into a gig pad - I played here last thee weeks ago w/my missingmen. soundman tito checks us and we use the time to go over some of the tunes mike baggetta just showed a couple of days ago - stuff we wanna record for the second mssv album we plan to do right at the end of this tour at big ego in north long beach.  I'm using my barefaced 2x12 super twin speaker box driven by my fairly new bergantino forte hp amp - less than fifty pounds in weight for the whole enchilada and both are rated at 1200 watts rms, I shit thee not. cosmic kitten is opening up and it's their turn to check. I am beat though and must get to the boat and konk... so great we got a spot to drop anchor 'pert-near right in frot. kris is here from ktown (took the bus) and I ask him to please not get borracho cuz of the last time he came he saw me play - it was a couple of months ago up in thai town and he ended up in a chokehold from one of the gig pad's bouncermen. crimony. brother damon from nomad eel records also - he's brought some of mssv "the scott aicher ep" seven inchers for us to sling on tour, much respect. he runs a happening label right here in pedro though originally he's from north dakota - like randy stadoloa from the alley cats! crimony. so good to see him again. I konk quick and hard once on the back bench of the boat... damn, if I don't know this place well even if it's been a couple of years! somehow I pop right before our quarter after nine go time (monday night, remember?) - in fact in time to catch cosmic kitten do their version of "ha ha ha" by flipper - I helped brother ted and steve w/a euro flipper tour a euro tour couple years ago w/mr yow singing, love those cats. here comes the first tune of the first gig of the tour - mike (in the diary here, I will use "mike" for "mike baggetta" and "watt" for "mike watt") wants us to just play the tunes w/no spiel which I can dig and am way into - another way of letting gig-goers know this is not a watt band but in fact his. I really dig making that clear to people. toddski gives me a topo chico soda water - we talk about doing stooges tunes again (three weeks ago I also did stooges w/his toys that kill guys cuz their bassman chach couldn't make the gig) on may day, the day after this tour ends - YES! I am nervous... I see brother matt and holler out his name (not on the mic!) w/out realizing I did it! crimony. I blow clams - not many and the good thing I think is that where I do blow them, it's where I know I blew them so that gives me hope I can correct and next gig: swerve to avoid them! they also ain't bad enough I believe to get the keel "out of the water" and so a quick recovery was possible. at least it's more of an "execution error" and not a resulting of spacing on the shit - well, I should amend that cuz in one tune where mike has me trade off spiel w/him I DO space on remembering what the one fucking word line is supposed to be and in fact at one point actually use the word "SPACE" in place of what I just could not recall in time. damn me. I know it's important to do these new babies to get them ready for recording but at the same time I'm so glad we're doing seven of the eight tunes from the 2019 mssv album every night as a kind of "backbone" along w/trading off every other night doing one of the two seven inchers we made by trading files during the covid19 sitch. tonight's it the "nels cline meets mssv" seven inch that just came out on striped light records and tomorrow will be the italian seven incher that came out last year on improved sequence. I see my old buddy dirk (he took the cover photos of the minutemen's "double nickels on the dime" double album) and I wanna do good for him like I do for brother matt... I see my sister melinda and she is dancing - my sister melinda is always supporting me when I play our pedro town, always has. we finish up and even get an encore and for the first time since gigs for my second opera in 2005, I use a stompbox midrange boost for a bass solo! crimony. I gotta say, I really some good fun w/this gig despite being all nervous and stuff... kind of a "glad surprise," you know? most grateful watt. right away I put away my stuff and while that's happening, brother matt brings over bubba - I ain't seen bubba in like twenty years or more! crimony. good to see him... wish I could spiel w/him but I just get scared about my stuff and need to get it put away - this comes from years of doing gigs, kind of "ingrained behavior" or something but maybe it's kind of not such a bad thing... maybe helps w/avoid too many donates? I do get to hug randy from the alley cats and also dirk - I get to spiel much w/brother matt and his buddies, all good cats and it's a real good pedro town spirit we're sharing, man, I dig it big time. tom watson's here too! my missingman from manhattan beach has come to check out what I'm doing - we're working on the new missingmen album w/raul, can't tell you how much I'm into playing w/both of them w/this... it's not the third album but rather a celebration of the missingmen, a band I big time love. so glad tom's here. I rap w/other pedro cats who've just moved to this town... interesting and really kind of trippy for me. I think from now on I wanna start tours in my pedro town and do them at the sardine, I do! ok, I'm tuckered... time for one last konk on my own deck for the next seven weeks. I'm out in a very short time. been a long time since I konked at midnight ...and what a trip, the tour is on and I ain't even left pedro yet! tuesday, march 15, 2022 - phoenix, az from mike: good sun in the boat D Boon talk on shuffle, wow good people dancing from hodge: our second gig of the haru tour. it was in arizona where my son tadj lives. tadj and our pal mike d were a delight to hang with on the patio. great guys interesting conversation and insightful observations. i am a lucky man to have two amazing adult now (children)!!!!!!!!  from watt: pop at five and hose off. after my "elixir" and hit of coff, I cook up my last pedro chow for a good while... chorizo w/turkey/beans patty whupped up w/eggs, real good shovel. I get my last stuff to get done before shove off time and at seven and a half, I get the boat to the long beach airport to pickup mike - he's turning his rental car (mike lives in gainesville, fl these days, came out here six days ago for prac - actually he was here a month before that for the first eight days of prac for this tour). after stuffing mike in the boat, we continue on to east long beach to get hodge at his pad. we got a real good tetris pack going, the boat handles so good and I'm most grateful for that, most grateful cuz you don't know what kind of hell LOADSHIFT can put on your safety trip and safety is really important for the boat and all who sail w/her. ok, time to make like a baby and head out... actually head east - it's nine bells... daylight's saving time began two days ago and since arizona doesn't use that, our time here is the same as there. traff in parts is fraught w/plug but the main my goal is to get us where we gotta be safe which means "we get there when we get there," correct? one thing to help is to decide to leave early and I'm so glad we did today cuz there's eighty minute stau (plug) just outside palm springs due to a big camper trailer spinning crazy and taking out four lanes... resulting prolly cuz of some people driving like assholes w/out regard to consequences of their fucking selfish bullshit behavior. abusive bogarting shit - look, we gotta share the road so WHY can't we do it safe as we can? fucking assholes. ok watt, let it go, keep calm and you yourself please drive carefully and considerately. actually we go by a truck driver w/a big-rig that's most kind and considerate - there used to be so many of these cats but these days - all of us in the boat are most grateful to this driver, truly. first fuel-up of the tour, we get gas at noon once the palm springs akumu is cleared. the weather's good, not too hot in these parts yet in the middle of march... yeah, the ides of march, huh? onward east on the I-10, we cross the colorado river and into arizona around two bells. I got my apple music device on shuffle here for the boat so it's random choice regarding which of the eight thousand whatever pieces of sound are in it. ain't a trip that this eight minute spiel of d boon w/a little bit also of georgie comes on cuz it's somewhere west of phoenix we lost him... crimony. I think it's the first time mike or hodge has heard talk about the minutemen and before when I first met him when we were twelve and first started doing music together, thanks to his ma. I'm so very grateful to her for putting me on bass, BIG FUCKIN TIME. god, I miss d boon. we get to the gig pad at quarter of five SAFE - whew, that was a nine hour hellride and I am most grateful for the good fortune on us. I drop anchor and then fill my first piss bottle of the tour. soundman nat at the rhythm room pops the hatch a half hour later and soon we do a nice soundcheck w/him. michael from one of the openers fat gray cat says he's got chow for us from a chow pad called "chibo's" and man is this antipasta I get so fuckin good, really is. it's in a peetz box and spread out: different olives (even red ones!), grilled eggplant slices, mozzarella, thin-sliced meats, sun-dried tomatoes and even figs! crimony. I shovel it up and then do a spiel w/michael and tom from the father figures in michael's van about us minutemen doing phoenix gigs in the old days, playing for tony victor at mad gardens and stuff like that - they're making a doc on the subject. I also meet hodge's boy taj who drove up from where he lives in tucson to see the show. note to self: play your best for hodge's boy! I get some soda water from the barlady who is very kind and also tells me she is from pedro - whoa! she says she's really glad I never left once I got there from virginia... damn, it's been fiftyfour years now, huh? crimony. I go to the boat and konk. I am beat from driving the nine hour hellride so I konk good and hard which I need but means I miss the openers the gnomes but do catch some of fat gray cat. I remember I played this pad once before - it was w/the lite brothers from tokyo and I think the first time they ever chowed mexican tabemono (food), I love those cats. 'pear-near ten bells when it's our turn, a little bit later than mike told me but then we're right on it. the gig-goers are most kind and some start dancing to our music right away, so kind of them. mike wrote us some real happening stuff to play for people on this tour, I'm way into it. I do blow some clams but not as many as light night and I know what should've happened, no "lost in chaos" mode but rather clams in the sense of execution errors - not trying to rationalize anything but rather trying to take responsibility so I can do better for the band and the gigs. again I still have a good time and I gotta give credit to both the gig-goers and the two men I'm sharing the stage w/, absolute. many kind folks talk w/me when we're done while I'm packing up. I just gotta pack right up when I'm done cuz of fear of donating shit that I need for the rest of the tour: my amp stuff, my mic and my bass - oh, I'm using my wattplower II the good people at reverend guitars designed w/me, this one's got a root beer candy apple flake finish. I really like the three choices I got for which pickup I wanna use cuz there's a lot of different trips for mike's music to use it w/and feels so good for me on gigs, I really dig it. oh yeah, this little board secondmen organman peetzo made for me that's a threefer - one is that mid-boost pedal from tokyo that I used last night for our encore's bass solo (I didn't use tonight though and kind of "fell off the horse" some during it) and a compressor from keeley that use as a limiter - I fucked up at the beginning of the set by not checking where the knobs were (they get moved so I got always make sure) and for a while there at the very beginning I had 'pert-near NO sound - what a baka. I will learn from that fuckup hopefully. my old buddy cris from the meat puppets is here, oh man I love this man!  we spiel as much as we can to try and catch up. I would spend more time but his pad has been flooded out so we're konking at brother matthew's pad, his zine fluke is a must-read, good people! we get to brother matthew's pad not too far away a couple minutes before midnight and I hose off, get into my nightwear and damn if it ain't the lame air mattress that got picked for konk... gotta toss this one so it don't happen again, we got two more in the boat. love his dog gilly who is most kind to me. I am beat BIG TIME and after some grapefruit soda water, I konk like a fucking way-beat sorry entertainer. whoa. wednesday, march 16, 2022 - flagstaff, az from mike: Fluke zine Matt - thank you green light room shoot at wastoids cool, snow, pines, walk, play from hodge: @wastoids video studio these guys are helpful getting the heavy stuff up the stairs. pretty much bing bang boom we done. repacked and on to the next. from watt: pop at six and a half and prepare coff using a french press - well, miss hiyori has actually do that cuz watt has tiny experience - in my pedro town I use drip method involving a paper filter. I get it going though... brother matthew arrives soon to help my sorry ass out, I am very grateful to him. I spiel to brother matthew about my music stuff during these last two years of the sitch, about mssv and about all kinds of stuff which he records - maybe for another spiel for his fluke zine? that would be happening. always love rapping w/brother matthew, really good people. he cooks me ups some fried eggs he puts in grilled tortillas w/avocado, good stuff. thank you, truly, brother matthew. he's got all his stuff for his "fluke" zine laid out on the table, he's got lots of good stuff in the pipeline and is coming - he was part of a great doc on the 90s little rock scene, "towncraft" - please check it out if you get a chance. we gotta pull anchor at eight and half cuz of video taping here in phoenix we've been invite to do before we head for the next gig. jason, boss of the wastoids part of the hello merch stuff which is about providing some content for them - me and jason discuss a little bit the semantics regarding that "content" word... of course we could've bagged some serious wind regarding the "fulfillment" word he used too but... we got some stuff to preform: the "nels cline meets mssv" seven inch - the phoenix on this day version! soundman george gets us mic'd up - watt's using a direct though cuz of being a cojo w/a bad port knee, it's just to risky to have mic in front of my speaker box to have me trip and fall down - falling down is my biggest fear as I get less younger, HUGEST fear. we give the go... it's got clams but I dig it cuz it's a document of the moment - same w/having the masuku on, capito? "wastoids" now has a unique take on the "nels cline meets mssv" seven inch, clams and all! we're load boat w/our stuff and by quarter after eleven, we're headed north for flagstaff, tonight's gig town.  I wheel us north up I-17 and damn if yet another plug (is this gonna be a daily trip or what?) due to the consequences of bullshit selfish asshole driving - this time it's a motorcycle down just north of phoenix. breaks my heart. at noon we get fuel for the boat, $4.59/gallon which is about a dollar less than yesterday... trippy all I gotta do on this tour during this stuff is wash the boat's windows cuz mike does the whole dealio at the pump w/a card, no watt in line a couple of times. back on the road, we soon pass the offramp for bumble bee - ghost towns always trip me out... my favorite is cuervo in new mexico which is guess is kind of semi-ghost town but I've stopped there many times - bumble bee: not yet but one day... lots of grade for the boat but she handles it good, even w/the full load we got on board - damn, she's seventeen years old now, 'pert-near legal voting age! crimony. outside her windows, we start to see pine trees instead of saguaros and chollas, different climates bring different landscapes - makes sense, huh? I've always been into taking notice of this - I try to work it into my music when composing even. we get into flagstaff (7000 foot elevation was on a sign on the way in, snow on the side of the road - even a little bit of rain but it soon stops) at two bells but hook on some time for the fucking wander cuz the directs mike's got are way bullshit and blurry. crimony. good load-in and place to dock the boat though when we do get hip to what's up here at the orpheum theatre, I really dig how they've organized this stuff. meet soundman scotty, he remembers last time I was here: ten years ago opening for m ward! man, ain't time a fuckin freight train? crimony. while hodge checks his drums (he's got his own mics and sound effects for his kit, was really impressed how quick he set up today, respect to him), me and mike backstage talk about ms yuko and migu - incredible drummerlady who's got a song called "from space" and that's the reason she came up: cuz I used "space" for a word in one of mike's new tunes I couldn't remember my spiel for - baka watt. ms yuko's lyrics from her "from space" tune immediately comes to mind: space in the body water in the body what do I know? what do you know? we never learn from our mistakes that's a reality we have to face can you relate to yourself from space?  monitorman andrew (did my sound at the doug fir years ago in portland, or - he remembers the openers: lite from tokyo! big sonkei...) but damn if I didn't get the lightman's name cuz he was really interested in my bass amp setup - later we get into talking about eric dolphy too, much respect! a gig is about more than the cats operating musical instruments, it's about cats working together to make it work. so grateful most times that stuff is really happening. gigboss charles comes by after our check to offer his pad for konk and I am most grateful, truly. he's sorry there was a screw-up w/the 'tel booking but actually I am way more glad to konk at his pad where I know the boat will be safe, WAY more glad - thank you most kindly, charles! he tells me john doe konked there once too, much respect! I chow three carnitas tacos from a chow pad named "martannes burrito palace" and I am surprised by how much I like them... I was a little scared w/the bell-looking "crunchy" tortillas but the sabor is really happening and the stuff tasting healthy and fresh. bravo. I chimp diary and then head to the boat to konk cuz I'm tuckered. I do get to say hi to the fat gray cat guys again though before cuz they drove up to open up for us again tonight - much respect to them, such kind folks. love their spirit. I pop just in time for on-stage nine pm go-time. this is a theatre w/a huge overhead so maybe the sound's a challenge? I think soundman scotty can handle it - he's our fourth man tonight and we're counting on them - so are the gig-goers, who are really happening, right out the gate, most kind of them. I got my stuff together tonight so I'm strong also right out the gate and so is hodge... so glad we both can give mike all we got to help him w/his music which I really dig. there are some clams I blow but not as many as the first two gigs of the tour and both hodge and mike help me recover every time, beautiful. I will try and do better for them. out of the eight lines I got of spiel for "pillow talk" I get six and have to use "space" (thank you ms yuko) for the two swig-and-misses, damn me. monitorman andrew has the stage sound real happening and the lights are interpreting our stuff in a real interesting way I dig. trippy how cats who mostly hardly know each other can quick get it together like this, MUCH respect! I would say incrementally on our part the mssv crew is improving so far these first three sally forths of the tour which is buttloads of what I could hope for. we give thanks to everyone and pack the boat, get to charles pad by eleven and a half - YES! he parks his van behind the boat to secure it. I pump up the air mattress (I put three in the boat but now we're done to two cuz of the kaput one donated at brother matthew's) and then hose off and get into my rilakkuma nightwear. whoa, am I spent and soon konk. thursday, march 17, 2022 - albuquerque, nm from mike: wake at charles' - thanks! twin arrows, two guns, tacos one of a kind gig from watt: pop at six... my starboard hand is a little sore so I move over my watch and stuff to the other wrist. mike's music has me using the plucking hand a little more than I'm used to but I'll get it stronger, have to. it's three hundred miles to the next town we play ('burque) but we also will lose an hour cuz of moving into mountain time so a pull anchor at nine bells is in order. we rap w/our kind friend charles who's got his green going cuz of saint pat's today (in the pocket over my heart I'm slinging a green sharpie) while chowing blue berries - watt loves blue berries before we gotta shove off and that we do while most grateful to him, big respect. like a baka I miss the I-40 onramp but that lets us spend a little time on flagstaff's part of route sixtysix 'til we meet the freeway just past the purina pet chow factory and it's nothing but blue skies (haleluja!) for the rest of our 'zona part of the tour. I get us across into new mexico at eleven and a half, fuel the boat in gallup at noon but first have to see some guy squatting behind his semi on the side of the road, dumping turd w/a roll of toilet paper in his hand. crimony. gas is $4.00/gallon at a speedway here downtown on the old route sixtysix and they got a squeegee w/a real long handle (like for a truck) which I dig big time you can get some torque going and get a real clean job on the boat's window cuz damn if they ain't real filthy. back on interstate, soon we pass the continental divide... soon after that the air fills w/dust big time... it's 'pert-near like fog! not too much like that though so we're still safe - except for some people driving like selfish assholes but we survive even them. the earth alongside the road for a while changes also: volcanic stuff. trippy.   'burque's in a basin so we come down some from the seven thousands, cross the rio puerco (no pigs though - or agua!) and the rio grande and soon we're in this neighborhood called "nob hill" and that's where the guild cinema is - our gig pad for tonight. the cat running things keif gets us a spot right out front to dock the boat (we're a half hour early from the scheduled four pm arrive) and damn if next door ain't a chow pad called "bite" that has new mexico style mexican chow - I get a burrito and the frijoles are whole - different than the refried style I know in so cal but still real good and dig it much. kief's in a band w/jeff, a cat I've known from these parts for a long while and though I ain't seen him in a bit, he was so kind in the 90s to let me borrow his standup bass. I tried (even made a seven inch for kill rock starts w/it) but it was too hard for me. kief says jeff's gonna be at the gig tonight, whoa! kief says hearing joe baiza got him to play guitar, fucking right on. this is a theatre and tonight's gig is prolly the most different of the tour cuz we're set up in front of the screen of this kind of olde-timey theatre and the plan is to for the gig people to show a bunch of short movies and have us play to them. mike wants us to to do our four new instrumental pieces plus the two covid19 seven inchers (they're also instrumentals) and then improvise the rest to what we see behind us. trippy. we check our mssv stuff and then jeremy from a hawk and a hacksaw comes up on stage cuz he's the opener, doing man-alone and wants to use my amp: no prob, he's great people. I then go chimp diary in the lobby 'til I'm too tired to continue and then go out to the boat to konk. I pop a half hour before the quarter of eight go time and get to see a bunch of the opener jeremy's set - it is beautiful... he's playing an iranian santur he got in belgium, a kind of zither he works w/these little hammers the way a piano kind of works but w/out the keys. it goes righteous w/the experimental films that are projected behind him, really trippy and for me, inspiration for our set.  our set tonight is prolly the most unique one of the tour: three "chunks" of it are instrumentals we're doing like the others but the "chunks" between them are totally improvised and I'm using what's on the screen behind us to inform my inventions on bass and they're trippy: images of trains, parts of steam motors, blobby images, streaking images and totally psych stuff. you wouldn't believe the respect the gig-goers give us, absolutely no yammering and the gig's clean (all the seats sold) too. crimony. what kind, kind people: we are blessed. understand there's no p.a. either, just us working the room w/our stuff - a real accomplishment for mssv I believe, a real accomplishment. man, what a happening gig tonight in 'burque - thank you BIG TIME, good people here, truly. I pack up my stuff and for the first time for this tour, the gig-goers let me do that and wait 'til I'm done to talk w/me, so kind. I hate having to say "I gotta get my stuff put away first" cuz it seems rude but I fear if I don't get it together that way immediately, I'll be an idiot and donate something - "donate" being a word for losing shit I need for the next gigs. anyway, thank you for that, most kind 'burque gig-goers... actually, w/the stuff I got now, I can get it packed pretty fuckin quick, it's so econo in size and amount of things. love this new amp, love this speaker box. adam says hi to me - I finally get to meet the man I collaborated w/to celebrate "finnegins wake" by jim joyce for the waywords and meansigns proj we did around four years ago. he's a great cat, so glad to meet him, truly. we did part seven (pages 169 - 216) of book I and I used many tracks of my bass to go w/his beautiful reading of the works. my old buddy bob-san moved to placitas, nm which ain't too far from here and I am so glad to see him again, so glad! so many times him and raymond and me would see the ponies race at either santa anita or hollywood park, love this man. out to the boat, I rap w/adam about books, seeing the poster for tonight's gig and the name of our band, I think of a book I really think he should read and recommend to him richard mckenna's "the sand pebbles" and also the movie version from 1966 w/steve mcqueen - me and d boon's favorite movie when we were boys, even if we couldn't fuckin understand what was going on! I mean, steve mcqueen in a sailor's suit, c'mon! the book though, whoa - I used ideas I got from reading it for my first opera, "contemplating the engine room" along w/mr joyce's "ulysses" - another reason to suggest to adam. many kind people rap w/me, very kind. I get behind the wheel to ready the journey to the konk pad (tonight's opener jeremy's place) and jeff comes up to send me off, beautiful. so good to see him again after all this time. we keep on keepin on... we shove off and a little rain starts on us but not much. kind of rural where jeremy is w/his wife heather (the have a righteous band called a hawk and a hacksaw) live, it's a most happening pad I've been here before, maybe w/the missingmen? love their new roommate, a "pandemic puppy" named mitote who's much full of life. I am really tuckered though so after hosing off 'pert-near right away and getting in the nightwear, I konk w/out much spiel, just was too spent. crimony. friday, march 18, 2022 - amarillo, tx from mike: texas sixty six quinoa chow, long walk, stray cats Skitz! first friday done from hodge: working with two great men and one great woman!!! honored and happy much love and respect stephen hodges  from watt: pop first at five bells and then konk back 'til quatrer of eight - my body needed it, truly. lots of windows in this pad and they're letting in all kinds of light and sights of beautiful skies and weather, we are blessed. weather is such an acute issue for watt on tour cuz I want us safe. heather makes us scrambled eggs w/spinach in it along w/black beans and tortillas for chow and it's happening. I feel healthy. thank you so much heather and jeremy, thank you.  jeremy tells me about the online class he's taking for audio engineering, much respect to him. I explain what I really dig in that field is mixes that can translate, capito? by that I mean stuff that sounds good not only in its "mixworld" (where it's mixed) but in other sitchs too, ones you could never imagine like someone boat or pad or earbuds. tricky challenge for sure but worth it. I wish him much success. we pull anchor at ten. very grateful waves to jeremy and heather. on our way to the interstate, hodge realizes he donated his pocket knife (jeremy yanked on mike's leash to enlighten him to the fact), served its purpose by digging out a sliver in his finger he got building his electronic coffin for the tour but now quote the raven: "nevermore" - we do see signs on the road for "the knife guys" though... damn if we ain't got time to stop to get one of those and maybe a sword or a dagger as advertised on those signs? anyway, that's the first donate of the tour - let the building of the breadcrumb trail begin! I wrote yesterday how 'burque was in a basin we descend into and so now today we gotta climb out of it to continue east, still on I-40, much of it being part of the old route sixtysix when we see snow everywhere on the road... damn, just dodge that weather bullet cuz it looks like it was from last night! crimony. I feel most grateful for that luck. after clearing that, we come up on a plug but thank god it's from construction and not another fuckin wreck. we pass the town of cuervo I've always dug and pull off to drive slow by some of it but no stop... very little of the crumbled "melting back into the earth" pads left. this place has tripped me out for years. coming up on two (soon to be three pm cuz of the soon to be time zone change to central), we fuel the boat up in tucumcari... $4.10/gallon. I get a bottle of fruit punch which I dump out but keep the vessle to use as a piss bottle cuz it's got a big mouf. back on the road, I chow some from my sack of unsalted walnuts, love this stuff. around three I get us to the last new mexico town endee (great fuckin name) and into texas, we'll have three gigs here. trippy how few the trees are out here though that started a little before in the last state, right around that jive shill joint "cline's corners" is (I was touring w/nels cline when we stopped there once just to see how bullshit it was). onward into the texas panhandle... we pass the cadillac ranch (first time for mike and hodge to be made aware of it!) just before I get us into amarillo around four and a half head for the "san jack" part of town, on the north side of I-40, on western street which used to be part of the old route sixtysix. on the way we pass a pad called "the bone yard" (get it?) that's got "man karaoke" - what? tonight we're at the golden light cantina a pad that goes way back but it's my first time here. I'm big time grateful to brother skitz o'fuel for getting us the gig and am so glad he's sharing the stage w/us tonight. padboss wade welcomes us and has me put the culo of the boat right on the load-in, most happening. I hobble a couple doors down and find at high fidelity records a "live cream vol II" cd and get that, telling the cat at the counter my story about getting to play jack bruce's cream bass - here goes: harvey kubernik asked me to go w/him to drummerman bruce gary's pad in the val, he said I'd dig it. we get there and mr gary was very kind to me and talked to me kindly. he then went from the living room and brought back a vhs tape (this was in the 80s) and played it for me - it was some gig in europe w/him, jack bruce and mick taylor and kind of fusion or whatever - I don't sound all superior but it was, well... anyway, after a while, he goes back and brings another vhs tape and his bass case... he plays the tape and it's the last cram gig at albert hall (I know cuz of the red cowboy shirt eric clapton had on) and then he opens the bass case and there's an old gibson eb-3 w/a letter saying it was jack bruce's cream bass signed by him. I guess he sold it to mr gary for $1000 and a chapman stick if I remember him telling me correctly? anyway, the marks on bass were just like the one in the video - he even paused it to show me and even more - he let me play it - crimony! I mean no amp involved, just playing it but damn - can you believe?! for like a half hour I played that baby and it played like motherfucker, really REALLY fuckin happening, I couldn't believe. my mind was fuckin totally blown. I can never thank him or harvey enough for such a trip, I shit thee not. we do soundcheck w/soundman juan - him and his wife just had twins, big time congrats to them! well, he's also very kind to bear w/us trying to work out further our new stuff, VERY KIND, truly. next door is the cafe part of the pad, prolly the part that goes back to 1936 and that's where I order the richard roundtree salad w/chicken. I chimp diary while I wait for the chow. brother skitz arrives - he set up this gig for us and is also opening up the gig tonight, the first friday gig of the tour. we rap and catch up how we can - it's been a little bit since I last seen him - he writes now and gives me a book of his "river of blood" I am so glad to get and have in the boat for reading this tour. SO GOOD to see him again, righteous people. I chow the salad and dig it, then go to the boat to konk.  I pop just before brother skitz's set. he's man-alone and plays slide guitar and sings, it's beautiful. I tap my feet to his beat the whole time non-stop, that's how moved I am by his work. I am inspired for our turn! it comes at ten pm - hodge has lost his setlist and is in a little bit of panic but we gotta go on so I give him mine which has got NONE of his crutch notes... I hear him mutter "it was meant to be" and he launches into our first tune. I play pretty good, prolly the best yet of the tour but it ain't w/out any clams - in "old crow" I even get lost but mike and hodge "in the bottom of the ninth: pull it out!" and save my ass. the amarillo gig-goers are most kind to us but in a way I'm 'pert-near totally playing for brother skitz - I noticed he forgot his stuff's power supply and hand it to him after one of our tunes. I do try and make eye contact much w/the amarillo gig-goers though - think of the history of this pad and also getting to play w/mike and hodge, for me it's a good time! all of hodge's ending are tight tonight, much respect. mike is working some happening guitar likewise. gotta say moving my starboard wrist over to the port wrist has really helped though - mike's music is really working the plucking part of watt this tour. crimony. I'm into building it up though, needs to get done cuz I dig the music. I immediately pack my stuff up and soundman juan comes up, I thank him kindly for being our fourth man tonight and he even more kindly tells me it was a religious experience for him. crimony, gran respetto. outside at the boat, an amarillo bassman talks to me about... BASS! yes. he wants to know about the berg' amp and the baredfaced speaker box he heard me using tonight so I hip him to what I know. I'm really digging it but it sounds big time like he is too... to hear a bassworker give you the word like this really is something, fucking reinforces what I'm feeling cuz it's this stuff that's letting watt being able to express what I wanna bring more and also, you know what? our spiel wasn't ALL about gear, he told me he was into the way I use my hands, how I make my fingers go together, like a flipper or a paddle, you know? more meat on the string can bring some trippy stuff and it's all vocabulary, correct? same w/playing w/a pick - damn, I gotta learn about that more again, got to. also damn, brother skitz gives me the invite to konk at his pad but mike already got a pad happening, double damn... so it's just south of the I-40 for us not too far. I hose off and notice something I've never had before: stretch marks on my oshiri ('culo' in espanol) - I've lost weight and though they ain't on my gut which has been reduced, they are here on the bottom of each cheek - the port one's got some inflammation prolly cuz of my wallet and the long drives w/me in the boat's wheel seat. damn. worse thing I can do is scratch it - like w/my legs getting used to wearing socks or my feet wearing shoes (ain't much of any of that in the last two years, just settas for my feet), I have to get "acclimated" or some such thing. the stretch marks though? I konk after getting the spiel out for tomorrow's gig, just before one - very late for watt but so glad I got to share the stage w/brother skitz tonight! saturday, march 19, 2022 - oklahoma city, ok from mike: first clean laundry day jive k cup coffee - salads good gig, lotta cement! from watt: pop just after eight bells... shave for the first time on this tour, my masuku had me fooled - baka watt! there's one of those bullshit keurig coff machines here but I guess it's better than having no way to make coff. I make a cup for each of the team. we pull anchor at ten and head for the closest target store - everyone gets out when I do and I ask out loud "who's gonna watch the fucking boat?!" - nothing more dangerous for the boat w/out of state plates in a fucking mall parking lot... crimony, it's the center of our touring universe and we can't lose her, no fucking way! I think everyone capitos and I get a new air mattress, one that's supposed to hold six hundred pounds. fucking $109 but it's worth it if it's good... I'm hoping. way happening weather as we're back on the I-40 east/old route sixtysix, headed for tour's gig five.  I remember during yesterday's ride from 'burque to amarillo, john cale came up via shuffle mode w/the apple music device and that reminds me of the minutemen opening for him at fender's ballroom in long beach in the early 80s... I ask hodge and mike if I've told them about it and if not, do they wanna hear it? the give the gee-oh, so I go... john cale is on a u.s. tour and it's just him and a piano tuner - I guess the promoter at each gig provides the piano. we're watching him check and loving him and his music. he gets up and tells us "the piano doesn't move" to which we answer "it would be a honor to share the stage w/your piano, mr cale." it seems he didn't expect that and in fact, it seemed he might've been ready for a beef but he gives us this look and then starts laughing, pointing at d boon's pants/shorts. now d boon was wearing these "garments" the army had their soldiers wear OVER their other stuff to protect from chemical warfare whatever so they had no pockets, no anything except a drawstring to hold them up. d boon had cut them above the knee to make them into shorts. john cale started laughing even harder and asked d boon "what are those for, so you don't have to bear the weight of the heavy coin?!" and we all busted up and started laughing w/him. d boon and georgie then bailed to get some chow. the soundman also bailed so it's just me and john cale in the room - I suddenly felt trippy and then he looked me right in the eye and said to me, "sit down there on the edge of the stage" and so I did and then he got behind the piano and then again looking me straight in eye, sang "the streets of laredo" staring at me the whole time - the whole fucking tune, just me and john cale... crimony, it was a fucking mindblow, I had no words and even cried some. when he finished the tune, he got up and bailed w/out a word and I sat there 'til it was time for doors, tripping big time on what just happened. it was something fucking else. crimony. I get us over the border and into oklahoma around noon, see you again tomorrow, texas. quarter of one, fuel up the boat at a "ta" in sayre, not cuz we need to cuz we're at half-tank - what's up is hodge has gotta dump and I let him know it ain't no burden to let me know when that's happening, it's for good health. $3.82/gallon for the fill-up and damn if they ain't got real good windshield cleaning fluid and truck-sized (long handled) squeegees, yes! watt is most grateful - feel the same way about the weather also cuz it's holding up fine, thank you thank you! a quarter after three I get us to the venue, tagging a pole backing the boat up next to the front hatch like a baka but that's why I always back up the boat slow... the 89th street okc is where we're at tonight and I've worked this room many times, it's had many incarnations. so sad the record store next to it went under, damn. I chow that salad miss hiyori got me at the subway where we fueled the boat. I've given up on that chain of slop troughs when I learned they were cutting the bread w/sawdust and their tuna actually had no tuna in it. crimony. this has spinach leaves and a cold fried egg along w/pickles, olives and onions but damn if it has no taste. I hobble a block away to a little store that's got 'dines - "chicken of the sea" ones and I get a can and a bottle of "valentina" salsa picante from mexico. I take my vitamins (a multi, magnesium, time released c and a saw palmetto extract) and then chimp diary, all of us waiting for the gig people to arrive. I love getting in early cuz of less stress, a calm wait is no prob for watt. five bells and the gig pad hatch is popped by pad boss julia. we set up for soundman caleb and while he mic's things up, my old friend brother chad comes by w/some chow he made for me. he puts it in the dressing room tiny fridge for me to chow later and then catch up w/lots of stuff since it's been a good while since I worked for him at club vzd a bit ago - always loved playing there. he lost a toe, damn! he tells me about all kinds of health stuff, ain't that the way it goes sometimes as we get less younger? still, it's bitchin to get to rap w/him again, truly. we check while and then go over the stuff I was supposed to prep us w/in the boat and instead did during the load-in... baka watt! we run out of time cuz of the doors though and maybe get half of it done. well, we're work on it day after tomorrow cuz I don't think the austin gig sitch will allow us a check, so be it! for sure I will quiz us (myself included) in the boat. I fucked up and thought the chow pad "venn" menu choice "el pollo hermano" was some kind of tostada but in fact it's a HUGE pizza that has a taco taste, I shit thee not. only a couple slices for me though - plus hodge donates some cauliflower to me, thank you big time, hodge. we meet the openers tonight, locals called the killings and they're very nice, having me sign stuff and being very kind. much respect. they hit at eight-twenty. early shows for watt these days are fucking righteous, totally dig it. we start our mssv set and some ok city gig-goers immediately get their dance on, love it - they're most kind, truly. you can't know how that helps watt get lit. I still blow some clams though, damn me. kind of challenge the sound but I try to not let that get to me too bad, mike's music deserves all I got. I am happy to chimp here I didn't choke and get lost on "old crow" tonight! a challenging gig for watt but still a good time for me... I learned some things that I can use in future gigs this tour. I pack up my stuff and head for the boat... whoa, full moon tonight - reminds of time I played vzd's and it was a blue moon... maybe it was a tour stop for my third opera w/tom and raul? think so - it might've be halloween even and I was wearing a mouse head but I can be sure cuz my memory is so lame sometimes. I look at this photo some kind cat gave me of d boon we the minutemen played tulsa I think... oh man. it's going up front here in the boat for more inspiration. I get us to the edgewood part of town where matt goad lives - it's like twenty-something years now I've konked w/this man so first time on this tour I don't konk right away but after hosing off and getting in the nightwear I spiel w/him for a bit, lots of good spiel. he's shared the stage w/me a buttload of times also w/his own bands like big back yard, american boyfriends and the feel spectres. quarter of one arrives though and I gotta relent but I can't help but feel so grateful for matt's true kindness to me all these years. crimony. sunday, march 20, 2022 - austin, tx from mike: good sleep Matt! ...bacon thank you Uncle Doug & Julia righteous crowd and crew from watt: pop at seven and a quarter, matt's cooking up scrambled eggs and hash browns for us plus some of that fifteen bean soup he made for last night (I don't like chowing after gigs) so I have some now. thank you so much, brother matt. we continue the rap we had last night before I had to konk 'til eight and a half cuz that's when we gotta pull anchor. blue skies and great weather, thank you! I get us out of town and south on I-35, only mssv spiel for the first hour or two w/out the apple music device on cuz we need the help w/conditioning ourselves to mike's music, we (me and hodge) wanna get it "pavlovian" - you know? like instead of salivating when the bell rings, we need every piece of his stuff by him just calling out and us knowing it w/out having to think about. little by little, we're making good on that goal. I hip hodge too to some gear for his electronics stuff: a variable hpf/lpf box and a compressor/limiter box... damn, if he don't buy a broughton filter one via his leash while we're rolling. crimony. we cross into texas around ten and a half but not sure cuz we're busy doing the "music quiz" trip to improve on our mssv song knowledge. fifteen minutes later we fuel up at a "valero" in valley view... $3.90/gallon. hodge is bogarting the head so thank god for the piss bottle, what a great fucking invention - no moving parts too. big plug just north of waco - no wreck but construction and lane reduction - why can't we all learn to do "the zipper" move? crimony. mike's got this theory that a lot of shitty driving and not caring for others is cuz of many persons having no lots of beat-down in other parts of their lives and this is maybe the only way they can "vent" that frustration. I'm think maybe also a little bit of being addicted to their leashes too and being distracted but I can feel what he means. another plug at salado... semis in the passing only lane? tail-gating semis? now that's really fucked - what bozos. in minutemen days truckers were the cats you trust most on the road, very professional but these days? I started noticing the fucked up driving shit (not just semis but passenger and work vehicles also) about six years ago... scares the fuck out of me. sorry to belly-ache about this crap but damn does it make me mad cuz it don't have to be, I really believe it don't. anyway, we do make it to austin alive, pulling in front of the side bar a quarter before four and there's dano and patrice, old buddies from houston now living in san antonio, righteous to see them again, truly! patrice hands us a box, prolly full of good stuff. earthquaker man doug moves his ride to let the boat dock, most kind of him. bobby from sxsw (the fest just ended) and his buddy brian say hi to me - this gig is called "chili dog fest XXII" and is a benefit for a pet rescue group and a food bank, happening stuff. tim kerr arrives while I'm chimping diary from the boat wheel seat - so fucking righteous to see him and we rap about as much stuff as we can...  we're making a seven inch together for american laundromat records - me and my missingmen and secondmen all together (which I call secondmissingmen) did the big boys' "we got soul" at me and peetzo's "casa hanzo" studio in our pedro town and for his side, he did "history lesson - part II" which I wrote for the minutemen. he got john doe to be on it, crimony! gary from we are the asteroid says hi too, great to see him also (drummerman frank also a little later - we got a proj together, I'll spiel about it later). much kindness here and also beautiful weather, blessed be. mike comes by w/three chili dogs for me along w/the lady who he says got us the gig, julia so I give her my thanks for letting us be part. I chimp diary in the boat 'til half hour before our six pm go time and head for the stage, it's outside and in the back. big foot chester is playing and I sit right at the side of them and get to hear five tunes, fucking happening cats - they got a women rhythm that's kicking up much dust, the singerman also rips on the harmonica and great guitar stuff also, much respect! I am fired up by them to play big time. our turn and we set up quick... only nine minutes late for our start which is amazing for a festival trip and right away the austin gig-goers are so very kind to us. a screw holding one of my pickups comes up but the soundman runs up w/a letherman and I hold the bass up for him so he can save the day. what a beauiful cat, truly. now w/me there's also some clams - man, did I get lost in what we call the "wig jig" in the later parts but came through for the end. I am embarrassed but also motivated to get that shit together. it's mostly a real good time though, truly can't thank everyone here enough including mike and hodge. so great my starboard hand ain't hurting any more... maybe cuz I moved all my wrist stuff to the port side wrist? maybe mike's music is making it stronger? don't know but I am sure fucking grateful. after we get done, the soundman gets my info cuz he says he wants to make a gig happen in taos which I've always wanted to do... just telling the guys this a couple of days ago. crimony. raymond and greg's brother adrian is here! he lives near austin these days, good to see him and we talk a little bit. adrian's always been kind to me. dano helps me get my amp/speaker to the boat, he's beautiful and always been so kind to me. can't wait to see him and patrice in their new san antonio pad, can't wait. drummerman frank comes by the boat for one more spiel... him and his bandmate nathan recorded eight songs I wrote on bass - we traded files over the internet and now I'm hoping gary floyd (dicks singerman) might be interested in being part cuz I just love his voice and always have but he's mending up now so I'll wait a while before asking him... it would be a dream come true for watt, most truly. tim and beth say hi once more, I wanna show him my pedro town when he's next in so cal - he's into it! boat loaded, we pull anchor and I wheel us to jd and sarah's pad not too far away, on the other side of the freeway. man, I love their pad, the spirit they give it - just beautiful. I love rapping w/them, just love it - great tour medicine for watt, big time subarashii and happening... just love it here. I hose off, get into my nemaki too happy, I kind of drown on some brown... baka watt. monday, march 21, 2022 - denton, tx from mike: prayer flags in the wind maybe tornado omen? Watt's mic, donated from hodge: major rain and thunder!! tornado watch till 10pm. many many train horns going by, love me some trains and train horns. great soundman for tonight's gig aubrey kind sincere and pro active. his dad is a pro bass player and music professor at the university. we are making major strides in our music and watt is helping me improve my drum micing set up. on his advice i am adding a brougthon hi & lo pass fliter pedal (handmade in canada) and a keeley limiter pedal. this is gonna allow greater control of the wide range of drum/cymbal/percussion frequencies. i am stoked!!!!!!! more tomorrow... hodge  from watt: pop at nine bells - consequence of my alcoholiday... also have to hose off again. jd gets us righteous al pastor tacos from this mexican chow pad called "sabor tapatio" - crimony, it's fucking sabor for sure, mi gusto big time. shove off at eleven... oki thank yous to jd and sarah, truly, I love them both big time and can't wait to hear the new many birthdays music they're gonna be making cuz I love their band too.  it's raining but not hard. around pflugerville (really dig trying to say that town's name german-style) we fuel up at "h.e.b." which we have to skirt a wreck to get to... how many guard rails we see crumpled up after their stint in impale mode? some of the rain gets heavy but does that put a damper on asshole driving? not much. trippy how one part of each of my three operas is "chosen" for play on the apple listening device... whoa. I tell mike about the last part of my first opera (that's what the machine played), very difficult for me - especially thinking of losing my pop and d boon... losing people in my life is the hardest lesson for me and I never get used to it, never. whoa, no plugs the whole drive, I shit thee not - not even at waco! at the fork I get us on I-35w which is rare for me cuz I've never played the home of ornette coleman, fort worth - one day I hope to though... fuck, I wanna play everywhere I ain't and then again, I shit thee not! I get us into denton safe just after three bells, pull up in the back rubber gloves which is where tonight's gig is tonight. the rain has ceased which is VERY happening for our load-in, thank you! I played here once before: last november for the unhinged music fest w/my missingmen, tom watson had just got out of the hospital the day before after being diagnosed w/diabetes type II. believe or not, that wasn't the worst thing in a way cuz he's been much more happening since then and is taking way better care of himself now that he knows that stuff is on him. life is a trippy journey, huh? they also got prac pads here also - it's located in kind of an industrial area, a rail yard's nearby and whoa, do they lean on the train horns here! crimony. gotta be safe though, I understand. soundman aubrey arrives at a quarter after five and we soundcheck w/him... while we're doing it, damn if the sky ain't coming down in a huge pissing rain storm, crimony! man, are we lucky this didn't happen earlier while we're driving... thank god. soundman aubrey's real patient w/us and we work out some forms on the new stuff. we get done and so does that fucking downpour, just like that! crimony. pad boss chad orders us some mexican chow from "tortilleria la sabrocita" and I order carnitas. much respect. soundman aubrey's real curious about my wattplower bass so I hip him to where it came from, a co-design between reverend guitars and myself... took about nine prototypes to get to where it is - they were so righteous and patient to work w/me like they did, BIG respect to ken and joe there, truly. soundman aubrey tells me his pop teaches bass at the university of north texas here in town - it's a big music school... speaking of which - what's that fuckhead, heinrich schenker about? fucking assclown. nothing against learning about music though in my book, I'm glad they teach it here in denton and I'm glad to be working rubber gloves tonight. I go chimp diary 'til the chow comes. not tacos but just carnitas w/onions and cilantro... indeed sabrosa! I go to the boat to konk. cig oasis and momwow went on but I miss them cuz of konk. damn, me but I ain't that strong. we go on at ten and a half, soundman aubrey has us set up quick, great cat and most happening to have him as a fourth man tonight. prolly my least clams of the tour - only took a fucking week... fucking slow learner watt, fucking slow learner, damn me. I do get all the "pillow talk" words finally (no need to use ms yuko's "space" buttsaver) BUT they're mostly in the wrong place - fucking baka watt! oh yeah, two of the new instrumentals gave me a little trouble getting on board: the one I call "lumberin' stumbler" I had to give hodge a couple of bars of him alone befpre I could jump on and on the one I call "funk march" after choking on the lick, I had to stop hodge and then count us both in - so glad he could bear w/me w/such weakness from me, most grateful to him. the denton gig-goers are most kind and very respectful to us so likewise w/the gratitude. no encore cuz we figure w/two more bands after us and on a monday, what a fucking bogart on the time that would be. when you share the stage w/people you have really be conscious of that kind of stuff I believe, really important stuff. soundman aubrey helps me w/getting my amp to the boat... no rain, hallelujah! great to see and spiel w/lisa cameron again, much respect! big love. rick eye, the man who got me and my missingmen to/from the gig we did here back in november spiels w/me and it goes to the old days of the movement and of course I always get emotional spieling about that stuff but rick bears w/me. a cat w/a scottish accent (prolly cuz he's scottish, dumbfuck watt) has me sign his records and we talk some about james watt and why the power unit is named after him. my uncle mike (my pop's youngest brother, I'm named after him) told me once we were like some buttload of degree related to him and damn if a statue in leeds, england I saw bore a strong resemblance to my grandpa bb watt. crimony. we gotta bail for jeremy's pad in irving so we miss both the john horn duo (can't find an internet connect, damn) and patti which makes me sad but tour's got its priorities that must be respected. twentysix miles to jeremy's... I hose off immediately and get into my nightwear... use jeremy's air mattress - by the way, the one I got in amarillo worked great at matt goad's pad. hallelujah. love jeremy's pad, love it - great spirit here. all the years he's had me aboard... tonight's the first night I ain't been borracho out of my fucking head at his pad. however it's like two in the fucking morning and I'm trying to konk but the yammering... it ain't too bad though cuz the net result is beautiful, getting to be here at jeremy and melissa's, most lucky watt. tuesday, march 22, 2022 - little rock, ar from mike: played standards with Jer curry chicken at the root taxidermied bird from watt: pop at eight and a quarter although I had lots of on/off konk cuz of this fucking light that was on in another room - watt is VERY sensitive to light ruining his konk. crimony. mike and jeremy jam guitars together while melissa cooks us up breakfast tacos. jeremy's air mattress worked real good - so kind of both of them always to me, very beautiful. the daidai neko (orange cat) they got here attacked miss hiyori a couple of times, crimony... what's up w/that? she's the most kind soul so I wonder - maybe a territory thing? maybe traumatized as a kitten? crimony. luckily jeremy uses a grab and hug on his gato for a protect move. this puzzled me... just after ten bells we pull anchor, besides the happening always hospitality, jeremy also donated to me a mic cuz damn if mike got a message from rick eye that like a total fucking bozo I donated my ev n96 mic at rubber gloves last night. damn me. rick eye will mail it to mike's pad in gainesville, fl. fuck, I'm adding to the "bread trail" were building. I gotta focus more... actually a couple gigs ago mike himself rescued that mic from the same sitch - what a fucking space child... gotta get it together, watt. we journey east. a little bit on the I-45, we can see the book depository building where you know who shot at you also know who and it gets me to spiel about the discordian movement (check out the version of the "principia discordia" I got on my hoot page), something that had (still has?) a HUGE effect on me. trippy how so many people don't know about this movement... I mean I'm sixtyfour years old and mike's fortytwo so I can kind of fathom that some but hodge is seventy - I guess it really was an underground trip, huh? they're both interested though, maybe I can learn them some more? we hit the I-30 and this is the road to our next gig in little rock in arkansas. I ain't spent that much time on this road but whatever it takes to get us where we gotta get to safe, correct? the more you experience, the more you got a chance to learn more stuff though, correct? I say bring all the different roads I can roll on w/out too much hell. just after noon I pull us over in mt vernon to fuel the boat ($3.90/gallon) at a kitsch palace called "dukes" and well, since no wisconsin gigs this tour, I get a little sack or garlic dill cheese curds. like greg norton says, "you know they're good curds if they squeak on your teef when you chow them" or something like that. love that man. gray skies the whole time w/rain off and on - sometimes it's coming down in buckets and the spray kicked up by these semis - plus some of them acting like total assholes w/their lack of care... I try to keep the boat as far as possible from the "clumps" (that's how they flock together) that come up on us like real dicks - understand I am not lead-footing it but doing the limit but I do hold back when the start getting bunched up and dangerous - fuck that shit. another plug on us and we see during the crawl phase of such an ordeal a fifth-wheeler trailer that's been clipped on the aft and all crunched. crimony. trippy stuff about the apple sound device in shuffle mode: as we cross into bowie county, a david bowie tune plays... as we leave texas for arkansas (texarkana is the border town in that lead belly tune), ornette coleman plays one of his tunes to tell us "sayonara" - way trippy. it's one and a half and 'pert-near right after we're in a plug cuz going the other direct on our freeway is a fucking horrible wreck w/the cab of a semi burned down to the asphalt, terrible. more consequences of terrible driving? hurry up and wait... a semi next to us has it's filler cap for one of its diesel tank's cap unscrewed, diesel fuel slopping and spilling over the road. I make a motion w/my hand to the driverman like I was screwing on a cap and after a few minutes, he gets out (we're barely moving at this point) and screws it back. whoa.  we pass hot springs - I met tav falco's ma there when me and larry were his panther burns rhythm section on a u.s. tour seven years ago, I really dug playing w/tav, he taught me much about a bunch of stuff, great cat. third fuckin plug/stau of today's ride but where close enough to take surface streets... I've always wanted to see some of the east side of little rock anyway. I get us to vino's at four and a half.  soundman jackson has me park w/the boat's blinkers on for load-in, we get it done just in time cuz when I get the boat docked across the road from the gig pad, the rain starts coming down big time. crimony. I ain't played at this pad since 2004 maybe... the folks here let me have a salad w/turkey and ranch dressing (I asked for italian but that's ok) which made me feel healthy. first broccoli I think I've had on tour - back in my pedro town I chow it 'pert-near every day. I'm in the low 170s now lbs-wise, that's like twentyfive-thirty lbs down from the summer of 2019 and part of that was scissoring bullshit sugar stuff - you can't imagine what it's in. crimony. also scissoring processed shit: "if it comes in a box, you're going out in a box!" a wise person once said. helps my joints too. after our check w/soundman jackson (he's a bassbrother also!), I chimp diary and then go meet the opening band... well, one of their guitarmen - he's got a hurt guitar cord so I lend him my yellow one. they're called the atomicons and they're local. fucking terrible new wave horse shit is playing in the house... I know mike made music for the tour - why don't these pads play it? crimony. this shit is a fucking nightmare. anyway, the atomicons hit at nine to warm the gig up, so happening you could tell they had buddies there and maybe family, such a good spirit. our turn next and let me tell you, I'm lit to go. hodge re-sets up his stuff and we hit right at the scheduled go-time: nine bells. I really REALLY dug this gig and not just cuz it's the least clam-blown gig for watt but it's just a joy connecting w/both the other two mssv members but also the little rock gig-goers, much respect. jeremy's mic works good for me too, thanks again, jeremy! the set was exactly sixty minutes - the new wave returned so no encore but that's ok. when I thanked over the mic jackson for being our fourth man tonight, the atomicons for letting us share the stage w/them and the gig-goers for coming on a work/school night, I also let them know my grandpa bb watt was from a town called in arkansas called earle so yeah, a little bit of arkansas is in watt. after I pack my stuff up, I get off stage and there's stevo and karen (they're from memphis but now living near the university of arkansas) - karen's brother doug was very dear to me before diabetes took him a few years ago, crimony, that broke my heart and still hurts to think about... brother matthew back in phoenix grew up here and I meet a buddy of his he told to show up tonight and I thank him for doing so. lots of kindness from the folks here in little rock tonight. so I go out to the boat and after getting the more good word from a bunch of gig-goers who dug the gig, also music cats like billy and his bassman brad - inside they were asking me all kinds of stuff about both the bergantino amp and barefaced speaker box I'm using - every gig this tour people are asking me about this stuff. crimony. on another trip (life ain't all gear but I do truly dig those helping machines much), this lady has a buddy teaching there now and we talk about that and me finally visiting that town a little bit back in 2007 - FINALLY... (for years I would pass by on tour and think "I ain't going there" like a fucking baka) while I wait at the boat 'til mike gives me the gee-oh via my leash to bring the boat about for the load-out... rain has relented for that, hallelujah! the team packs the boat up quick and efficient, we got this. there's a buttload of construction and the navigatore gps is confused... I see two construction men w/their pickup truck dealing w/cones and pull the boat over to them and ask for directs on how to get on I-30 east... the driverman tells me to follow him and he gets right to where I need, beautiful cats, truly. I tell mike and hodge I'm really digging the dynamics the band is bringing on stage for the gigs now, really am - I think it's a righteous development. mike wrote a lot of it in his compositions but to get really get it happening for watt is a way I really dig for working a room... my missingmen are real good at, respect to tom and raul. when you teach, you learn! a buddy of brother steve mackay, scott has invited us to his folks pad in north little rock - they came here nineteen years ago from iowa, where scott grew up (he was on my show last year - hear him here) and it's the first time the boat this tour drops anchor in a garage. nothing like having the boat safe, nothing like it. we spiel w/scott's parents about all kinds of stuff, mainly about my part in the punk movement in the old days and about me and my pop's dynamics w/each dealing w/that (he saw me play only once but dug it, it was just before cancer killed him in 1991)... the amarillo air mattress does a good job letting me konk in moments after the spiel subsides, maybe quarter of one? damn, it's been late these last couple of days... anyway, I konk most grateful to scott and his folks, truly. wednesday, march 23, 2022 - memphis, tn from mike: swift creek, early spring Skinny, fighting the good fight many new room sounds from hodge: these kind folks are the Nydegger's we stayed in there home in little rock, arkansas. i got to hold their sweet doggie Clementine. i got a load of laundry done here, very cool. there son Scott made mexican breakfast, so good! Mr. Nydegger gave me a pocket knife to replace the on i left at the konk pad in arizona. such kind and gentle people... onward we go  from watt: pop at seven and a half, make coff for the three of us that are popped now, mike still konked so no gee-oh w/the coff for him... yet. everyone but mike up now, scott keeps saying "p bottle" (growing up in navy housing, if a male used that word instead of "piss" they'd 'pert-near get a bald spot slapped on the back of their head so I've been "conditioned" in such a way to kind of wretch when I hear that) so I try and enlighten him to my experience w/such an incredible device. when we were in norfolk (virginia), my pop got "the orders" for us to move to pedro in california (it was vietnam war time and look at a map: pedro's a lot closer to there than norfolk), we drove across the u.s. and I'd have to piss, "c'mon, pop" I'd plea to him and he'd say back to me "tie a knot in it, we got another hundred miles" and fuck I would suffer. well, when I graduated high school, he wanted me to take his little toyota truck that had a little camper up into yosemite and stay up there for two weeks by myself... time to man-up, huh? anyway, he's gotta piss and of course he ain't gonna pull over... he reaches under his seat and pulls out this bottle and starts "using" it - I ask him "where was that ten years ago?!" and he looks at me deep and slowly hands it to me: a true father/son experience, truly. I wrote a song about it. scott cooks us up his version of chilaquiles for desayuno that's real good though I need some of the "valentina" sauce from the boat... real good, si. thank you so much gracias to you, scott, truly. we got time cuz finally a relatively short drive today, we can pull anchor at noon so scott and his folks rap w/us about all kinds of stuff in the meantime... scott recites a richard meltzer poem - they very one we heard richard do from the "spielgusher" album ("...scatter my ashes in the river ganges...") on the apple music device in the boat during the other day's hellride, crimony! we pull anchor at noon then once I have to bring the boat about cuz I had her going the wrong way, fucking baka. I do get us on I-40 east in a little bit. fortyfive minutes later I pull us over near hazen at a "loves" in to fuel the boat ($3.90/gallon again - I'm noting a pattern) and damn if I ain't in heaven: like a five foot squeegee, crimony!  I get us back on the road, lots of asshole driving (we see one tractor trailer run off the and crunched into a ditch and also a spun-out empty car in an infield median, both prolly from last night) but luckily most of it in clumps so I hold back and wait for the spaces in between to put the boat. we pass the offramp for earle but can't see it from the freeway... watt doesn't visit this tour. I get us across the mississippi at two and a half, bye bye arkansas - look out tennessee! big muddy sure is a trip for me, always is. in about ten minutes we're at (maybe in the speedway historical district?) the venue for us tonight, maybe the third location of the hi-tone cafe I've played? think so... first time at this one for sure. I dock the boat in the back by a modern looking elevator cuz the website said "big room upstairs" and that's my guess... no one's here yet so I go next door to this mexican chow pad called "taqueria el burrito" and get bistec ranchero plate along w/just cuz I never drink sodas 'pert-near any more a bottle of jarritos mandarina, only drink half cuz I dig not doing that much sugar. good chow for me, mi gusta. I get back and the team's loaded us in, much respect. pad boss brian arrives at four and I ask him old gig pads in memphis like "bannister's" and "the antenna club" - never will forget playing those pads. pad boss brian says the elevator's outside cuz the cost was $27k vs $180k. crimony. I tell him I saw steveo and karen last night and he hips me to fact "the buc" burned down... pad boss brian is kind of older thing even though he shares he's only forty years old - an independent self-own in a sea of "arefucks" (guess what it rhymes w/?) chucklefucks - I got that honorific from an email I just got from righteous engineerman johnny at united recording in hollywood (incredible history at this pad)... I had done these two sessions recently there w/larry for the almighty opp and damn if he ain't most kind to me: Watt, whoa, much respect to johnny, truly. soundman steve arrives at six ahead of that was most calm (love getting in early) - relax time today and I'm way into it. me and hodge talk about some elementary electric/physics stuff, we find it interesting... soundman steve's into being the fourth man for us. as we start soundcheck some kind of power surge hit my amp and it's now out of the race. damn. oh well, the good people at bergantino gave me a forte d for a back up though so I'm back in the ring to aid the mssv team, very grateful watt. I'm missing some of the stuff the forte hp has but I ain't gonna belly-ache on the hand that just got dealt to me cuz of that bravo, that plan b. "dio caro," as fratello andrea would say. amen. gotta mic my amp cuz of buzz w/the direct - mike's also getting shocked on his mic some... dirty power here but they'll get to it cuz I really feel pad boss brian cares about such things.  after check and a sermon to hodge on the way transformers work using ac current, I chimp diary while local duet deaf revival check and then open the gig at nine bells. they are fucking way happening and kick up much dust, respect!  bassbrother dylan from new albany, ms comes to visit me and around the same time dylan who I met on my only tour in china (five years ago) does likewise - he's gonna document tonight's gig. we talk about china... he had to move back cuz of this sitch there, so sad - I met so many good cats there: both native and lao-wai. real good news from john though is he says he can get me a gig in oxford, ms - man, I've always wanted to play mr faulkner's town! I just love "light in august" to death, read it in three days while on tour helping the the stooges years ago... bassbrother dylan gives me a book he found that's about the u.s. navy academy but I have to let him know my pop was an enlisted man: different tribe... I know he meant well though. we hit right at ten and the back-up bergantino forte d amp does good. the room has some challenging acoustics but the memphis gig-goers rise to the occasion and helps us much w/both their spirit and their focus, really happening respect they bring us and I thank our playing really is lifted by that. for the first time on tour I get both all the words mike wrote for "pillow talk" and in the right place, praise be for fucking slow-learner watt! I have a good time at this gig and damn if I don't blow 'pert-near any serious clams which is lucky cuz of john documenting it w/video! "pressure, pressure" somehow got me to "hammer hammer," huh? "e fatta!" ('we did it!' in italiano!) I get MUCH good word after we finish from the memphis gig-goers - one cat was a friend of doug rockett, the dear buddy I lost who was from here, said he finally got a chance to see me play after hearing so much from doug about me. respect. a bassbrother (I don't get his name) brings me his bass to sign on the back of the headstock and I let him play my wattplower - we spiel big time about bass w/bassbrother dylan right there w/us. I go to the boat and soon it's adios and we head for a suburb in the west part of town where mike got us a konk pad... watt hosed-off, in the nightwear and w/air mattress deployed, it's 'pert-near one am when I konk fast... and hard... crimony, am I tuckered! thursday, march 24, 2022 - knoxville, tn from mike: traffic, engine off Steve, Jason, Maggie, RB Ben, Phil, Mary, John from watt: pop at seven bells. there's both drip method and bullshit keurig ways of making coff here so I do a cup of each for a side-by-side a/b test and damn if the the bullshit keurig way is way more mazui ('terrible taste' in jap), truth be told: in watt's opinion... but maybe I'm wrong? I catch up on trying to get a picture for each day in the diary before shove-off time at nine... do the map trip to check out the next five/six days of drives, fuck... that's why you gotta keep your "tour consciousness" on the day to day level to head off freakouts... hell, that's the "fundamental increment" of life anyway, correct? the sun rises and the sun sets to keep the focus that way while "big picture" stuff like the entire tour as in "the whole enchilada" is good to keep perspective on health and a happening team spirit. ok, w/the personal policy fortified, I'm ready when nine comes on us, we pull anchor... quarter of noon, I've had enough of following this asshole go from straddling the fast lane and going off the shoulder (maybe the road bumps wake him back up to abruptly?) so I get us of the interstage and we fuel the boat ($3.86/gallon) at the first "flying j" (mascis) of the tour in xxx - fuck, the squeegee is stripped out... people, maintain your stuff please! the pump mike's working is fucking "one hundred meter mosey" action for sure. crimony. miss hiyori gets me some hydrogen peroxide cuz my port ear has taken too much sun so I need - here's the story on that: in february of 1987 I was working on k's 'stang II up in hollywood - I had taken my '63 vw bus to get there from pedro and I guess the breather tube or something got blocked and fuel maybe was coming up back and I smelled this across the road and when I went over to check this out, the fuel flashed on the hot motor case and right into my fucking face. now it the fire need air to mix w/the fuel so it was actually burning off of me so it felt like I was under a giant motherfucking magnifying glass focused on the sun - I hollered big time and pulled off the lakers (bball team) tshirt and by doing this I one 1) put out the fire on my head and 2) by hollering OUT LOUD, kept the fire from going inside my lungs cuz the doc at the emergency room said if I would've breathed in that fire and it burned my lungs, I would've died in a couple of weeks from infection. something to learn from, correct? always holler OUT and not breathe IN if your head catches fire. the next day I had to start a two month fIREHOSE tour (had to buy a new get-around vehicle, correct?) and damn me for not chimping diaries in those days cuz that was a fucking hellride in its own self. however, like ishmael in "moby dick," I lived to tell the tale. so anyway, back to these days: my port side ear is actually scar tissue and can't handle sun - it starts to ulcerate and gets infected - it's why I wear this fucking stupid hat - it ain't a fucking fashion statement but rather a way to keep the sun off of my port ear. even the sun through the boat's window can fuck w/me big time. I turn my head sideways and pour in some hydrogen peroxide, hearing it boil the bacteria and stopping any infection... been doing this for years but the hat usually helps it from happening but I guess not now. part of the scenery blowing by the boats windows: trees ripped out of the ground w/the roots showing, strong wind evidence for sure. about fifteen miles from nashville we hit a plug that has shut off the motor for like forty minutes... a fucking nightmare but what can we do? we can wait, we must wait... another forty minutes - the apple music device plays us a lenny bruce doc... crimony. after getting to let the boat crawl a little bit, shut off the motor again... chimp diary... forty more minutes - fuck, a two hour fucking you know what to get through to the other side of nashville and onward towards knoxville. you know this part of I-40 ain't part of route sixtysix, correct? that ended in oklahoma city and continued on to tulsa on I-44 and eventually chicago. this part of I-40 is what takes you through tennessee and to north carolina but we ain't going that far or from that direction... north carolina will come after florida - yeah, there's some fucked up routing and it's mainly due to this festival we're playing tonight... if they would've only given us another day (the festival is four days), things would've been so much more happening but you know you get dealt a hand and just have to play the best you can. even w/the hell, I'm real glad and grateful to be playing the big ears fest, I truly am. funny (actually not funny) how people don't learn from the accident that caused this fucking shit cuz they're still driving like assholes, I mean real assholes. it's just like home, just like everywhere we've been on this tour - what the fuck? why is assholeyness such a goddamn equal opportunity employer? ok, end of sermon. skies ain't all blue like this morning, big white puffy clouds fill it but there's no rain the whole way. we lose an hour cuz of passing into the eastern time zone - it's gonna be back and forth w/that the next few gigs, we'll gain an hour and we'll lose an hour depending on our direction. just before seven I wheel us up to a lot next to the standard in downtown knoxville. while helperman michael helps us w/the schlep, I look at the next bunch of drives using the 'puter/internet map connect and you know what? it wouldn't have mattered if this gig was on a different day really - it's all hellrides no matter what... I think mike experiencing the reality of what he booked will learn him real good not to let this happen again - it did w/chuck dukowski (black flag bassman/global bookerman and he fucking built most the circuit we still use today!), "learn and live" is my twist on the old adage, huh? we get big ears fest chow tickets I use to get some q at a pad 'pert-near next door called "sweet p's" and it's shredded pork, greens, lima beans and a trippy salad for today's watt chow, I can dig it. friends of mike are playing while we set up... he let's me know the back-up amp took a tumble - fuck! it's ok though. crimony. we gotta be careful - it don't need to piled up on something - it can be slung over the shoulder in it's purse-like... "learn and live" - soundcheck when mike's buddies are done... some drama from watt which mike helps reconcile and then damn if it ain't ten and half: show time. we bring it to a full house and the knoxville gig-goers give right back, much respect to them. mike breaks a string early on but "what string?" - he deals w/it and I'm really into it, part of the gig, yes! when you take chances, you play the hand you get dealt, fucking right on. the back-up bergantino amp is doing real good - ain't totally the same but I am so grateful for it doing a happening job as the bravo. some asshole does say something smart-ass to me but that's like some chucklefuck driving like a piece of shit on the road to me and I swerve to avoid. mike's band is together and playing in the town he lived in for some time so I really wanna do good for him, do good for hodge also. of course the gig-goers deserve - even in a way that dick that used his free speech to clear up any mystery if anyone was doubting he was anything but a... we get an encore and bring our proof that no shit stooges, pharaoh sanders and ornette coleman go together. we bring it most grateful to the open minds of the knoxville gig-goers here tonight. helperman mike helps me get my stuff the boat, beautiful man and I bow deep to him. hol and her buddy wendy come to the boat to say hi and hol's daughter ruby's w/them - it's sixteen bday, yatta! so great to see hol  the last time we were together was in nashville on the missingmen tour big man was drumming cuz raul couldn't (him and paloma's daughter sof was just born) and that was the night my ma passed away, very heavy for me. oh hol... only a short visit - we spiel as much as we can but it's after midnight and hellrides await us... first though I gotta hug will hamilton cuz he came from georgia, so good to see him again - we'll konk at his pad saturday night. lucky watt has lots of good people in his life... boat loaded up, we shove off and follow mike's buddies john and mary to their pad up the hill in some woods not far away and it's been turned into a beautiful studio name top hat. much respect. I hose off and get in the nightwear right quick though cuz of the duty I gotta starting when the sun once again is up. air mattress inflated (it's doing real good), I konk hard and quick, like that. friday, march 25, 2022 - hattiesburg, ms from mike: short sleep, good coffee another donated mic i alone sing lead from watt: pop at twenty after seven, mary makes real good coff for us and then fries up two eggs for me, most kind, truly. the coff's she got is way happening also, says it's roasted local. crimony. not a lot of time, I put up the diary w/the minutes I got left here - fuck does doing diary keep my shit in line, just does. feels like I'm shirking on a lot of levels if I come up short on that commitment. we pull anchor at eight, bright skies full of good weather. england-style round-about has the navigatore gps fooled so we do a few orbits 'til I get the boat correct toward I-75 bound for chattanooga. whoa, many wind-blown tree snaps w/broke timbers pass by the boat's windows... there's a big fog danger zone but we skirt that hell, not today for us - weather is friendly - biggest danger is the usual: people driving like rude assholes, not all but enough. hilarious (kind of) to see college "educated" (they got a huge "T" in their back window) drafting/tailgating other assholes at high speed, no regard to the reality of what doing that kind of stupid shit could bring. ok, enough watt vent on that... we do make it safe to chattanooga and onto I-59 just after when I bring us to an "exxon/circle k" for fueling ($3.76/gallon) and as mike gasses us, I do a hydrogen peroxide cleanse on the port ear. back rolling, I get us into georgia for like twenty minutes before crossing into alabama and back into the central time zone - we gain an hour (we'll give it back tomorrow). way less traff on this leg, which I big time dig. around noon, just out of the south part of the birmingham belt where I-20 and I-59 meet I get us off for fuel even though we're at half tank instead of a quarter like usual, I get us off at a "loves" ($3.86/gallon to dump and also get a cup of hard boiled eggs... quarter of one we get into mississippi - four states on today's hellride! actually, not a hellride cuz no plugs/staus, just a buttload of miles. we did see the remnants of an obliterated tractor-trailer being cleaned up, very scary... won't even guess what went down. we smell forest fire smoke at one point, a cat in a truck pulls over to check it out (prolly his job), we get to keep going. get to hear lots of deerhoof's "actually, you can" album - first time for hodge hearing this band and the orthodontists - first time also for him AND for mike. I get us into hattiesburg at twenty of four, have to loop it around to find the back where mike says he was told ONLY us are allowed - what? a nice cat named brad welcomes us, (turns out he's the pad boss. much respect to him. I back the boat's culo up to the thirsty hippo's back hatch for both happening load-in and tonight's get-away. me and pad boss brad talk about the other time I played hattiesburg: in 1989... I even found a spiel on the internet where this cat clark hicks remembers it - ain't that a trip? it was at "tal's dart bar" and tal was real good people, very cool people and also hattiesburg is where my soundman for a buttload of tours in the 80s and 90s came from, she meant a lot to me... I always promised her I'd bring her son home safe every tour we did together. it's really important I'm playing here tonight. pad boss brad corrects about that 1989 gig: yeah, the rail in front of the stage went down and there were exposed nails but it wasn't my idea for everyone to sit down, it was one of the gig-goers and then all the gig-goers did sit down w/out having to be told to - I remember now way better hearing pad boss brad telling me what he hear happened - damn me and my very poor fucking memory. crimony, I wish I would've started chimping tour diaries back then - it would've helped me then plus now - I shit thee knot... fuckin slow-learner watt. speaking of which, I fucking space and donated the mic jeremy in irving let me use, what a fucking chucklefuck (thanks again, johnny). mike man's up and says he'll do all the spiel himself w/hodge doing backup spiel for him 'til I get my own mic which is waiting for us at his pad in gainesville, where we play monday. much respect. I am so embarrassed. crimony. the check w/soundman willie goes real good, soundman willie's most happening to be our fourth man tonight, much respect to him.  soundcheck done, I then chow the beef shoulder and yellow peppers plus kale and some happening grain pad boss brad cooked up for us - it is WAY fucking good and I chow three bowls worth. big respect for this righteous cooking... man, is it good, really is. I chimp more diary 'til I run out of gas. pedro weather here in hattiesburg, I love it. this cat who saw me play in jackson here in mississpppi way back at "the midnight sun" comes to rap w/me w/his cousin and we have a good time spieling all kinds 'til they gotta go chow. most kind. a cat name keith comes by and raps to me about son house and all kinds of musicians, he is a passionate man. music truly is a lifeline - for watt big time, let me tell you... old buddy todd and his buddy brad mobile drove here all the way from mobile in alabama, respect - so glad to see todd, am missing his buddy joe though, damn, he couldn't make cuz he just got a new job... seventyeight years young - fucking respect to brother joe, fucking respect big time! love that man, love todd and glad to meet brad. I am real beat though and there's an hour left before we're supposed to play so I go to the boat for a short nap... fuck! it's ten and a half - what happened? I guess the show ran late and nobody got watt, fuck... I miss pad boss brad on drums w/knock (couldn't find an internet connect, damn) but not only them but also judy and the jerks plus stellatone who's singer deedee catpiss got the whole enchilada happening! w/out him, there would've been no hattiesburg gig this tour. fuck, I feel a total douche, damn me. turns out this is prolly the most not together gig of the tour in some ways but in other ways I really dug - mike did all the main singing w/hodge helping up some. like an idiot, I set up in a bad place to give hodge ojos (eye contact) - first thing I apologize to him for when we get done but also terrible is what I did to mike's "pillow talk" tune - blew it fucking out of the water getting confused cuz I wasn't sharing w/mike the spiel I usually do, all cuz I fucking donated the mic jeremy gave me after donating my mic - it's waiting for me in gainesville but that's monday which means four gigs I can't help mike w/spiel, damn me again. the hattiesburg gig-goers are the really good part of the gig, MUCH respect to them for all they brought, oh man, much respect. I think soundman willie did real good too cuz of all the good word I get from the folks when we're done - even w/my fucking clams I blew - THANK YOU GOOD PEOPLE OF HATTIESBURG SO MUCH. I get my stuff packed up and get help from pad boss brad getting the speaker box into the boat. then todd and his buddy come and rap w/me a good long time on bass while the rest of mssv get their stuff packed. I know me and tood are bassslingers but so is his buddy maybe? he talks about a fender VI so I think he is... they gotta get back to mobile... "say hi for me to joe, please" I tell todd... safe seas for them. one more bye to pad boss brad - can't wait for him again, we pull anchor... the konk pad tonight is not too faraway at steve's - a cat who did guitar for deedee's band and he is very cool people, truly. zera offers her chamber for the air mattress - letting hodge use her air mattress for the living room - he's always got energy for the konk pad which helps spread the kindness cuz watt is spent - I quick shower and am into my nightwear and then under the blankies. thinking of tal thirtythree years ago, thinking of steve reed's ma... konk takes me. saturday, march 26, 2022 - atlanta, ga from mike: great scene in H-burg standing in drive through for coff good hang, Magnapop from hodge: we had a gig in a bar with great food. as the night progressed we realized the place was half music and half sports bar. sooo in our quiet parts you could really hear the sports bar folks making a lot of noise. the loud ones in the back were really annoying the listing folks and us the band. we prevailed and thankfully that was the only night so far this has occurred. after gig we went to will, autumn & miles' home. very chill and peaceful. very soulful folks! miles educated me in transformers. will and i discussed his music. one style he's into is ambient, we share that love of it. we hopefully will do some recording together, sending files over the internet. man did they lay out an amazing breakfast. so gracious!!! very healing after the gig situation we had dealt with. we are lucky to have really caring people that open their homes to us. from watt: pop at twenty of seven... search the kitchen for a way to make coff, can't figure it out but I do find some olive oil and apple cider vinegar - missing the fresh lemon juice part but damn, it's been two week since my last hit of my morning "elixir" so I down that... whoa. just then, our host steve pops and helps me w/the coff - does it the "pour off" way which is new to me, respect. we get spieling about music stuff, he's a great cat to spiel w/something like that, totally is on the level I am w/things music-wise, has good stuff to ask me and good stuff to tell me, thank you hugely, brother steve. we get to talk about stooges too... and john coltrane - of course! damn if I can't spiel more w/him but we gotta pull anchor at eight. righteous weather again, hallelujah! I figure out how the pioneer radio interfaces w/the apple music device and play for everyone in the boat the first (and as of yet, only) brother's sister's daughter album, made in three days in tokyo in 2008 w/mr shimmy and ms yuko, myself and for the first time in japan ever: nels cline. I ain't heard this in a good long time, it's a fucking trip - am flooded w/memories - it sure was a trip, that adventure. mr shimmy had wanted to know about the guitarman from my first opera and my reply was "you wanna know him? play w/him!" and got nels a plane ticket so he can fly over w/me for the adventure. did a gig after too! it was a fucking most happening experience - everyone w/such big hearts and bringing it all together. I get us out of hattiesburg and rejoin the I-20... then around nine and a half we fuel the boat at a "pilot" ($3.90/gallon) in meridian (home of peavy amps - my bass amp in the reactionaries and first minutemen was a peavy 400 w/a 2x15 box), I get another "egg cup" (their word), four hardboiled eggs for $3 something... no fucking grease or bullshit additive whatever, makes sense for watt to chow on these in these times. got the apple music device back on random and damn if lenny bruce doesn't do a bit on used cars just after me and hodge hip mike to this cat who used sling used cars in so cal way back. crimony, how does it know? fuck. out of meridian and soon into alabama, whence we came yesterday. back on the southern belt around birmingham, there's a small plug cuz of construction but only a small delay. I gett us into georgia around two and we're back into the eastern time zone. we're 'pert-near at three thousand total so far for tour miles so I ask mike to find a ford dealer where we can service the boat, he finds one in charlotte so we can do that wednesday. thank you, mike cuz there's nothing like keeping the boat healthy - it's the center of our touring universe! three bells I pull us over for van-fueling at a "racetrac" right before the big atlanta beltway cuz tonight's konk pad is 'pert-near fifty miles from the venue in canton. fucking lame squeegee cuz of the rubber blade part being too damn stiff, making for a shit show w/streaks and such. crimony. back on the I-20 and fifteen minutes later we're in west end part of atlanta and a new pad for watt - looks like a new pad, period: boggs social & supply - the weather is still happening two states east of mississippi but there is a kick from the wind - I felt it buffeting the boat and it 'pert-near blows my hat off. crimony. I meet soundman mega and he is very cool people, so glad to work w/him. low stage which is good for a cojo like me as far as on and off (no hand rail last night was scary but miss hiyori helped me w/some shoulder). I meet ben and his bandmates in the buzzards of fuzz who are from nearby decatur and are sharing the stage w/us. I tell them about getting a les paul signature bass in smyrna (like a fucking idiot I say it's on the way from decatur but that's the other side of atlanta, dumbfuck forgetful watt) in the late 80s (scroll down on this page to see it) and then about ten years later getting the very man, les paul to sign it during his soundcheck at a pad called "the strand" in torrance, back in so cal... I just wanted his signature on my bass but man, what I got was like an hour spiel from him, so beautiful... he put the buttermilk donut he was chowing on his whammybar and started telling me stuff about being part of bing crosby's trio, sound-on-sound recording w/mary ford, building the studio at capitol records in hollywood including having the parking lot dug up cuz they spaced on the echo chambers! the two guys in his band were giving me the eye, kind of like "you motherfucker" cuz they wanted sound check done and not being held hostage to this stuff - I felt sorry for them, I didn't mean to "provoke" this or whatever - I asked mr paul 'pert-near nothing, mostly I was following intensely his spiel as it delivered which was almost like it was a music gig in itself, really really beautiful, won't ever forget it. what a truly generous man. one trippy thing is he wrote "keep on pickin, mike" and yeah, I ain't very good w/a pick and hardly use but maybe he was trying to tell me something, huh? like maybe increase my vocabulary some... there's fucking righteous q here (the lady said it's a "pop-up" thing) and I get pork ribs and damn they are fucking good, truly. also the potato salad, cabbage salad and pickles - fuckin righteous and oki oishii, much respect. we soundcheck w/magna and it goes good - I show mike and hodge the cracks on each side of the first and second frets of my wattplower - too much showbiz in knoxville! idiot fucking watt. we're done and drummerman dave from magnapop who asks me a bunch of stuff about ethan james who I miss dearly and am happy to spiel about w/him. his bandmates linda and ruthie join in and it's a good time talking about touring and stuff. I chimp diary when the sounds get loud and they bail... they ain't gonna check, I guess. I gotta get to the boat and konk... I am fucking tuckered. ten before ten I pop somehow and make my way from the boat to stage, a quick set up and we go on right on time: ten bells. the set starts off way happening w/much spirit from the atlanta gig-goers but then as we get dynamic and make our sound tiny, for the first time this tour we're faced w/fucking urusai yammering, fuck. it's a flasback to my third opera touring days and stuff like "mouse-headed-man" getting totally bogarted by motherfuckers who don't give a goddamn cuz they're totally in their own world.  it's like tonight's gig pad has two rooms w/two completely different sitchs going on although the reality is there's only one room and we're getting motherfucking steamrolled by this shit. it really brings the gig down, we're in a fucking trough, a deep fucking crevice of lameness. man, I feel we owe the gig-goers here so much cuz they deserve, what a fucked up thing it is to have that dealio just all pissed on like it is. mike again has to do all the spiel except some backup from hodge. he does good but was challenged by an 'e' string break (says later it might be the picks he's using - by the way, his phillips driver came in handy for me right before downbeat on a pickup screw - different one than austin but same prob... I wanna get one of these tools for my bass sack)... for encore I ask mike and hodge if we can finish strong so suggest "social justice" and "human reaction" - so very happening and uplifting for my spirit that we finished strong, so fucking grateful for that.  I hear this voice behind me while I pack up my stuff - damn if I didn't know that voice even though it's been so long... crimony it's mike patton (bassman for so cal band middle class), oh my god! he's the man who produced tracks for us minutemen in the early 80s which ended up on stuff like the "joy" and "bean-spill" eps and "the politics of time" comp lp, we were really into him - spot, ethan james and mike patton - the three minutemen producers, we trusted these cats BIG time w/our music, more than we trusted ourselves, I shit thee not. anyway, turns out after running the busses in orange county for years, he's just moved to athens here in georgia - what a trip! I ain't spieled w/him in a buttload of years, I mean a really REALLY long time... crimony, I wish I could spend forever trying to catch up w/him. can't wait to hear the new music he tells me he's gonna get going on, can't wait! always loved his bass playing and singing... can't wait! stephen from brainaid comes by to say hi, so does michael who knows charley plymell - gives me a jar of vitamin gummies, so kind of him, truly. I get the good word from many gig-goers at the boat - so kind of mike patton to help me w/my speaker box and also the yammering in the gig pad didn't stop w/us playing so it's a huge relief to be the fuck out. I'm most grateful to everyone, truly. we got an hour drive to will's pad in canton, north of atlanta cuz that's where we're konking - I've konked there many time cuz will is so kind, truly. he even "escorts" us even w/us "losing" him a couple times, much respect. he's also a bassbrother, has a band called pfrogdog) and I hose off 'pert-near pretty quick and into the nemaki right after getting the mattress blown up. not much spiel cuz I ain't got the gas in the tank, so sorry but "a man's gotta know his limitations" it's been said. so true... sunday, march 27, 2022 - birmingham, al from mike: navigatore knows the way, villa rica the crowd, full of soul from watt: pop at quarter after eight, body and mind really needed it. weather again is really happening - grazie! also reason for big grazie, will's got thin slices of capicola out on the table for I guess pre-breakfast chow, I feed myself some w/the hashi, grazie will! he cooks up bacon to go w/scrambled eggs - I get a plate and add... some more capicola! crimony. also blueberries, I love blueberries and get do three big mouffulls. grazie mille will - he makes some happening coff also. his boy miles hips me to something called "echo vr" and it's first time I've been exposed to this one-on-one... I don't do but am in spectator mode via his ipod: him flying around punching people who are connected to this trip via the net. I chimp diary 'til shove-off time. will and autumn are so kind, truly.  pull anchor at eleven and a half and were on georgia 20 (not I-20 yet... people who just say the numbers of roads better learn more info about them if they don't want a rude awakening!) but the navigatore gps senses a plug in marietta and routs off the I-585 spur to little state roads to bypass that shit and join the I-20 at villa rica, I get us over the border into alabama at twelve and a half - we gain an hour cuz of going from eastern to central time zone. the weather is still beautiful and no shitty driving has had consequences on this run (we see no wrecks) even there still is shitty driving (the dice rolls are lucky ones today - I get us into birmingham just before two and damn if it ain't the same pad that I played last time I was here, saturn which is a super fuckin happening pad, I shit thee not - they got a konk pad built in - most bitchin truly! you don't how I dream of a whole circuit like this tour on - THAT WOULD BE BIG TIME INCREDIBLE and the complete shit! you could prolly konk twenty dudes easy here w/room to spare, especially if you had air mattresses like what I use. there's all kinds of things to read as well as a kitchen area as other stuff - AND it's in stumbling distance, next door upstairs. you can watch what's up on stage from a tv even. pretty incredible.. pretty fucking incredible, MUCH respect to brian. he drummed for man or astro-man? so he knows about what stuff can really help on tour. GIANT RESPECT to him. gig pad bossman brian ain't here but assistant zach and he's also great people, so glad to be working here tonight, so glad. we check w/soundman daniel and lightman jake and it's a good check cuz we get to work on some real good stuff, like mike giving hodge a different way to do "poem song" and also getting me to get straight four beats of rest then three beats of rest in what I call "lumberin' stumbulin'" - oh yeah, some stuff hodge was doing mallets w/now are gonna be using sticks and "human reaction" is gonna have no muffled drums. real productive check! hey, tonight's two weeks which means the tour is twentynine percent done, we can refine things, help mike get what he needs for his tunes - me and hodge are way into that. we meet the openers, locals called gt and they are very cool people, so happy to share the stage w/them. you know, last time I was here at this pad was on the "dick watt tour 2019" w/my missingmen and dan sartain opened... me and him had a real good talk before showtime, I remember... big love to brother dan. we do a spiel for birmingham public tv from the back of the boat w/jay w/his brother and kelsey for his "we have signal" show - jay spieled w/me for my third opera when I played the bottletree cafe (kind of the predecessor of this pad saturn) 'pert-near nine and half years ago w/my missingmen - damn, ain't time a fucking freight train... you know who was on the bill w/us that gig? tonight's openers gt, crimony! fuck, I'm just remember now - why? cuz I read my fucking diary from then - otherwise... fuck! I'm so embarrassed I didn't recognize these cats - I gotta apologize to them when they finish their set. damn me. mike gives me the grilled chicken sandwich miss hiyori got down the street at a pad called "avondale brewing" and it's pretty good, especially the mustard and onions (I fuckin love mustard). me and hodge work on song forms of mike's songs while I chimp diary... whoa, got an email from my mobile buddy todd who saw us friday and had a pants-shitter moment on his drive back home, here's part: "...Stay safe out there - A car passed us last night and almost hit head on with a semi truck! Scared the shit out of me! My legs were shaking!"this fucking stupid shit just goes on and on, we're chucklefucks about this kind of idiot stuff. thank god todd's ok. I watch gt from the tv brian's got put in here to watch the stage from. crimony. nine bells, time for mssv showtime. gt has got me lit and plus I wanna rally after the last two tough gigs... it's a great thing when that happens and damn if it don't tonight - thank you gt brothers and thank you birmingham gig-goers for spirit and focus/respect - the same we been getting ALL tour except the sitch last night (swear it felt like to different sitchs there in atlanta last night). I was worried when mike broke a string at soundcheck dong quiet little stuff - what? there must be something physical going on, something mechanical - anyway, my fears about that were relieved by the fact he broke NO strings for our gig, most bitchin. I blow the coda for "social justice" (the tune mike wrote for nels to join us on) but still was in time - maybe it complimented what hodge did in "pillow talk" cuz it was the same kind of machi-gai. the spirit of the whole set though was really good, I'm so happy. the changes mike brought at soundcheck went real good too... nothing like reality to check things out. I rap w/the gt guys, so grateful to them. also birmingham gig-goers, most kind... by his request, I sign a man's chest, over his heart (he used different words but that's where it went), he's buds w/my buddy dirk. crimony! his buddy's cool people also, a carpenterman. I back the boat into the load part of the gig pad w/assistant man zack's help, BIG grazie for the big man, truly. love this pad. I go hose off and get into my nightwear. I get an email from flipper drummerman steve and he wants me w/him and brother ted on a flipper euro tour this summer. crimony. us three mssv members discuss tonight's gig and how happy we are that this gig tonight was a successful rally and we're back over the ropes and INTO the ring instead out of it. that makes me konk really REALLY happy. monday, march 28, 2022 - gainesville, fl from mike: georgia cops, escort great first hometown gig for me loved seeing my bride from watt: pop at six, fucking mattress is out of air, what the fuck happened? crimony! good news is though that I just discovered a homedics rubs device in the big room that is fucking way happening. in the fridge there's some apple cider vinegar and on the counter's some olive oil - no fresh lemon juice (or any other type of lemon juice) but fuck it, I got two-thirds of the "elixir" I do daily (a tablespoon each) at home in pedro. miss it out here tour. also so righteous is to get to rap w/pad boss brian - he had to miss last night's gig to take care of his pop. he brings us breakfast chow and spiel as much as we can w/him - he wants to jump in the boat and see bill bryson in gainesville - we both love him big time. he gives me two egg and bacon sandwiches, one I chow while spieling w/him and bring the other in the boat cuz we gotta pull anchor at eight - brian guides me out through the rollaway hatch and tells me to be safe. will do.  here's the plan I ran by mike last night before konking: avoid the potential plugs and stau around atlanta and use some us roads to get to gainesville via montgomery instead so it's southeast on I-65... seeing more hombres sharing good time ticket presents and damn if the driving ain't a little less-worse - why the fuck does it take shit like that for us to act more humanely towards each other. I pull the boat over for fueling around a town called pine level at nine and a half at "texaco" ($4.10/gallon) where this asshole comes around to turn port into the fuelpad around us like a total piece of dangerous shit and then muttered stuff out the window... 'pert-near clipped the boat! I guess they might've been having a bad day - I hope it got better. these roads out of montgomery to get us to the interstate in florida are us-82, then us-281 and finally us-84, doing pretty good time even though you slow down for when the roads go through towns, different than the freeway but then if it means missing the potential plug around atlanta, we're all into that. remember I was saying I was glad about more hombres? well about thirty miles from the border w/florida in georgia, both a sheriff and state trooper ride w/me for about ten minutes and the pull me over, have me get out and go to the passenger window of one of their cars and discuss things. the one officer said I went on a white line and I apologized, saying that I was nervous and he replied it wasn't my fault... wanted to know what we were doing so I told him about the tour and where we were coming from and where we were going, the other officer talked to mike some and then came over and I answered both their questions about the band, who's boat it was and things about me, then asked me to be careful. they were nice about the whole thing actually. I get us through havana, florida and on to the I-10... at four bells, I pull the boat over to refuel at a "shell" ($4.13/gallon) - no fucking town info written on these pads on the roadside, damn. we talk about the apple music device playing some piece using stuff from police scanners as part of its source, what?! how does it do that? it gives us doing a bitchin piece for jimi by disciplina kitschme called "hendrixi" also, love brother koja... w/brother koja and two of his buddies, me and peetzo have a proj we got in the works dedicated to him called "the koja brothers" - love that bassman much. it's five and a half when I get us to the "high dive" and the weather gives us an incredible welcome - it's like pedro, I shit thee not! damn, since little rock we've been so blessed that way, truly. I do a recorded spiel for allison who's doing a book on a gig pad name "einstein's a-go-go" that was in jacksonville beach... fIREHOSE played there on their first tour, opening for sonic youth... I can still smell the chicken now that the pop used to make us there, beautiful people: his wife too and the two sisters... so glad allison's doing this. done w/that, we (mssv) soundcheck w/soundman oscar - has to be just one tune and quick (hoge is ditching his electronics even) cuz of the sitch - I meet the bassman of the openers, locals called helixglow who did sound for me here, michael and then I rap w/my old buddy bill - he was the owner of this pad we're playing tonight - I first played for him in 1993, it was called "the covered dish" - so good to see him and he hips me to his "retreat" he's got and damn if I ain't gonna take him up spending some time there when I get time... when I get time... when I get... time... love bill, truly. we were gonna have ramen together at his pad here in town that does that but then he remembered it was closed on mondays. damn. he said it's been eleven years since I last stayed w/him, crimony! time WAILS by, huh? won't wait for watt to give it permission, nope. I give him a big hug from saturn boss brian cuz brian asked me to. mike's wife desola brings me three carnitas tacos from a mexican chow pad called "el indio" - she's a vet and her and mike just moved here to gainesville and bought a house, whoa. respect. chris, an old friend of doug rockett, (my buddy from memphis I lost to diabetes broke my heart) comes by w/his son, he drove three and half hours to get here, big respect! crimony. so good to see him again. man, I miss doug. I do. I go to the boat and chimp diary, it helps ease my nerves... I pop in the boat a couple of minutes before mike pops the hatch to tell me it's seven minutes before gainesville mssv go-time, the newish hometown boy makes hometown debut, so glad me and hodge can help w/that. the spirit w/the band is good, the spirit from the gaineville is good, we bring our set which now includes watt's mic - it was mailed from rick eye in austin desola here in gainesville to reunite w/the baka who donated it. w/this set however, it doesn't get used to 'til the last tune which must maybe is a like a taunt to the gig-goers? I don't know but for the first time in in four gigs I do the spiel again for "the eureeka moment"- but that's at the end. before that it was a very good gig I think, really good. clam-wise I did real good avoiding them except the last part before the coda in "chartacourse" where I became delusional and lost all notion of where the fuck I was - blowing wrong chord after wrong chord, fuckin crimony! mike and hodge hold firm though and ain't flustered by it, much respect - nothing like cats on your team holding shit together for you while you fuckin get it together, I am most grateful. mike blows some clams in the next tune ("old crow") but I catch and adapt the form in a "swerve to avoid" move, something you can do if you stay in the moment and avoid bullshit "cruise control" automaton mode - fuck that shit. mike again doesn't break a string so maybe the fix he did fixed that? been a while since we did the original encore plan and we bring t pretty happening - not to get too full of ourselves. way happening gig, thank you most gainesville gig-goers to bring that out of us. another trippy thing now that I think of it was hodge's drums - no time for his electronics tonight so that brought another trip to this gig and of course made his break down way easier/quicker.  I pack away my stuff and bill helps me w/my speaker box down the stairs. respect to him, he's gotta bail so big hugs 'til next time I see him. richie weiswasser and his wife comes to say hi to me by the boat - ain't seen him in buttloads of years, wow! his older brother marc was SO important to me and d boon's music journey, I can't imagine what would've happened to us w/out him cuz it was both of us jamming w/him along w/this lady singer friend of his named erin (I think... this was back in 1977), trying to figure out queen's "tie your mother down" or something at a building he had rented out at the lower reservation of fort macarthur before it got tore down and turned into the cabrillo marina... we had stopped to go outside and take a breather when this cat w/his hair all out like spikes and wearing a kotex around his neck (that's what I thought) came by and told us there was a scene up in hollywood where people wrote their own songs. I know that prolly sounds stupid we were blown away by that but you gotta remember NO ONE we knew wrote their own songs then in pedro - everyone tried to copy stuff off records. it was a total sea change for us when we checked out that scene... that cat who hipped us to it was in fact nicky beat, drummer of the weirdos - however the first punk band we saw was the bags - I turned to d boon as soon as they started playing and w/out realizing, out of my mouf came "we can do this!" and it's never been the same for me since. crimony. so good to see richie after all this time... he says his brother lives in clabassas, ca now and still does drums - gotta see him again some time, it's been too long! ok, during our "double nickels on the dime" tour, minutemen did flynn's in miami beach in the summer in 1984 and damn if this most kind man brings me stuff regarding the band sharing the stage w/us then there called gay cowboys in bondage, damn, what a trip. I am most grateful. will hamilton's pop and his wife come up and say hi to me, crimony! so good to see him again, so good! he was a chief machinist mate in the navy like my pop and he gives me these navy "coins" - big discs w/navy stuff on the them, one he says is kind of rare, it says if you ain't a snipe then you're just along for the ride... "snipes" (named after engineer john snipes) are sailors who work below the deck on a boat. my pop and will's pop were snipes. MUCH RESPECT.  big hugs for will's pop, truly. his wife says she's glad we finally have met after hearing so much about me! lots of gig-goers give me the good work, so kind. my old friend gabe drove a buttload of miles to see the gig, so good to see him again, even w/me confusing stuff from the bast - my fuckin memory can be not so happening, damn me. ok, time to pull anchor... mike guides us to his and desola's pad, not too far away here in town. there's three gatos that are very curious, same w/the puppy (named trooper) she brought to the gig. I hose off and then try to get the air mattress from amarillo together but it's fucking shot. damn. I do have a plan b one, from aero and it's thinner anyway (not as high up from the deck) which I dig so let's try that. whoa, I'm fuckin beat, time to test this baby out w/a real hard konk. tuesday, march 29, 2022 - charlotte, nc from mike: Desola's big brek! sorry for the hellrides guys hard gig, but... we do from watt: pop at quarter of seven, all three nekos who live here konked alongside it appears, most kind of them. the aero mattress stayed inflated also, yatta! desola cooks us all up asagohan ('breakfast' in jap): scrambled eggs w/turkey bacon and little pork sausages, I chow it up and dig it much along w/coff. so kind to us, desola, I am most grateful and promise her I'll bring her husband mike back to her safe.  we pull anchor at eight and the face the most fog of the tour as we head north on us-301 but it don't last long... it clears around waldo (where bill bryson's farm/ranch/retreat is near) and after getting on I-10 east and into jacksonville then I-95 north (much construction but no plugs!), bye bye florida - aroung ten and a half I get us over the border w/georgia and towards savannah... we do our daily "mssv new music calisthenics" - recalling how goes the four instrumentals that'll be part of the second mssv album when we record it at the tour's end at chris schlarb's big ego studio in long beach, ca, acting as "frontends" for the four pieces w/spiel (the plan is to have the album will have eight pieces total) w/two alternating each gig of the tour, the same as we do w/the italian seven inch and nels cline meets mssv twofers so it's been 'pert-near never the two nights in a row this tour. mike thought up a great plan, I think, a really good one - I'm gonna learn from this. twenty after eleven I pull the boat over in pooler at a "enmarket" for fuel ($3.60) to dump and get coff. there's some bushes by the boat calling to me to be doused w/the piss bottle contents also so I oblige. we cross into south carolina a quarter before noon - man, I dig their state flag - second only to new mexico's (red zia on a yellow field) in artistic statement for me, just love how the crescent moon and palmetto mix w/the navy blue, just really dig it. we hit I-26 and I go west to columbia (damn, wish we had a gig either here or in charleston but mike's still learning about booking) and then onto I-77 and it's back north... I relate a minutemen tour spiel from our first gig in columbia, tripping out mike and hodge a little, I think... at one point during the last stretch of our journey through south carolina, around three bells w/hit a stau ('traffic plug' in german) that has at like a five mph crawl for like three quarters of an hour which gives me a chance (I soon find out) to play for mike for the first time (hodge is konked), television's first seven inch: both parts of "little johnny jewel" - it amazes me he ain't heard this and it's a trip I can tell for him, the way they recorded straight into a four track and how dick lloyd was doing on guitar at the time. we also discus calluses on the hands... how they gotta develop more into stuff that are liken to moccasins instead of just thick patches of pads that can get torn off, they gotta be "pliable" to keep the skin resilient so they can keep their integrity and not tear. actually I got two sets on my hands: one on the ends of my fingers cuz of working bass and the others on my palms just where they meet my fingers from working the boat's steering wheel. trippy. we clear the plug and cross into the state john coltrane is from (north carolina) just after four... fourth state we're into today. about quarter of five I get us to snug harbor safe into midtown plaza midwood part of charlotte - my first time playing this pad. you wouldn't have believed the last couple of miles of freeway to get here, motherfuckers cutting us off w/chucklefuck-designed on ramps that lead to immediate lane-end and other motherfucks not giving an inch to give us a break - selfish sons of bitches... this one clown does all this shit just to sit at a red light in front of us and what does his license plate say? "share the road" - you fucking hypocrite piece of shit. sorry to vent like this but it's really nuts, really is - I've been doing this 'pert-near forty years and I ain't ever seen it this bad - not just today but gradually getting worse since about six years ago, I shit thee not. I just wanna get us to the gig and then to the konk pad safe - that's it! I want the cats I share the road w/safe too, I swear. ok, the weather here in charlotte now is like back in my pedro town, love it and am most grateful for it. I get to try the temp replace forte hp the good people at bergantino sent to mike's pad yesterday tonight... set up next to hodge and use his furman power box for protect and damn if I ain't got my trip back I got w/my own, yep! nothing wrong w/the back-up baby I've been using but you can get the bottom tighter w/the variable hpf/lpf on this one, much respect! I go a couple doors down, there's a chow pad named "sister" I get a happening lamb burger (kind of greek style) and it's good... while I was waiting for my order, I use my leash to spiel w/lee at bergantino regarding my amp sitch, he is very cool people. I can wait to send the loaner forte hp when the tour's done and when we play cambridge, ma, jim bergantino himself is gonna come before the gig to pickup my broke amp so he can fix it and then send it to me when I'm home - I'm gonna get to meet the man, crimony! I get back to the gig pad and rap w/jeremy of 1000 dollar movie, an opener for tonight AND who's pad we're konking at - most kind of him, truly. he hips me to the fact that the tremont music hall got plowed for condos, damn. played a lot of happening gigs at that pad. damn. we check w/soundman scott - the replacement forte hp amp is way happening, yes. the gig later will be the real test though but I got confidence... I am tuckered though so after I head for the boat and what turns out to be like a three hour solid konk. crimony. mike rousts me - fuck, I popped like moments before, how? my watch says the show's running late - damn, I hate this so much on a work/school night, hate that gig-goers who wanna see you gig play punished like that, just hate it. anyway, the gig is a trippy one but I have a real good time, even w/the clams blown (some mine, some ain't mine), I tap into the flow of the charlotte gig-goers and get real lit by it, I am so grateful. mike's playing another saul koll guitar he's got, he switched out for the one he's been using this morning before we bailed out of gainesville... fuck, if I can't hear him in our starter tune, "the mystery of" and blow by the first set of changes (idiot watt), I holler over to him to get louder please. I stumble some on the bass w/"pillow talk" but I think I do get all the spiel correct for the first time on tour! fuck, I break an 'e' string in "chartacourse" - when's the last time I broke an 'e' string? I have to think fast and use stuff an octave up not to let hodge and mike down. I do get that together but I gotta do a change for the last couple of tunes. you know, watt breaking bass strings - used to do it all the time but that's when I was a more younger man... I have to ask a gig-goer in the front to help me put on a replacement cuz this wattplower being a short scale has it really long for the fit. I do get it on w/his help - HUGE thanks to him (I will give him the broke one when the gig's done) - so happening to be back in the ring but then I fuck up big time on "old crow" and it's all cuz of pilot error, nothing to do w/anything mechanical - WATT'S FUCKING FAULT for being an idiot. damn me. so kind are the charlotte gig-goers though that they give us an encore, whoa, BIG respect to them, truly. we end strong, so glad. I pack up my stuff and then something I hardly do now for some time, I chow something after I play. I have just gotten away from that and try to wait for the morning and break the fast then. however, this nice cat is making real carne asada tacos on a grill on the sidewalk and the smell whups on me big time - I get some and they taste righteous, mi gusta mucho. we get over to jeremy's and jessy's pad and it's a real good time, righteous spirit at their pad, absolute! love it. I hose off - they got dr bronner's soap - crimony - the sugar cane stuff in the green bottle - damn if I don't love the hell of it, fuck yeah! I get the aero air mattress inflated and soon am out cuz I got a date w/the ford dealership on tryon for the boat... first I gotta spiel w/jeremy though cuz that's what us bassbrothers do, correct? yep, big time. wednesday, march 30, 2022 - chapel hill, nc from mike: Jer and Jess - so kind spectre of last night's bogart but, a good ending from watt: pop at a quarter of seven... jeremy soon does likewise and makes me coff, much respect to him. I gotta get the boat's oil changed and tires rotated, it's due at eight. I get her to capital ford here it charlotte right on time and then spend the time waiting chimping diary. can't tell you how chimping diary helps me on tour, really helps somebody like me keep the focus - it ain't no burden in my case, it's kind of like a medicine. the boat ready for another three thousand miles (actually it was 4,055 for this run cuz of the hellride sitch), back to jeremy and jessy's pad get the rest of the crew at ten and a half, both jessy and jeremy's so beautiful w/their kindness to us, HUGE respect to them and gratitude, truly.  I get us on I-85 east w/rain misting on the windshield and skies kind of gray - the good weather couldn't hold forever, correct! most grateful for what we got though - it is NOT taken for granted. me and hodge do our morning ritual, our "musical calisthenics" in order to beat mike's music into us. little by little, it's fucking working! so glad hodge is into helping me w/this. even john coltrane said it's better to play from memory then to read it from a chart and I feel the same way. noon I pull the boat over in high point (where john coltrane lived as a boy after being born in hamlet and before moving to phily) at a "sheetz" for fuel ($3.46/gallon), a little sprinkles from gray skies - that all blue stuff couldn't last forever... however, the apple music device plays... john coltrane! how does it know the shit it does?! crimony. I get us close to the gig pad for tonight, local 506 just after one, the chapel hill skies less gray than the ride here, yatta. we've been really lucky w/lots days of happening weather so I know it can't hold but I'm always hoping... I dropped anchor about half block away but w/the shine cart, that is no prob at all - love that device, everyone on board does. wish we would've had it in the old days... can't believe I made fun of michael for his little one - even kind of named a tour "shinebox" that was kind cack on him and a riff on that bit in "good fellas" - I definitely deserve a karma backhand for that one. I get the house pho (I'm here pho you" is their slogan)... it's simple and good, not festooned and shitted up like that. I go to the boat to rest some... konk takes me briefly. four bells and I bring the boat around - yes, they saved us two spots out front! why don't all gig pads do this? ok, watt's making wishlists, correct? like safe driving, konk pads at gig pads, happening parking, etc... sorry! uncle ray appears (he said it was a three and half hour from his cousins') and so good to see him, he comes w/a sack of canned 'dines, oysters, a box of crackers and a sack of little red wax-covered cheeses, most kind of him. we always were together in cleveland, oh but now he's living in the state north of this one, where I was born: virginia. hopefully he's writing this script for a little movie me and raymond are gonna make/be in involving grigory zinoviev and joe stalin, should be some kind of drama, huh? kind of a uncle ray backhand regarding some current pieces of shit w/their wannabe butch bile we've been having to put up w/the last six years. can't wait for him to bring and me and raymond to do. I loved doing "sir drone" w/raymond... hell, I love doing anything w/raymond, love the man much.  soundman/pad boss rob arrives soon after our load-in... I really dig the gig flyer for this show and ask him who did it - I wish there was more unique stuff for our tour's gig flyers instead of the same ol' same ol' shot of the album cover. ok, I'll stop belly-aching about that... hey, the sun's out now w/the weather 'pert-near like my pedro town, love it! we check w/soundman/pad boss rob - I hip mike to a technique that might make tune count-in's less ambiguous: the go is always after FOUR so if it's a two count, you tell the band "three, four" and if it's a three count (cuz maybe the tune is in three?), you tell them "two, three, four" and that way, there's no doubt on when to start... hope I made some sense - hodge says conductors due it w/a move of their staff. I remember raymond taking me to max roach gigs where his count-ins were just an and - a fucking half-beat, I shit thee not! mike worked on his amp thinking probs he had last night was tubes but instead now thinks it's a bad switch used to attenuate shit. I'll tell you this, the saul koll guitar he's using now uses curtis novak foilers and damn if I don't really dig them BIT TIME- what character they got and I think they're really expressive for his playing. crimony. after check I get a "house dog" a couple doors down at "al's burger shack" that has chili, onions and slaw w/mustard on it, I can dig it - there was a dog place on pch in redondo beach me and my pool cleaner friend tony platon sometimes chowed out and that's where I found out about a "marylander dog" so I'm wondering if they're related cuz they contained pretty much the same stuff... man, I loved tony much (he was the earliest california friend I still had up to then)... died at fifty from apnea... hey, uncle ray has apnea he told me today - said his cat woke him up after he stopped breathing once, crimony - beautiful and most valuable friend! sunshine comes by to say hello, long time since I seen her. whoa. I chimp diary outside the gig pad 'til the sun comes down, the weather's happening... we're konking w/phil tonight and his band tragic assembly is opening the show, most kind of him on both counts - he even said he got some san pellegrino but confuses it w/prosecco and kind of gets the panties kind of bunched up when I try to explain the difference... his closer is that he says he even got me bath salz "if you even care!" in his words. whoa, I truly didn't mean to drop a quarter into that video game response - shame on watt. I am very grateful for all phil has done for me, really I am. sun is down and so is watt in the boat, I really need it. I wanna see phil's new band cuz it's their debut gig. I get right up on the front of the stage to experience it, looking up at them as they bring it: phil on standup bass, charles on drums and bob on bass clarinet and guitar - I dig there atmosphere and spirit of improv, phil working feedback w/his standup (a piezo pickup he's got in the bridge feeds an amp), charles sometime drumming w/one stick (don't think I've ever seen that) and bob "surfing" on top the rhythm section very expressively. faang street is next and I feel bad that they're doing a check after setting up... it's 'pert-near longer than their set (I asked the singerman why they didn't do soundcheck earlier, before doors)... both the bassist and drummer I like a lot, I like what they're doing: it's this trippy loose and tight at the same time... drummie had a great cross-hand technique, both had good feel. singerman also had many machines, electronic stuff and keyboards along w/working guitar so not pure singerman but my guess is they also key on the words being sang but you know, it's only a guess cuz I think each band has their own way of being. our turn right a the scheduled time of ten and a half and some drama's got me kind of weirded out enough to not remove either my yellow jacket or my masuku. I feel kind like a cat hidden away and feeling safe enough to observe so prolly the most this tour I look at the gig-goers, like 'pert-near the whole gig even though the ones here in chapel tonight are totally in the dark so it's really kind of just shadow-like images I got of them. they help me though, I get over the drama some and in two parts of our set where things got tangled and lost, I had enough perspective to get our keel back in the water - even at one point stopping to help get us healthy music-wise. I am usually very scared to look at people when working bass but not tonight, not tonight. I pack up my stuff and then sign things from gig-goers... tragic assembly (he also guested on one faang street tune) bass clarinet/guitarman bob accompanies me out the pad while I push the baredfaced box (I sling the bergantino amp in its purse over my shoulder) and we rap about eric dolphy and joe baiza - two most happening musicians... we talk at the back of the boat 'til soundman/pad boss rob comes by asking for a dos album - I guess miss hiyori slung the last one and we're out, what can I do? he suggests I bring more next time. ok. time for watt to get behind the wheel and ready the boat for phil's pad. thomas from faang street comes up to the hatch and we get to talk about stuff. they're from raleigh, not too far away. I'm so glad he came and rapped to me cuz us music people got a lot in common even though we're on own trips - hell, all us humans have a lot in common! yeah, most happening he came over and we got some spiel going - it's like finishing a gig strong. I'm thinking tonight was a character builder in a lot of different ways. polvo was from raleigh maybe? thomas' bassman reminded me of polvo some... ash bowie really impressed me, always dug his angle w/music - saw him on bass w/helium also. trippy about thinking past when there's trippy stuff right in the moment... the human element is real important - whoa, I think of words thomas was singing tonight about his cat having his back and thinking of a cat I had for fourteen years - I called him "boy" when he was younger and then "man" when he was less younger... brain cancer took him and I could never get another neko cuz that broke my heart so... safe seas for thomas, I ask him to write me at the email address I give him, explaining why I chose that that particular handle for it. phil warned me not to try a road the navigatore gps put us on last time and damn me if I didn't just that but the machi-gai was rectified quick and soon we're at his and shannon's pad. we talk about bass - he wants to know what to do w/his epiphone eb-0 and I tell him the one fix might be the pickup curtis novak builds for it. we tak about studios too and the music projs he's got planned, yeah, "ganbatte phil" I'm thinking. I hose off and get in the nightwear, pretty tuckered - trippy how last time I was here, the next morning I oiled up the boat... too late this time, did it in charlotte this morning! trippy synch though, huh? I konk thinking about that... also - what happened to uncle ray? I never saw him again... said he wanted to send me a link to thelonius monk doc, said it to me a couple of times... thursday, march 31, 2022 - baltimore, md from mike: crossed wires, late pull my coffee cup disappears great crew at Otto from hodge: otto club baltimore, md got there early took a walk got caught in the rain. great sound in this club! adam our 4th man on sound. whole band stayed up till it was april 1st d boon's birthday so much love and respect for that man!!!! woke up did some yoga later miss hiyori and I walked to kay's place for breakfast talked about john bonham's drum tuning miss hiyori plays drums too... from watt: pop at seven, empty the bladder... all I got time for regarding stuff to put in my mouf is coff from shannon... after a little serious spiel (they had a neighbor recently come over and said he couldn't breathe... paramedics came over to get him and later he died at the hosp), I thank her and phil much for all their kindness and go wait in the boat for the eight bell bail BUT... no one heard me calling out the minutes left? guess not. this is a hold-over from one of my jobs w/the stooges: we'd arrive at the venue at least two hours before go-time and the asheton brothers would have me call out the time left before downbeat in around ten minute intervals so I brought the over to my tour stuff to let everyone know when was anchor-pull time was coming down - a lot of cats don't wear watches these days but watt does... I remember getting my first seiko w/my own money so I could look like my pop cuz he wore one - I got it at "ron's jewelry" on sixth street in downtown pedro... twenty after eight we pull anchor w/all aboard, there's a little drizzle coming down. I get us out of the chapel hill-durham zone and onto I-40 for a little (last time on that road this tour) and then northeast on I-85, crossing into virginia (I lived in virginia twice as a boy, also born there but no gig here this tour, I'm so sorry - next time) a quarter of ten then north on I-95 at petersburg. just north of richmond I pull the boat over to get her fueled at a "exxon" ($4.10/gallon) where I also get a quart-sized gatorade bottle (dumping out the poison) to serve as the new piss bottle... sure wish I could find at least half-gallon vessel but this will have to do. we continue towards washington dc... damn if most of the road been real calm w/way less clumps of dangerous assholes and just less traff period UNTIL we get closer to dc and the slow-go starts to prevail. the navigatore gps puts us on to I-395 and we get a tour of the pentagon and the jefferson memorial...  when is sakura peak blossom day this year? one time I was here for that, ONE TIME! loved it. things get slow but for this stich not really that bad and everyone in the boat is most grateful. onto the baltimore-washington parkway, northeast through woods I've been through buttloads of times - there's the offramp (wondered about the sign for this for fuckin years!) for the cryptography museum, one fuckin day I GOTTA check that pad out! trippy: back when I was a boy, my pop told me about there being some "...agencies not publicly acknowledged" and I think the nsa was one of them! it's two bells when we hit downtown baltimore, yatta! onward to just north of the old goucher part... I get us to the ottobar not too much later and we wait for gig boss michael. rain comes down hard for a tiny bit but quits quick, trippy. there's some wind too... gig boss michael arrives at three and we load in - so excited to play w/the messthetics, yes! I am really excited. we set up and then I hobble outside nearby to check out stuff... north is a place w/a yellow awning and from the corner there I try to read a sign in the window - I look closer, it's a coff shop but says it's closed at three... it's a little past that now so I look around, across the road and all around - someone who was praying to his leash asks if he can help me... what? I say I'm just looking around, "things change, things stay the same" - I've played the ottobar a bunch of times and this trip has brought differences I notice in the neighborhood around it... he mutters something and I ask him "what?" and he says something like "this is a high security building and you can't get it" and I'm wondering why the fuck is he telling me that - so I say to him "I ain't trying to get in" like, what the fuck is wrong w/you and your piece of shit assuming fucking pose? I'm on a public sidewalk corner and not even looking at this building or him for that matter once I saw the sign saying the coffee pad was closed. he says "you have a nice day!" in a wannabe butch pouty-lips voice, slams the hatch and gets out of my life, I'm hoping like forever. what a fucking asshole w/his butch little welcome wagon. yeah, I say butch twice cuz that's how pathetic that scene was, can you believe that shit? baltimore is full of very cool people but I guess I won the lotto and got the privilege of being "confronted" by one of the assholes... every town's gotta have some, I guess... crimony, I wanna scrub the whole scene from my brain! ok, breathe deep, watt... across the street is a butcher shop where I get a salad to go and get back to the boat and chow it... real good arugula w/garlic gloves and chunks of beets in it, real good dressing too all tangy and bright green. so glad I found it. still frosts me about that prick w/his foist of 'tude on me though, better wash out of my head. someone must've hurt him, huh? maybe now he feels he has to hurt first. sometimes tour brings you to a fucked sitch and I've learned you gotta swerve to avoid. back at the gig pad, so good to meet anthony, joe and brendan - real good cats and I'm fucking way happy to get to share the stage w/them. we check w/soundman adam - yes, I've worked w/him before - speaking of which, I talk w/gig boss michael about baby leg, a cat I met here when he was partners w/him... he's in cali now I believe. great cat. real easy and happening working w/soundman adam, much respect to him. I meet michael (another one!) from the opener(s) - I say that cuz he's in his man-alone band hellp (sic) and we talk about some bal'mor musicians I know - he knows twig harper but doesn't know door of network glass. I'm a big fan of both, both have been on my show... michael says twig's pad is magic. bitchin. I ask him to check out door cuz that cat is incredible for me w/his jams, crimony. love it much. love people letting their freak flags fly via music - twig does likewise. me and anthony talk outside - he was on my show (so was joe) also and has shared w/me many of his music buddies to be on also - so glad to oblige cuz they're all a mindblow and inspiring. miss hiyori goes w/hodge and gig boss michael to a food court chow pad and she brings me back a korea style wonton soups that's really oishii. oh man, much thank you to her. the messthetics soundcheck is happening, joe shows me his new bass, whoa. brendan's rocking the big sea bell, I holler when he rings it. I go to the boat to chimp diary. I hear sounds from the gig pad and leave the boat for it (we're docked right out front). I rap w/a gig-goer and his son - he asks if all of us ride in the boat and I ask in return if he reads the diary and he says he does but I write too much... damn me. what can I do? I don't try to windbag, just chimp where it can help me, have to admit I don't know how it can help others except that maybe this cat would know I do travel w/mike, hodge and miss hiyori. I have to blow it out but I think in a healthy way - a good purge. I think it ain't that healthy to keep the turd tank full, best to have it emptied soon as possible. I get done just in time (it was only a matter of moments) for michael to begin his hellp set and like last night, I get right up front to witness.  michael does really good, I love it! when he gets done, I ask him about screamers and nervous gender right after cuz I loved them big time - he asks if I ever saw them and I reply fuck yeah, saw them buttloads - dug each and every gig I saw! a beautiful time for watt, beautiful time and I am so inspired by them cats still, I shit thee not! please know michael only kind of reminded me some of that stuff I dug so much in the 70s (and still do) but big time HE had his own thing - he was not some kind of idiot "happy days" wayback machine - no fucking way and it was totally in the moment RIGHT NOW for me, thank you much. michael. let me please again state the obvious for people who were there in the old days: PUNK WAS NOT JUST FAST GUITAR MUSIC! crimony.  the messthetics are next and kick up much dust also, crimony! whoa, brendan's wringing his big ship bell, love it, joe right next to him, working his bass tight... one trippy thing though is before they started, is joe thanking me on the mic for the gig before they begin... I think some folks are confused by this tour, think mike watt is mssv when the reality on the dealio is mssv is mike baggetta's band and writes all the material - even my bass stuff which is actually a first for me, I've never really had that happen before: someone writes me bass parts for their music - nels cline: kind of but w/mssv, I completely let mike man-handle the rudder cuz I like the way he does it, find it interesting and learn much from it. look, I believe you can't learn everything if you're always the boss and that life is about taking turns. ok, we do a tune I wrote for the minutemen in both sets this band is doing this tour ("june 16th") but that's cuz mike asked me to and we recorded a version of it for the first mssv album. it ain't just joe either cuz earlier I heard some gig-goers asking each other "...is mike watt headlining?" - it ain't a fucking mike watt tour, good people - it's a mssv tour, w/me and hodge aboard, helping mike baggetta bring express his music for those who wanna experience that. crimony, not that complicated or mysterious! I don't remember this kind of confusion when I was helping the stooges! crimony. anyway, the messthetics kick up much dust like I said, joe and brendan work bass and drums together so happening for me, I am BIG TIME INSPIRED and anthony brings it on guitar, a band I respect hugely. what a honor to get to share the stage w/them, what a honor. love when stuff like this happens, love it. our turn at quarter of ten. I am lit by the two acts before us, can't thank them both enough - what more precious gift can somewhere share w/me like that, huh? the baltimore gig-goers right away are most generous w/both their spirit and their focus and we try to give as much back. sure, there's clams and mis-starts even, parts counted wrong, notes dropped, beats dropped: all kinds of non-perfect stuff but not enough to roll us over and turn turtle, that keel keeps in the water even w/the heaviest clam "tack" - capito? mssv is getting it together w/the material for this tour, I am happy to report and I ain't trying to break my arm patting ourselves on the back cuz I truly am trying to be critical w/the chimping in this diary regarding that. again mike doesn't break a string and neither does watt. mike's amp doesn't falter either. it's a good gig and I had a good time. we even got an encore, thank you good people of baltimore here tonight, truly. I pack up and talk w/joe of the messthetics, he's digging the twelves much in the barefaced box, respect. I love his focus and his composition so means much. big love to brendan too... I can't find anthony though, damn. I go out to sign stuff and take pictures w/the most kind baltimore gig-goers, much respect to them. I sign bassbrother eddie's bass and then asks me to put a hammer blow on the body anywhere (he brought a clawhammer!) and I do it where the three-eye fish (my pedro town's mascot) is on my wattplower. respect to him, I ask for him to work it well. timmy's here and brought two of his boys - we have a good time spieling. I also do good spiel w/the bartenderman vaughn who's ma was at my baltimore gig ever, minutemen opening for black flag at the marble bar in 1983. crimony. she also had a broken drum stick in her hand at an iggy pop gig there where bartenderman vaugn says ig got his arm all accidentally cut deep by when he stagedived on top of her. crimony. he didn't quit though - that's the ig I know: "RAW POWER BABY, JUST CAN'T QUIT!" I also get to rap w/him about playing w/ray barbee and chuck treece, two righteous musicians who can also skate their balls off, something watt can't even dream of. we did a happening trip for fuel tv once... I'll never forget it - love those cats much. the konk pad is upstairs - yes! love it... it's d boon's bday at midnight, love it! love him!  friday, april 1, 2022 - new hope, pa from mike: dance music all night peruvian food tonight old pad, thanks Howard from watt: for d boon's bday, I shave. I chimp diary. I'm thinking of him and that catches me up. miss hiyori goes w/hodge to get some chow somewhere close... I get brought back two fried eggs, two pieces of toast and a big chunk of salmon - hodge brings the "valentina's" salsa picante from the boat and I make a sandwich out of this stuff and it's good, I dig it. glad the boat is safe, I was a little scared... hodge said he rained hard last night - he konked right by the window and kept a look-see. we left the gear where we played and after eleven can get it in the boat then. we shove off just after noon. there's sun and then there's drizzle, on and off like that the whole ride. the navigatore gps plots a route w/out interstate... I'm think thinking the I-95 is a parking lot so good move. it puts us north on us-1 which is one lane a lot (most times cuz of construction) but it's kind of a trip cuz this is the road that ends up at key largo, the of the florida keys. crimony. I get us through this part of rural maryland I ain't really driven through before safe and then just before two, across the state line into pennsylvania. kind of more of the same out the windows as we go by, a bunch of little towns. better than sitting in a fucking stau - everyone in the boat agrees. on to us-202 and more construction, it's just after four when we reach new hope, which not only is my first time playing here but right across the river is lambertville, nj - home of incredible drummerman bob lee (he replaced hodge in the black gang, is also part of fitted and has done all kinds of music w/me) - one time me + the black gang konked at his ma's pad in lambertville I think after a phily gig - I remember popping in the morning and seeing two wild turkeys in the woods that tripped me out, my first time seeing something like that. new hope was started in 1837, crimony.   john & peter's is the pad we're playing and it's got buttloads of history, has been around since 1972. w/the help of someone friendly, we find the back door and I put the culo of the boat near it w/hodge's help, avoiding the steel handle of a big gomi ('garbarge' in jap) container - the boat don't need to get hurt w/that, thank you hodge. no more rain but the sun is going down and it's a little cool but after rapping w/soundman fred (cool people who saw me in 2017 w/the jom & terry show on tour w/the pups) some, I explore a little outside. this is main street and there's some little shops slinging all kinds of stuff. I get back and wait for hodge to set up so we can soundcheck, chimping diary in the meantime. we have a real good check w/soundman fred, getting stuff more tight - like the tempo w/what I called "lumberin' stumbling" and mike works w/hodge to get kind of what john coltrane did w/elvin jones - he would ask elvin to wail along w/him during solos and have jimmy garrison and mccoy tyner hold stuff down more.  they serve us the chow they make here, I get a turkey sandwich cuz of that incident w/those two wild turkeys I just chimped about. it's on rye - one of the breads I chow now when I do chow bread which ain't much these days. of course my favorite is sour dough, especially this cracked wheat kind I discovered a few years ago but still not even much of that kind. hey, it's helping my health w/not that big of a sacrifice so... man, bites of the big pickle that came w/it in between sandwich chomps is happening - I learning more and more about balancing stuff like they, a trippy kind of "harmony" thing, sort of... likewise stuffing in chips for added "crunch texture" to the "symphony" I'm bringing to my mouf. I then go to the boat and konk, I am fucking beat. I am so sorry to miss el noordzo cuz their mike's buds but I have to make choices like that to protect my health and also my ability to work the bass and drive the boat safely - that HAS to take precedent and I got only so much "gas in the tank" regarding my body and mind. the gig is clean, second one of the tour. we bring our set. it is real good one - prolly in my opinion the best yet of the tour. the new hope gig-goers I think are very much a part of that but so is us three playing together as a band, not just as three persons executing instructions on musical machines that happen to be on the same stage at the same time. there is lots of great eye contact, maintaining both cues and connects in a concrete way. beautiful respect from the gig-goers allowing us to get so tiny w/out yammering bogarting on that. BIG respect to them for that, truly. I load out my stuff and timmy is here again but w/out his boys - he shows me a photo of the little man w/a watt sticker on his guitar though! that's the politics of bass for me: we look good making the other cats were playing w/look good, love it. get the good word from many gig-goers... a cat named mike talks to me about john coltrane's dix hills pad - one day I need to visit big time. he asks me what charley plymell is like and I tell him he's beautiful.  we pull anchor after packing the boat w/our stuff (big thanks to timmy for helping w/the schlep). in a couple of blocks were across the river into new jersey and lambertville... soon we're at ward and erica's, love the short hop from gig pad to konk pad, love it. hose off and into my nightwear, me and hodge have tons of good spiel w/our guests, great cats make for great spiel! thank you so much erica and ward, thank you so much, truly! saturday, april 2, 2022 - northampton, ma from mike: thank you Erica nice return to the homeland so many kind folk from watt: pop just after eight, whoa. need to hose again too... love this bar of blue soap thye got here. downstairs again to join everyone, there's more great spiel (round II, the morning version) w/ward and erica along w/our crew about all kinds of stuff, ward cooks up steel-cut oatmeal (love this stuff and chow it all the time at my pad), scrambled eggs and bacon. of course it started w/coff. so kind, erica and ward, truly. we don't bail 'til eleven and a half - it's a real good time. mike also got me a set of bass strings which is good cuz I need a spare just in case. $32.50 for "dr" kind even though I use d'addario (same company d boon used), it's piece of mind for me - don't wanna let the mssv team down. we all pony up into the boat, I ask ward if I can anoint where the boat was anchored, he is most kind and relents and then we bid farewell to him and erica, such great cats!  w/blue skies above, we're back over the river via us-202 into new hope, pa but after a couple of miles, mike asks what the fuck is going on when I check to see what route the navigatore gps has planned for us to get to west mass, it show some wack trip to chicago to get there, CRIMONY! this is fucked up. we use his leash to get us whence we came, now we're back in new jersey and north instead of south on us-202... it's fucking insane what that machine was telling us so just to have a look-see, I find the settings and sure enough, "avoidance" has the "no tolls" box ticked - fucking idiot watt! you're gonna try and drive in the u.s. northeast and avoid tolls? forget about it! I get the navigatore gps right w/this now we're given a route that makes some fucking sense. we hit I-78 just before one and take that north... not long after I get us off for fuel for the boat at a"exxon" ($4.40/gallon) at warren. when we meet the garden state parkway (toll road!) an hour later, I take that north 'til it ends at the border w/new york and get on I-95 which gets us over the hudson via the tappan zee bridge which I guess is now named after mario cuomo just after two... fifteen minutes later we're in connecticut at hartford get on the I-91 to springfield and a quarter four were in our fifth state for today, massachusetts... we get into northampton at quarter of four, the pedro-like weather held the whole trip and I am most grateful. tonight we're at the northampton center of the arts which looks like a community event kind of pad - actually who's putting on the gig are the flywheel people but I think they lost their pad and prolly rented a room here for us to play in. acoustically it's gonna be a real challenge - we load into this big high-ceiling hardwood decked square "hall" which prolly will sound like we're in bowling alley or roller rink if we ain't careful. we discuss the gig we did back in beacon, ny during our last tour back 2019 and how we met that venue challenge by playing small and it turned out to be a righteous gig. the same strategy might be in order tonight, let's see.. I hobble a few blocks to a chow pad called "local" and get a grass fed burger to go and chow it on the way back. j's older brother mike mascis of the warblers comes by and we have a good long spiel, real nice being w/him rapping about all kinds of stuff. he told me he wrote thirty-something tunes during the sitch, can't wait to have him on my show again. he tells me j is really into pedaling these days and there's lots of paths around the towns out here. respect. the flywheel guy jeremy (his partner is david, in the opening act and providing our konk pad for tonight) gas gotten us thai but since I chowed that burger, I mainly just have the broccoli he brought - w/the included siracha, I'm way into it. we do real quiet half a soundcheck for us cuz of the sitch and the it's out to the boat w/je so I can konk cuz those spiels in last night and this morning in lambertville really tuckered me out. crimony. I need all the blankies w/got cuz it's a fuckin ice box but the none the less I konk hard. I get rousted by mike and damn if I ain't gotta piss like a race horse. damn if I don't get my cazzo out of the levis for the first part and piss all down me like, damn me. fuck it - look a the time... we're fuckin past due AGAIN, third time this tour... arrggghhhh, I hobble to the pad w/the bajo. j's there by my amp! so is luisa! so is murph! murph's tripping on my tiny amp trip - I tell him "you look out" - he's be warned. I then get real bummed - fuck, they gotta bail soon... j says "play the hits" - damn it. cuz of the fuckin thing running over, the cat I wanted so much to show him the headway we've made since he last saw us (three yeas ago in this town, even joined us on the stooges' "fun house" at the end), has been bumrushed by this fuckin drama. I am pissed. I still wanna do my best for mike and hodge though but do not take of my jacket or hat or masuku. I am angry. the northampton gig-goers do bring a silver lining to the bummer cloudburster though, some of them dancing most beautiful so I just gotta let it go and try my best for everyone, even those I disagree w/cuz it's just the best thing to do I think... bitter crap won't help. the acoustics make for a sitch where I can't hear mike's spiel in "pillow talk" but he adapts where he finds me and works it out, he is truly a listener in the moment that doesn't need everything scripted, he can adapt. except for that, I think I kept it together and for some no-ojos in the early parts, hodge and me get it together for mike and the people. what I call "wig jig" is a little pokey but maybe that was meant to be for tonight, maybe lots of stuff... still really bums me out about j though... crimony, I got to say like maybe eight fuckin words to him. fuck. we finish up and I bow deep a bunch of times, start putting away my stuff when I get harassed by I don't know who cuz I won't turn around - I say "give me just three fuckin minutes, please! I can spiel lots after but please give me three goddamn minutes to get this stuff together so I don't goddman space and donate shit!" I'm very upset that I had to get upset like that cuz I am BIG TIME most grateful for people supporting gigs I'm part of, TOTALLY am. I take no one for granted. thank god when I turn around it's peter prescott I first recognize - I love this man!  mssv is playing monday w/his burma bandmate roger miller - damn, we all three should've shared a bill, huh? crimony. dig his current band minibeat a real lot too. damn, we need to all play together, we NEED to big time! I can't remember bill t miller's name like a fuckin dementia'd bozo w/memory like a gnat - crimony, I am so disappointed w/myself so much some times... my jaded azurites bandmate karen schoemer also is here but I get confused/bumrushed kind of by bill t miller - damn, I couldn't remember his name but knew that voice cuz he's been my show twice now, that latest was last new years. arrrgghhhh, what a spaceman I am! embarrassed, I sign stuff including a box a cat used to house a broken bass string of mine, beautiful. however, I also react bad to something that's getting me more and ready to go out of my mind w/ - hearing about "back in... " stuff so w/out even thinking it through I come back w/some of MY "back in..." history - I reveal my the first gig I saw: it was t-rex and it was w/d boon in 1973 at the long beach auditorium. no one's got an older mike watt story than that so I think it makes people think that maybe I don'w wallow in that kind of "potsy/fonzie/happe days" crap BUT I do want them to know how grateful TRULY I am that they didn't give up on me and are still here to see me now. you can't know how much I really I feel I owe them for that rather than hearing about "old days" and stuff that's only, uh only just what it is: nostalgia and sentimentalism. what's vital I think is now and them supporting me which also me try my hardest NOW and not trying to rest on my laurels or whatever the fuck just cuz I ain't been killed yet. when I do get killed, yes, that's all you'll have is memories of watt BUT as long as watt is alive and trying hard to live up to what he's been so lucky to be a part of, then maybe that's what makes it worth being someone to be still part of somebody's life art-wise instead of just a memory that can all only fade, not something dynamic that can interact in the moment w/like a guy like mike baggetta who's twentytwo years younger than me or stephen hodges who's six years older - why is is so hard for some people to find value in that and instead wanting to spend so much energy on some kind of "history lesson" that is more like a monologue they prepped up than a real conversation about the gig they just saw? this really trips me out. we load-out and for the temp kind of colder than witches tit in a brass bra, the can of water I got is like body-temperature! oh man, sounds like watt's just belly-aching about everything tonight, huh? actually, there were things I did dig about the gig cuz I dig playing w/mike and hodge and felt good stuff while we were playing from the northampton gig-goers. I'm sorry I was too tired to see david's vex party gig (just too tuckered and was konked hard in the boat) but him letting us konk at his pad was beautiful and damn hosing off in his hot shower was fucking righteous. I also felt he had the boat safe for us too. thank you so much, david, truly. sunday, april 3, 2022 - new york city, ny nyc from mike: good weather holding big score with the parking space Shellshag slays, great crowd from hodge: new york city mercury lounge check this out: pulled up in front of the club got loaded-in right away (parking can be really tough in nyc) next watt gets a fine fine parking spot across the street from the club. katz's deli famous eatery has a waiting line a block long. after sound check watt goes to katz's no line walks right up to the counter and makes his order. after the gig we load all my gear on watt's shine cart wheel across this major 4 lane city street on the green light. so many bits and pieces working in our favor. i love working in new york city.  from watt: pop at seven, empty the bladder, do email check and get this from a buddy in texas: there is a wet conflagration love brother chris and feel for him much cuz he needs ANOTHER fucking hip replacement cuz he can't walk now... damn, my heart goes out to him, really does. back here in northampton: man, it was samui here last night... the aero mattress holding up good though. yes! coff it up and then catch the hoot page up. I get david "the prisoner" from my macpurse onto his - my favorite tv show as a boy, got all seventeen episodes they made committed to memory and flow him as little mp4 that can scale up ok. we pull anchor at nine and a half, thank david much for all his kindness.  there's thin clouds along w/blue but that don't last... as we had down I-91 whence we came yesterday towards hartford, rain begins but it's light. no sounds except for mike talking w/me - I can't tell you how much him spieling w/me as we roll has kept me alert and more safe at the wheel, can't tell you... it's really tough when you got "meat wagon duty" which is what I call only the wheelman conscious on board... big time man-alone mode and can't thank mike enough for his help all tour w/this. I get us into connecticut just before ten and thatville, njt at new haven, get us south on I-95. miss hiyori uses the crackers and the 'dines (w/senf) along w/the "valentina" salsa picante to provide w/me w/chow while I dive, very kind of her. there's a long tradition of chowing the wheelman this way in my boat... at eleven and a half, pull the boat over in the rain (just started a little while ago at a "mobil" w/just thirteen miles of connecticut left before we hit new york - so cal price here: $4.60/gallon. you know, they got air here, let me check the front tires' pressure of the boat - what fifty pounds?! should be sixty, I get that happening. rear are fine. I mean what the fuck? the sticker that says what should be what is right inside the drivers hatch. crimony. the rain starts coming down, we're in new york stage now and the navigatore gps seems to wanna get us in to south manhattan via the tri-boro bridge (now called rfk) and then on to the fdr expressway which it does a half hour ahead of our scheduled two pm load-in time at the mercury lounge, where we're playing tonight. the team is tight w/a quick load-in w/the flashers on and then I got loop it forever to look for parking. my usual spots east of essex around the park are all took and there's cones everywhere BUT damn if on the north side of houston, right across from the gig pad has got stuff free and w/no fucking no park sides or red painted curb, yatta. right at my ten o'clock is katz's but it's got a line and in this damp cold - no chopped liver sandwich this time, damn. instead, mike gets me a salad somewhere close (he lived in nyc for fifteen years) w/chicken added along w/beets and some whole peeled hardboiled eggs. good. I wait for the soundcheck due for four and chimp diary, the cold damp sure does a job on my knuckles though. crimony. four bells and mike let's me know it's time to check w/soundman gideon who thinks he needs a direct box but not after he here's the direct from the bergantino forte hp amp. the proof is in the pudding, huh? we check only two numbers (usually do six) and then it's back to the boat... crimony if I don't see NO LINE at "katz's" though and head for there and in a surprisingly little time, get a chopped liver sandwich w/mustard and pickles, YATTA!!!   in the boat I chow most but not all of it cuz damn if it ain't a buttload! so good, love it... eight slices of pickle also very happening number! I take a big chomp of sandwich and then a bit of pickle, right in the mouf, one after another, just like "the zipper" in a way when we're on the road and sharing it good when two lanes go down to one, fuck yeah. I think konk hard cuz I ain't got much time - it's a six and a half go-time for tonight's gig... our buddies shellshag opened and there's NO prob w/stall/bogart w/these folks, they are beautiful w/their conscious. I make my way across the street (again, how fucking lucky to get this spot) and get to the gig pad, make my way through the gig-goers (they're most kind to help me) and up the stairs (yatta, they got a handrail here!) and wait a few minutes and then get what mike calls the "b side setlist" going... hodge ain't using his electronic cuz of the time sitch (the gig pad is doing two shows tonight) - it's a good set w/much respect/focus from the manhattan gig-goers. minimal clams from watt and really good connect between us three mssv guys for tonight in my opinion... I was thinking of my buddy raymond who lives in manhattan now but can't be here cuz of a hurt knee, man, I miss him so much... so much. god, a pain in my heart missing him.  after the encore it's a quick clear-out by the gig pad staff cuz of the next show getting underway so not a lot of spiel w/people but I do get help from some gig-goers w/both the schlep of my stuff to the boat and then up and in her. albert's here, crimony - beautiful! love this man! he's got a big piece going and asked me to do spiel for one part - HUGE honor for watt, gonna do it right after I get back to my pedro town.  atina's here too, she's gonna update my bio soon (need to talk about mssv!) - she's always done so much for me, so much... I owe her buttloads. this man spiels w/me at the boat's window (I get to the wheel pretty quick usually), 'til it's time to go - says he doesn't wanna bogart my time... very kind. we shove off for shell and jen's pad in the greenpoint part of brooklyn, such a bitchin pad they got here: we can lock the boat up safe here in a gated yard - I shit thee not! nothing like having the boat safe cuz it's the center of our touring universe! crimony. after some water w/bubbles in it down the throat, I hose off and get in the nightwear quick as I can, damn if I didn't really need that - especially the hosing off part which feels so fuckin good and healthy, truly... thank you BIG TME, shell and jen. so trippy getting here just after eight - by ten I'm out solid cuz damn if I needed it and shell and jen so very kind to provide what they can to make it happen: a most calm loving sitch. monday, april 4, 2022 - cambridge, ma from mike: nine hours in bed, wow knee brace acquired for me lots of good people from watt: pop at six and damn if I don't feel better... I was SO fuckin sore last night, so sore - especially that around the starboard part of the neck/back of top part of starboard shoulder - fuck, I this part here from a bad konk back in JULY, crimony! watt is a slow healer in his less younger days. the bad konk came from a giant beanbag that used to be good but thank god I called the city and had then come get it after my missingmen drummerman raul helped me move it to the alley cuz I was too yowai ('weak' in jap) to do it myself. back to the rugged deck helped me big time. I also hurt my lower back but that healed in month - NOT the case w/this other hurt but bit by bit it is getting way better, even w/the stress of tour. I chimp diary to catch up... shell talks to me and hodge about health stuff when you're less younger and I share w/him my two days of elliptical trainer then one day of waterfront hobble in my pedro town - that's my crack-of-dawn physical ritual to help me keep me healthy. the other (starting two years ago w/the sitch) was cutting out sugar and salt much as far as what I'm putting in my mouf. fuckin lost thirty pounds cuz of that, I mean the diet thing cuz I started pedaling jitensha again in 1996, then paddling kayay in 2002 but physical activity is only part I've finally learned - you gotta pay attention to what goes in the mouf... I did not scissor carbs but instead more of the ones I like that are good like brocc and cauliflower and less of the... someone told me "if it comes in box, you're going OUT in a box!" - truth be told. I did not scissor fats but instead more of what I like that are good like olive oil, grass-fed butter and avacados. I did not scissor proteins but instead more of what I like that are good like wild salmon fillets, turkey patties and beans. I scissored all beverages except for filtered water (I switched from britta to pur, WAY better) from the fridge except for a morning coff when I pop at the crack. this kind of stuff is what has helped me. now tour is different BUT I try to keep it steady as she goes, along the same lines of back in my pedro town but having to deal w/what's available, that kind of sitch. jen brings me a roll that's got scrambled eggs and bacon in it. both her and shell are so kind, beautiful cats, truly. we pull anchor at ten and a half, sky full of blue, yatta! why do I have to chimp here "but of course" but damn if motherfuckers right away start sweating the safety trip w/those in our boat? asshole on the leash cutting us off and threading the needle via imaginary shoehorn shit, crimony. asshole honking horns or passing on the right in total danger dan moves, why? cuz their life is so fucking boring they do this kind of shit for excitement? or is some kind of "dick extender" for those afraid to try and write a song, paint a picture or write a story? motherfucker fuckin w/our lives - there's too and for FUCKING WHAT - TO PROVE THEY ARE SELFISH PIECES OF SHIT? somehow we make safe it off long island via the whitestone bridge and onto I-95 and I get us into connecticut just after eleven, HUGE-ASS plug cuz of a wreck, someone rolled snake-eyes w/their bullshit behavior and here's the consequences... only half an hour of total stop though - that's why we budget in at least an hour or more on top of what the navigatore gps guess for a recommend. from new haven (where k was born and doug wimbish has his wimbash) a quarter after noon I get us into massachussets a quarter after three and pull us off at the first rest stop to dump but there's no head! crimony. minutes later I find a "mobil" and mike fuels the boat for $4.20/gallon - he always fuels the boat from the pump which is something trippy for watt, no pay in advance and then get change/receipt ritual for me, getting used to that. back on the road, we get on the richie blackmoore turnpike - all the signs are now uniform (different exit numbers now too, the more rational miles method instead of the baka sequential way)... there used to be several versions of that pilgrim hat (buckle included) the deep purple lead guitarman use as part of his fancy dress. I see three intellectuals w/stickers soliciting sex w/the president here in mass, more than what I saw in the entire west/south part of our tour (seeing only one after driving four thousand miles plus for that leg), shows to go you, huh? we get into the cambridge part of boston a quarter before the four pm load-in time at the upstairs part (thank god we're playing there instead of downstairs) of middle east - next door to wear I played a buttload of gigs, tt the bears - very missed by watt in lots of ways... this is where someone gave me that anchor necklace during my first opera tour... I get a little sad thinking back but then... whoa, here's jim and holly of bergantino audio systems - MUCH respect to them! this forte hp amp is just so happening for me, so happening - crimony! that bad power in the old building we played in memphis (was not the boss brian's fault, just old and I didn't use a surge protector like a baka) took it out and now I can give it to jim, his man lee flowed the shop one I'm using in the meantime and I also got the forte d lee sent me before the tour just for back-up which is really good too... I don't wanna over-hype or sound like froth and foam but damn, is the right machine for watt. so good to rap w/jim and holly about stuff and also let the know some about me and how I work music now which is A LOT like how I worked it forty years ago in a lot of ways. one BIG diff though is a six and a half pounds 1200 rms watt amp that really fucking kicks like kato - no compromises w/the lead sled stuff in my mind here, actually it's more down the road to translate what I'm trying to work on the bass to the gig-goers. jim designs and holly does spiel for the company, jim wants me to spiel w/holly after the tour and of course I'm into that cuz how can people choose not to get one of these amps if they don't know about it? I want other bass wraslers to know there's choices out there they can try out. so glad to meet jim and holly, so glad - I could rap w/them forever but they gotta get their son from logan airport.  we do the load-in and soundcheck w/soundman sterling, he's into being fourth man. much respect.  roger arrives w/his trinary system band - yeah, we get to share the stage tonight w/them! roger saw the first boston minutemen gig - that's where I first met him - at the channel forty fuckin years ago, the huskers! so good catching up w/him. I then go get chow down mass av at a china chow pad called "5 spices house" and get some "house seafood soup" I chow back at the gig pad while doing a mssv gig w/john from a college station. mike tells him his way of composing mssv tunes is to write the bass part first - YES! (in my mind I have fist in the air about this) I watch roger and his guys soundcheck, digging it though some dick comes from across the street (where some fuckin condos are) and slams the hatch, goes back to his habitrail - what the fuck? I go to the boat and konk hard. mike rousts me minutes before our scheduled go time, RIGHT on time. - YES, roger ain't no bogart, he's a true brother. we bring our set - bill t miller here again right up front and I see hi to him during the first tune. there's some cambridge gig-goers dancing, yatta! hodge ain't using his electronics but that has nothing to do w/him playing good which he's doing, lots of good ojos for watt too, respect. cuz of the fucked drum monitor permanent sitch, I can't be back there w/him but we endure. no big clams from anybody at all on our end and buttloads of good will from the cambridge gig-goers. for me the gig's a real success... on a school/work night too. shows to go you, I am most grateful for so much today. I get the good word from many kind people and bill t miller again (round I was in two days ago in northampton)...  I get to spiel more w/roger - he's got a buttload of music projs coming and I can't wait to get into them! respect. photoman tim bugbee is here - gonna see him next month at the solid sound festival - he's gonna do a spiel w/me and nels there - small world! crimony. we lost our before-tour planned konk pad we usually stay at when here cuz of an emergency but just like that (like in one day two days ago!), mike got us a konk pad in westborough, like twentyseven miles west and I get us there at brian and margo's pad before midnight, yatta! by the way, the oddometer reads 5,252 miles so far for the tour (I've driven every one of them), keeping our eye for the next oil change - maybe illinois or indiana? for the love of the boat, has to get done, correct? don't get to meet margo but brian is righteous people so she must be too. I hose off and get into the nightwear, great showerhead here: giant square one that's real bitchin. aero air mattress still working great, I'm on it after a little spiel w/brian and hodge, most grateful I konk. tuesday, april 5, 2022 - portland, me from mike: Margot, Brian... clutch! nice walk on the waterfront amp fail, good gig, sleep from hodge: sun tiki studios, portland, maine arrived at the gig early had time to roam the streets... found a cool barbershop my barber was from Egypt i like how he cut it. made me look like my little dog cosmo, cosmo always has great hair!!   from watt: pop at seven bells, real good konk - the aero air mattress comes through again, yatta! sun is out, pedro-style but maybe a few degrees cooler? brian helps w/coff, says a storm is on it's way. I guess he just moved into this pad - says boston itself is just too expensive to live in and maybe that's the way things are gonna be - mike chimes in on this, saying artistic people maybe will have to go where it's econo enough and the connect through the internet cuz the big cities are chasing out anyway of "jamming econo" or stuff like that. I tell them both that's why I stayed in pedro! brain talks to mike and hodge about the record store thing and how shit ends up like playing margins on the stock market, even w/young people. do they buy records cuz they really like them or is like some kind of game of flipping shit like tech bros do w/assets (or is asshats?) or broker bros w/hedge funds or dealer bros w/art gallery crap or... man, could be really bleak if you actually get a reality on the dealio, huh? the younger people (the next shift) have a challenge w/values that's for sure, inheriting like what the hell? I do think it's gonna come down to people somehow cuz "the system" or whatever is the lingua franca seems it could cave in w/out notice, w/out a plan - everything on hold, holding on... onto what? where is the value - is it about getting over by flipping something for the sake of that only? I see it happen on sites supposedly devoted to bass - I know some cats love working bass there but the cb radio perspective I feel kind of keeps stuff good and shallow, promotes the know-it-all boaster maybe not better side of humanity thing but that don't bug me as much as not taking responsibility for heaving horseshit into people's lungs and I mean that to mean it's 'pert-near like to suffocate folks. crimony. cw mccall is gone now? that kind of ethics, huh? not real name? nope. I guess that makes it ok. lots of the punk rockers I dug had fake names, most of them. irony? maybe. anyway this guy just died the same day (not the same year) d boon was born... our "double nickels on the dime" album name came from d boon not digging a certain person using the name "red rocker" driving on the road crazy but playing safe music, d boon said us minutemen did the opposite (drive safe and play crazy music) so I came up w/that title to illustrate that... the stuff people protest, right? so much of the 70s I'm glad punk saved me from (including new wave!), 80s too - saved me from alternative also in the 90s. thurst told me he thought me and d boon had fake names. life is a trip, hard to make sense. hard to chimp diary? so much "accident" came together to make "double nickels..." so much to bring it together: the huskers doing their "zen arcade" after we finished an album's worth - "fuck, why don't we write more so we can have one too!" - inspiration, crazy where it comes from! d boon's and georgie's words for that album (actually georgie's last one's for us ever, damn) came from them while on the job: d boon was doing driving for the van pool at his job at nichol's institute in pedro besides other things and he would jot down "thoughts" for me to use for lyrics (if d boon wrote lyrics that rhymed, they were for HIS tunes, no fucking way I was getting them! I didn't mind though, not all - I loved his words no matter what) so they were kind of not so "formatted" but like the book I had just finished reading and influenced 'pert-near every tune I wrote for that album, "ulysses" - "stream of consciousness," correct? that book always gets called that and for sure I think (!) that's what the main cat leopold bloom is doing through the whole thing. anyway, georgie's sitch was similar: at the time he had a job that started at the crack of dawn working a lathe at a machine shop and he'd write on little pieces of paper stuff I could use to help make my songwriting (in my mind) more original and less like building tract homes or some such bullshit - this sitch got him also into "stream of consciousness" mode. so trippy i was kind of "conscious" of this but for sure I think d boon and georgie weren't - they were in "DO" mode to be "self-conscious" about it - the big diff between stephen dedalus and mr bloom in the book, correct? even w/mr bloom "thinking out loud" (also d boon's way of describing song lyrics - remember he thought the "political part" of the minutemen was not the words but the way the music was organized - nels cline talks about that in the "we jam econo" doc), it's still a kind of "stream of consciousness" trip, correct? fuck if chimping tour diary can be kind of "stream of consciousness" trip... thinking about my electric shop teacher mr donahue, VERY cool people, loved this man, inspired me to want to learn more and more - had him all three years at pedro high, three hours a day... I remember I had some classmates there making like 1000 watt linear amps to wail over the cb limit of five watts - for what? just to get heard? crimony. mr donahue taught me to use knowledge to learn more about living life, to apply it to something really helpful... I'm thinking of something john coltrane once said: "I want to be a force for real good. In other words: I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."brian cooks me up scrambled eggs w/cheddar/swiss cheese, very kind, truly. he tells me he believes in the young people - I think it sounds like I'm 'pert-near begging him too. yesterday mike told me he's amazed I'm "optimistic" about drivers we share the road w/and why do I seem disappointed when people act like pieces of shit on the road. I asked him if he ever read mikhail bulgakov's "the master and margarita" - the part where yeshua gets the procurator all pissed by using the address "my good man" - something like that maybe. brian's so kind to us, letting us pull anchor at noon even. he is a good man. I get the boat to the I-495 belt road and head northeast, skies blue but not warm... I'll settle for it! no music for this trip (only two hours) but we still are committed to our daily "musical calisthenics" regarding the new mssv stuff. by one-twenty we're on the I-95 and soon into new hampshire - I remember this state liquor store w/the sign on the interstate for it in the days when massahussettes sold no alcohol on sundays and this store prolly made some money cuz of that, huh? whoops. soon we're in portsmouth (not the virginia one where I was born) and then into maine - 'pert-near portland we pull over to let hodge dump - I tell him it's ok any time to let us know cuz that shit's poison and needs to go... they say for every meal there should be a dump.  a half hour later we're near the university of southern maine at a former tanning salon converted to a prac pad/gig pad called the sun tiki studios and mccrae from whale oil has gotten this together, he's also in the opening band midwest medicine. we're an hour early but soundman keith's very cool and we get to set up... mike's power amp is now out of the race cuz of that lameass switch. damn. I got the back-up bergantino forte d amp (speaking of back-ups, since the new hope, pa gig I've been wearing my back-up john coltrane pin on my gig shirt cuz I think I donated it either there or at ward and erica's pad in lambertville - baka watt) though and we try to use that but the speakon (my advice is to always use neutrek - it's from experience!) to a 1/4" phono plug (terrible for power applications but what can you do?) cable keith gives us lames out - turns out it's fucking wired wrong so it's keith to the rescue to getting it wired correct. hodge also gets his variable hpf/lpf and compressor/limiter boxes together also, they were shipped to shell and jen's but he's gonna try them tonight - they work good, more punch, less harsh highs - alright hodge! mike's gonna also try this recommend I got him - well, two: one he tried actually last night, on his knee cuz it's hurting him... a brace under his pants. the other thing he's trying tonight, turning his cab sideways so it's one speaker on top of each other instead of side by side. check email and david from northampton has sent me this link on a book regarding the shakespeare authorship question (this cat alexander waugh has been tripping on this for a while, I've seen all his spiels when I'm on the elliptical trainer!) and mike's sent me on this movie about "the lost rock and roll of cambodia" (see it here for now?) - all stuff I find interesting... some of the good stuff about the internet I can dig truly. miss hiyori brings me a turkey sandwich from an italian chow pad not far away, very kind of her. skipper neil from the good ship dora arrives and we have a real good spiel catching up... he sold "dora" but has another boat - he wants to take me sailing again, last time was in 2014 w/the only u.s. tour il sogno del marinaio ever did ever did - his lady raises goats now and we talk about wack unfixed males can get. crimony. I also talk w/the midwest medicine guys backstage while I chimp diary, tell them about my pop's life in the navy - he was only nineteen when I was born, can't imagine but here I am, I miss talking w/him so sometimes I "conjure" him back by telling people about what I know of his life. at eight bells it's their cue to bring the gig... I'm told it's clean, yatta, third one of the tour! I watch these local cats open the gig right on time, ending the same way: right on time, much respect to them. they truly have their own way of doing music - I really like the way mccrae works his bass and his two bandmates are very expressive, very open w/their feelings and they play together well as band. drummerman brain goes way back w/mccrae, you can feel and they both support brock much - hey, brock was on my show five years ago, crimony, now I remember!  our turn and cuz of our buddies being on time, so are we - thank you! also big thanks to the portland gig-goers cuz right away they bring, including some dancers to help watt no be so afraid... yeah, I still get afraid at gigs. seems mr jim bergantino's amp has come to the rescue for mike, he sounds strong. hodge's new stuff has got him punchier also - he sends everything from his own mics and mixer to a single xlr to the mixerman 'pert-near every gig this tour and it's been happening, MUCH respect to him and for the soundcats we've worked w/for being open-minded about it. there's some yammering but not bad - you know when you work dynamics hard at a gig, especially where's there's alcohol, you can really set yourself up for some big hells if things get fucked but damn if it ain't worth the risk cuz I really think dynamics are part of the whole enchilada concerning music, I really do... decrescendo can be "louder" than crescendo even, crimony! we get an encore, thank you so much, most kind people here, on a school/work night even. I get the good word from many kind portland gig-goers... some work at a local brewery that came up w/an ale they called "watt" and the can is festooned all-flannel like! this crew is a very happy crew - I wonder what the stuff the made tastes like... I'm a little afraid cuz I ain't big on ale... I don't wanna be like a fucking ingrate... I'll taste some later (for years I never play or drive even on the tiniest amount of booze). I meet a cat who used to run a venue in this town called "zoots" - whoa, that was a little bit ago, huh? of course I meet some bassbrothers, always love these co-conspirators of mine, trying to look good making the other cats they play w/look good - or is it "sound" rather than "look" - yeah, that's it - real good politics as far as I know. everyone gone, we keep the stuff up on stage cuz we're konking backstage here tonight. we get every blankie we got from the boat cuz I think we're gonna need it. I try a couple sips of the "watt" ale... mazui, real mazui for watt - I'm sorry. I think if I was asked what kind of "beer" I would put in a can w/my name on it I'd choose an ice cold lager like from japan or mexico, something real crisp to quench thirst cuz that's what I've always used beer for. this is tastes like most ales taste like to me: pipe rust. it ain't the ale's fault though, I think it's mine. so sorry. those cats were real nice too, truly. no shower here so into the nightwear and I konk - it's before eleven, yatta! wednesday, april 6, 2022 - winooski, vt from mike: too cold, early split shipped power amp for repair good times with Creston from watt: pop at six, fuckin ice box but the blankies did the job... layers, people, layers - like heian period in japan where the junihitoe kimonos had TWELVE fuckin layers - layers is how you do it! crimony. I wash my mouf and starboard ear out w/hydrogen peroxide - yeah, the starboard one cuz I feel a little something there and damn if it boils up when I douse it... gotta keep vigilant w/the health trip on tour. I get an email from jim bergantino, he's fixed my amp and is bonusing it up for me, yatta! here's what he wrote me: "...The surge only took out a resistor on the main circuit board which was associated with the +15V power supply that powers the positive rails of the op amps. I replaced the resistor in the -15V supply too just in case it was compromised..."  man, what a beautiful thing humans can be for each other w/the one on one when it's sincere, I am truly most grateful. his stuff had done so good for me since I've been using it, so good. I can really give it the go and it can take it. my tours are not soft and gentle... some of my playing is but some is definitely not. crimony. the knowing is in the doing and here I am w/the gig-goers, his amp in between... and bringing it! crimony. fuck, why wait for our planned eleven bells bail, why not pull anchor now? load-out w/the gear and "suddenly they left" at eight and a half... hodge wants us to stop on the way out of town at a "trader joe's" (the one in pedro has a painting of the minutemen from a picture of us at the l.a. street scene the bulkhead in the northwest corner) he saw on his travels yesterday... turns out there's a ups store right across the road so mike can ship his freyette broken amp (cuz of a lame switch) back to the company where it can get fixed, yatta. ok, 'til next time: bye bye starboard-side portland. I wheel us south on I-95 (in these parts: maine turnpike, still has human toll gatherers - forgot to chimp that yesterday) even though a more direct route to winooski is across the white mountains - why risk such a move w/the quick-change weather here plus a buttload of switchbacks to wear me out EVEN THOUGH bassbrother mccrae's recommend that is was "scenic"), across the piscataqua river and into new hampshire twenty of ten and then on to state road 101 (not the us-101 in cali!) to manchester and then back to interstate world w/east on I-93 'til it's ten and a half, I then pull us over at a king of kitsch contender joint called "the common man roadside" to fuel the boat ($4.40/gallon) in hooksett.  at concord it's northwest on I-89 w/the weather getting better as we go along, yatta! ten of noon we cross into vermont and (yes, they got green rocks here, hence the name), I get us to the middle of winooski (I chimped that cuz we're half a little block from center and main streets) just before one and a half to find a coned-off slot of parking that's way happening in front of the monkey house w/skies full of blue and... like five or six military jets making more noise then you could believe, I shit thee not. damn is it urusai ('noisy fucking loud' in jap) and it freaks mike out much, he hollers "I gotta get the fuck out of here!" but luckily it relents... there's a big building near that has the date 1862 on it - crimony, that's a year into our civil war... olde-timey! we're four hours early but pad boss ali is most kind and let's us do our load-in now. w/that done, I then go a couple doors down and get a real good rueben sandwich at... hodge comes up and said the last two tickets just got sold - tonight is clean, fourth one of the tour, yatta! man, this sandwich is good eats, more yatta. I chimp diary and rest up til soundcheck w/paddy and tim - yeah, two cats cuz paddy is learning tim about this room which has got some old tin roof tiles and a big hardwood floor. since the gig is clean though, many flesh sacks will change things come showtime. I take direction for soundman tim cuz you know about bass throwing way far from where the bass amp is so... thank you soundman tim and thank you soundman paddy for worrying about me getting off stage, he's got a milk crate to help but even more critical is something to hold on to and he says he'll offer his arm which is bitchin IF he's solid as a wrong when I grab on. I met paul and adam from the openers, locals called aspero saicos and they seem like cool people. round II for watt where I got the rueben but this time it's a "southern" chicken sandwich... let's see how that works up here. I heard that sly stone said "it's not where you're from, it's where you're at" and that's always made real good sense to me, real good sense.well, fifteen dollars for a sub-popeye's five dollar make you holler burnward special? it's down there w/that "salad" I got at that subway in oklahoma earlier in the tour... never again will I get "muled" at this joint - very baka watt has been spanked... expensive lesson. just after eight and a half aspero saicos hit and I can hear them real good in the boat - trippy singing, very committed... now I undersand when paul from the band told me "peruvian" cuz I hear lots of espanol and kind of garage trip - you know "garage" was really big in spain, not that means really anything - I hear english too, some real good stomps, yeah, much stuff from deep in the throat. I leave the boat to watch - people are hollering adam's name, gran respeto! our turn and cuz of the openers being so kind and bitchin, everything is smoove and on time - no stress... big love to our music brothers. mike tells me they do their versions of this 60s peruvian rock band called the saicos - whoa, trippy. I really dug their set and am inspired. we bring the set that contains the "nels cline meets mssv" seven in, (the other set contains the italian seven inch instead) and it turns out to be a real good show - lots of it cuz of the winooski gig-goers in my opinion... they bring lots of good for us - even w/a tv over the bar ON WHEN WE'RE FUCKING PLAYING! crimony. I have dancers helping w/me inspiration and rhythm sharing. really bitchin to have that, truly. the small stage is not a problem either, everything ok for a good time, I'm most grateful. we get encore too, unintentionally interrupting a monkey room employee chowing a slice of peetz when we use side hatch after hobbling off stage - oops, back on stage to tell everyone that everything we played for them tonight except for "june 16th" (which I wrote for the minutemen) and the ensuing encore medley is composed by mike baggetta INCLUDING the bass and drum parts - that's the truth of the matter. yesterday the weekly in portland said mssv is "mike watt's new band" and this not what it is - it's mike baggetta's band w/me and hodge helping him. gig done, I get the good word from lots of kind gig-goers. there's kelley who's returned here from being elsewhere a long time - I konked at her pad when her boy was just born and now he's twentyfour, crimony! another cat tells me he did time in my pedro town working on the brigantine "irving johnson" for the top sail youth program - MUCH respect. I love this organization, getting all kinds of kids from all kinds of sitchs to crew and work together, beautiful! we load-out, load the boat up and get back south of the river into burlington and over to mike's bud greg's pad in about ten minutes. greg's gotta a righteous basset hound named mavis that is pure love. I inflate the aero air mattress on the deck in his living room hose off after an upstairs hobble - freezing for a bit 'til it gets working good and hot then into the nightwear and a little spiel w/greg who is most interesting cat, much respect to him. I konk most grateful for the vermont kindness, truly. thursday, april 7, 2022 - rochester, ny from mike: vermont country roads at gig, down means up, so strange we rise to the job from watt: pop at six. empty bladder and get coff happening. it's raining outside, portent of our ride ahead today. mavis the basset hound is beautiful and keeps me company while I chimp diary and then rap w/greg, we have real good one. he prints me up the watt throbblehead version two contract so I can send it back to clint at aggronautix and get that "sculpture" underway...  yeah, me and greg have a great spiel about a bunch of stuff including "the sand pebbles" book and its author richard mckenna - I spiel about this w/lots of cats cuz it had/still has a profound on me... my mind references so much stuff in it when I get confronted by trippy things in my daily life. greg is really happening people, so glad we met, very solid. I gotta move the boat to let him get his coche out to get to work and seeing the sitch w/the weather, I petition my compadres if we can change plans and pull anchor at nine and a half: the are most kind and acquiesce. oh, greg let me have this righteous mustard made locally - last night it blew my mind, chowing it by itself  man, do I dig mustard, love it! we gotta take a little road to start our way to rochester, vt-22 and luckily it's pretty empty and not just cuz of the rain but cuz of some of the people we do share this road w/are being assholes - the real sad sacks of clownshit are those tailgating/drafter big trucks and just getting drenched w/the spray - I bet they would shit their beds if they saw how ridiculous they look from someone witness their fucking clown car ride. the sad thing though is fucking playing dice w/lives for no fucking reason except selfishness. crimony. catch us-4 at whitehall... just before noon I get us south on I-87 and a couple of minutes later pull off at a "mobil/jolley" to fuel up the boat ($4.20/gallon) and yes, I finally found a half-gallon of tea to be repurposed as a piss bottle, halelujah! I also get the lowdown on the "dunkin/dunkin donuts" trip: the company is changing the name even though some signs are slow at getting switched out w/the new shill-tag. ok, onward w/us, big rain on us so it's big focus to keep safe - the boat as ark? crimony. in saratoga springs I make a machi-gai and damn if I don't put us in balston spa - fuck, I lived near here for a little bit while my pop was getting training at the kesselring atomic power laboratory in not too far away west milton... we were off a road, in the woods (not in a navy housing) w/only one other cat living right across and no one else for five miles - I was only five but the experience was profound on me cuz of two things: my ma buying a set of world book encyclopedias from a traveling salesman which got me curious about 'pert-near fucking everything... yep, start w/the "a" volume and then... the other thing was her give me a big black board so it was my start at expressing myself - talk about two things that made a sea change in my life, the only thing bigger was prolly meeting d boon. here's another trip: hodge was in nearby schenectady just before cuz his dad was getting some learning from general electric, crimony! hodge calls it "kismet" when this kind of shit happens, I think it's turkish for fate. crimony. in amsterdam there's a fuck-up w/getting on the ny thruway after getting across the mohawk river - we head east instead of west cuz of the navigatore gps not enlightening us to the correct lane... eighteen mile penalty cuz of very few onramps on this road... it's pissing rain crimony - twenty of two I pull us over at herkimer so hodge can dump, mike does likewise. continue on west on the ny thruway, making sure I got as much cushion I can between our fore and aft, it's twenty after five I get us to some kind of "compound" trip just north of the rochester institute of technology... like a planned-community type of thing w/new tract homes next to this kind of all-in-one "commercial unit" - this part of it is bar w/lots of tables called the lovin' cup - damn if that's when the rain quits, YATTA! load-ins/outs in the rain is really fuckin lame so we're all VERY MUCH grateful. I meet the gig boss tom - he owns bop shop records and it was his idea to bring the show here, mike tells me. tom's friend jim from openers nerve net (sorry I can't find anything on them on the net) arrives and he used to have a record store in pittsburgh so we talk a little about the electric banana - he saw me play there once he says, I remember many gigs there, got some good memories... I hope johnny and judy are doing good, they were always so kind to me. I chow a salad they make here called "you're bacon my heart" that feels real healthy - pork belly is the "bacon" part. I needed the vegetables it had I feel I really had to have up in me. we check w/comedian - I mean, soundman matt when he gets here. I'm tuckered much from wheeling us eight hours to get here so I get to the boat to konk right after. crimony. first though, gig boss tom's wife jann comes over to thank me for wearing the mask my sister melinda made for me (I have three). I tell her it ain't really just about me but about others also - I'm in all these towns - one a night - and who knows what I might be carrying cuz of that even w/me being real careful. sure I'm triple moderna covid19 vaccinated (got it a the rite-aid near my pad in pedro) but who knows? I just try to do what I can - I think defense is more than just tanks and planes, it's about stuff like this too... like sharing the road and trying to keep each other safe. anyway, she's most kind, truly. her and tom are having us konk at their pad tonight, very kind! mike rousts w/like four minutes to go he says - damn if I didn't konk hard. everything ready to go though so we hit right on time at eight and a half... trippy feel w/all the tables, people sitting at them and staff taking and serving up orders - yeah, trippy. I try my hardest though, always wanna do that. hodge has none of electronic stuff happening cuz he thought the stich made for that and I bear w/that - same w/mike still using the bergantino back-up forte d to drive his speaker box... his monitors are way loud, kind of like "rip your head off" loud but we ain't got much voice in the set anyway. I can just feel all three of us trying our hardest. I try to make as much eye contact as I can w/the rochester gig-goers, try my hardest. we get an encore but I almost trip and fall cuz of the stand that was holding my bass... should've used my coat and case like I usually do but anyway, I stayed up and didn't go down - like that porno for pyro's tune "bad shit" - I didn't go down. I am most grateful. a beautiful man named hiwatt scott comes up to help me schlep my stuff to the boat. I gotta pack up first and luckily don't get harassed doing that and my new set up is tiny enough for even a cripple like me to handle but getting to meet hiwatt scott in person is truly a beautiful thing and much a honor for me. hell, I realize just then I did the whole gig w/my belt unbuckled - forgot to take care of that after using the piss bottle before I konked like a baka - damn me! at the back of the boat where its culo is, I get to rap w/bassbrother hiwatt scott which is righteous. you see, he's WAY into non-reverse tbirds, the original ones and that's what "bluey" (it's w/my other thudstaffs here on the hoot page) is and he says it's a legend among the "non-reverse tbird community" - much respect to them! I never knew... hiwatt scott's got the pickup I put on it cuz I brought "bluey" back after not playing it for eighteen years - yep, the last time was the 2003 stooges reunion at coachella - I shit thee not. when we lost bassbrother dust hill last year, I wanted to bring her back in tribute to him by switching out the pickup in there for a fender 1951 style single coil on (had curtis novak make one for me) and replaced the electronics w/passive stuff a fender bass would use w/one of these and also changed the strings to flatwounds instead of rounds. then out of the blue, I went for it and just scanned the talkbass.com site for pickguard info - that's how I stumbled onto hiwatt scott and just like that, he said he make a pickguard for me that would fit the new pickup... soon in the mail, I got it and damn if it it did fit, big fucking YATTA! the next day I got to record w/at a session w/mike on guitar like mssv but on drums was jim keltner so it wasn't a mssv trip but it was the first time we did this (baggetta - keltner - watt "wall of flowers"?) that led to mssv... at this session mr keltner told me about this "bluey" bass: "mike, if I played bass, I would play one like that" and in another point in the session when I asked him if he thought this trip I did was ok, he said, "mike, whatever you play makes me feel good" and I 'pert-near fainted... he's a beautiful man, truly, a beautiful soul. I get to tell hiwatt scott the story of me recording "good gods/urge" w/the porno for pyros guys - it was "bluey" I used to do it and it was a trip. I ain't got time to chimp but one day I will. hiwatt scott's gotta bail but man, I could rap bass w/him forever, I shit thee not! MUCH respect to him. I get the good word from many gig-goers, very kind people. there's some other kinds of stuff too but w/the boat now packed, I gotta say bye even though I gave my effort to explain myself w/the time I had. oh, one gig-goer (he brought his son also - so did another one!) had a fIREHOSE tour shirt w/nanny's interpretation of us as "madballs" from the "springboard tour '89" - so that's when I played rochester - the only time, I believe... fuck, I wish I would've been doing diaries from my very first tours, like 'pert forty years ago instead of the ones up on the hoot page now that only go back twenty, damn me for being such a slow learner...  we get to tom and jann's pad and it's way happening. oh man, way happening - yes, he's into records! they're both most kind and I hose off and am into my nightwear quick, blow up the aero air mattress and continue rapping w/tom about lots of good stuff. he's deep w/music, crimony! much respect. one check w/email after a blowout to let me folks know about tomorrow's show... oh my god, I 'pert-near fall out the chair I'm parked in (all three cats around me)... crimony, check this from secondmen drummerman jerry trebotic: "Mike,  crimony! what a fucking image to konk to... I love jer much, he's helped me buttloads for years and is a real good cat. I konk wishing him as much as I can to get well, as much as I can... friday, april 8, 2022 - pittsburgh, pa from: mike: Tom and Jann, so nice crowd stands amongst the tables more gear probs arise from hodge: here i am with tom & jan. they were our konk pad hosts. tom was our local point man who set up the show for us in rochester new york. tom is a record store owner there. jan is an author and newspaper writer. they have several very sweet cats. we had an amazing time with them all !!!! got laundry done as well. music note my drum solo in our encore is getting more relaxed still plenty of: blood and guts & fight or flight digging it loving it!!!!  from watt: pop at six and am so glad tom and jann have filtered water in their fridge - this is the main beverage I put down my mouf these days besides morning coff and has me big time lose the weight I have lost to get more healthy. I figure how to make coff by finding a drip trip that fits on top of a cup, paper filter goes inside, sack of coff beans that says they're from peru on it, grinder used to grind them and tea pot on the gas range filled w/water that gets boiled - boom badda binga. when tom arrises from his konk, he asks me to cook up my own eggs - first time this tour I cook my own chow. in my pedro town I cook my own chow 'pert-near every day, hardly ever out. I cook simple stuff that usually uses only one pan. I scramble two eggs, put some cheese in it and then on the side put fruit tom lays out w/plain yogurt. oishii!    tom wants us to come by his store on our way to pittsburgh so we go there and it's a surprise to us how big it is. jim from last night works there also. tom wants to give me a tshirt but I tell him I'm partial to button shirts and even more particular if I can have it: snaps. it takes a few tries but I finally get enlighten him to what I started around fifteen years ago: the idea of the "tour shirt" which is usually one made of polyester cuz they dry way quicker than cotton BUT I would never wear them in non-tour mode, just don't like the plastic feel and they don't breathe. anyway, I wear the chosen shirt for every gig of the tour - the "drying" ain't just for sweat but also for washing cuz sometimes it's gotta be done in the sink. when the tour's done, I put the spent shirt in charity donate box, we got a few back home so then it's gone from me once its job is done. not too far down from tom's store I saw a deli called "lipman's kosher market" and hobble down there and get a chopped liver sandwich - I think it's the first time I've had a chopped liver sandwich TWICE on tour, yatta!  eleven bells, we're on the road to our twentyseventh gig of the tour - of course it's the twentyseventh straight in a row cuz when you ain't playin', you payin' - correct? I get us on I-90 and head west for lake erie. first though some fuel for the boat at bergen at a "7-eleven" ($4.30/gallon) and this is where I chow that sandwich. it's very oishii and I dig it much. back on the interstate, we do our daily "musical calisthenics" which is running over the forms of the eight tunes we plan to record for the second studio mssv album at the end of this tour - we play four of them each night, alternating so every two gigs all eight get played. if it's a soundcheck that allows it, we play the same six (we cut two of the ones w/words that are kind of like ballads) so we're gonna be good and prac'd up w/them when we get to big ego and chris schlarb. twenty of two it's bye bye to new york for the last time and hello pennsylvania. I get us on I-79 south. I feel I better not wait for getting to the gig pad to dump so w/about an hour ago, I pull over at a rest stop and yeah, "rest" - oh yeah, and all I got ten thousand monkeys flying out of my ass too if you wanna believe that. four bells and getting into pittsburgh, I head for the east parts, cross us over the allegheny river at the 40th street bridge (this town has a buttload of bridges, I shit thee not!) and then alongside it 'til 'pert-near the end of the allegheny arsenal part of town to where we playing tonight just before four and a half (w/no rain, it stopped like last night, when we dropped anchor!), the spirit lodge - it'll my second time here. we load-in right in front where I get to park the boat... chow is offered and I get a caesar's salad w/chicken, tastes good... I then go chimp diary in the boat cuz soundcheck ain't until seven and a half. in the meantime I chimp diary. soundcheck w/soundman cormac and then I rap some w/gig boss manny - I think my first time working w/him. I then go to the boat and konk hard... trippy no edward - he sees me EVERY time I play his town... mike rousts me five minutes before our ten and a half go-time... so sorry to miss openers weekend pants but I was just to tuckered, damn me. we bring our music and the pittsburgh gig-goers are way happening and fun to play for. there's challenges to our gig like mike losing his high 'e' string (first time on this guitar) which I don't find out 'til the gig's end but then I was tripping on his way of doing the "duet" we do in "old crow" - he doesn't think it's the guitar but the fact he ain't been changing the strings like he said he would do. oh, speaking of stuff not working correctly - the fryette people told him his amp has no prob... they're gonna send back to him - maybe he gets it at bob teagan's? he thinks it might be a problem w/one his pedals now. I thank the pittsburgh gig-goers for being beautiful to us, also tell them I bestow on gig boss manny the title of "honorary italian" for tonight. much good word from many pittsburgh gig-goers at the boat when I bring my stuff up - I have much peace of mind after getting my stuff stowed in the boat. I most grateful for the kindness, truly. people who keep coming to see you do gigs - it's a big reason I work as hard as I do to earn that kind of kindness. I get us northwest to sewlicky where gary and jessica live, second time for me now at their new pad. it's always a good time here, ALWAYS... love it. gary was in my pedro town on new years day and I gave him "the tour" so he could learn some more about watt. he's into making music w/his neighbor steve now (he here too, good cat). I offer to give gary some bass lessons via skype cuz that's what their band is missing. maybe I teach him tina weymouth's bass "psycho killer" first or maybe james jamerson's bass on "my girl" or maybe both, huh? both wrote real good bass parts in my opinion, real good ones. we have buttloads of good spiel, it's always a good time w/gary, always. much respect. saturday, april 9, 2022 - columbus, oh from mike: thanks Gary and Jess! parking lot B.B.Q., snow Kyle and Joel, clutch from hodge: these fine fine folks were our konk pad hosts in pittsburgh. jess, gary & bo. they had the fireplace going when we arrived and two kinds of chili plus drinks and other goodies. watt and i stayed up late talking and having fun. bo is a very friendly jack russel terrier. i got the basement to myself for sleeping... wow what an amazing room. gary is way into sports and grindhaus movies and music, he plans to study bass with watt over skype. jess made the amazing breakfast and we pulled anchor at 12 noon.  from watt: pop at eight, hose off again. I'm loving hearing hodge educate gary and jessica about the "trap" kit ("conTRAPtion"), love it - learnikng them about brother earl palmer - RESPECT, crimony BIG TIME RESPECT! then it's my turn - I reinforce the brother earl thing... show gary my afm local 47 union card and then do a little spiel about budd schulberg - watt bows deep in his direction, bows deep. I remind gary about learning bass - he's gotta get one... an econo one, no need to spend too much. jessica makes us great breakfast chow - I'm most grateful to both. the weather is ok when we pull anchor at noon... fortyfive minutes later in washington ($4.30/gallon). I get us on I-70,the weather gets rougher more west we go... one and a half I get us into west virginia for quick travel transit and then soon into ohio - there's a sign saying "xxx days since last major accident" w/the "xxx" part being lit up numerals... it says "four" I'm thinking what the fuck? well, at least their optimistic w/the "days" part and not measuring in hours! crimony. when we learn about this baka abuse of choice w/driving recklessly? crimony. hail starts coming down is spots. on and off microclimates... like yesterday, I ain't gonna make it to our destination in time not to shit the levis so I pull us over just before zanesville and foul the facilities at some filling station (you wanna talk about filling?) next to a pottery pad... not much after that necessary stop I get a call from secondmen drummerman jer and he lets me know about that nightmare accident he just had - he's a longshoreman and was on a shift as a hatch boss on a can boat docked in our harbor when he felt an allergy attack come on - a stab w/the medicine he carries for such things (he has a gluten allergy and thinks it was from chowing a cinnamon bun) didn't do anything to prevent him passing out 'pert-near immediately... he says he woke up about fifteen feet from where he last remembered spitting out teef parts in a pool of blood and apparently had fallen face first onto the steel deck on the boat's bow. it's hard for me to listen cuz I can visualize what he's saying... luckily a brain scan showed no damage that way, thank god. crimony. man, this is very heavy cuz I love that man but at least I know he's on the road to healing. his voice sounded hurt but also positive. man, allergies are for real - both mike and miss hiyori have dairy ones and mike also has a gluten one - like jer - but unlike jer, he takes no chances... last night w/the fortune cookies gig boss manny got us w/the chahan he used the plastic wrapper to get the fortune out - oh yeah, here's what my fortune said:  trippy... just before four we luck out and get to drop anchor right in front of the spacebar which is where tonight's gig is at, yatta! more terrible weather in spurts - we had hail, sleet and now a little snow? crazy. there's is a let up though while hodge is chowing but we have to take advantage of the sitch so even crippled watt helps w/the schlep but the way the gig pad is laid out is most happening for this - we get all the stuff in safe. gig boss is very nice, I relate to him my first columbus gig w/the minutemen - dan dugan got us happening after the people who told " style="text-decoration: none">chuck dukowski (he booked the "campaign trail" tour for us back then in 1984) we had a gig lied. dan dugan came to the rescue and w/in hours w/had a gig at the "stache's" pad near "gumby pizza" - incredible but it happened and I was forever indebted to that man. the gig boss kyle arrives after we set up and I relate the same spiel - both men deserve! a block north there's an indian chow pad called "cinnamon indian grill" and I get favorite my indan chow, purred spinach w/cubes of cheese in it (saag paneer) along w/garlic nan bread - love the symphony in the mouf those tastes bring when brought together, LOVE it! crimony, what luck - like w/the parking space too, huh?! lucky fuckin watt.  we check w/soundman adam, very cool people. I go to the boat to konk and am out for 'pert-near three hours - have to use all the blankies we got cuz it's like a fuckin ice box in here, orange knit hat also. mike rousts me w/eight minutes left 'til the ten and a half go-time... I make my way in and up, real easy to be ready and we bring it. great gig, so much help from the columbus gig-goers and the band is really doing good now, it's a real good time. people are most kind and mssv I feel is most connected. mike has that sound prob again around the forty minute mark and I hear him plugging and unplugging stuff. crimony, I feel for him - like when some of the class d stuff I was using would going in protect mode and there you are: "standing there w/your dick in your hand" as ig would say. so glad this bergantino forte hp hasn't ever gotten close to that, so happening are reliable w/zero, I mean ZERO compromise, just full-on tits and I love it. crimony. the columbus gig-goers give us an encore, most grateful to them. it inspires maybe my best tiny bass solo this tour. I can't thank them enough... I think about edward, he went to school here, for trumpet... I sure hope he's ok cuz I really missed seeing him last - he ALWAYS comes to my gigs... makes me a little worried, I will call him. I think of jer and want him healed up real quick. this man comes back stage to get something signed and we spiel about different stuff, including public art - very difficult I think to make happening public art but two I do like are the statue of peace in korea and the merchant marine memorial in my pedro town - both very powerful to me and I get inspiration from these things. terminal island (in between san pedro and long beach) has one I like also. this cat from the openers dana asks me about touring, how to do it like this mssv one and my suggest to him is to do it w/good people, cats that are onboard w/you and committed. I tell him if there's any tiaras involved then have it be just one and have it on the dash of the boat so all you gotta do is point at it when things get weird. you can improve you're playing together w/prac but I've found there's 'pert-near nothing you can change w/personalities - they either go together or they don't... trippy about that but it's what I've found to be the case and the point being: be careful w/choosing cats to crew w/cuz the chemistry is vital. he seems to have a good spirit about it and I think he understands what I'm trying to get across.  a dude w/a half-filled quart of bourbon cradled in one hand uses the other to help me w/one side of my speaker box off the stage - how did he get that in? crimony. I my stuff in the boat and feel relieved, such a weight off my mind to get the stuff safe and stowed. we pull and and head north, around midnight we get to joel and leah's pad in the rushcreek village part of columbus... I konked w/joel ten years ago here in columbus in another pad during the "second heapin' helpin' of the third opera tour" w/the lite brothers... ain't time like a fucking freight train or what? crimony. I hose off and get in the nightwear. after sending off the blast for tomorrow's gig, I ask for the very important discussion hodge is having w/joel regarding the dan to please have a cork put in it for now so we can have lights out... the law of unintended consequences will soon have it's say about that. damn... sunday, april 10, 2022 - cleveland, oh from mike: trippy houses here at Demos', food probs commence but the cubans? salve from hodge: Demos Ioannou and I in front of his Shaker Heights 100 year old konk pad. he made breakfast with eggs his chickens had provided. extremely fresh, you notice the yokes being darker yellow than most store bought. he and watt go back 40 years. we all stayed up late around the dining room table. cigars and mota plus vodka tonic and lime. watt quoting walt whitman puffing on a cigar demos edging the whole thing on with his interplay, i'm in a movie with these characters!!! what an amazing life!!! most grateful much respect!  from watt: usually I start a diary entry w/me popping but this one is gonna start w/me konked and having to piss in the middle of the night... before konking I asked joel to turn off ALL lights cuz I'm really sensitive to light and it fucks w/a good konk for me. everything dark, I'm out solid and love it. HOWEVER, I had to piss and when I went to go use the head I had forgotten there were two stairs to get down to it (incredible pad design, crimony) and w/it pitch black - "down goes frazier" I fucking tumble big time and hit the hard tile w/a thump so big it makes mike pop w/him shocked to see what's up... I landed on my starboard part of my ass but mainly on the bone, the palms of my hands a little also - thank god I didn't break anything. mike told me later it was like an earthquake tremor followed by a groan... crimony. fucking shit, so fucked up but could've been so worse, so worse. I go back and konk all hurt... when I pop at seven, I find no aza ('bruise' in jap) but I do have itai ('pain' in jap) so I go easy and mosey to make sure I'm careful. man, that was terrible... BUT it doesn't stop there! this pad also has like a three or four inch difference in deck level in the living room, where the air mattress was. leah and hodge make up scrambled eggs and bacon and damn if I don't trip on this fucked up thing and spill 'pert-near my whole plate of chow, fuck! at least no hurt to my body. I believe if I spent any more time in this pad, it would murder me maybe - no disrespect on joel or leah, none - I'm just not strong enough and maybe would get at least even more crippled up. joel talks to me about basses, gets his early 70s tele one and I rap to him about my 1968 I got from a cat in l.a.'s ktown - you can see it inside the "double nickels..." gatefold before I painted it white... ended up getting stolen from apartment while I was out on tour - my sister melinda called me when it happened, I was in charlottesvillle... actually only the neck on that bass was a 1968 feneder telecaster - the body was schecter!  me and joel have a good time talking about old fenders... he thought the bass on the cover of the mssv album I'm holding when in fact it's a 1956 fender precision (see it listed here among my other thudstaffs), even though his tele bass has a three-bolt neck, it plays real good... wonder what it sounds like through an amp? it's got an added split pbass style pickup close to the bridge... ok, we gotta say bye bye and thank you to our most kind hosts, pull anchor at eleven. the weather is much calmer, the storm blew out and though there's clouds, it stays dry. up I-71 to cleveland, I wheel us to the shaker heights part of town to old friend demos' pad, we drop anchor there at one and a half for an "asian" chow he's prepared for us: dumplings, soba noodles, cod and bok choi which I chow up. I check email and find out why mr tom was missing at the pittsburgh gig - he didn't know about it! crimony. you would think his biggest fan, the gig boss (and for our night: honorary italian) manny would flow him a little missive mentioning the event. damn, dig mr tom much, he's a big music inspiration to me and damn if a HUGE moment for me was getting to collab w/a tune called "black yogurt" he had me aboard for, HUGE! I also get an email from zack kouns on why I didn't see him last night - he forgot his covid19 vaccination card and then went home and couldn't find it. he's a great musician, had him on my show last year, much respect to him and also co-conspirator rick weaver. anyway, very kind of demos for the chow. I chimp diary while listening to his finches... he bails w/his daughter bridget for cavs vs bucks basketball. we got load-in at the beachland tavern at five and it takes it a half hour to get there to make it on time which we do despite getting blocked by hombres blocking off a road (the wrong waterloo!) cuz of the consequences of someone driving like an asshole and crunching up a powerpole. crimony. soundman mike checks only one tune w/us cuz mike spends most of our allotted time chasing down what the fuck is wrong w/his sound problem live gig trip thing... turns out it was the cable we got for the half-ass in the meantime in portland, me used to use my forte d back-up amp for his speaker box is intermittent and fucking up... OR maybe it's a combination of things like ALSO a stompbox prob or whatever but what's important is he thinks the issue(s) are solved. I chow a chicken sandwich from the kitchen here (by the way, my second time at this pad - the other time was the big room w/the meat puppets in 2017) and this is really good, not like that merde I put in my mouf a few days ago in winooski... this is really REALLY good. I konk hard in the boat, really beat and my ass hurting still from my tumble... damn if I don't miss openers mike sopko & joe tomino but I'm just tuckered too much and I need to both play good for everyone involved and preserve my health. oh I forgot about bob teagan being here and us catching up - he drove from detroit area where he lives to video the gig - so good to see him again, I love this man!  think we go back thirty seven years now... like w/demos - so beautiful cats I know cuz of working bass, so beautiful! yeah, I went and konked hard and fast in the boat... mike rousts me out of real bad dream - this dream is fucking up one of the tunes we're set to play tonight, "(what's so funny 'bout) social justice?" which is the one he wrote for nels to record w/us during the sitch! the horror, the horror... well, it gives me resolve to NOT do it in real life and damn if I ain't glad big time it was just an akumu ('nightmare' in jap), SO GLAD! we bring our set after squeal-mic-hook-up-not-muted drama (not good showbiz!) and there's dancing soon from the cleveland gig-goers including one cat on crutches - how inspiring for a cojo like me, yatta - I'm lit! it's a real good set though "if anybody else could help" is almost cartoon way-too fast. crimony. hodge's vocal mic picks up all kinds of stuff (pity it's on when at least 90% of the time he ain't using it) and I think I'm having some kind of problems cuz of all these knock/boom sounds in our quiet parts... maybe need a switch to scissor that shit? we use the head as a debriefing chamber w/the set done cuz it was the closest hatch, go back for encore - very kind of the cleveland gig-goers, very kind, truly.  wasco's here, yes! him and his buddy helps me schlep my stuff to the boat. missing a bunch of cleveland cats who usually see me in their town but I understand how a sunday might make that tough and hope to see them next time. me and wasco's got a buttload of projs in the pipeline, love collabs w/this cat, very interesting mixtures he gets me involved in - BIG respect to him. I sign a wattplower for one bassbrother while another one shows me a picture of his... and he just turned double nickels - whoa, happy bday to him! I ask both to work their machines hard! I wheel us back to demo's after the pack-up. I puff a 'gar! it's been a buttload of years since I last puffed a 'gar, crimony! we have huge spiels about all kinds of stuff and then at like two and a half in the morning, I go out in the backyard, get naked and get in the hot tub... looking at the just more than half moon and thinking about tour, the jet bubbles helping my hurts from last nights tumble... whoa. tour... tour spiel... tour brings me this float and bob... my body in the hot tub, float and bob, all bubbled up - bottoms of the feet getting it, trippy... tour... tour spiel... proving to yourself you're alive... tour... knowing by doing... tour... tour spiel... thank you brother demos. after a good time, hodge then joins me but I gotta bail cuz I'm getting pruned up in the hands and gotta watch they don't get weak cuz they might get torn from either the steering wheel or the bass strings... monday, april 11, 2022 - hamtramck, mi from mike: nature center found Ramadan foils dinner Bob Teagan - TENKO! from watt: pop at twenty of eight, another hose-off cuz of using the hot tub last night. demos has the coff machine set to start at seven so it's on now... it's gray out - prolly a portent of rain or something not sunny/calm? I do diary... demos pops and sees me chimping so that his go - I ain't like him last night, using the leash and rapping at the same time - he's very good at parallel processing, I think. he cooks me up some eggs and bacon, very kind of him. we pull anchor at noon, last thank you to demos 'til next time. I got us heading west once out cleveland on the ohio turnpike... not too many miles east and the whole sky opens up w/huge rain drops, flashers on for safety 'til we get a reprieve by getting west of the storm (they move usually east) 'til it's only a huge darkness in the rearview mirrors. crimony. I get us to toledo and on to I-75 just after two and the across and into michigan for the hamtramck part of detroit, north of downtown. it's been a while since I've played in hamtramck, in the old days it was at a pad there called "paychecks" but I did play where we're playing tonight once (small's), right around when it was first getting going. I put the boat in the pad's back lot just after three and drop anchor. yes, the rain stopped. trippy that we heard nothing from the apple listening device and that's prolly cuz I never plugged it in. instead it was an all-spiel ride, of course beginning w/our "musical calisthenics" to start it off... we talked about recording the new album one and two of may - the next two days after the last gig of the tour.  this used to be a polish neighborhood but now is bangladeshi, interesting. across from the alley is a chow pad called "ray's coney island pizza" but they got gyros and I get one of those. there's also broccoli and cauliflower from the gig in columbus... a cold boat can keep veggies fresh! pad boss mike arrives around five and we do the load-in, rap w/soundman dave and do a short check cuz we're sharing the stage w/detroit locals the witches and break anchor and doors are at seven... not all gig stich's provide for the bonus six tune soundchecks mike likes but he goes w/the sitch, like someone swerving to avoid someone driving like a dick, w/a relief that speaker cord fix in cleveland worked out so well. trying to isolate probs can be a trial - let mike tell you! I go to the boat to konk after our check cuz I am fucking beat. I'm out for 'pert-near four hours! hodge rousts me - he is too gentle! I think he needs maybe to use one of these on watt:  I make my way on stage and we bring, maybe seven or eights minutes past the scheduled 9:40 go-time which is pretty fucking good considering... mike really got this part of our tour together and I'm really proud of him cuz damn if some that shit making us late to start pissed me off REALLY big time. all the stuff mike's been learning about tour really impresses me, man, I am VERY proud of him, truly. I hear the call to prayer right before we hit, now that's an intro! the stage gives us some challenges cuz it's like a big drum head and has some overtones... HOWEVER, I'm lit on the connect level w/the hamtramck gig-goers which helps 'pert-near as much as the connect w/the two cats in the mssv band... sometimes the band cats are all you got cuz of the sitch (I'm thinking about that part of the room at the atlanta gig a couple weeks ago - not the part of the room kickin like kato right in front of us but the oblivious cruise-control zombie cosplayers in punch the clock on life mode) but we've been really lucky I think w/have MOST HAPPENING gig-goers to work our gigs for this tour which makes me feel really grateful and wanting to work even more to earn that kind of respect from them. we got an encore too, yatta! ken and joe of reverend guitars is here, yatta! they are the ones that thought of and then helped me design the wattplower bass (mark II here), believing in me the whole way and sticking w/me. I am so happy they are here - I let them know how happening my candy apple root beer float wattplower mark II has be working for me all tour - really kicking like kato and ever surviving those two cracks I put in her (I show ken and joe) w/that stupid stunt in knoxville back on the eleventh gig of the tour - what basses could handle something like that? I really dig this bass and really am into ken and joe being the ones to make it happen, truly I am. I have ken's son nate take a shot of us:  we pull anchor and head for the fraser part of detroit... whoa, bob beat us to his pad! he's ready for us... whoa, no more HUGE projector tv BUT there's the four channel stereo still, hiked up to high heaven for tenko doing her "tsuyakeshi no yami" that bob filmed her doing live at cbgb's in 1986. I love this part of tour, always have and always will, just love it. I get right in between all four speakers and though I already inflated the mattress and am now holding my nightwear and fresh chonies, I hold off on the hose-down 'til the very last note tenko's got for her piece - for me it's incredible and so inspiring... I'm ready to play a million more gigs and write a buttload of tunes, all fueled up on it. man, I love it... AND love being drowned in it here at bob's pad. more info on her here. I hose off and then get in the nightwear. old buddy chris is here also and damn if he don't have a hihat cymbal georgie used in the minutemen w/all three of us having us write something on it - whoa! I show it to hodge...   incredible. we have a real good time. bob plays much boredoms for mike, other stuff too - so glad he get to meet him cuz bob is righteous people. this is my happiest night of the tour, thanks to our little team, bob and chris - man, do I konk very happy, very much. tuesday, april 12, 2022 - louisville, ky from mike: power amp returns! Scott and i hit Mexican tough gig, need more eyes from watt: pop at twenty of eight. shave this bullshit growing on my face and hack at the nose hairs 'til they're subdued... for now. hodge boils eggs after I said it would be lame to stick bob w/dirty dishes and this way it's just a pot to boil water that got used. mike gets his amp he sent away for nothing but had to do that to learn that fact himself, thank you to his friend at fryette. everyone's ready for our nine am anchor pull though chris and bob are still konked so we can't say bye to them... well, they're both in our hearts, always. the "speedway" filling station not far from bob's pad is my usual fill-up pad for when I sally forth from staying w/him... mike can't fill the tank up past two-thirds but that's enough to get us down the road... I-75 is our baby and damn what luck not only w/totally blue skies but 'pert-near NO traff - incredible "butter" sitch for our d-town bail... ten and a half we say bye bye to michigan and get into ohio - this has to be the fastest ever escape from detroit for me, not one plug/stau, I shit thee not. hodge gives me three of the eggs he boiled, supplement w/the "victoria" salsa picante. really good, he did a happening job cooking them. very calm drive w/only assholes who shouldn't be driving trucks driving them and of course the usual amounts of assholes who shouldn't be driving smaller vehicles cuz of their reckless/rudeness - nature's w/us today so far though, thank you! twelve and a half about thirty miles north of dayton I pull us over at "speedway to fuel the boat ($3.47/gallon) and let others stand in line to foul the facilities while I refill the piss bottle I both emptied out at bob's pad w/... I chow the last of the broc and caul before dumping the carrots - a clean boat is a happy boat. I then set the apple music device to play "we buy a hammer for daddy" by the lemon kittens which had an incredible influence on me. in the old days w/the movement, I would get albums based on just the band name or the cover cuz I knew hardly anything about anything then. I would then wait 'til I had time off to listen to them under the influence of l - I wanted the first listen for me w/this stuff to be while I was home safe and tripping my brains out. this record blew my fucking mind. mike says he digs it... though he ain't had any l and ain't trippin balls - he digs it. hodge konks... a lame thing in my life now is the sony cyper shot dsc rx100 is fucking refusing to power on most times when I try it... total dice roll shit and most times it's snake eyes. guess this tour was too hard on it. damn me.  just after two I get us over the ohio river and into kentucky (bye bye ohio, only state in the union w/a pennant instead of a flag) and twenty minutes later the only other interstate this trip: I-71 south (direct is actually southwest)... starts clouding up and some sprinkles - skies were darkening after dayton... truck driving not as bad - how come southern michigan and southern ohio (each near the border) had some of the most fucked up near-misses w/stupid fuck moves by the big buys today? hey, we arrived alive: it's a victory. miss hiyori feeds me the jar of herring bob teagan got me on crackers w/the mustard I got from greg in vermont - secondmen drummerman jer and missingmen guitarman tom watson usually are most kind to do this kind of thing - I'm so fucking lucky to have good people around me, so lucky. I owe them all buttloads, try my best to keep them safe in the boat. I get us to zanzabar in louisville fifteen minutes before the renegotiated (mike got an extra hour out of them) four pm load-in time... only soundman tom's there but all you need for a soundcheck is a soundperson, correct? we can get into the backstage which is a little pad next door and that's where I plant my ass after a tiny look-around w/the sky cloudy but still sunny. man, I've gone through the changes at this pad... you used to play on the deck! so glad they keep having me play here, most kind of them, truly. we do our check, mike's fryette amp is working great - maybe it always was and some kind pedal prob - let's see what happens w/tonight's gig. lieutenant scott, my old friend from the days of west germany - that's what they called the part of germany where the original "batschkapp" was (still in frankfurt but now in another building) in 1983 and he saw the minutemen open for black flag then... and also met me! he flew tiny observation helicopters for the u.s. army then... so righteous having someone that long ago still w/you, I cherish our friendship big time. we're konking at his pad tonight.   I meet the openers, letters of acceptance and some are louisville and some are lexingtion - where richard hell's from! drummerman tim reminds we shared the same stage together back in my fIREHOSE days, much respect to him. I throw in a dumpster next to the boat that fucking lame-ass air mattress from the amarillo target I got near the beginning of this tour - motherfucker last less than a week, big time bullshit - damn me for being so stupid to get that. I then go chow a "z burger" that's cooked up here and like it much. I chimp diary 'til it's show time... no pre-gig konk for watt this time. letter of acceptance bring it and have kind of delicate style, much interplay between the two guitarists but then whole band is keyed together real good. can't understand one word of their spiel (both singers clint and john trade off, prolly doing the songs they each wrote) and it's kind of amazing how the bassman scott is on one side of the stage and drummerman tim is on the other - they look over at each much but what a distance to make a connect, huh? I am impressed! we're on a the scheduled nine pm go and this is a difficult gig for watt. it ain't cuz of the louisville gig-goers cuz they are beautiful but they deserve better from watt. it's not cuz the mic stand wouldn't go higher cuz watt wasn't strong enough to twist the adjuster chingadera cuz that was prolly entertaining on some level but for me it was heartbreak in some big ways - I want to take responsibility though cuz blame won't help... sure, the "acoustics" were a challenge but I can't use that as an excuse "crutch" whatever - I just found myself in a place I really fuckin didn't wanna be - can you believe that? w/all the spiel spieled (spelt?), the chimpin chimped and now I'm asking to be believed about this? I must sound like the biggest baka ever... I pack my stuff up and lieutenant scott helps down the stairs and w/the schlep of my speaker box. I thank soundman tom for being our fourth man tonight. I sign a bassbrother's bass - says he's finally got to see me after being only a listener, much respect to him. damn, I wish stuff was more together for him tonight, damn me. I go out and pull guardiano duty... I get handed a cd drummerman tim recorded w/his son - found a soundcloud page w/the name on it: mick moon's shock theatre and I'm really interested to hear - maybe first music for us on the drive tomorrow... a cat who works here talks w/me about a car that lost a wheel and made it to the next town on the remaining three but everyone scooting real quick to the corner opposite from where they lost that wheel - CRIMONY, my mind is blown. he lived in long beach - the east part of the harbor my pedro town shares along w/wilmington in the north part and knows about the boats that raced where the l.a. river dumps out. interesting - big daddy don garlits also, he knows drag racing too! much respect. sI wheel us to lieutenant scott's pad and damn if there ain't a huge space to put the boat, right out front. I hose off, get in the nightwear and then inflate the aerobed (just learned that's what aero calls) when edward yanks on my leash, yes, yatta! I've been calling him the last three days when I didn't see him where he lives in pittsburgh... I was worried but now relieved. whew. he says he didn't know about the gig - like mr tom! thank you gig boss manny... next time you're gonna have to earn that "honorary italian" title w/a little more push on the gig spiel! I get to have real good spiel w/lieutenant scott and monique about all kinds of stuff - some of it is sad, like about our friend tim barnes who's recently got early-onset-dementia, just terrible... I got to make an album w/tim that I really dig called "you are always on our minds" by the hand to man band. love tim much, I konk thinking of him. wednesday, april 13, 2022 - indianapolis, in from mike: rain stops, i can walk rain comes back at gig, fast load seis ojos, on track from watt: pop at seven, empty the bladder of piss and fill the gut w/coff, I got an appointment for the boat - we're at 7,303 miles now for the tour, time for another maintenance stop... so glad mike the appointment last week or something, I get the boat down bardstown road about seven miles to bill collins ford for the eight bell scheduled time and a very nice cat there not only does the maintenance and tire rotate thing but also new windshield wipers (I asked for them) for half the money that ford place in charlotte charged. crimony. takes a couple of hours so I chimp diary in the meantime and get all caught up. last night lieutenant scott provided me w/fresh broccoli florets, good crunch and good carbs... you can't cut out all carbs unless you wanna be real baka - you gotta chow the good ones, I believe. I ask if his scale in the head is accurate, used it last night after hosing off and he tells me "yes" so the 173 pounds reading means I'm about thirty pounds lighter than before the situation, when I cut big time sugar and salt. I sign his son jack's bass - he's playing cello but he's also got a bass, he ain't here but lieutenant scott wants the bass signed and I'm happy to do it. lieutenant scott cooks me up two rounds w/eggs from his three chickens that live in his back yard... they are most kind to provide and he cooks them up good (that's why I had two rounds). noon time is pull anchor time... lieutenant scott gives two big packs of "deer park" water - that's the name of the neighborhood his pad's in! actually he gives us a sack of all kinds of good stuff, most kind truly. we will see him tonight cuz he's going to the indianapolis gig, MUCH respect!   I get us on I-65 north and soon over the ohio river, we're into indiana... rain soon begins - the new windshield wipers most happening, yes! I play drummerman tim welch's cd he made w/his son on bass, him on guitar instead of drums. I dig it. miss hiyori makes me up matsa piled up w/'dines and that pineapple salsa lieutenant scott got us and it's good eats for watt. around three I pull the boat over to refuel at a flying j ($3.83/gallon) near a town called whiteland, maybe someone who lives near hear fixes my little red wagon w/an asshole move pulling out of the station - you think the california plates pushes the buttons on some butthurts out there? I wonder... BUT not too much cuz these motherfuckers are not gonna run my life, just won't let them. the navigatore gps is unenlightened to the fact the interstate it's asking me to use is closed cuz of construction so I force it to recalculate and get us to the state street pub (where we're playing tonight) in the east side part of indianapolis at three and a half, much rain still coming down - I ask mike to use accuweather.com for a look-see on what might be coming up and it looks like a blaster's gonna be on us tonight for sure. gig boss/soundman mark arrives and let's do load-in during a brief calm-down... mark says after the gig we can leave our stuff here 'til we bail tomorrow and hopefully things are calmer. I come by and bartenderman scooter's playing "down at the laundromat" by black randy - he knows about that stuff, MUCH respect! check done, I find out the gig's clean - fifth one this tour? most grateful watt goes to mexican chow pad "la parada" a block or so away and gets three birria tacos, me gusta mucho. I then konk in the boat w/the rain pounding on the overhead and I mean the fucking POUNDEROSA pounding... kind of helps w/the konk cuz I'm out as hard as those drops thudding down on the boat.  mike rousts me w/minutes to go, I mean out of a deep konk roust - no premonition stuff like I sometimes get regarding gig go-times... damn me, I missed both openers cario jag and the craig bell band but what can I do? I just ain't strong enough, I am so sorry. we bring the gig and damn if it a rally from the nightmare one for me last night (sorry again, good louisville gig-goers), thank you much to hodge and mike, truly, I BIG TIME most grateful, really and truly. also big love to the indianapolis gig-goers, I was watching hodge much and cuz of the way the stage setup was, that meant not really facing these cats but not out of disrespect but more about getting tight w/hodge and not having to give him a face full of culo ('ass' in espanol) - I had to choose between stuff like that tonight. I really REALLY enjoyed the gig - even w/some fucking yammerers in the back - hey, I cussed at them a little in my final spiel - didn't really mean to interrupt their yammerin... OR maybe I did! everyone else was so beautiful w/respect though, really kind of them and I bow deep their way. we get an encore, prolly my favorite drum solo I've witnessed hodge do this tour, big respect. the rain relented so instead of leaving our stuff for the morning, we decide to make a break for it w/the load-out and damn if lieutenant scott is here and to help w/the schlep - so kind of him. I get the good word from gig-goers during the process, sign some stuff and even get to talk stooges some w/bartenderman scooter - BIG respect to him... he's a "fun house" man like me! I get to say a few words to craig bell who was on my show and he suggests a collab - yes! maybe a two bass proj similar to dos? let's see! big love to him. also big love and safe seas to lieutenant scott for his voyage back to louisville, can't wait to see him again, safe seas to you, brother. jordan, a most kind friend of big ego boss chris schlarb's, lives close and is letting us konk at his pad, truly generous of him. I get the air mattress going in the front room and then hose off and into the nemaki ('nightwear' in jap). 'pert-near one am but short haul tomorrow for chi-town. I get to spiel about a lot of good stuff w/brother jordan - he does music also and I get a cassette of his work, yes! we make plans for him to be on my show. his dog "buddy" konks w/me, rather he konks ON me, beautiful wanko. thursday, april 14 , 2022 - chicago, il from mike: so many windmills so windy my hat blows off TaKorea, yes. from watt: pop at seven and a half, I had canine warmer on my chest all night, whoa... better than a blankie? puppy buddy tears up makura ('pillow' in jap) - finding out he's one year old makes total sense regarding his behavior! there's a pachinko machine here, olde-timey... I think jordan's uncle-in-law got it while stationed in japan - I remember seeing in navy housing growing up buttloads of cats who's pop got these overseas and no one could figure out how they worked - we were bakas, big time!   miss hiyori makes asagohan ('breakfast' in jap) using 'dines lieutenant scott gave us on matsa w/salsa picante "ginger goat" (just learned the name of pineapple hot sauce we got from him) along w/the last of the hardboiled eggs hodge made at bob teagan along w/some ringo ('apple' in jap) slices. yes! mike gets back from his walk (he takes every morning, hodge is starting to do that also) and says three more emails from pittsburgh about people testing positive for covid19 - first email came yesterday saying a cat in the opening band's got it now... crimony. please don't be offended if you get only elbow from watt - not just for my health but I don't wanna be fuckin spreader! I learned this BEFORE the stich, people! that 2019 missingmen tour (sep - nov) had me fed up w/getting sick (flus, colds) and so I decided to do NO handshakes the whole tour and you know what? no sickness w/fortyfive gigs in a row and I drove every mile so even w/that "stress" or whatever, no flu/no cold - every fucking tour I had to count on some days of fever, hurt, cough but then this one easy technique... now look, I ain't claiming to be someone who could predict the future - I think it was pure coincidence BUT I was also fucking sick and tired of getting sick and tired! ok, maybe only good konk helps w/tired but sick I think can be wrestled w/being a little less stupid about spreading shit. it ain't being rude in my book, it's about watching out for each other, crimony! there's other ways of connecting then touching rituals, especially w/intense sitchs like fucking covid19. anyway, end of sermon... just trying to explain a little about how I feel on this stuff. jordan and liz w/their two daughters leave us cuz the gotta go (it's a weekday), so kind of them, big-heart people most generous BIG TIME, truly. we pull anchor at noon w/no clouds in the sky but I feel the boat start to get buffeted once we're on I-65 and heading north to chicago... not a long haul but still a hellride cuz of the hard-blow, too risky to do the speed limit when it's at seventy - my policy is to do what's safe for the road conditions you find yourself in and not be oblivious which can lead to not being responsible and another way of driving like a fucking asshole and fuck that cuz there's already enough selfish assholes doing that. end of another sermon. crimony. sorry about that... watt gets frustrated and let's everyone know out loud.  at quarter of two (yeah, somewhere we crossed into the central time zone and gained a hour) I pull us into a "flying j" near dinwiddie for a dump stop but why not also fill up the boat ($4.23/gallon) - the u.s. flag is flappin like you would not believe in this fuckin blaster-wind, crimony! man-handling the boat's wheel is mandatory and I gotta keep shit really together and be on top of it, gotta keep everyone inside safe, just gotta. we turn west at I-94 and do some tolls but it's worth it cuz we hit no plugs/staus - we do get a wind advisory on an overhead sign:  why none on the entire I-65 leg? fuck, like I had to be told to be careful w/the boat buffeted like it was, fucking wind farm turbines wailing on it oustide the window's, crimony! also, should you always be careful on the road? speaking of advisory signs, check this one out as we get into chicago:  like you really gotta be told this shit, like "no littering" - when is it fucking ok to litter? crimony, ain't humans a weird fuckin species in so many ways? anyway, we thank god avoid all the ensuing due to dumbfuckery potential collisions and I get us to the ukranian village part of town at three and a half cuz that's where the empty bottle is - I've heard so much about but tonight will be my first time working this pad. you would not believe the wind... I shoehorn us in a half block away (closest I could find) but when I get myself out - crimony! I felt the boat being buffeted big time but now it's watt il zopo ('bad leg/lame' in italiano) and 'pert-near blown over, I shit thee not... crimony! soundman jonah (remember that name cuz later we fucking won't like total fuckin idiots) does a check w/us and is into the fourth man position for us tonight. there's a nice neko named "peg" (that's what the tag around her neck says) that spends time w/me - kind of the cat version of buddy back in indianapolis, I shit thee not, trippy.  I do spiels-into-mp3s for both the version two mike watt throbblehead aggronautix boss clint asks me to do and for the ukraine getting attacked benefit ms mayya's putting on in the city (her parents are from saint petersburg in russia) and I then go catty-corner from the gig pad across the street (again risking my life in the fucking knockdown wind thump) to get chow at a korea/mexico chow pad called "takorea cocina" - I get three bulgogi steak that are really sabor, fucking happening. asia chow mixes so good w/other chows, for years I've been doing this even w/my own cooking stuff. the other thing is mexican chow all over now - of course chicago was the only town east of the mississippi w/the real thing but now cuz cats from there all over the u.s., I get the real dealio 'pert-near everywhere in my land, love it! we do soundcheck w/soundman jonas - very cool people and glad to have him for our fourth man tonight. right after I meet three of the openers (mute duo who are very happening cats, they're gonna go on as quartet tonight instead of the plan quintet - two of that band just got covid19 w/one of them being sam who was on my show and wrote me an email yesterday about the sitch. this stuff is not over, we have to be vigilant. I want sam and the other band cat healed up quick so maybe next time I can share the stage w/them.  I chow the tacos in the boat and then konk hard, many blankies on me and fucking trippin hard on the vehicles blasting by the boat along w/the hellblasting windstorm crazy shit - fucking shaking the boat big time like it was in a jishin ('earthquake' in jap), I shit thee not. somehow I konk still, maybe cuz I'm so fucking tired. oh, right before I did another "boil-out" of my starboard ear w/the hydrogen peroxide and also gargled... helped me big time - usually this is for the port-side that ear when it gets too much sun but whatever, I wanna stop any kind of infection if I can. mike rousts me a few minutes before the nine and a half go-time, I make my way into the gig-pad and up on stage, soon we got the set rolling. hodge is behind me, hard to use ojos w/him but he's got it going good w/mike... he's abandoned the electronic parts of his drum stuff and has packed it away so we ain't dealing w/it anymore which he decided (and I agree w/him) it's only making things not happening. him and mike play really good and inspire me as do the chicago gig-goers who show big time focus w/no yammering but instead big time respect - the way the sitch here is you play to the people real wide instead of deep and maybe that makes it harder for the chamber to divide up into "front" and "back" sections that can lead to different worlds, the world of actual gig-goers who wanna experience the gig and then the world of actual yammering drunk-ass oblivious and only into themselves motherfuckers. thank you so much good people of chicago, truly.  like an asshole in my closing spiel to the chicago gig-goers, I forget vital fourth member soundman jonah's name and am so embarrassed - damn me to no end, I deserve. fucking idiot, I'm so angry w/myself. I mean, I fucked up "old crow" tonight BIG TIME by getting lost - mike getting us together to redeem but this feels even worse than that, to not have it together enough to let the gig-goers know you really appreciate a cat bringing it for you, being there for you... crimony, am I an idiot. I gotta get this kind of shit together. I pack my stuff quick and get my stuff to the boat - such a relief when I get my stuff to the boat. a big relief too is that fucking gale shit has subsided, hallelujah. this man who's part of the decorator's union here in town tells me about his pop getting jazz music from him that they can share... it's a hard time for his pop and he says it helps. this man comes to all my chi-town gigs and it means much if I can help him back somehow, really does. brian bowe says hi - last time I saw him was in bellingham, wa but he lives here now... we talk about bob matheu, a man always very kind to me. this cat gives me zine ("control" issue 8) that has a story he tells me he wrote that has me and him in it. grazie.   another most generous gig-goer reminds of when he let us konk at his pad and spot was w/us, spot konked under his pinball machine! man, I miss spot, beautiful cat... can't wait to see him again - he now lives in sheboygan, wi... I wanna play there, share the stage w/him again! he recorded the first minutemen record by the way, we go back, we go back... you wanna hear about MY olde-timey stories? thought so... it's a half hour drive to the oak lawn part in the west suburbs, where we're gonna konk. very smoove getting there EXCEPT having to dodge some major road hazards like potholes - one I missed and I can feel the boat take it hard on the forward starboard hub, damn me. I want the boat safe, the boat keeps us safe if worked right... gotta get more together on this. I put out the web blast for the next gig after hosing off and getting in the nightwear. the aerobed mattress holding up good. so glad mike, hodge and miss hiyori are safe, this is the most important point and I konk thinking much about that, konking in the chi-town I was conceived in. friday, april 15 , 2022 - saint louis, mo from mike: back on the keurig flat tire, Tim helps us out! south, no water view, good gig from watt: pop at six, crimony... it was quarter of two when I konked! tour can be trippy. what really saves me on that way is the pre-gig konks in the boat - those literally save my sorry ass big time. keurig bullshit for the first time in a while but what the fuck - I'll tell you what the fuck! I chimp diary. we pull anchor at ten and then head for a pad to get a not-so-common battery for the camera (canon sx130 for olde tours I now keep in the boat "just in case") so it can remember dates and shit. then it's lots of suburb road 'til around eleven when we can leave chicago via the I-80 west towards iowa 'til it hits I-55 which I get us on south towards saint louis. elven and a half I pull us off at "shell" near wilmington (illinois, not like the one next to my pedro town!) to fuel up the boat, only needs half a tank ($4.24) and fuel my shit up (no chow where we konked) w/the "italian deluxe" from "charley's phily steak" shit trough - never have bellied up to one of these so let's see if we get sick. I don't get sick but then we take a big screw in the front starboard tire, a big fuckin screw, just trying to park, leaving the pump.  a little bit of comedy tag-team taking off the spare - mike's called his auto club and they're sending over someone to the spare on... I've done a couple of changes on this baby all by my crippled self but hodge says mike's already made the call so let them do it. this helperman tim arrives in a little aaa van filled w/batteries piled in the back and w/a floor jack easily gets the flat off and then we put it where the spare was. mike's already made plans w/a tire pad in saint louis for us to get shipshape tomorrow starting at seven am. it's pretty quick helperman tim gets the spare on and then his tiny compressor can't the pounds up w/the boat using all four - actually his gauge can't read sixty pounds so I use mine... we need ten more so he uses the floor jack to get her up and we get it where we need it, him forcing the tiny compressor to keep going while I feed the valve w/the hose. we thank him big time, cool people.  twelve and a half and we're back on I-55 south. there's some wind but nothing like yesterday and then it subsides. at bloomington I gotta pull over to dump that fucking sandwich - no more chowing at that chain's troughs, fuck it. mike arranges our last maintenance for the morning of the eugene show, calculating the about three k miles and where we're gonna be... we'll be a little over but not too bad - you get handed sitchs in life and have to play them the best you can and sometimes that takes some rope-a-dope, correct? in my book: si. abe lincoln was from around these parts. I get behind this one fiftythree footer semi and stay there cuz this cat is a professional and most happening. ok, sometimes he's a couple mpg less than the what the sign says for a speed limit but it ain't much and to have someone like that "w/you" in a way is so relieving. so sad when he has to bail but it's only a few miles to go w/out him... assholes quickly descend and make shit dangerous, also bad designs for all the on/off ramps I gotta put us on and some people really acting like dicks. we get over the clay bridge and the mississippi river, bye bye illinois. it's "mr toad's wild ride" in a way and so fucking unnecessary. I know I might sound like a broken record but these motherfuckers are the broken fucking record that can have some fucked up consequences. ok, I breath in/out deep... quarter of five, I get us in the back of the sinkhole in the carondelet part of town - mike gets out and helps me get the culo of the boat on the hatch, goes out front to have a look-see and comes back w/the magic words a working music cat always hopes for: "the gig's clean" - yatta! that's number six for the tour. I've never been this south in saint louis... trippy it's so close to big muddy (the mississippi river) but the real trip is you can't see it cuz of the foul industry like oil tanks and shit blocking the view. crimony! looks like it rained here recent but now that's gone: more yatta. we load-in the stuff to make the gig. the soundcheck w/soundman austin is pretty econo since the only thing he's controlling are the only mics for the night: on our voice but it fits the stich good and he has to ring them out so they don't sound like there's fifteen pairs of used chonies choking them our and/or they're ready to do the screaming fucking meemie thing. right after I go to the boat to konk cuz I'm beat - no chow for watt tonight, no big thing... at least I there's none of the crap I put down my mouf earlier. I am very happy for that. mike comes rousts me for the nine pm go-time. damn me for missing local openers the comforists but I just ain't strong enough and need to pick my fights - being too weak is one of them. I get out the boat and one of the buildings across the alley I thought was too beat to live in has a light on upstairs... crimony. it's a full moon also - I try to will some of the light of each towards each other to try and help work the gig tonight for the saint louis gig-goers. the gig goes real good, mostly I think cuz of the saint louis gig-goers who bring so much of what so much counts - there' a young man just port of me w/a "dick watt tour 2019" shirt on nanny drew, much respect to him! packed up but still some make room for dancing and 'pert-near NO yammerin - huge yatta to them, HUGE yatta! I think watt got lost in "every growing thing" but using the ojos gets everything back on board, respect. the bergantino amp w/the barefaced speaker box kicks up MUCH dust - even w/the sitch of no mic or direct and maximum amount of flesh-sacks filling the gig pad - HUGE respect to both jim and alex for their designs, HUGE focused sound from the small packages, YES!  there's some drama as soon as we're done and I'm stowing away my gig stuff, luckily after my third outburst, mike comes by to help me w/it... I get done and then give as much attention as I can to the most kind saint louis gig-goers that wanna spiel and have stuff signed. have to swerve to avoid picturetaker pain in the neck who wants and doesn't ask for me to be posed, not happening and I doubt would like something like it foisted on him. crimony. sincereness is very generous and returned but not jive control foists, NO! so sorry but "that's a reality we have to face" as ms yuko said. bassbrother damon's here, alright! I thought I saw him up front - big man! I got to play w/him when he was just starting on standup bass, so glad he kept on keepin on. I sign a bunch of stuff and get the word from many kind people, many kind people - thank you much good people of saint louis, truly! I go to the boat and stuff my stuff in the back, the get behind the wheel in the boat to wait out the rest of the load-out (being a cojo really limits my worth w/that, damn me) when this lady named marla comes up - she booked me at a pad called "cicero's" in the less-younger days. we talk about stuff but not just about less-younger days but actually TONIGHT and how bad I feel about hollering at this guys to give me just a moment to put my stuff away - I ended up hollering at him three times to give me just a moment to get it together cuz I'll space and donate stuff and hurt my ability for the next gig... damn if she ain't got the two books of poetry of his he stuffed in my bass sack that I had to remove to get my two audio cables in... people can get the wrong idea that you're being rude when all you're trying to do is get your stuff together so you can THEN speak w/them... I swear it don't take long but I do need a little time so I don't space and... well, I'm repeating myself here - so sorry. anyway, this poetman brett lars underwood is who gave me the books, he put some card on this one - was it by accident?  we pull anchor and head for the comformists' bassman chris' pad in the southampton part of saint louis, very kind cat, truly... also appears safe to park the boat - MOST important. up some stairs and down on the deck w/the air mattress... no hose-down or lavanderia for watt tonight (but I do get into the nightwear, you know they're fouled now, lo siento) - I think my earliest konk of the tour: eleven bells. thank you big time, bassbrother chris! saturday, april 16, 2022 - kansas city, mo from mike; thanks Chris! very clutch the wait for tires grows long nap, chow, jive count in from watt; pop at six bells and discover chris here makes coff itlaiano style, using a moka pot. we decide we all go to the tire pad so we keep the team together just in case it takes a buttload of time... we want no bogart on most kind chris who shows up to make us coff but too late! I do sign some records he asks me to, learn a little about the many versions of the conformist, whoa! so kind of him, the weather this morning is like his spirit, fucking happening! much respect to bassbrother chris. just after seven I get us down to "dobb's tire & auto" in downtown saint louis, a block or so south from where the cardinals play - eleven rings for those cats, can you believe? says so on the stadium. crimony. there's only one mechanic on duty here AND there's also a five k run on that has city going so he can't get to work for a while. hey, life deals you a hand, correct? we bear w/it. miss hiyori brings me chow, like a kind of panini thing from "arefucks" along w/some dry fruit and two hard boiled eggs/crackers. in the lobby I chimp diary and do email stuff... you can't believe how chimping diary keeps me disciplined on tour, you can't believe what a happening "therapy" it is for someone like watt, I shit thee not. we'll get to kansas city when we get there: you can't hurry love. I look at maps for the next three hellrides: six hundred, five hundred and then another five hundred... maybe this is real good luck we're getting all new tires, might be real providence, good people. kismet is kismet and luck is mixed even though we'd like it to be just the good kind... the way it weaves and works it to whatever it ends up being is such a fucking trip to me, truly. I got get my team home safe, gotta work hard for the gig-goers... everything else is secondary when it comes to watt tour hopes/wishes. two bells, I pull us over at the hermann offramp to fuel up the boat at a "bp" ($3.74/gallon)... back on the road, we pass a town that's got d boon's name spelled his way, yatta!!  how many fuckin people who say they're into d boon fuck up and spell his name w/an "e" at the end? crimony! the weather is real nice, only tiny wind and a few wispy clouds way up high. we do the "musical calisthenics" we do daily, getting our minds focused on mssv stuff, especially the new things we're gonna record the day after the tour ends... also, stuff keeps developing, mike getting new ideas about me and hodge can help the music. another regular thing I dig (the "musical calisthtntics" we is not a "chore" for me, I dig it!) is the 'dines w/crackers and miss hiyori prepares w/salsa picante, just so good, so good, truly. just before five I get us to the recordbar in downtown kansas city (the missouri one) w/the dicks blasting "shit on me" from apple music device (I had this on my telephone message machine for more than twenty years) - we made it before anyone's even here yet, yatta! soundman marty arrives soon and we get a soundcheck going w/him w/mike kind of tripping on kick drum kick his virtual keester. crimony. I think he's wore out some cuz this part of tour can make that happen easy. george is here, righteous - a man who digs charley plymell like me, we both care much for him and know both him and pam are hurting cuz of where they're at up in western new york (cherry valley) - just hard weather for less-younger folks... me and petra have used his "planet chernobyl" poem as a libretto for an opera we did together as pelicanman... it'll be out soon, her sister tanya is getting the art together for it. we did it during this sitch - you can "blame" us having time for our composing and recording it - we traded files over the internet w/me giving her bass I recorded/composed at my pad inspired by charley's words, one part at a time (fifteen total) and then she would compose/record at her pad using her voice, violin and mandolin - that's it, very econo. I mixed it a part of the time and send the mixes to her so she could w/her recommends/suggests help me make future remix(es) better. that's how we did it, just us three - you can do that these days. I also gotta say people blaming the covid19 sitch for not being creative is a real load of horseshit and an excuse/crutch to cover for fucking laziness, just my opinion. the real thing that got hurt by this stuff was people getting killed, how many a day? everyone whines about shit they know they're lying about, ignoring the big reality of it cuz it's convenient on their conscious and the real truth hurts it you truly face it. if we would've truly faced it instead this shallow feeling sorry for ourselves I think we could've dealt w/it way better but maybe we can learn? I'm hoping so, I really am cuz I think life is gonna throw more challenges and as well as "inconveniences" (I gotta fuck laugh as I chimp that word) in the future - not that I want it but looking at history... d boon got me into history, you know? I was into those world book encyclopedias my ma got but lots of reading was fiction 'til I met d boon - that man changed my life in so many ways, so many! I will always love you d boon, always - I owe you fuckin buttloads forever... I meet opener mike stover putting together his fourteen string pedal steel guitar... crimony! then we do soundcheck w/soundman marty and man, is there a problem w/the subwoofers and/or stage - some stages are just too "live" and act as a virtual drum head. subwoofers under stages like these put too loud make stuff even worse... mike is having a real hard time w/the lowend bogart coming up through his legs and 'pert-near making him literally sick. I think he's tired also but he muscles us through the full nine yard soundcheck like someone at the rudder who really cares for the music and what we try to bring to the gig-goers. much respect from me for this, truly. I think hodge appreciates it as well. marty works hard w/hodge to try and get this boom-bogart in check while at the same time we know things will change w/the addition of flesh-sacks to the sound equation. george has us chow w/him and his buddy ike at a chow pad called "tannin" - I can't find the pad (fuckin forgot - he took me here before, I'm baka) but dan jones from one of the openers brings me over to where it is (like two blocks away!) and I get duck - ain't chowed duck in a long time, it's real good and has some trippy greens w/it, both in a big puddle of horseradish. george's buddy ike raps w/me about this story he's writing, very trippy - he's got a lot of cleveland stories also... at peadbody's down under... it was the pirate's cove in the early pere ubu days... I go to the boat and konk really hard but really relieved the boat's got happening rubber, BIG TIME relieved. damn, like 'pert-near every time, I needed this konk bad... mike rousts me for the quarter after ten go-time, right on time - none of those old probs - distant memory crap now, yes! -thank you everyone responsible for that. the kansas city gig-goers are most kind - some are lawrence ones cuz I see jayhawk bassman keven right up front! very happening gig despite the sound stuff which marty got hold on and of course the flesh-sacks helped much, thank you also for that, kansas city gig-goers!  I load out my stuff and there's john - the brother of andy (who I'll see in portland hopefully), very VERY longtime gig-goers going back to the minutemen but not stopping there w/them, fIREHOSE and all the other stuff I've been involved w/... I am no nostalgic act w/john, no way! these two hermano I love big time. also look who here: the very kind man who gave me the bracelet made from a bicycle spoke in lawrence years ago is here and shows me his identical one, also his partner lady's - it's a threefer, MUCH respect. I wear it big time for good luck - just like NOT taking that penny I found it the lot next door even though it was a 1958 (one year younger than watt!) - I only pickup ones that are head's up and that way statistically I leave half on the deck, correct? I wheel us towards george's pad in lawrence, kansas cuz that's where he's having us konk, very VERY kind of him. we cross the border w/out realizing it - bye bye missouri... that might be trippy to some but the bigger and prolly more known "kansas city" is not in kansas. we get there and right away I hose down and get in the nightwear... I get to have a good spiel w/george cuz there's more time to do so w/him that at the chow earlier so I am REALLY glad for that. I get to ask george a lot of stuff and learn from him. ok, gotta konk cuz of the first of three hellrides starts in not too long - a matter of hours actually... sunday, april 17, 2022 - denver, co from mike: quick sleep at George's thank you Doug for the great gig! Kazu - tamago! from watt: pop at six bells, empty bladder and get the coff down - we gotta pull anchor at seven. george is bitchin and cooks up scrambled eggs and bacon, has some yogurt, blueberries (huge real fresh ones), cubes of fresh-cut melon, what an asagohan, sugoi! ('breakfast, awesome!' in jap) and healthy. also, he's got apple cider vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice - for my "elixir" - I do double the amount cuz it ain't been since louisville - damn me for forgetting to chimp about that maybe? anyway, lieutenant scott got me that the morning I popped in his pad - my first full three-parter (I had a couple w/out the lemon juice) of the tour, even w/FRESH lemon juice which george was missing (from a plastic bottle instead) - I'm so grateful for the care most kind buds show, truly I am. I thank george big time, get in some last minute spiels including thoughts about charley and then we shove off, bye bye george, love you!  west on I-70 as we leave lawrence behind w/the sky heavy w/clouds but no rain. there is wind but it being easter maybe makes for lighter traff? the new tires are fucking beautiful, the boat handling like a champ. I use the apple music device to play for mike all thirtythree migu tunes from the three albums I have by them. I can't tell you how difficult "meatwagon duty" is for as wheelman and by that I mean I'm the only one awake while everyone's konked. it is so much help to me that mike stays up and raps about stuff w/me, really REALLY helps and I wonder if I could even do w/out him. I am most grateful. at ten and half we pull over at junction city to fuel up the boat at a "shell" ($3.70/gallon)... I got weird memories of this town though I was in it only one night. it was a weird tour for me: ed vedder and dave grohl had their own bands and were also part of "my band" for this "ring spiel 1995 tour" and there was a day off between the denver and lawrence gigs so I decided to konk abeline (a little west of here, mr eisenhower's town) but decided to go one more exit east and konked here. maybe three years later these two fbi guys came to my pedro apartment and asked me why I was there cuz timothy mcveigh rented that ryder truck he used to be a fuckedup asshole and kill all these people w/a fertilizer bomb in oklahoma city. crimomy. tour can put you in weird sitchs, real weird. maybe there's a file somewhere about that visit? I wonder if it's like my version? I know there was never another visit about it. we put the apple music device back in shuffle mode and continue west on I-70 w/some wind blowing but nothing like a few days ago in chicago, crimony that was in tents, like camping. about thirty-something miles from the colorado border we cross into the mountain time zone and gain a hour so now it's eleven in stead of noon  an hour later I pull us over in burlington (not the vermont one like where greg gave me that bitchin local mustard but the colorado one) at a "conoco" to again fuel the boat ($4.00/gallon) cuz I don't like having her below a quarter tank... good squeegee here and I use even fuckin some windex I carry cuz streaks are fucked up w/sun and we're driving west a lot now... hodge working hard at fouling the fascilities here so I don't wanna rush him and instead work the piss bottle I've had on board.  seventyfive mph most of the way this ride and the boat is handling it like a champ, I shit thee not. the apple music device in shuffle mode gives us a john coltrane interview he did during his last tour, the on in japan in 1966. the interviewerman asks john coltrane what he would like to hear while on tour in japan and john coltane replies, "I'd like to hear some japanese music" and damn if the next the apple music device brings us is a tune from the lite brothers, crimony!  I get us into denver safe at three bells, drop anchor w/righteous parking right at the front hatch of the "lion's lair lounge" on colfax which is owned by my old buddy doug and where we're playing tonight. mike and hodge walk the mile down the road to the 'tel where doug got us the two rooms while I rest in the boat... miss hiyori goes a half block to a chow pad named "pete's kitchen" to get me a salad w/chicken katzu cut into pieces along w/chow for her. this is a real good team w/got here w/mssv, not just w/the music but w/tour as a full-on mission and I love it, am very VERY fuckin grateful. doug comes by to visit for a while and we catch up some but then I gotta rest cuz I'm tuckered but chimp some diary first cuz of my damn memory being fucking weak and me spacing on shit. I then rest 'til all four of us are together again for the load-in where I can't schlep much but I can do guardiano work - "each to their ability" I think someone once suggested. you can work on making that work, I can testify. we soundcheck w/soundman patrick - in the meantime while setting up I do more spiel w/gig boss doug - man, I could hours?/days?/months? spiel w/this man, truly. I then go to the boat to konk and do so HARD. crimony. a body gets tired from working hard bass but also manning the wheel. crimony. mike rousts minutes before our scheduled ten bells go-time which is on time, most happening! most gigs here I'm working it w/a rented svt but tonight I get to use the fort hp and super twin and it's fucking happening for me, I can't tell you... just love it, LOVE IT! I mean it's about human parts more but crimony, what a way to express the human stuff you got to bring w/stuff that allows more than get in the way, you know? the denver gig-goers are beautiful also - I can see mio and kazu, big sonkei to them! there's dancing, there's bitchin focus and there's righteous spirit - most happening. the band's doing good, hitting on a lot of the cylinders and all the developing on what we started w/gig one is paying off I think. trying real hard for the gig boss/old friend bassbrother doug also. I get the good word after as I schlep my stuff to the boat, one cat gives regards from brother kyle in mechanicsville - next tour for sure I gotta play virginia plus a whole lot of pads I missed w/this tour... I've been thinking about new strategies regarding this, thinking hard about it. mio and kazu give us gifts, so very kind of them, truly. drummerman dan from run west run is here visiting his brothers - so good to see him again, he's been living in iowa city for years now, says he's tripping on me both knowing AND collaborating w/fell iowa citier sam locke ward - says he's the man and what I've gotten to share w/him (still haven't met him in person though we've [slw cc watt] made already three recorded trips!), I have to agree, big time! so great to see brother dan again... fIREHOSE got to tour w/them once - I'll never forget the gig chicago when my knee went out and then as I went down, my bass knocked me in the mouf and knocking one of the big teef back and when k saw it (dos was also on the bill that night) saw that a freaked some, I reached in and pulled it back into place which a dentist later said saved it! crimony. Iok, the plan now is for me to dump our people off at the 'tel and then put the boat in front of jay of the pollution's pad - not too far away but far away enough - and then his drummerman oscar will drive me back to the 'tel so I can hose off and konk so as to be strong enough for the second of three in-a-row hellrides. great getting to rap w/oscar some, he's jamming again w/some cats from his old days, rekindling music connects, alright! soon as I can I get myself off to sleepy town, need to keep everyone safe tomorrow... monday, april 18, 2022 - salt lake city, ut from mike: driving through rockies windshield takes a rock, quick fix rap with Marc, great gig! from watt: pop at six and get ready for jay to come get me here at the "days inn" so I can get the boat from his pad and the get the rest of the crew... I do this and get a good rap from jay - always a good rap from jay, ALWAYS. the sun is up and bright, great weather, thank god cuz we got a hellride through the rockies across from wyoming, where my ma grew up. the winds up again though... seven and a half we get out of dodge - I mean denver, I get us north on I-25. at fort collins we fuel up at a "valero" ($3.90/gallon) and then take the shortcut via us-287 which is dependent on the weather but even w/snow in patches all over, they ain't close to the road and things feel safe - BIG important thing... nine and a half it's bye bye colorado, hello wyoming for a transit visit. I tell mike about my ma's grandpa carlo and grandma guistina coming from italy to a town called dines (pronounced different than 'dines!) in the west part of this state. twenty minutes later we're on our way over the rockies on I-80 west, two hands on the wheel the whole time cuz of the blaster gusts. hey, mike's writing a tune for jer... via an email from wasco in cleveland who was talking w/jer about his big hellhurt w/the allergy pass out on the boat during last week - wasco told me he asked him "what can I do you for you, jer?" - something like that and jer's answer was "write me a song" - well, nothing to do w/wasco but that's what mike is doing right now in the seat next to me... that's what music's about people - it don't have to be background noise to some bullshit, it can actually have a focus and a reason, a fabric to help bring us together. a quarter after eleven stop at a "kum & go" in rawlins to foul their facilities, no fuel for the boat involved. we do a little tour of the downtown to get back to the interstate... we pass wamsutter and I'm reminded of this time touring w/my secondmen (w/original secondmen peetzo and jer) and they were konked (I was doing "meatwagon shift") and fuck if I felt a fart coming w/the bowels feeling loose, rolled the dice and damn if it wasn't snake eyes and I blew it out. I was thinking what the fuck do I do... levis all filled up - well, they didn't pop cuz I don't know why but I spotted this little independent gas station that said "shower" (not "showers") and damn if when I pulled over and cleaned all up and fueled up the boat, got back on I-80 (we were going east then) and damn if peetzo and jer were still konked! they didn't know about what happened 'til they read the diary! crimony. about six miles west of wamsutter - damn if I don't I spot that very fucking fuel pad... pretty sure it was - damn, now closed and for sale. crimony.  we cross the continental divide (6,930 feet up the sign says) at twenty after noon, first time since new mexico how many fucking gigs ago?! crimony for real. not much after, during a stretch of construction where the road narrows to one lane each, oncoming traffic kicked up a rock that hit the windshield, 'pert-near right in front of me behind the wheel. crimony! in rock springs I pull us over at a "flying j" ($4.26/gallon) to fuel up the boat and get some super glue to arrest that fucking windshield crack.  about twentyeight miles from the border I finally found it: the actual french road, crimony! damn if it don't look like a "frontage road" too... when us more-younger minutemen were first touring, we had no idea that term "frontage road" was a generic way of speaking about a road that paralleled the highway - we thought that was its actual name and couldn't believe how fuckin long it was - we'd see a sign w/"frontage road" on it and say to each other, "there's that fuckin road again!" thinking it was the stretch of fuckin whatever... damn if weren't real dumbfucks, huh? slow learners... I still am!  for some reason I think of "chin slaps" (yet another georgieism) inspires from me w/all those sharing this boat ride w/me origin stories for madonnabes, secondmen and missingmen. it's so great mike spiels w/me during these hellrides so I don't have do to a "meatwagon shift" trip, a buttload lot safer too, I think about it and am most grateful for that...    I get us into utah (bye bye wyoming) right at three bells and then retrace the route (though we were going the other way then) when I did a 270 degree spin after hitting black ice during a fIREHOSE tour - my mind has blocked out where it actually happened but I can feel it's somewhere close. what a fucking nightmare that was but I turned into the spin and kept my foot off the brake - we went into an open median stretch and kept on all four wheels, thank god. georgie had to take the wheel after that cuz I was shaking so bad. crimony. scary memory for watt, really scary.  not too far off I-80 at state street, I get us to aces high saloon at a quarter after four... find parking right out front, yatta! after setting up my stuff on stage, I rap w/erika and katie - erika's been seeing my play for years and years. I tell them about don dalton... we lost brother donzo last october - killed in a solo motorcycle crash not far from his pad - the pad I konked in buttloads of times, tour after tour after... years and years. watt is heartboken. this man did two huge mexican trips on a motorcycle, a big u.s. one and this happened... I talked to him a couple hours before via leash even. crimony, I still can't believe it. he was a year older than me, ready to close up his law practice and go full time music - me and my secondmen helped him do his sons of hanzo album in our pedro town - where he was from... his ma was the school librarian when we were at san pedro high... donzo was in the class ahead of me, I was w/his brother steve in the class of 1976 along w/d boon and georgie... can't believe he's gone, still can't believe it... a terrible blow for watt, a terrible blow. it's hard not to cry telling these two ladies about him, real hard - this is another reason I try real hard w/music... cuz it is truly a lifeline for me. crimony. I miss donzo so much, tonight I play my hardest for him.  we soundcheck w/soundman scott's a short one - mike's fryette amp has failed again and it IS that switch, he's pretty sure... well, the bergantino forte d back-up amp to the rescue again, thank you AGAIN mr jim for your most reliable design - truly a buttsaver, you can't deny it - even for guitar cats! jim bergantino to the rescue! mike is so frustrated he will not spend any more dinero on shipping and will hand-deliver the broken fryette amp and in the meantime use the back up forte d amp for the rest of the tour's gigs. ok. I chow a steak sandwich from here that that they added some mustard to and damn is it good - I don't usually go for this kind of chow and was thinking about soup from a china chow pad I saw down the street but yes, I am glad I put this in my mouf. I meet drummerman aris - sounds like eris and we have a good laugh about that... he knows all about that stuff which is a trip for me cuz of so many people I know are ignorant of discordianism, the "principia discordia" and stuff like that which had a HUGE influence on watt since he was just out of high school. drummerman aris is very cool people, much respect to him. there are three bands before us tonight but I gotta konk in the boat cuz of being the wheelman to make the five hundred-plus miles through the rockies it took to get here... I don't konk for long but do lie still and get to experience nite, bewitcher and iceburn in a total audio sense, all three blasting from the gig pad and ragin' full-on into the boat, crimony! it is something to behold - I keep still to rest my bones and muscles but my head is totally on the crazy train ride each band takes me, very surreal and I dig it... I'm inspired for our turn. mike thinks something's wrong w/his speaker cable and asks soundman scott to go direct (he's always had this idea for a plan b) but the prob is actually in the signal chain among his pedal dachau... he resolves it and damn if we ain't only a minute or two late from the scheduled go-time... this is how stuff can run smoove and not fuckedup w/stall-job bullshit when all the bands are together for a gig, like sharing the road safe w/other drivers, dig? life is like that, I find - it's really like that and seems to get full of shit when the selfish-putsch bumrush gets going and lames out everything. the salt lake city gig-goers are most kind and focused on what we bring, truly an honor to bring what we got to them. I think of donzo too. I blow some clams but that's my fault - they're tiny ones and using the ojos "rights our boat" every time and we never have it turn turtle, keeping that keel in the water. I do wonder if something's up w/hodge though and ask him before the encore if he's ok and not "dead man walking" - that was weird for me to ask but I didn't mean to imply he was on his way down the hall for an execution, didn't mean that - damn am I clumsy w/my spiel sometimes. sorry hodge. I get my stuff packed up and get it to the boat - getting the good word from many kind cats. I keep having to remind people I use my speakerbox as a "walker" cuz of my fucked up port knee - them pushing it for me robs me of that help but maybe they don't realize cuz they can't see through my levis. trippy, I talk to one gig-goer about his pop working in idaho on nuke stuff... he knows about atomic city even, his pop was a scientist or something, maybe a civilian it sounded like. trippy the cats you meet on tour! as I put in tonight's konk pad address into the navigatore gps, salt lake academy of music co-founder steve comes up to the widow of the boat to rap w/me, he's friends w/trumpetman willie waldman - actually we share many music friends and it's most happening to speak w/him regarding that... music I think is such a righteous fabric to connect people, it truly is - like john coltrane said, "you can play a shoestring if you're sincere" - amen. I get us to the konk pad and get the aerobed air mattress inflated, hose off and then into the nemaki - watt's ready for konk and the third chapter of this three rounds of hellrides, the one that's worrying me the most cuz of potential weather stuff so I konk kind of worried and need help, need some whisky gulps to knock my shit out quick. crimony. tuesday, april 19, 2022 - missoula, mt from mike: stunning views, first time nice weather, great food from J! good vibes Kia, thanks! from watt: pop at quarter after six - no fucking coff here, crimony. hose off again to help wake up. use the scale they got here... 170 pounds. we pull anchor at seven w/gray skies but no rain and mike's accuweather trip on his leash is giving us a good shot at weather kind enough to let us through... I pray like I always do about this stuff. I need coff though so after getting us on I-15 north, I get us off at in north salt lake city at seven and a half at some gas stop but to fuel up watt (besides coff, I also get a non-commercial dungbag, supposed to be a "chorizo burrito") and not the boat, no need for that yet though I do get miss hiyori something trippy, a gummi pizza:  what?! she calls it "art" and I agree. onward north on I-15, we pass a deserted building that used to have all this frat greek letter bullshit but that's been grayed-over now, yatta! at quarter of nine we say bye bye to utah and cross into idaho - skies still gray and the wind now is getting like it was yesterday but if I keep both hands on the wheel (which I do), stuff is safe enough to be doable. a little after nine I pull us off at the exit for downey at "shell" to fuel the boat ($4.60/gallon) and blow out that dungbag (kind of short stay) I chowed from our last stop. oddometer shows 9,459 miles for the tour so far. ok. the repair job mike did w/the super glue on the windshield where it took the rock yesterday is holding up, he did a good job. respect. we pass a sign celebrating sister sacajawea - how much did her and brother york help those other two clowns who get all the credit, how much? crimony!  we pass through pocatello... john rocknowski wrote me lyrics for a fIREHOSE tune off of "if'n" called "operation solitaire" that mentioned his grandpa (I think being in this town) - actually, I think the song was about his grandma... I ain't seen john in a long time - am supposed to see his tragicomedy bandmate crane at the spokane gig tomorrow. we pass an exit for blackfoot quarter after ten... my pop got some nuclear training as a young sailor at an army reactor (sl-1) nearby in arco so I lived in military housing here for a little bit as a young boy - shorter that in balston spa back in new york (trippy passing by these two towns this tour for watt, huh?) and being more younger, I have zero memories, none that I can recall. crimony. later my pop told me this reactor when critical - the story about it even more insane but I think after this, the idea of the "containment vessel" was committed to by most those working w/nukes and that's how you can identify them - look for the building w/some kind of sphere involved... they put my pop and other enlisted men in jeeps w/geiger counters to follow the nuclear cloud that escaped the reactor.... it rained on them (inculding him) in montana, he told me. my pop died of cancer in 1991 that killed him in nine months at age fiftythree but then he also spent many years in a nuclear engine rooms (on the uss long beach and uss enterprise) and then doing air conditioning repair in the san jaoquin valley near fresno where there was buttloads of cropdusted pesticides so I ain't trying to imply I know how he got that cancer. back to this driving mission: heavy wind so both hands always on the wheel... they allow triple-trailer big-rigs, very scary w/amateur drivers, let alone professional - how I wish for days of more professional truckers, your best friend on the road! at a quarter of noon w/cross into montana at exit 0 (later jason will hip me to the fact that "monida" which is the "town" name here is a real alive person - crimony!), we'll be back through idaho's north part on tomorrow's drive. again we pass the continental divide (up 6,870 feet here it says on the sign)... at noon I pull us over at lima for a head call for hodge at a pad called "ralph's exxon" where I don't get out of the boat but I do get to check out this:   we pass a sign for a town w/tom watson's middle name!  and a sign for a town called feely!  two canadian geese cross our bow!   quarter of two the I-15 t-bones into I-90, I get us on it going west, a half hour later I pull us off in deer lodge at "fic's plaza" ($4.06/gallon). I get two hard boiled eggs and spiced pickle. for the first time ever, mike (and prolly hodge) hear joe frank and mike's digging on it, fuck yeah - it's a spiel using so cal traff plugs as a anchor - how does the apple music device know about shit in our life?! crimony. at least traff ain't a concern as much on these last three drives cuz there's so few vehicles "sharing" the road w/us. you don't know how grateful I am about that and also BIG TIME: the weather. like a baka I take us 'pert-near to the konk pad for tonight instead of the venue cuz I summoned up the wrong address I had inserted earlier into the navigatore gps...  getting it more together I then get us back down town and a little after four, into the alley behind where we're playing tonight, the zootown community arts center where waiting for us at the backstage hatch is pad boss kia, who enlightens me to where I can put boat safe, angled right in where it ain't a plug for the alley, yes. I spiel w/soundman chris who also a bassbrother - I realize it's been ten years since I last played missoula, crimony! so sorry. we do our full soundcheck w/him and then have chow from the cat we're konking w/tonight, he's got a french restaurant and I chow cassoulet...  ain't had that since having larry on my show, we were in toulose while helping the stooges. I meet bassbrother ed from one of the opener's for tonight, local cats called "black shore" (sorry I can't find any internet links on them)... there's one other opener rob travolta but I'm really REALLY fucking beat and need to get to the boat bad to konk so I'm strong enough for the gig, damn me for not being strong enough.  it is a massive konk for me... mike rousts me w/seven minutes to go on our quarter after nine go-time, I get through the crowd and get myself on stage and ready... we bring it to the missoula gig-goers and they're most kind, truly - you would not believe how tiny we get "june 16th" (the one tune I wrote out of all the stuff we do this tour - I wrote this for the minutemen after reading jim joyce's "ulysses" - june 16th is the day that book is supposed to have taken place and it's also raymond's bday BUT it's also mike's bday - ain't that a trip?) and there ain't ONE peep from the missoula gig-goers, not fuckin ONE, I shit thee not. crimony. the stage is kind of too live and the room is like that pad back in northampton (like an assembly room: terrible for music) BUT w/those challenges aside, I enjoy the gig much. I do a little spiel regarding "old crow" w/hodge before we do an encore - he does amazing combination of two different sticks when he loses one of his mallets in his drum solo which amazes me and lights me up big time... right on for hodge. oh, I did blow a HUGE clam in "poem song" - I brought in the ostinato fucking backwards like a baka! however, I am pretty sure in "every growing thing" I got stuff shipshape and maybe mike was hearing a weird overtone cuz of the acoustic sitch... we talk about this a little when we get to the konk pad, in the boat - I tell him I'm way into owning clams cuz for me it's a big time way to try and make myself not to do it next time... I believe denial or lying about stuff like that makes it more impossible to have that happen. on the other hand, I myself could have been mistaken... I would like to hear a recording if one exists just for piece of mind... you can tell the part cuz mike gets unison w/me - I actually thought that was him improvising for the missoula gig-goers! I appreciate people letting me pack up my stuff w/out bother but 'pert-near when I'm done the guy who does come up on me is soundman chris! he wants me to sign the poster of a guy who put on the only missoula fIREHOSE gig and I ask him to please wait and while I'm putting up the rest of my stuff, cuz he's a bassbrother, I discuss the bergantino forte hp amp and the barefaced super twin speaker box and like 'pert-near everybody this tour, they're way into it so I don't have to see them on anything! crimony. I sign mr tom's poster after he helps get the forty pound box off the stage (I got the six and half pound amp in its purse around my neck) and of course he wants to rehash stuff about that gig - I cut him off w/my memory of bassbrother jeff ament (he's from nearby big sandy - gave me a beautiful gibson sb450 bass w/mike lull pickups that's the house bass at casa hanzo at peetzo's in our pedro town) and thankfully he relents... people try to push my speaker box for me but I have to tell them PLEASE NO cuz I use it for a "walker" - you know, to help me as kind of a crutch w/wheels (I modified it w/a dolly using four wheels instead of the two it came w/and did that w/the approval of the designer man alex claber)... people are generous to help but they don't see the big picture: how it's dangerous for me to carry my back-wack-puter-sack, wattplower bass in gig sack, forte hp amp in its berg purse (it's got a pouch for the little board that peetzo made me that has a midrange boost - which I used ONLY on the first gig this tour - keeley "the bassist" compressor and tc electronic polytone mini-tuner along w/a wall-wart power supply) w/out having the super twin speakerbox in "walker" mode... I wish there was a way I could plant the gravity of that sitch in their minds, I fucking truly do. I get to the boat and some dude says "here comes the tetris pack" cuz maybe he's been reading the diary but again, it's an "assume" move that's wrong cuz the "tetris pack" can only happen when all the stuff is here and it takes time for mike, hodge (especially hodge but not as much now that he's abandoned his electronic stuff since the nightmare w/the gig in indianapolis) and miss hiyori to get their stuff out of the gig pad and up to the culo of the boat so what I'm doing is for my piece of mind, to get my stuff safe in the boat but it's just a temp job w/the speakerbox and amp cuz they're gonna have to come back out for the actual "tetris pack" but 'til then I got piece of mind that they're for the meantime stowed safe. the bajo goes where it goes for real and the back-pack-puter-sack stays w/me while I meet w/gig-goers to sign stuff and spiel BUT hopefully don't have to go through the hell of their old stories some feel so fucking compelled to burden me w/and it ain't cuz I don't appreciate them much but it's WAY MORE for being here now, in 2022 cuz what's the reality of something olde-timey in this regard? what if I got left behind in those distant memories - what's so happening about where we are now - both me and the gig-goer, it's so vital they didn't leave me in those days and still support me now - I wish they could really understand how grateful I am for that, I truly am so big time. it's the greatest gift they could ever bring and not so much bring old stories - that's why now I try to cut them off w/a story of my first gig I went to, it was w/d boon (and his pop and brother) also in 1973 at the long beach auditorium to see t-rex and sure enough 'pert-near every time they're really not interested - SEE? why can't they relate to that? sometimes I know it's the alcohol... but you know what? maybe an even stronger "drug" is nostalgia and sentimentalism, huh? I truly don't mean to sound harsh and judgmental but I sincerely am more grateful for gig-goers that going to my gigs NOW - cuz how many more do I actually have left? think about it... we get us to where I was on our way to take us like a baka when we got into town, jason's pad which is very comfortable and he's beautiful... his son's bass is right where I put inflate the aerobed air mattress then hose off and get into my nightwear and immediately after get into konk mode, just too beat really spiel - these last three hellrides beat me up pretty big time but man, am I glad we're through them now and through them safe! thank god. wednesday, april 20, 2022 - spokane, wa from mike: my first 'dines today! good weather still through passes waterfalls downtown from hodge: jason was not only our host he fed us dinner from he and his wife's french bistro. he texted us the menu while we were still driving towards town. one way road bands remember gigs and towns is by the food. our gig here in missoula, montana will long be remembered by the fabulous fantastic food we had.  from watt: pop at six and chimp diary hard to catch up since no time the last three days cuz of each drive being a hellride and me having to konk right after soundcheck to both play the best I can for the gig-goers and protect my health. it's great to hear jason talk w/hodge about writers cuz jason writes also, I've read james lee burke who lives in missoula I think and since hodge is curious about u.s. writers still alive in general, recommend cormack mccarthy while chimping hard. we're gonna go over lookout pass to get to the next gig in spokane so I want us to time it so we hit around two so it's warmest and hopefully more safe... I've learned to do this from experience. mike using his leash to help w/finding out conditions helps big time also, he's a great cat to have on tour w/so is hodge and miss hiyori - I really love this crew. miss hiyori makes up some 'dines on matsa w/salsa picante ("valentina's") and senf for asagohan. I feel stronger... I was feeling some heaviness but in a way that "drama" gave me a handle on some resolve concerning such feelings.  thinking about those writers too - thank you big time to jason and our touring crew for helping out the bass wrasler w/this, truly. we pull anchor a quarter after one and I get us on I-90 west w/buttloads of clouds in the sky but only sprinkles at times and the wind big not too heavy though I need both hands on the wheel always. montana has this policy about putting white crosses on the side of the road where people have been killed and in fact jason told us he has a buddy who's job it is three months a year is to go around and repaint them white. you wouldn't believe the number of them we've seen both today and yesterday. crimony.  we pass a sign "frenchtown" and I love it!  also love the fact mike's look-sees via webcam and weather sites show lookout pass safe enough prolly for us, thank god. we cross over it at eight before three... you never saw a more relieved watt, I shit thee not. then we're into idaho, bye bye montana. in idaho (transit only again, sorry) only an hour and as we cross the state line at state line (!) we also cross into the pacific time zone and gain an hour. I'm so grateful we're safe, let me tell you, LET ME TELL YOU!  I drop anchor at the berserk bar in downtown spokane at quarter of four, we load-in and meet soundman shea. the opening band fun ladies has one of their bandmates who works at mexican chow pad not too far away (sorry I didn't get the name, damn me) and mike gets me a burrito he made for me and I'm most grateful. I do get to meet three of them, great cats. after soundcheck w/shea, I head straight for the boat, whoa am I tuckered!  hodge rousts me - that's a little different - or was it hodge, did I dream it? I did have this dream I get usually when I'm in the first week of a tour - why now? anyway, usually I end up getting bayonetted to death after some fucking hell-chase, all run downed but this time I live - what? I make my way to the stage and we bring our mssv stuff to the spokane gig-goers - they're most kind w/some dancing and yeah, there's some yammering but it's like from another part of where we're playing, maybe more by the bar? it's a tough room acoustically, there's music coming from some guy's leash in his pocket - it's us but from the album - what? I think we did good all things considered and so many people gave me much kindness including one of the dancers who's actually a californian! like sly stone said, "it's not where you're from it's where you're at. darrin huff accompanies me to the boat w/my stuff, telling me about these new kind of guitars he's building, interesting. good to see him again, the purpleplower builder! I get some soda water from I think the pad boss, he's real nice to me and I give him a sticker. thank you, so sorry I didn't get his name, damn me. ok - I got an email from crane - this ain't from this date (april 20) but in the future (!): april 23 (sometimes it takes me time to get in dairy entries and some older ones might come after newer ones - I try my hardest but all the hellrides we just did made it a little tough... I'm catching up more and more - it's now april 24 as I post this): I need to remind you that you forgot to mention that you saw me for your gig in Spokane. The day before the gig you said in reference to John Rocknowski..."I ain't seen john in a long time - am supposed to see his tragicomedy bandmate crane at the spokane gig tomorrow."he was at the window of the boat for a little bit right before we bailed and I brought us (hodge, mike and miss hiyori) to tonight's konk pad: hodge's daughter's husband's parents in colbert, about a half-hour drive north by northeast of spokane... very kind people but I was so tired from all the hellrides that I had to konk immediately after inflating the aerobed, hosing off and getting into my nightwear. oh yeah, one more thing - I introduced crane as 'pert-near the fourth minutemen to everyone in the boat... thanks for coming to see us in spokane, crane! thursday, april 21, 2022 - seattle, wa from mike: windshield crack gets fixed jive encore crasher - why?! why?! truly great blanket from watt: pop at six, empty bladder... soon in the background is hodge catching up w/his brother and sister in law. ig's bday, I send out this shot I took of him sixteen years ago while helping stooges on tour in europe:  just got an email from charley plymell: The ancestors of the Hopi had to fight giants who ate them. That was near Shiprock which is the stump of giant tree. I lived in Flagstaff when I worked on pipeline....right of way... to Calif, line. I sang: "Don't let the stars get in your / don't let the moon break your heart" on the way to work in my 1953 Roadmaster Rivera Buick I had bought in Hollywood. I worked with my sister's husband who had a lumber mill in Prineville, Oregon which made finished molding. The Ponderosa was good for that. I also work on a rock crusher in Crater Lake where the rock floated and the lumber sank. (Certain types I forgot). I also worked with dynamite crew & rock drill on the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River. I bought a record player & had an lp with the "Rose Room" on it with Lionel Hampton et. al. but have never been able to find it again. I looked over the bay from Twin Peaks, probably on Sandos & Panama Red. I remember Russo & I thought we were flying from there one time. I also worked on the Colorado River operating a D8 Caterpillar near Cibolo, AZ. Guess who worked across the river? Dad bought me a new 1952 GMC pickup when we lived in Blythe. He owned all the land along interstate to AZ. line. I had a radio in the pickup and listened to top pop songs, Johnny Ray's "Little White Cloud." I saw the cloud again today on the way to buy stray cat food, looking at the blue foothills of the Adirondacks, "Wisps of Azure Wands" Hart Crane said of them on the train to his father's candy factory in Ohio. A giant hawk began following the car. I stopped to give it a peanut & some dry cat food. I told Pam it was carrying the soul of the kid who hit a sign behind us on his motorcycle. So much for experience & empiricism. Someone told me I'm 87 on Tues and I suddenly felt it. I had to sell my backhoe & loader I was moving stone with. Could no longer afford payments. We applied for food stamps and got $20 a month. We can by Tuna fish at the sore for cat food with it. I think longevity has been a punishment for my sins when I can only sleep /perchance to dream ....then memories of my sins of lust and fast car tail fins invade my dreams. cpasagohan made of bacon, scrambled eggs, piece of toast w/also maybe a couple of thin turkey sandwich slices? I'm most grateful, I think hodge's sister in law (is that the relation?) cooked it up. mike yesterday set up an appointment for repairman to come and fix that crack in the boat's windshield that we got catching that rock in wyoming the other day and that cat arrives just after eight to do it.  we pull anchor at ten, skies wet w/gray but at least no snow... this konk pad adds about an hour to our trip but hodge's sister/brother in law are most kind to have us aboard. we have to go back through spokane to catch I-90 west but the added 'pert-near hour was worth it cuz their pad was warm and had no mold. much respect.  having to pass back through spokane to get onto I-90 west, I pull us over at "union 76" for gas for the boat ($4.36/gallon) and four hard boiled eggs, cheese and some cold coff ("cold brewed" !!!) plus a little screwdriver w/multiple heads for the bass sack. I douse the eggs w/the "valentina" salsa picante.  less than two hundred miles to do today but there's snoqualmie pass in between and I have big respect for navigating passes... weather is cloudy but calm, lots of sun too. just before one we cross the columbia river...  stop at vantage for hodge to deposit some dump and for me to deposit a "blustery burger" inside my gut sack. we're on our way towards screaming trees town ellensburg - heartbreak that we lost their singerman mark lanegan, damn he was a great cat I loved much - what a voice and always kind to me, very beautiful - sang a tune on my wrestling album twentyseven years ago - took him and the screaming trees on their first two tours in the late 80s. love that man, a terrible blow losing him, terrible. we proceed westward while avoiding assholes taking chances w/everyone's lives by driving the way they do. we make it over snoqualmie pass at two and a half, good timing (that's why we pulled anchor at ten)... we get to spieling about history and mike relates his bad experiences w/getting taught it in school: the whitewash lame stuff that he said bored the fuck out of him. I get us across the evergreen floating bridge (which trips everyone out in the boat when I tell them how it works)... a couple of miles from the gig pad but on the street it's on, I pull the boat over for fuel cuz it's a quarter tank now and we got a session tomorrow at ten am so it's $4.83/gallon at a "7-eleven" at the only pump working - I anoint their nearby bushes w/the piss bottle contents - looks like it rained recently but here come some yellow kind... columbia city part of seattle and around quarter of five find righteous parking right outside the royal room which is where we're playing tonight. pad boss/soundman brad greets us - great to see him again as well as barman nathan who I learn later is working his last shift tonight. crimony. I set up quick and then hobble around close by to check stuff out... after our check w/brad I chow from the kitchen here enchiladas and collared greens, real good! I then go to the boat and konk hard. so sorry to miss opener and former strong beacher robert deeble, damn me. mike rousts me a few minutes before the 9:35 go-time... it's the eighth clean gig of the tour, I'm most grateful to the seattle gig-goers, truly. so much focus and kindness most of the seattle gig-goers and even though I blow some clams getting used to the new two bar count-ins (still!), I'm having a good time 'til... you know, sometimes we don't get encores... tonight we do BUT it's the worst one of the tour and dribbles out w/out my final contribution, it's just terrible.  my mood is improved big time from seeing old friend sandy, thank you so much for her being here - we go back so SO MANY years, I shit thee not - old sst days in so cal, all kinds of stuff. I get kindness from the seattle gig-goers too - get to rap w/nathan who gives me this album from greece cuz he said I would maybe know of it... it's all greek to me! we pull anchor and follow sandy to her apartment in downtown seattle, I ask hodge what his daughter kai thought of the gig - now I've played for both of his kids, scary but very honored to join w/their pop in music and expression! sandy's got a dealio w/a parking structure that can handle the boat's height (it can fit at six foot eight inches) and I put it there and hobble to her pad which is one big room w/a head and is very happening. me and sandy spiel about the old days - my biggest after gig spiel of the tour! we talk about screamers and darby and lots of old days stuff - pat plus k's brother paul - my turn to talk about the old days w/someone who I actually feel good about do it w/... friday, april 22, 2022 - portland, or from mike: fretboard journal vid get to meet desola here! Benson and Gamble! from watt; pop a quarter of seven to sounds a little like my pedro town: horns from boats, sirens from emergency vehicles. sandy cooks us up great chow of righteous oil/vinegar/onions/tomatoes feta salad, eggs, potatoes, asparagus - hodge helps also, really good but all the prep bogarts time she wanted to spend on me doing a video for her sin in linen company... damn, we'll do it when in pedro when she comes to visit so cal in the near future. sandy gets us to the boat at the parking pad she arranged for us, big grateful love and bye bye to to her...  it's a nine and a half shove-off for a ten bell arrival for us at crackle and pop studio (most bitchin actual tim kerr mural on one of the bulkheads) for a video recording session mike set up for fretboard journal - we'll do the italian seven inch for them, kind of a "bookend" for the video recording we did for those "wastoids" people in phoenix back when this tour was just beginning...  johnny's running this dealio and he does good work, everyone involved very together and it's one take for us... kind of what to expect when we record the next mssv album the two immediate days after when this tour's done? I think so, really do - great plan of mike's, I think, really good one! we're done by eleven and I wheel us towards portland after getting us on I-5 south. it's a real slow-go though... the president's was visiting so the path north of sea-tac airport is plugged pretty big time, thirty minutes I have the engine shut off. south of sea-tac is pretty slow also so the president can't be blamed for all the stau. I get us over the columbia river one more time and into portland... we soon make it safe to turn, turn, turn around four, just as rain comes but it's on and off enough for us to schlep the gear quick and keep it dry - really important for speaker cones in the speakerboxes especially. I have nice spiel w/pad boss elizabeth who can't be at the show tonight cuz she's tested positive for covid19... very considerate of her. of course I am masked up as much as possible. I hobble down the street a couple of blocks to find a taco truck called "olrosfe taqueria" and get al pastor and carnitas tacos for me and miss hiyori. oh man, saben bien - crimony! love it. we do soundcheck w/soundman jeff who will also be bartender cuz of the sitch! miss hiyori goes for round II from the taco truck, yes! I then go konk in the boat cuz I am fuckin beat, the stau/plug took a toll on me so I need the konk bad to be the best I can for the gig. oh yeah, what a spaceman - mike's wife desola flew here from florida, she's gonna be w/us a couple of days, yatta! she brings the good spirit to recharge us up, most happening, most happening! mike rousts me for 9:35 go-time - ten minutes late! that hasn't happened since the hells in north carolina - I missed both openers collate and twans but maybe it was the one in the "baloney seat" trying to bogart? later mike will tell me he got on it, much respect to him for that and so much other stuff he's really come through for me - mike is not one to ever pass the buck, he takes probs on and finds solutions w/all he's got, really happening... it's a big reason I really try to do my best for him - he deserves big time! the gig is clean, ninth one of the tour... am I counting correct? the portland gig-goers are most kind - later I learn m ward was here even, crimony! love that man. we have a real good gig - any hells later are made tiny by the kindness and focus shown here by the portland gig-goers and I am most grateful, truly. not very far away (same neighborhood) is eric's pad - him and bill at sightworks have hosted my show for 'pert-near twentyone years now (it'll be that in about three weeks, crimony!) and man, that's just beautiful, truly. I've konked at his tamara's for many many years - very comfortable for me but sad to learn they lost their little dog "the captain" recently but just a couple days ago have a new shipmate come aboard, righteous! I hose off and get into my nemaki, aerobed air mattress inflated in the living room. a little bit of spiel - eric's from floirda so he's got a lot he can share w/mike and desola but it's an early konk tonight for me cuz watt is way tuckered big time. I'm out... saturday, april 23, 2022 - eugene, or from mike: nice time spent with Des first time in the boat's backseat! good gig, good sound guys! from watt: pop at six bells, empty the bladder and answer some incredible emails... keurig-fake-sytle for the caffeine delivery mechanism... I gotta make it to "courtesy ford lincoln" for one last service job on the boat - and it ain't far from eric's pad... damn, both the gig pad AND the boat servicer are close to him, 'pert-near like it was ordained, huh? crimony. I get the boat back really quick (in the meantime going through photos I've snapped to flavor up the diary) - like seventy minutes verses the usual around 120... respect. just under $73 also - what was up that fuckin ford dealership in charlotte anyway? I think jive and will never go back, thank you. the boat's at 10,542 miles total for this tour as of now w/each one driven by the mssv bassman. on the way back to eric's, I spot this mexican chow pad called "ole frijole" and dock the boat there and chimp diary while I wait for their ten bells abierto-time... I get a chorizo desayuno burrito for me and a desayuno chorizo no-chesse-u burrito for miss hiyori (she's big time allergic to anything cow) and bring them back to eric - hodge bailed when I did to chow w/his buddy jose and mike/desola are still konked when I arrive... I use the "help me jesus" salsa picante I learn later eric's ma sent him from florida, where he grew up. we pull anchor at one and a half, bye bye to eric and his new shipmate.  first time all tour mike's NOT ridden in the starboard fore seat but on the bench in back w/desola and miss hiyori. we do our "musical calisthenics" including discussion regarding older "old crow" tune - recorded two and half years ago but still developing? YES! I'm way into it. at two and a half I pull the boat over at a "flying j" (wait a minute, did they merge? maybe now it's "pilot flying j" then, huh?) near brooks to fuel her up ($4.34/gallon) and observe some pretty disturbing inhumanity while at the same a redeeming act also, thank goodness. sometimes this playing-out of wanna be butch makes you wanna give up hope but then, in the bottom ninth: pull it out! yes. so it's hodge's job in what used to be the navigatore's chair, now it's the banter-montior to help keep the wheelman alert and focused on keeping everyone safe as we all try to get where we are going. hodge is good at it, very interesting man. the weather has been great all day, lots of sun but still w/clouds, however no rain. very comfortable. this trip is only just over a hundred miles also, yatta. just before four (very common time this tour to arrive at the gig pad, I'm WAY into it), I drop anchor at a pad I've worked many times, wow hall and I'm glad to be here again now. I meet light man raven, monitor man david and soundman justin - great team... last time I worked w/brother justin was on w/the only il sogno del marinaio u.s. tour (eight years ago) and we shared a bottle of whiskey at the konk pad later after the gig - it was a good time!  I meet the bassman for the openers the bad places him and the others are salem (the "crapital" he says) drummerman is from here eugene... speaking of stickmen w/beats in their hands, damn if we didn't lose drummerman/bassman sam henry - he's the man w/the sticks in his hand beating out the beats on "is this real?" which was the first of the three wipers albums I got branded into my brain cuz I love so much... each one had a different band except for greg sage - I tell this bad place bassman and drummerman about getting to meet sam henry, I was really kind of stage-struck by him though he was most kind but I did get out this question to him, "what was it like to be in the wipers" and he told me, "tour rule number one: no laughing in the van and rule number two: greg was gonna do all the driving and he was gonna go forty miles per hour" - he was beautiful about it and got me to laugh real hard and lose some of that being scared. man, really hurts to think about us losing cats like this, really does. big love to you from watt, brother sam henry, truly. after full-on soundcheck made even bigger cuz we work out hihat hits w/hodge for "old crow" making for good both further development on that tune plus maybe insights on how to spice up future stuff - NOT excluding what is to be recorded in the two days immediately following of this tour? I know mike is adding some dynamics to parts of "say what you gotta say" now... miss hiyori brings me tonkatsu from this nearby chow pad called "tokyo tonkatsu" run by this guy and his pop (his pop the cook) and wow, it's really REALLY good tonkatsu - the best I've had since I've been in japan (I think I was last there in 2011), I mean really oishii, truly. I konk very happy, no need for blankie even but I do use knit daidai hat to keep out the light.  mike rousts me just before the nine pm go-time and I have trouble throwing out the gomi from my chow - "we recycle our own garbage" I'm told... I wonder if I get let in the hatch to work the gig - maybe they have their own bassist to do that? the eugene gig-goers help make things better, same w/helpermen david, raven and justin - "where's the soundman?" I ask mike after the first tune, "right up there!" he answers - I am a baka! good time though all that work w/the stuff for "old crow" was mostly spaced, we'll keep on trying. I only clammed one two-bar count-in tonight instead of the buttload the night before, slow learner watt. I improvise encore very last lyrics w/a "backward baseball hat" addition like some kind of fuckin clown - what?! load out my stuff w/monitorman david's help off stage, he understands the rest of the way I use it for a walker but for the gravel parking lot, he helps schlep cuz it won't roll - thank you big time, david. I spiel w/drummerman jason of the opening band about drums and bass and how much they are related, he's into that idea a lot - maybe drums and bass are closer together than guitar and bass? I really think so! I tell him about nels cline - hard to believe he doesn't know who nels is but he does know john zorn's brother and this is a trip cuz I didn't know mr zorn had a brother but I guess this guy doesn't play music - jason says he's a professor... hey, some professors play music, correct? how about victoria shen? we get to play w/her in the city monday, yatta! dan jones lived a long time in eugene - that's where I met him in fact - he's got a friend also named dan that's letting us konk at his place though he ain't there, very VERY kind. I remember konking at dan jones pad here in eugene once in fact - also sharing the stage w/him... by the way, dan jones' partner tracy works w/this big brothers big sisters kansas city - much respect to her. on the air mattress by quarter after eleven, can you believe? yes! sunday, april 24, 2022 - sacramento, ca from mike: made it back to CALI! Ross plays good, small crowd, nice folks great schvitz room tonight from watt: pop at ten of six bells... glad to have that extra thick blankey from the boat for last night's samui ('cold' in jap) konk... can imagine mike in the shed... just get in the boat, pull anchor at eight - we have lots of sun, clear skies, good luck. mike talks about song writing techniques using words/lyrics... he says next mssv album will have spiel in every tune - a new approach for him w/music, both composing and performance... maybe this tour have opened up other possibilities for him? trying out new ways of expression for him? glad to be part of it. glad to be not run off the road by assholes also. mike mentions it might be difficult to operate turn signals while driving and holding leash/being distracted by it... makes sense to me. oh, he's back up front cuz desola bailed back to florida, bailed in eugene before I even popped at the crack. we hit some fog but it ain't too pad and the sun burns it off around roseburg.  mike needs break to dump - just after ten bells we pull over at "cow creek station" and fill up the boat w/gas ($4.99/gallon) and mike fills up their head w/turd (he asked for a "load-lightener stop" and I then put on my "wish-granter" costume - hey, I actually am a wish-granter band member!) - someone connected w/this filling station tried to sell mike shrooms! we pull into southern oregon... damn, I would like to get gigs in either ashland or medford - actually did play medford once and damn if ashland ain't got a shakespeare festival. I say this cuz the fuckin hellride it takes to get from gigs in this area ain't really w/all the buttload of miles involved - plus the pass at the border...just about noon, I get us over siskiyou summit (highest point on I-5, 4,310 feet!) - there's lots of construction but stuff is safe for us so up and over border into california, yatta!  skies are way clear enough to see all of mount shasta.  the drought is evident as we pass through reservoir parts before getting into the sacramento valley via redding... a quarter of two, I pull us over in red bluff, where my pop grew up. same "valero" station maybe I did last time passing though on way to a gig... $5.30/gallon to fuel the boat. weather is bitchin: no big heat, all blue sky and very calm w/the wind. still a lot of assholes on the road though, none of that's changed this ENTIRE tour, let me tell you. no one's got any kind of monopoly all kind driving kindness, this correspondent is very sad to report... like ms yuko said in her "from space" tune: we never learn from our mistakes  I get us into harlow's back lot at five bells - last time I played here was on a bill w/nomeansno, I think - great band from canada and the wright brothers are most bitchin, got to spend a bunch of time w/them. pad people aj and robert welcome us aboard and I get into spiel about the livermoore labs - robert helps me remember the names and recounts a story of him and a buddy flying a little cesna plane from san jose to here and the wind blowing them over this "restricted area" and oh oh... like ishmael though, he lived to tell the tale. we do soundcheck w/soundman john and then I chow seafood soup from nearby thai chow pad miss hiyori brought me. what's this? a bday email from charley: Lou Reed with chops city grit he swept in play(his bday is actually april 26) I chimp diary, finally getting the spokane entry up, so sorry for getting behind... hellrides challenge watt w/his diary duties but he has to make sure everyone in the boat is safe. while I chow a thai soup miss hiyori brought me from some thai chow pad a couple blocs away (didn't get the name, so sorry), I meet ross hammond who's gonna open for us. I try to answer his questions about this mssv tour the best I can. then continue chimping 'til I gotta konk cuz this hellride wore me out a little - not complaining but just trying to describe stuff that's up w/me in the moment how I can. konk before playing helps watt big time w/playing the best he can for mike and hodge. I get rousted just before the go-time of quarter of nine and when I get on stage - wait a minute, at first I can't get on stage cuz aj is keeping me from hobbling up there - I think she doesn't recognize me and thinks I am trying to bumrush, whoops... sanity prevails and I look at the room - wrong room for this sitch and definitely a character builder - same for my buddy phil who I can see on the other side of the glad cuz of what I find out later: no covid19 vaccination card. mike breaks a string early in the set so he asks hodge to do drum solo in the meantime it takes to replace, hodge does good - these are different than the encore drum solos which are more "choreographed" kind of maybe? anything but "dead air" - correct? awkward for sure. I see concecpcion. I see brian - brian's been doing my sac-town gigs since the late 80s, should've done this one. mike's learning. brian helps me schlep my bass stuff when we're done. so good to see him again. always. we're gonna konk at concepcion's (from pedro's old punk days but has lived here for years now) and though he can't be there tonight, at least I got to play my heart out for him w/this mssv proj, I really dig people who know me for my own music see me be a part of mike's music vision and also doing it w/hodge. concepcion's pad is always most welcoming, feel very safe here. she got a shvitz! it's actually a sauna kind of little house in her back yard and all three of us mssv band members get in and shvitz it up big time, I keep pouring water on the hot rocks for the steam blasts! it's a real good time for us. thank you so much muchas gracias concepcion, truly! monday, april 25, 2022 - san francisco, ca from mike: thanks Concepcion! Evicshen joins us, big treat met Richard Bonney from watt: pop at six, start chimping diary while concepcion and her ma cook us up happening desayuno, love it.  it's very nice california weather outside waiting for us, love it. we pull anchor at one and a half, talk to mike about this word "toss" and how it's used in england - mostly as a noun and not the verb form, it's incredibly useful if one had such a center of the universe for it, I think. george bernard shaw said "we are two peoples divided by a common language" or something like that - hey, I think we can learn good stuff from that! we pass where jim gordon lives now, vacaville. less than ninety miles to the city, all I-80... I get us to brick & mortar just after three - it's right off the freeway in the mission BUT there's no fucking parking so after a quick unloading of the boat, I have to wander 'til I find something a block and a half away after many loops but then I luck out for something closer when right across the street opens up.   we check sound w/soundman jonas - victoria shen arrives so she can check w/us also, she will join us for first and last tunes tonight.  I meet the guys in the opening band goof who are local and very kind. miss hiyori brings me burma chow from a pad called "burma love" not too far from the venue, I think it's my first burma chow ever... what I'm chowing is a soup, sort of like pho but w/different tastes, different stuff - maybe fried garbonzo beans are part? really good whatever, I really dig it. I chow in the boat and then konk really hard.  oh, forgot to mention richard fuckin bonney - yes, my old friend from pedro (we washed pots and pans together at the san pedro and peninsula hosp in 1970s) has lived up here in the city now for over ten years and I'm very glad to see him again, very glad. he's on a bicycle which makes me worry but maybe that's the best way to get around... I just want him safe. he had a bad hell-scare from some bike wreck maybe just last year... or was it the year before? I just want him safe, love the man much. he used his card to pay the meter for the boat even. crimony. it's just before the nine pm go-time when I'm rousted and summoned - I have to show i.d. at the hatch to get in but that's ok... right up to the stage and w/all my stuff there (love the way I can do that, people we play are most kind truly about helping me out) and it's a hard charge from hodge to get us going - victoria joining us w/her a stylus each on four of her starboard fingers and her three-in-one vinyl (three different size/speed all bonded together!) in a trippy collab, love it. that's gets us three guys going pretty good but then gets a little strange once we're back to stuff off the first album - something that can make a gig really difficult for me is finding the connect w/the people you're trying to make a musical conversation w/interesting but it's like groping in the dark at the bathhouse when the power gets cut when that happening - VERY unhappening for watt. we can get through this but crimony, all the gigs so far on the tour to add up to this? ok, a little disappointing... thoughts are "shared" OUT LOUD back stage - I think even victoria got a little splattered w/some lather - actually, her letdown I think was more her equipment for her second tune w/us - faulty connect had her stripping wire w/her teef to get shit happening, much respect! I ducked everything down for her too but that's when she told me some of stuff was kaput and ruining everything. damn. I do think she yanked it out in the bottom of the ninth though... we just had no monitors letting her know - the open mic thing is something we gotta get on more - I like the way hodge tackled that prob w/his on/off box for just such a mission. I get the good word from many san francisco gig-goers, also convince some to let me use my speakerbox as a walker - I don't someone to push it for me and it's actually more dangerous for me to have to use, capito? crimony. a young bassman wants to talk bass w/me and I have him follow me to the boat and tell him what I believe about working the low flow - how the thudstaff in my mind is not some kind of "stunted guitar" (as opposed to e bloom's "stun guitar" - man, did d boon love that! a big reason he used 'd boon' as a stage name) but rather than a kind of drum kit made w/strings - yeah, a four string drum set! grux has a deerhoof album for me, maybe one of the first w/satomi on board? I do know he says I gotta put it between two pieces of glass to get it flat enough to play? here's what he wrote me later in an email: Sorta Pell Mell feel without Steve Fisk weirdin' out on the synth!maybe kind of gig review plus info on the deerhoof disc? always good to see him - he used to come see us minutemen when we'd played the city... a more younger man then, yes but damn if he ain't got the genes to still look kind of still like that... I wonder about his age but not too much cuz... why? just glad to see him. we gotta load the boat up from across the street but that's where the shine cart really shines - really happening to get us happening like that, amen. bye bye to richard fuckin bonney, he's coming to pedro later next month, still has lots of people there... INCLUDING watt! victoria wants a tour also, yes! so happening w/the freeway right here but then in the east bay, I get us via a very tangled collection of traffic moves from herr garmin the navigatore gps to ray and robbin's pad in oak-town at about eleven... for fourteen years the had the uptown going and it's so sad that that got scissored, damn. they got a real bitchin pad and are even more bitchin people - we have a real good time w/the, a real good time. much respect! I hose off, get into my nightwear and what's this? my first salami of the tour and it's fuckin from molinari's - crimony! I love the chow there, love it! love ray and robbin, really beautiful people... watt konks really happy and most grateful. tuesday, april 26, 2022 - pacifica, ca from mike: at Robbin and Ray's real nice to spend time with them good redemption gig from watt: pop at seven, rule at ray and robbin's pad is that first up makes the coff so that's what's done. miss hiyori gets stuff for breakfast at nearby store and cooks up eggs, bacon, broccoli and cauliflower. we all chow outside in the california sunshine - yes! the spiel from last night continues, real good spiel that is so happening I don't even chimp any diary! outside on the patio, good spiel and a good time. maybe by two I cut rope... they got a tub w/water jets so I use that on my sore body, it works good! this is our shortest drive of the tour: less than twentyseven miles but it being a tuesday, I don't want us stuck in plug so I have us pull anchor at three - it ain't even four when I get us to pacifica and the parking lot of winters tavern - hell, I don't wanna take a chance on getting boxed in so I park us right close on the street. actually smoover ride for the shinecart on the side this way. no soundcheck. I get tacos for miss hiyori nearby at "taqueria pacifica" - it's "taco tuesday" and they're on sale and even more important: taste fucking great! I go hobble to the sea, it's only a few blocks away and damn is it strong. crimony. I can't be in this town w/out thinking of brother steve - just can't. this was the last town he lived in and I know he dug it much... got to visit him here a couple of times. I'm feeling a little sad about him - actually, my last gig here was like twentyseven months ago and it was one of the worst gigs I ever did in my life... nobody to blame except watt... well, I will make up for it tonight - for mike and hodge... AND for brother steve. I konk feeling pretty unsettled. however, I am determined.  mike gets me just before the 9:15 go time, he tells me vindula (can't find any info from the web on them, sorry) and kurva got the gig going and they were happening. so sorry I missed. I am very happy to see ray and robbin, right up front... next to someone yammering 'til mike (who she's right in front of) asks her to please cork it up - she does w/no drama, thank you! I think we made up for that gig I ruined and I ain't just saying that cuz if I don't take responsibility for shit like that I will continue to have it come back on my - I mean, a better chance of it coming back on me cuz I don't think I'll ever be immune to blowing fucking clams - just can't see that. I didn't get too much a chance to talk to gig pad boss cj which I regret cuz I really like him - what happens sometimes is some cats just wanna monopolize 'pert-near all the time you might have for spiel, even if that means they tell you the same thing over and over, magic-of-alcohol kind of stuff and man, it's such a bogart. you don't know wanna make anyone feel like you don't care cuz I am most grateful for the support but the borracho yammering trip, especially the part where you can understand better if the mouf w/the righteous breaf is pummeling your acute space w/a dimension that has definitely got an odor to it. crimony. we got out of dodge and back to oak-town much easier than last night cuz watt kind of now knows the way...  hose off and get into the nightwear... only time this tour where the konk pad is a repeat event - wait a minutemen, the last three will be repeats cuz of me konking in my own pedro town, I am baka! anyway, I get my mp4s of "the prisoner" ("the unmutual website" here) to ray - can't believe he knows nothing of this trip... my favorite ever tv show - only seventeen episodes which watt has committed to memory cuz of buttloads of times watching them. much respect to mr mcgoohan, truly! so glad I can turn ray on to these, so glad. you know, him and robbin are doctors of internal medicine, very interesting folks. I spend the next couple of hours spieling w/them w/out realizing the time wailing by 'til konk takes me cuz it is SUCH GOOD spiel, love it, love them. wednesday, april 27, 2022 - bakersfield, ca from mike: last long ride in boat parking lot hang going strong Patrick: great gig boss from watt: pop at eight , prepare for bail after only two-night stand of the tour... chimp diary where memories are still fresh - eleven bells we pull anchor, bye bye ray and robbin!   sget on I-580 east but soon have to get off for fuel... we find an "energy" gas station and gas up the boat ($5.50/gallon), up through the altamont pass and then south on I-5... twelve and half, we pass some tract homes coming up out of nowhere ("tracy hills" bullshit name) and pull over at the next rest stop for some soilage...  since mike's gonna leave us in the morning when I drop him off at the airport in bakersfield so he can get a rented vehicle for the rest of the tour, I have us fuel the boat a quarter after three at a "pilot" ($5.06/gallon) on the ca-46 (this road where it crossed ca-41 near chalome is where jimmy dean was killed) exit to lost hills... again (like this morning) I clean the windshield cuz last night was very scary driving to ray and robbin's from pacifica w/a dirty windshield making for so much glare and very hard to see stuff.  yeah, I see a trippy sign... seen it how many times before? the sf gate's got a story on it here and is this some kind of "reverb" coming off of it? people tripping on shit like this, huh? even some reddit bullshit! I get us in the south part of bakersfield just after four , amongst a lot of tract homes and inside an industrial park we find the backstage which is the back room of a music school - very appropriate! we soundcheck w/soundman/gig boss patrick which mainly just the vocal mics cuz of the sitch which I think is appropriate.   the other time I played bakersfield was w/mssv two and a half years ago and ghost dance was one of the openers - they are again, great! locals gadfly and still missing (can't find info on them on the web, sorry) are on the bill also - four bands in bakersfield TONIGHT! I chow some tacos miss hiyori brings from a nearby mexican chow pad and then konk to catch up the hours I put in for our last LONG drive of the tour. I just ain't strong enough to start up the pit for the cats we get to share the stage w/and though that makes me a little sad, it's a reality I have to face. I'm rousted for the quarter after ten go-time. can't stop thinking about d boon at this gig. I would visit his pop danny a bunch in bakersfield - that's where he went to after pedro. there is a big connect w/bakersfield and d boon... he was born in napa but lived here before he came to pedro... I'm digging what mssv brings tonight, glad to be part of this group. so glad mike made it possible for me to play here tonight, means a lot to me, really does. I thank the soundman/gig boss patrick for helping w/making tonight happen also. we pack up the boat and go to a friend of mike's named john who's into both blue oyster cult AND "the prisoner" - crimony! he's a sax man also - prolly how mike knows him. he's into van der graaf generator also, gives me a box set, crimony! very kind man, very kind...  thursday, april 28, 2022 - costa mesa, ca from mike: John's pad: very cool! sad to leave the boat today keep the momentum from watt: pop at eight bells - find coff w/flavor in it and it happening for watt... no offense to john cuz he's most bitchin but this flavored coff wrecks my gut. still am in awe for this incredible van der graaf generator box set he gave me, crimony! john is so kind, so kind. we have some laughs about the tract homes going up where there used to be farmland - he knows about that bullshit in tracy even! agriculture is a core californian industry I think and we shouldn't let the whole state be turned into a bedroom, some kind of balance and far-sighted thinking should hold sway and not just quick money greed. crimony. big thanks to john, we pull anchor at quarter of ten to get mike to meadows field airport cuz he can save five hundred bucks if he rents the car he needs for the next bunch of days from here rather than the long beach airport he's gonna fly back to gainesville, florida where he lives next week. the weather is very ok when he bails and I say "safe seas" to him...  I then take merle haggard drive (he was from oildale) to ca-99 and we're south on it 'til it merges w/the interstate I-5 and disappears. just before the grapevine I gotta get some coff that's got NO FLAVOR to flush the toilet my mouf became after drinking john's stuff - no disrespect to him though. I get some dill pickle slices also and miss hiyori puts them w/some 'dines on crackers w/salsa picante, it works.  some wind on the grapevine but I stay clear enough from assholes to get us over the 4,144 foot tejan pass safe, hodge now in the seat mike rode in but konk lots so not a lot of spiel but there are patches he brings that do help me w/the focus. usually I'm guided towards to I-405 but the navigatore gps says not this time and holds us on I-5 and then I decide to get us on the harbor freeway south (I-110) around dodgers stadium and into l.a.'s downtown (passing where dirk vandenberg took the cover shot of the "double nickels on the dime" cover... despite the non-insights from self-appointed einsteins, the album title has nothing to do w/road designation number and in fact in those days what's called the I-110 now was actually ca-11 back then... "doing exactly 55 mph" is what we were trying mean and that's the truth - it was supposed to be a joke on the red rocker or whatever he was calling himself then)...  we get to carson and that's when I do wheel us onto I-405 south, then going through hodge's long beach town before finding a huge plug for us a few miles into orange county. I get us to the wayfarer in the costa mesa about one and a half - way early but fuckin so cal traff hell day is now more thursday than friday and fuck sitting in a plug/stau - FUCK THAT. I'm digging where we're at anyway, in a parking lot of an olde-timey strip mall type of dealio... there's a china pad but it's buffet - kind of scary... right nearby the gig pad though is a mexican chow pad called "la lomita" and I get some tacos for me and miss hiyori that are really happening...  of course we're in so cal but so much happening authentica mexican chow throughout the whole country, MUCH RESPECT... so glad I got to see (taste) the day this has finally happened, I am WAY GRATEFUL for such a bitchin national organic development, truly I am. mike shows up w/his rented car, he made it from bakersfield, yatta! however, no fryette replacement amp - way grateful for the bergantino forte d back-up to still be there for the rescue for him. he finally gets a together speaker cable for it... it's fuckin twentyfive feet long though. crimony. it works good though, I've been so worried about that half-ass-in-the-meantime we've been tempting fate w/... I mean the whole dealio w/what he originally brought - $400 spent in shipping to get told nothings wrong and it STILL DON'T FUCKING WORK? crimony. so glad lee over at bergantino lent me a back-up for the tour - HIS idea too. good one. I will always bring a back-up now... have it in the boat... pad boss eric arrives at four and a half, very cool people from saint louis and we spiel. I'm reminded this pad used to be called "detroit bar" and I got to do a tune w/mr tom here once ("black yogurt") and "club mesa" where I shared the bill w/saccharine trust once. crimony. real glad I get to work for pad boss eric here tonight AND tonight I get to konk in my pedro town cuz we're just twentyeightmiles southwest of there via pch, yatta! we check w/soundman kyle and then I chow from the kitchen here what they call "dos tacos" (more tacos for watt, love it!) which is what they are, carne asada kind and man, they are fucking great! gran respetto. I go to the boat and konk hard. hodge rousts me ten minutes before our nine pm go-time. it's real good that this pad has a curtain to 'pert-near separate the part where bitchin people like the costa mesa gig-goers here tonight showing us much focus and respect (much respect to them for that!) and the other pieces of whatever who don't give a damn and just wanna drink and yammer w/out any regards to what you wanna bring. crimony. for sure I think it's hodge's best "old crow" performance ever, much respect to him. I blow a bunch of clams including the intro we redo after the first chorus in "human reaction" and slipping of the fucking beat in the second part of the "nels cline meets mssv" seven inch, damn me truly... what a fucking maroon! losing focus in the last part of a tour is easy to do and I have GOT to get that kind of shit together - there's no excuse for it. there's lots of good stuff about this gig though, don't mean to sound too down - I think the band is really playing well together, really do. I focus much on both mike and hodge, focus lots more than I already have which only helps in my mind. another clam I blow is spacing on the opening band's name - I have to ask hodge who actually doesn't know either - I think we're both pendejos for fucking up on that cuz I think it's important to show the cats you share the stage w/respect - even though I was too konked to see their set, I want to do that... I think I fucked up their name cuz I learned just now as I'm chimping this the next day that they're called chapis and though "chapis" was part of what mike told me after the "ask hodge fail," he told me a few more words that I don't think we're correct, like "chapis and kyle" - I think what he meant was "opener chapis" and "soundman kyle" but I wasn't asking for that - actually I remembered soundman kyle name no prob and we had a great spiel after about my forte hp and super twin setup (he dug it big time) and I'm spending time on this here not just for anything but to show that communication fuckups are just that: real fuckups and I think we sometimes put ourselves in sitchs that really make that happen easy - like tuning people out cuz of distractions, just like w/fucking driving and not being careful - not fighting against distractions but giving into them so nothing ever gets proper attention, everything kind of just half-assed and stupid like that. so sorry to the chapis cats from me, also to my mssv band people, the gig-goers, the pad helper-people, everyone involved in what makes a gig really happen in my opinion. I thank the helperman who was near me at the foot of the stage just in case, very kind of him, truly. I get my stuff packed up quick, do that spiel w/soundman kyle and who helps get my speakerbox down off the stage after I had it to him - yeah, even a cojo like me can do the schlep it takes for all its forty pounds of weight - it's brother ray barbee (his instantham account here), fuck yeah! love this man. we have a good rap at the boat - so glad he got to see me w/mssv, so glad. some cat from an orange county art museum asks me about playing there - I ask him to write me about more. so glad to sign stuff people ask me to - it's the second il sogno del marinaio album I get to spiel about as I do just that, love talking about the fratelli and me getting to talk w/them. oh yeah, sppike mike, is here too - always bitchin when this bassbrother comes to bring beautiful support, I am MOST grateful for that, truly and always. thank you, mike, thank you thank you. hodge goes to his own pad in strong beach w/his own ride so now we're missing both him and mike... easiest/shortest route to my pedro town is pch and so it's north through huntington beach, sunset beach, seal beach, long beach, terminal island and then boom, in my pad just before midnight! a little while before hosing off and then onto my own deck, damn did/do I miss it! friday, april 29, 2022 - san diego, ca from mike: 4 hour drive down out front, great hang with Sppike Mike 1.5 hour drive back from watt: pop at six - first pop in my pedro pad in 'pert-near seven weeks - yatta! empty bladder, make coff and then check email... get this from charley plymell and I think he got it from his wife pam: War Against War I chimp up last night in the diary cuz it's fresh - man, I got a buttload to catch up on but I'll do it, need to cuz it's important for me. pull anchor at twelve and a half, fuel up the boat at the pad w/the cheapest gas in pedro, the "arco" on gaffey and channel, today it's $5.30/gallon. it's no mike doing it using his card so...  I get over to hodge's in east long beach quarter after one and grab him, saying hi to raquel and the little man cosmo...   soon we're on the I-405 south into I-5 in the carpool lane and damn if we don't clear the orange county part of our trip to san diego 'pert-near plug-free. it's after san onofre...  and camp pendelton (see an osprey prolly headed there not much after)...  then we're neck-deep in plug and it'a stau after stau - this goes on for a couple of hours... crimony. hodge's does provide some bitchin spiel to keep me alert but he also succumbs to intermittent bouts of konk...   just after four I pull the boat up to the kensingon club in the kensington part of san diego - first time for me at this pad cuz usually I'm working for tim maise at the casbah but why not? mike's booked lots of good new pads for me to work this tour, love how he's learning by doing. he's holding a bitchin parking place for us right out front - this pad's from 1935 and has one part gig room and one part bar w/a bulkhead diving them: most happening! sppike mike's w/him and we wander a couple blocks to a jap chow pad called "tanuki" (the show only the face and omit the big balls!)...  he wants to talk bass and I'm way, WAY into it. love his spirit, very genuine. we chow some maki. we get back to the gig pad and he plays me a tune on his acoustic bass (not the standup kind) he wrote for his new solo proj (he also plays in the spice pistols) and I dig what he's come up w/... says some folks say they can't do anything w/it but then he mentions peter distefano and I tell him I think it's definitely worth a try to let him have a chance at it. at the gig pad, I say hi to teej and kevin of hurricane kate - them and moxi and loon are opening up for us tongiht. huricane kate actually recorded at _casa hanzo_ in san pedro in early 2018 w/me producing, peetzo recording and mixing. really nice cats... I spiel w/kevin (their bassman/singer) about my bass amp setup and how into it I am - don't mean to foam it up too much though I pretty much do the same w/soundman sammer who tells me he's also a bassman and damn if that don't keep me going on that. I just wanna share w/cats infos about getting happening sounds w/out hurting yourself w/the schlep AND not having to compromising anything - and in fact improving stuff about the way your bass expression can get delivered. we soundcheck w/soundman sammer and then it's to the boat w/me cuz tonight's go-time is the latest of the tour AND I'm driving back to drop off hodge and then konk in my own pad... like 120 miles to look forward to so I just gotta rest up - wanna play good too... can't stress how these pre-gig konks help me in so many ways, just so many. the one lame thing though is I miss the openers... fuck, can't think of a way to solve that prob, damn me. I fucking konk hard, I shit thee not. hodge rousts me though w/a few minutes to go and I make my way through the peeps to get up on the stage... man, they got like five or something big fans going prolly cuz of the olde-timey design of the pad, a sitch of the time it was built. we bring the "b" set for the last time of the tour and it's really happening, much respect for the san diego gig-goers who bring both spirit and sooshing yammerers w/out it having to be some asshole on stage. again I blow some ridiculous clams - simple things cuz of momentarily not knowing where the fuck I am - this happens to me at the end of tours sometimes, like parts of my mind thing the tour stuff is over when the reality is that it ain't over 'til the last note of the last gig. it's fucked up why this happens to me but I really gotta fight it even though I can't really tell what part of my idiot self is fucking acting so stupid. for a second in the second part of "the italian seven inch" second part I don't ever know what fuckin planet I'm on but somehow recover in time not to fuck up too bad. there's a couple of other times where this stupid shit happens again and it's so frustrating but I'm on it - both mike and hodge deserve to serve w/someone on stage that can keep it together all the way to the end, I think - no, I sincerely believe that. damn me for letting either of them down in anyway, damn me. we do our encore and I'm "helped" off the stage but a nice man who unintentionally 'pert-near pulls me into a hole but somehow he catches me instead of the deck - whoa, that was a scary moment. my old friend bassbrother jov is here - he's looking real good and healthy and we talk about health and my route to where I am now, thirty pounds lighter than a couple of summers ago, down to low 170s cuz of cutting big time sugar and salt from the mouf hole, it's helped me immensely. jov's a great bassman and I'm way into explaining why I dig so much playing w/mssv... he can relate w/the whole anti-fusion maneuvers one has to keep figuring out as one gets further down the road cuz you know how lots of humans ned to do more and more even if the sitch don't call for it. we can be such a full of it species, I shit thee not. I wanna play the good notes AND spaces that aid and abet, not the fucking wet blankie bogart jive whatever-school-buddy's-bumming-on bullshit if you can pick up on what I'm trying to relate. jov can, always has - also as person too, love this cat truly. oh yeah, jov also dances w/me in this video spike jonze did for "liberty calls!" for my first opera - how could I fucking forget? baka watt! I continue signing stuff and receiving the good word, very grateful to these san diego gig-goers - even avoid a double sign one borracho cat might've ended up getting if I was more vigilant and I even get in edgewise me and d boon saw t-rex for our first gig. big respect for hodge and miss hiyori getting the load-out packed in the boat quick and tidy, mike helped too even w/him w/his own ride. so late for watt in these days when he don't stay up late much! that konked helped big time though and I wheel us north on I-5 after some ca-15, I-805 and I-8 doglegs - also some construction off-the-freeway detours due to construction in the orange country part just before strong beach and where I get hodge to his pad around two. yeah, such a diff in having a 'pert-near empty road - I mean there was still enough assholes driving like assholes to make things at times scary but I'm fortunate enough to get him home and then back to pedro by what... three fuckin bells - crimony! you know what, I 'pert-near never chow after gigs but I see a taco truck a couple blocks and get some tacos to go and chow them when I get the boat home. whoa.  I hose off not just gig/drive sweat but some of that taco stuff that was flying from my reckless chowing, fucking idiot watt. I let my deck grab me for my latest konk of the tour. crimony. saturday, april 30, 2022 - los angeles, ca from mike: the longest morning thanks Petra for helping us Joe Baiza: great advice! the end of this tour standing next to Hodge and Watt i'm truly grateful not enough of time to say all the things i want never enough time from watt: pop and seven bells - yes, even w/the fuckin way-late konk time cuz of taiyo being so tsuyoi I chimp diary after coff and asagohan. it's deja vu all over again, using a hundred dollar bill to fuel up the boat at the same "arco" as yesterday for the same $5.30/gallon price. this time no getting hodge though. north on the harbor freeway all the way to the I-5, retracing the other way from our way from bakersfield a couple of days ago... but then off at the glendale for some creative navigation out of herr garmin (the design for on/offramps not so symmetrical here), I get the boat to the gig pad zebulon, right next to the l.a. river (totally lined w/cement but stuff does grown in the middle of it!) in the frogtown part of sliver lake (politically all city of los angeles, same as w/my pedro town - that's how spread out we are here, I live twentyeight miles south!) about a quarter after four, a pad boss named paul welcomes me, then a co-owner, jeff does and finally after getting my huge setup up - fuckin bitchin that they got not only a handrail but also a ramp for cojos like me, much respect - I meet soundman jeremy, who I've worked w/before in echo park... he remembers about the kick drum mic being on the side I ain't on CUZ I'm zopo ('cojo' in italiano), so kind of him to remember, truly. the co-owner jeff too was most kind to say he's glad I'm here - it's my first time ever playing this pad... happening way to end a tour, trying your hardest for cats you just met.  hodge shows up. I go chimp diary. we check w/soundman jeremy and... petra haden which is so fuckin bitchin and even more, instead of just two tunes, she's gonna do four, yatta! we go over what I call "lumberin' stumbler" and "funk march" as earlier planned but also "human reaction" and "little doll / upper egypt & lower egypt / lonely woman" (what we've been doing for an encore) w/her, yatta! I chow a salad from a nearby thai chow pad and then konk really hard, tour has caught up w/watt - it's not just hellrides getting me tuckered now. I wanna play the best I can - I believe if you've made it to the last gig of a tour then prolly nothing can really go wrong cuz you've survived so many dice-rolls but who knows? the best prep for watt for a good throw is for him to get a good konk right before. I have no idea what openers psychic temple sounded like cuz I wasn't awake to hear the but know their boss, chris schlarb, the man behind big ego studio and is recording there the next mssv album tomorrow and the next day w/us, much respect to him. we bring our gig and there's a prob... damn, only time all tour this is has happened and it wasn't happening during soundcheck but there's a big huge hum on stage which really fucks up our thing regarding getting tiny w/dynamics - the fucking ring is bogarting like a motherfucker. crimony. mike cuts "june 16th" way short cuz of it. it's a nightmare - hopefully it's only on stage and the l.a. gig-goers ain't getting it cuz they don't deserve... we soldier through but it's like a fucking blankie of merde all over everything - I can even hear/feel it when we're loud, damn it. fuck. petra comes on and is great, playing right along like she's been in the boat w/us the whole trip! she has a really good ear and ain't afraid. I think the noise did subside after one of mike's pedals went haywire (by the way, he has a pedalboard now that doubles as a flight case and makes this stuff more manageable for him, especially when he has to move these things to make room for the band we're sharing the stage w/) but maybe the fuckedup sound was still there and I couldn't tell... by that time in the set we're pretty revved up. well, "nothing can go wrong in a last gig of tour" might be an idiot pronouncement but it was still really neat getting to play w/petra despite that urusai ('noisy' in jap) shit. life deals you a hand, correct?  I load out my stuff to the boat as quick as I can - only my stuff goes in it now, hodge brought his own boat and of course mike has the rental. I talk w/petra and she takes our picture - I wanna get a haircut like hers!  I rap w/jim brown some, catch up w/him and then also peter distefano plus again sppike mike - they're all very kind w/their nice words. the zebulon co-owner jeff invites me back, very kind of him also. last gigs for tours are trippy, they really are. of course there's some stau... I drive back to pedro and stop at a taco truck on pacific and thirteenth, "tacos quiroga" and get a few - just to end the tour on a taco note since I had such good ones all across the u.s. yes, the tacos were a high point of the tour for me but so was w/playing mike and hodge - so was all the most kind gig-goers coming aboard to support us. I couldn't be more grateful, truly. I thank everyone responsible for making the mssv "haru tour 2022" such a success - like ms yuko says, "from the bottom of my heart." I will see mike and hodge again tomorrow... in the studio! p.s. we got all the basic tracks in one day, overdubs the next - mike's plan worked righteous, much respect to him!  
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this page created 15 jan 2022