Life is Just Death in Drag

Boredom has set in on hour 18 of our drive form Dallas to Phoenix. I've exhausted the Internet having read the lyrics to every Meatshits and Cemetery Rapist record that I can find (just for kicks), and looked at hundreds of pictures of cats dressed up as things other than cats. Today has been a solid kick in the raisins that I'd rather not recall. It seemed to be all flat, hot and never-ending.

Hospitality, be not so hospitable.

We managed to pick up all manner of tat after stopping every hour on the hour at a truck stop to cool our overheating generator (which, by the way caused the air conditioning to short out in the middle of the desert and turn the bus into a toaster oven on very large wheels). I bought the world's largest pig in a blanket. It was one of the grossest things that I had seen. It was lying with a few others, sweating under a heat lamp by the counter.

As a frame of reference, it was has the girth of my arm. It is now living peacefully in a shoe box in the fridge waiting for some poor, unsuspecting vegetarian to stumble upon it. In a similar vein there was a t-shirt that I saw a number of times at service stations scattered across Texas that read 'There is a place for all of god's creatures next to the mashed potatoes and gravy.' Nice touch. I never knew bow hunters to be so eloquent. 















Someone else came away with this hand-drawn portrait of Sean Connery. Presumably some trucker would have pasted this up in their cab for one long, lonely drive through the south west, his cool, blue eyes calming the speed-ravaged nerves of the driver.

Oh, just too many truck stops really. At the start of the tour we were starved for them. There's something pretty magical about falling off of a tour bus at four in the morning, a little bleary-eyed, and sinking into the stinky, oil-stained, sex-predator infested world of a truck stop. It is a joy not unlike the four AM Wal Mart stop where everything appears to be plated in gold, and then you wake up the next morning wondering if you really needed the pair of Rollerblades, paintball gun and George Foreman Grill that seemed like such a good idea earlier in the evening. These, however, rarely go out of style. I think they'll find a home on the back of my Honda Civic.















I was particularly amused by direction number four. Seems like that could be applied to any number of real world situations to varying degrees of success.

Bonnarroo was a corker. It was day four of the four-day festival out in the middle of Tennessee. We got stuck on the bluegrass/pack up and go home day. There wasn't really much going on, but we made the most of it. I really, really dislike the general vibe of it all, and even though the didgeridoos were on sale I abstained. Strange that I relish living in San Francisco.

I was encouraged by the fact that, in the event that my size of wings or elf ears is sold out, I can always order them at 'I believe in faeries dot com.'

Now that's what I'm talking about.

I did get to see my friend the big baby. If you look at this picture and need further explanation as to why he is called the big baby then I can only assume that you live in the woods and access the Internet via an elaborate and frantic rubbing together of sticks.

James (baby) was out doing sound for Ladytron, who happened to be the only band that I had any interest in seeing at the festival. My interest was also mainly scientific as I was wondering how the group of Brits would fare with their cold, mechanical music and black turtlenecks in the 102-degree heat. I was particularly fond of the crowd's dismayed reaction to the song that featured the chorus 'obliterate the Sunday.' I think someone finally dropped the hacky sack.

I wandered over to their stage which was named after one asinine thing or another. We were on the 'which' stage, so that when you are wandering drunk through a festival site looking for the medical tent because you've just been cut down by a Tennessee rattlesnake you get the joy of a little game of who's on first. 'Hey, which stage is near the medical tent.' 'What?' 'No, where is the medical tent? 'by which stage.' Laugh it up.

This has been a tour of free footwear madness. The band has been hounded by Puma, Nike and now Converse (which I guess is still Nike). The back lounge is starting to resemble a foot locker. The nice thing is that I can wear a new pair every day after I sweat straight through them after baking in the hot summer sun. I have lost about five pounds of water weight this last week, and I'm starting to look like I'm one-eighth Navajo. Nothing like getting a little sun on the old coin purse.

I have also been plagued by a sun that never sets (for all you Neurosis fans out there). The band has been playing a good hour in broad daylight before I get to make with the strobey-strobey lights. So it goes, just a further mockery of my profession I suppose.















Just to make things right with the world, here's a cat dressed as a taco.