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His Philosophy

I was just practicing my handwriting technique on a piece of notebook paper at work, out of boredom of course. I wrote my full name and it turns out my memory for cursive is quite lucid. I remembered every loop, curve, and the subtle difference between capital “F” and capital “T”. The nuns in my Catholic gradeschool made us spend so much goddamned time on handwriting that just a little part of me fears the Eternal Damnation of Hell every time I commit the sin of hastily scrawling instead of gracefully writing, as Jesus would’ve done, had he been able to write. If I don’t make that little loop on the bottom left corner of capital “D”, St. Peter might just be marking a little demerit in the Sloov Book of Life, which sucks me down further into Satan’s abyss. The rational, as with every tedious thing in a Catholic education: Since Jesus carried all that lumber up that hill, the least we could do is proper cursive with our measly wooden number 2 pencils.

I wonder, if we would have spent hours a day in grades 1 through 5 on a subject that wasn’t rendered practically obsolete by computers (or even the typewriter), such as quantum physics or current events, if I’d be so skilled in those subjects as I am in handwriting, as to explain in full the Theory of Relativity or accurately predict the president’s next political maneuver, would I be better off?

But I’ll be putting my handwriting skills to good use on the upcoming 16-day jaunt my band Buzzsawyer is embarking upon. I’ll be sending my secretary (a.k.a. “girlfriend”) the final manuscripts of my excellent handwritten-in-the-King’s-Cursive tour journals, and she’ll convert them into the type you see here, then email ‘em to 814. Expect an entry every couple of days and 2 or 3 days later than written depending upon how disgruntled our U.S. Postal Service is from the time I drop it in the box till the time it reaches home. However, I may have occasion to use email once in a blue ball I mean blue moon, which will, of course, speed up the process.

Tour journals are an interesting phenomenon in the music world. Half of these guys really believe they are on some earth-shattering, revolutionary journey that will change the face of rock ‘n’ roll forever, and you can see it in their embellishing and seriousness (remember folks, the point of all music esp. rocknroll is FUN!). We’ve been through enough shit to know not to romanticize touring. (By the way, if you want to read a travel journal that has significance and a redeeming social value, click on over to Sandfly. He’s helping sick people. If you wanna read about 4 drunk dicks in a van trying to drag out their adolescence [not that there’s anything wrong with that], here’s your column.)

In my old band Captain Bigwheel, we had a show scheduled once in Detroit (which would have been our biggest show up till then), but the drummer got into an accident just days before, which totaled the mini-van that transported us. We had a show in NJ with the Swingin’ Neckbreakers (which would’ve been our biggest show up till then), but the radiator overheated and it blew the cap, and what held the cap on, clean off, and we spent 8 hours in Breezewood, PA, the giftshop capital of south-central PA, milling about until the van was repaired. We’ve had to beg and muscle bartenders out of $5 in tips for gas, we’ve stayed in cat-and-human-piss-and-shit-infested junkrooms above the bar, slept on flea-infested mattresses, spent tedious boring hours in a gravel parking lot outside a biker bar discussing the finer points of anal sex, all the while trying to get through a week and a half with only $5 to spend on food because you couldn’t resist buying those red white and blue wingtips you saw at a thrift store in Tennessee. And that’s only from one tour. Every band goes through that, though. That’s really nothing, but enough to know it ain’t peaches and herb.

This upcoming tour, although it’s looking good from this vantagepoint, is bound be filled with little mishaps. Three shows have already been canceled, due to a club shutting down in Lexington for serving a kid beer, a firehall being double booked in Dayton, OH, and the other due to some unfortunate misunderstanding or other that I’m still not clear on.

So I’m inclined to expect the worst. Today after my lunch hour I was barfing out of both ends in the men’s room as a result of food poisoning of some mild sort, or an overdose of jalepenos, but I’m sitting here thinking about how fucked I’ll be if I have some vile bacterial strain from tainted cow and will have to cancel all the dates whilst laying up in UNC Hospital with zero medical insurance.

But Danger, O my brothers and only friends, is constantly on the horizon. No use worrying about it.

And I ain’t complaining, either. I’ll be off work for 2 weeks, I’ll get to see new places, meet new people, drink for free now and then, get to do whatever the hell I want, for the most part. And this tour, I hope, won’t be as grueling and virtually pointless as the Capt. Bigwheel Figure Four Leglock tour of ‘98. We’ll be on 3 of the 4 band members’ homefronts half the time, and I’m sure our mums ‘n’ dads ‘n’ buddys’ll give us some food and beer send us on our way (HINT HINT). The 4th of July and 7 Inch Release Party at the Reegle Beegle in Bedford is bound and determined to kick goat ass, Pittsburgh on the 30th won’t be bad either and we get to play Baltimore and Richmond, where we’ve never been before. Our final show of the tour will be the big Heavy Rebel Weekend in Winston-Salem, NC, put on by Dave Quick, who was in Jack Black.

Also, our new friends from Burlington, North Carolina, Jimmy and the Teasers (a guy and 2 gals, thought you’d like to know) will be joining us up in the Bedford/Cumberland area and touring with us for a few dates, and I’m SURE all yinz PA folks’ll love ‘em. They play some kick ass garagey rock n fuckin roll and like to drink and have a good time, like us. Their shows inspire me to throw beer at random people and get thrown out of bars.

Well, expect the first tour journal entry when the bell tolls one… I’ll see yinz onna road.

June 20, 2001