The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 24

I wake up tired. That’s normal. So I’m normal. Good. Therapy is working. I tell everyone we’ve got to get goin’. We’re all up and in the Banyion in record time.

We drive out of town and go by the Husky for breakfast. This the Husky where, on the way out West, the guy came running out asking if we’re a band and couldn’t give us his money fast enough for our merch. He was there. He asked how it all went…

What do you say to that question? How to you put it all into one word? How do you cover all the angles with one phrase?

“Oh yeah, it was… great.” Sigh – that’s all anyone wants to hear anyway. It just doesn’t come close to covering all the angles.

We have breakfast at the Husky. We all have straight up breakfasts and they are all reliable and loyal. Not slutty like an Egg McMuffin – fucking morning meal whore.

Jon starts his campaign to have the next tour booked in Husky’s across the West.

Zasta will probably be still eating his breakfast by that time – he takes the longest of all of us to finish. Bite. Knife and fork down. Begin silent contemplation upon the “belle fesses” of the girl out in the parking lot. Share said observations. Pick up knife and fork. Oh! Put them down again. Take a sip of water. Pick up knife and fork, take piece of food (I’m finished my meal at this point) rest it on the side of the plate to remark on a song playing on the Husky speakers. Take the fork of food and slowly, ever so slowly – I SAID SLOWLY!!!! Devour it. Repeat.

Alex can’t stand the fact that the pictures on the wall are all crooked. He hates it. Can’t deal with it. All through the tour he’s been trying to straighten pictures. And while I admit ALL of these Husky pictures on the walls are crooked he’s obsessing mightily about them. He looks away – but I see him looking back again and again.

If you were to take a snap shot a this point – and we don’t – we stopped taking pics for some reason – you’d see four very tired performers who don’t have much left in the reserve tanks.

We’re tired.

We start the 692 km drive – and their’s no stopping. This is going to be a close one. But we have to do it. It was booked so we’re there.

The Truth of Entertainment:

The Show must go on. This is one of those statements that covers it all. From being too tired to move (get out there fucker – and do it right!) to losing you’re personal and private life (sign the damn divorce papers and get out there you fucker – and play it like you mean it). If it’s booked for you – which is why booking is so important – because professional performers MUST play no matter what – then the Show must go on.

We are tired. All of us. We can’t drive more than an hour and a half each before the nodding off and the delirium/hallucinations start. A bear running upright across the highway carrying a stack of pizzas and wearing a trucker hat shouting “Beer for the bear!” is a pretty sure sign you need to give the other guy a shift at the wheel.

Drive and drive and drive again. And then drive and drive and drive some more. No time to stop. Just a snack and then the SWAT team exit into the Banyion.

So tired.

We roll into Sault Ste-Marie and drive to the club. We’re only a half hour late – we took some dangerous chances but we’re there in a perfectly acceptable amount of time to load in, sound check and then chill before we play. We’re just hoping we’ll all hold out. We WILL all hold out.

We see the venue.

!!!
???

It’s locked up tight – and we even look around the side and back thinking it was like The Black Pirates in Thunder Bay.

No. There is no one there.

Okay. Breathe. We’ve driven 8 hours to be here. You’re falling down tired. Stress and Anger wouldn’t help the situation. Call the guy and find out what’s going on. After all our booking guy must have called ahead to find out for us. Right? Maybe the booking guy told our record company that the gig was moved and we need to check in with AMP.

I do. Gig not moved. I phone SSM promoter: Here’s what he said:

“No, that gig was cancelled – I told Sam your booking guy last week. Geeze, I don’t know what to tell you. That really sucks.”

Yeah. Sucks.

I have given and will give anyone more than enough chances to rise to the level of professionalism that I want to see from the people I work with. This is too much.

As a band we have lost all confidence in the booking guy. Showing up on the other side of Canada and the club doesn’t even know who you are – or that their is a show! A show where all the local acts have dropped out so it’s cancelled. A cancelled show because the 14 year old boy that it was booked with was out playing hockey. A cancelled show (that the booker new about for a week!!!) that we’ve just driven like bastards to get to and is locked up – cancelled. You tell me what I should do about this?

We have some very good, dark and unspeakable ideas of what we can do about this when we get back to Montreal.

Nothing to do but go to the fucking Hotel. The Travelodge again. Ha! We have tour support but we chose the wrong booking agent. Damn – how hilariously ironic.

Well, if their’s no place to play, let’s find some fun. Ummm. There’s no one on the streets. At all. Okay, that’s cool. Lets go to a resto. There’s bound to be something going on. Uh, no restos open. The Sault is dead as butter.

Wait a minute! A Boston Pizza. The food is better than the last one – maybe because we’re just all so tired and hungry but it tasted just fine.

We go back to the Hotel.

Things just float away from me.

Time: I have no idea where I am now. It’s a quiet place and I don’t want to be here. It’s dark. Why are there no street lights here? Why are their no people? Why does the clock run backwards? Is this what I want from life? Is this paying for something that no one else can have?

Friends: It’s been years since I’ve seen anyone I know. My other personalities are with me. Wait! They’re not imagined! It’s Zasta, Alex and Jon. We talk less now. Too tired. Adrift, staring at each other in the leaky hull of a ghost ship. We’re dead. This is purgatory. We’re paying for sins. What sins? Oh! The sins against the relationships that we’re so far from right now.

Reality: Howl. I hear demons chattering under the floor. Everyone has this, right? Everyone does what they want and is accepted by those around them, right? We all think life is fucking great, hilarious, dramatic, tragic, wonderful and amazingly sad, right? We all love color. We all love each other. We all have our own thing going and have room for everyone else, right? We’re all alright, aren’t we? You understand me right this moment, right? Please?

My eyes close and I think I’m very far from everything and I want to come back now.

Somewhat Related Entries

• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 25
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 19
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 27
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 22
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 3