The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 9

I wake up thinking I’m hiding too much of who I really am from you readers. I think that this is entertainment but it’s also everything I’m going through. It’s defiantly entertaining to me. I still wonder if I’ll make it out of here in one piece. You cannot achieve the aim without suffering. But that sucks man ass too.

Time to check out and get Alex a sleeping bag at Canadian tire. We’ll get him it on the way to Banff. We all load up the Banyion and I take the keys to the front desk.

Their’s no one there. I say…”Hello?” When this beautiful woman named Melanie appears before me. “Ahhhh!” I say. And she starts laughing because she scared the shit out of me. She says “I’m sorry for scaring you!” I say “It’s funnier than you think!”. Besides she’s too pretty to hold anything against.

Jon lost his glasses and needs to buy a pair. We do this without a problem. I buy a cigar and we go. Speaking of losing things I notice that something’s not there. Something’s gone… missing.

My Flipcam. We try to look everywhere but we have to stop. Zasta says we should stop in LeDuc just in case we can’t find it – it might be at the bar.

We stop and find everything. Yay! We’re ecstatic.

We see a turn off for Wetaskawin. This town is all about raking the tailings. That’s a machinist term for cleaning up after your done –I think. Alex knows.

At the Canadian Tire; for Alex and his sleeping bag. We see Alex he looks happy now that he’s got his new sack with him. But he brings out Charlie who he happened to bump into. We say hello and she wishes us a great trip. She’s very bouncy. Nice.

Now we’re all hungry. When this band gets hungry we all become cranky. We’re still civil to each other but soon we’re going to knife fights to the death if we don’t get grub.

Their’s a Smitty’s. This place will do. We walk in and there are 6 of the cutest girls you’ve ever seen standing at the cash. What, are they a family? They could be. One of them asks me if my piercing hurt. She’s going to get one done. I say “It hurt like a bitch. You better be wasted when you get it done…” She gets us coffee.

Smitty’s is a great breakfast place. They give you a lot and it tastes great. And in Wetaskawin – it’s probably the best looking waitresses in the West. Of course, pretty is pretty and these girls make me feel old. Which is fine cuz I’m going to see mountains and if we don’t see any mountain men I’m going to strip down and run around the woods saying “Gold! I found gold! Eehhhhhheeeeeeee!” Maybe knock out a tooth or two.

We enter the mountains and we’re done. Oh my fucking god! We’re all slack jawed dumb with it. And I’ve been here tons of times. I say “this is just the outer rim, wait!” There’s a sexual connotation in there but the majesty of the mountains is majestic – anus!!!

I don’t have to take my clothes off and run around in the woods! We see Jake the Mountain man.

Actually I say, when we approach a particularly majestic, majestic mountain “Look at that mountain, man!” Jon says “Fuck!” And I say “No look at that mountain man!”

The Myth Of The Mountain Man

There are mountain men and mountain women. Mountain women are Amazonian Canadian girls, mostly brunettes who have opted out the pansie modern world and have made a Utopia, a Shangri-La of pulchritude in the far reaches of the Rockies. But to keep their tribe of vixen alive they come down to Banff (cuz that’s were we’re going now) and kidnap 4 men (cuz that’s how many we are) to go and impregnate all the tribe members. When they are done they bring you back to civilization and send you on your way with a knitted sweater and their old panties. It’s a sweet deal.

Now there’s all kinds of social hierarchy in their tribe and they all have synced their cycles so their’s sweaty cage matches at least once a month but that’s not important to hear about just now.

What IS important to hear about – and the point of all of this is…

Every so often a guy, with stars in his eyes and a boner in his pants, goes off looking for said mythical Canadian tribe of sex pots. They never return. But, so the story goes. One or two did get there and see with their own eyes the fabulous events of tribal ritual and girl on girl action. But he was never able to participate. He was, in essence, teased to insanity. He became feral. Running through the woods waving his genitals at anyone he saw. Thus Jake the Mountain Man was born.

So ends the Myth of the Mountain Man.

We go to Banff. What a city. Geezuz! The beauty of this little place. Zasta seems like he’s in heaven. He’s been here before too so his memories are great. And now he is very much in the now.

We want to eat. We go to the very place Zasta had played when he was here before. Wild Bill’s. It’s a rock and roll place with a great kitchen. And it’s big and spacious. We need to play here.

Our waitress is Amy. Elle vient de Montreal!!! Ahhh, how we all miss the girls of our town. She makes us home sick. We eat – Jon has Elk and says it’s FUCKING AWESOME.

Jena is another waitress there. She’s sweet. And then their’s Zasta’s favorite – “Long Torso Sally” which we quickly start singing.

Jon says he’s homesick. Yeah bro me too. But the best way to combat that – kill brain cells. I’ve been trying for years to kill all of mine. I seem to only have jumbled them up a whole fucking lot.
We’re all restless. Maybe you’re starting to get the pattern of behavior we have. When we get this way – we need to play. But tonight, we’re going to Aurora. A club in Banff. But first we need to get our hotel.

It’s called the Big Horn Inn. Ha! Couldn’t have been better named. And the family who owns it are sooooo nice. They saw that we were four guys and instead of giving us the ubiquitous two big beds and a cot (there is a very formal rotation amongst Zasta, Jon and Alex as to who gets the cot) they gave us “THE PARTY ROOM”. Those are the words of the sweet Indian lady who owns the place with her husband. This is great.

We walk in and KAWOW!!! The place is huge. Three double beds and a single (Zasta gets that cuz he came in last). Kitchen, bathroom! Fantastic. We’re all feeling very energized. On the other side of the front window is a majestic mountain. Whoa! Majestic!

We pimp ourselves up. We put on our Grills! Now, their are poser bands who have the current haircuts or the pedo bands who look like they’re 15 or at least trying to look like they’re 15. The Gods Of Now are guys in a band and have taste. We dress and look the part. There is nothing fake here. We are men who play heavy music. We have scars, tats, piercings and a defined image. We are who we are. And now we’re going out.

To Banff.

We go to Aurora.

INTERESTING THING YOU SHOULD KNOW IF YOU’RE GOING OUT TO A CLUB IN ALBERTA:

They need a valid I.D. – and they WON’T accept a health card. Umm. Why? I can’t tell you. But our Alex doesn’t carry around his passport – (you can hear him shouting in the back ground: “I’m in Canada dumb ass!”), nor does he have his driver’s license. So – he can’t get in. What??? The bouncer doesn’t actually ask anyone for their age, just their I.D. card.

The bouncer won’t budge. I don’t blame him. I ain’t paying him 20 bucks and he doesn’t have a context for us. If he heard the music he’d open the door. I’m okay with it. We send Jon and Zasta in to scope the joint to see what’s what. I’m with Alex and we go down the street to some upper floor lounge type thing. Boring. We leave.

Jon and Zasta went and looked in Aurora and said it looked great. But if we weren’t going… I told ‘em they should go see who they could meet. Alex agreed. It’s only one street after all, if we get lost or it gets late we’ll either be here or in the Banyion.

Alex and me go to a pub where guys (too young to be old and too old to be cool) were playing shitty music. Alex is upset that it’s cuz of him we’re not in Aurora’s. Fuck, if my night is made or broke by going to a club I’d put salt in my eyes. I tell him it’s nothing. There’s going to be a shit load of clubs better than that one by the time we’re dead.
Listening to the band I wish I was dead right now. I shake my head at Alex. He doesn’t even know what I’m thinking (or does he) and he says “This band is fucking awful”. And we talk about the irony of the situation. This band sucks balls and we’re listening to them and THEY are getting paid to play. This is an unjust world. And this is the way it is. Life has such a fucking amazing sense of fucking humor! This makes me think of starving and hurting people all over the place. The tortured world we live in. I can live with the injustice of the music biz. It’s so fucking small, comparatively speaking.

We are soooo on. Our job as performers is to push out our selected vibe. We’ve selected a vibe here tonight. I can think of about 20 girls that I know personally who would have cum just sitting beside us. Guys were literally pulling girls away from us as they walked towards us to talk. Geeze dude, why don’t you just piss on her.

JON FACT #2

He likes blonde girls with pony-tails and glasses.

Alex and I get sick of Crappy The Jug band playing at the pub and walk down the street and find a rocker bar. This is better. More out of control. Everyone seems to be a stoner or the girlfriend of a stoner. Alex and I think we should have a band at this point so I go and get Jon and Zasta.

I go to Aurora. The bouncer remembers me and lets me through the line. I go up the stairs and see the cute blond coat check girl. I say I need to grab my two friends. I give her my I.D. and go in.

Oh fuck. I feel like I’m one of these kiddie’s dad. “HilaryAshlyBeckyJennyKatelyn! get your 13 year old ass out of here and into the car! And cover up that ‘My daddy fucked me and I liked it” tee shirt!

Geeze – this is the polar opposite world to the one I live in. I’ve been invited to and went to Madonna’s club in NYC, I’ve played Aerosmith’s club in Boston, I’ve been to the best Industrial Goth club in Detroit (the vampires in there!!!) no less – none of those made me feel like I was creepy. But this was like walking into a Disco Daycare. The I.D. forging business must be thriving in Banff.

I find the guys. They both look at me and say “They’re all little kids! We’re just coming to you guys.”. They did meet a bunch from Montreal. And the service girls were smoking hot. But it’s pointless. Board and boring all together. YAY!

I come back up to the top of the stairs to get my I.D. back from the blonde coat checker. She says “Did you find your band?” I’m not surprised that she asks this. I pretty much knew that Jon and Zasta would’ve already spotted this one. (see vid) Spreading the word about The Gods Of Now comes normally. I introduce myself and then leave.

We go back to see Alex. He’s sitting with his ale. Ha! We sit down and everyone who was all around us move to one side of the bar. We think we should keep moving closer until everyone is all piled up on each other in one corner.

We meet girls. We always meet girls cuz we love ‘em and treat them well. We’re in love with the feminine vibe! I’m not in this anymore though. Their’s redhead and Indie-music girl (see vid) and this hot Rihanna-looking chick. They wanted us to go with them to Aurora – oh no, that’s not for me. I pull back from it and smoke my cigar. It feels very good being here at this moment. The Indie-Girl is all “Ohmygawd you guys are an indie band. Indie bands rock cuz that’s where the talent is you know!” I agree with everything she says but she doesn’t have a shut off. (see vid). She plays guitar. She’s wearing a very nice dress.

I watch them trying to get Alex past bouncer Nazi guy. I shake my head. I want to play. It’s always soooo much better when I’m playing. Okay, I’m bored. I want to go.

We move out without a goodbye. No friends here. Just experience. That’s okay. That’s more than okay.

I’m driving and thinking about how classic it is. A heavy band with a PARTY ROOM and no one to party with. But then I remember. We’re not here to party. We are the party. We need to view what’s around us so we can push it back out to people. All experience is necessarily life changing. Even the little things make up the big things. We are about to deal with our cosmic place. Our position in the universe. The Universe in front of us.

“Okay, we’re stopping now”. I stop the Banyion under the open Universe. Suspended by void. We are in darkness and light is above us. Like being deep in an ocean and looking up to the sun shining off the surface. We stand there.

Jon, Alex and Zasta (who are a little drunk) will not stop talking. They fill the silence with shouts and phrases of awe. I love it! This is human expression at it best. The universe is pushing us all to the ground. The light is continuous. Pure. A million years of creation thrown at us each second that passes by. Jon is pointing out stars and planets. Names in French. Names I’ve never heard before for star clusters I’ve known my whole life. It makes them all brand new. We are standing on the edge of All creation.

Insignificance of existence. We are nothing and a bag of chips. We are not alone in this. It is impossible. There must be some group of aliens called “lsdkfj” who are looking at the sky from their planet wondering why they have a PARTY ROOM but no party.

We get back in the Baynion dizzy with the air and the fucking point of this. Just to exist is enough. Like starlight we are here. Enjoy it.

We’re hungry. That’s what you get for existing. We go get pizza at Domino’s in Canmore. We have a collective Violent fantasy about being bored. It translates itself into Jon unplugging the “Open” sign. Poor guys are gonna be wondering why their is so little foot traffic coming in.

There are three stoners in there with us. They eat way too much greasy food and look like they’re gonna be heading to Vancouver in the next couple of years. They think it’s cool we’re in a band. They go outside and scope the Banyion. Me and Alex go out and they run off. Little fuckers. Hilarious.

On the way back to the room with the pizza. Domino’s is good road pizza – especially at night in the middle of the Rockies. Recommended. On the way we talk about the next level. The bigger Banyion. Having a driver. Tom – the ultimate wing man goes out for Pizza and comes back with 6 girls. Oh yeah. I make the simplest and most profound statement I’ve ever made. I say “It’s easier when someone else does it for you”.

We get back. We eat the pizza and Jon tells us that there’s a Super Volcano under North America and if it blows (which it could at any minute) we’re all magma. It has a pleasant little name called Yellowstone. Yeah, thanks Jon.

Good night.

Somewhat Related Entries

• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 10
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 5
• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 16
• The Gods Of Now On Tour – Day 17
• The Gods of Now On Tour – Day 22