beef or bust

Believe it or not, their is a train that goes to the end of the world in Ushuaia. Ushuaia being the southernmost city in the world-- a mere 550 km from Antarctica. A tourist trap of sorts. An interesting one at that. A pretty city. ANYWAY, two things:

One, I have no interest in going to the end of the world. In fact, the thought of such a trip and a place conjures images of things similar to what you may see in a Stephen King movie-- the Langoliers for example. The end of the world-- and going there, ON A TRAIN!, sounds terrible.

Two, if, and only if I was required to make a trip to the end of the world, I would undoubtedly want to make the trip in a bus. A big bus, preferably electric blue in color and equipped with wheels that could run over things-- anything-- if necessary. Inside the bus My Morning Jacket would be played over a loudspeaker. And food, christ, their would be peanut butter and jelly. Lots of it. This, of course, becuase you must surrender your leg to get a small jar of the stuff here in Argentina.

Buses in Argentina happen to be the closest thing to heaven with 8 wheels (or so I think, this item is still up for research) in this country. I have taken every opportunity to utilize this mode of transport making it my movement method of choice. As the crow flies, I have traveled roughly 17,000 miles in a bus in this country-- read: 3,202 miles. My route has been of fairly euiler´esque variety having traveled first down the east coast, across the south of the Patagonia crossing in to Chile and then up the west coast of Argentina.

Beautiful.

I have seen whales fully breached, eaten ice cream that tasted like Jesus prepared it himself, watched a man get nearly creamed by a truck, seen a few glaciers, eaten hot dogs at the foot of a mountain roughly the size of Texas, met something like three thousand German tourists, bartered with an elderly woman (in spanish!) for a set of headphones, hell, been to the end of the world.

BUT NEVER, and I mean NEVER have I ridden in a bus as much as I have here in Argentina-- and thoroughly enjoyed it, mind you.

There´s simple things like the scenery:

The sights rain from boring to interesting in the confines of a air-ride equipped 8 wheeler. By interesting, I mean to the point of hallucination, by boring, I mean to the point of simply asking the driver to stop and stepping out. Hallucination!? Oh and its natural. So natural it is scary. REALLY, REALLY scary in fact. The first time it happened to me I thought I ate a bad apple or drank some shitty water. But then it hit me! These buses, these magnificant moving things, they have drug-like properties. And its free! FREE!

Step 1 - Look out the window.

Step 2 - Do not look away. Stare, eyes open-- blink as little as possible-- for something like 70 minutes.

Step 3 - Do not look away.

Step 4 - Finally, turn off the music, look away. LOOK AWAY!

Step 5 - Hold the sides of your chair very tightly. Veeeeeeeeeery tightly. Look at the curtains... THEY ARE MOVING! Ok, now you are seeing the merits of a perfectly natural hallucinogen. The clouds! They are jumping around like dancing rabbits! The best part-- hands down!-- is the movement that the floor makes. Yes, yes, it suggests vertigo, makes me want to puke at times, but I promise it is the most staggering part of the whole occasion.

So these buses-- kind of similar to the Magic School buses that I read about as a little child-- also from time to time offer you different services of class. Yep, just like an airplane. I have taken all three-- semi cama, coche cama and cama EJECUTIVO (that is semi bed, full bed and EXECUTIVE bed).

Coche cama is my favorite-- leather seats, bob o bon candy bars (hands down the best version of chocolate bar in Argentina, akin to the claims I make about Tim Tams in Australia but this time it just involves a golden wafer that happens to taste like warm peanutty something), tea if you should so choose and the BEST selection of Spanish dubbed movies that almost ALWAYS involve a few things:

1) Violence, a lot of fucking violence. Things blowing up, arms severed, flames, guns. The thematic undertone of all the violence is something as it relates to the near demise of The United States of America. I never realized until now how many movies have actually been created post 9/11 that involve a terrorist act dangerously similar but millions times worse. The most recent one involved Denzel Washington, an extremely attractive black woman and some stupid contraption that allowed you to view things as they happened in the past. Anyone?

2) Sex, either overt or suggested. Pretty Woman is a perfect example of suggested and the example for overt I do not know the title-- but the woman had great breasts, blonde hair and she was probably 5´9´´. Sorry, thats all I´ve got.

3) A sports team. Yes, either a coach and his plight to make his sports team win (Friday Night Lights, the movie with the Rock coaching a bunch of inner city gangsters, etc).

This is neither here nor there. I never finish these movies as I am either nodding off because I cannot follow the spanish, burying my face in a milanesa sandwich or said bon o bon candy bar OR I am concentrating in perfecting the air guitar solo to THE BEAR starting at 3:13-- a song by My Morning Jacket. Listen to that one Alex. If I come home and you can play that sonofabitch all the way through, my life plans are canceled and we are starting an MMJ cover band that will tour the country-- starting in Michigan, we won´t bite off more than we can chew. This band will likely involve Mike because let´s be honest, his voracious appetite for Jimothy et al would really complement our whole outfit. I have a beard right now that would probably put me in the running for the frontman role, and you Alex, well, grow your hair out and choose either the role of Carl Broemel or Patrick ANIMALIA Hallahan. Oh god. Mike, can you handle TWO TONE?

Sorry.

I am so excited.

The spanish is coming along. By "coming along" I mean I am really awesome at responding very enthusiastically as to what I did in a day. I can always ask where the bathroom is and totally understand the directions that I get back. I have been-- TWICE!-- mistaken for a foreigner because I did NOT sound like I was speaking gringo english. This statement, on both occasions, urged me to go to a place where I was alone and totally do the KIP Yessssssssssssssss thing from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. These are big deals you see.

I can name with relative certainty, every beef cut on a bull, because, after all Argentina has more beef available than I have ever seen in my LIFE. I eat beef roughly 4 times a week and subscribe wholeheartedly to the merits of what I call the BEEF OR BUST diet. It basically involves survival off the wonder meat and encourages consumption whenever possible. BEEF OR BUST does not include hot dogs, salami, any sort of conglomerate meat (I guess thats salami) or the other weird stuff like brains, hooves, or... TONGUE.

Jesus.

I was at a hostel, sleeping in a closet, mind you in a town called Chaltan. This place just celebrated its 23rd birthday not too long ago and is somewhat behind in terms of modern civilization. This is extremely endearing if you are looking to camp in a tent and go hiking for a few days (like most people that go there) or terrifying if you have just come out of a four day hike in Chile (that´s me) and want nothing to do with nature, mountains, drinking out of streams, tents, hiking boots, etc etc etc etc etc.

ANYWAY, this hostel, dare I call it that, offered me a room in a closet. Literally, a closet. Every other hostel in the pre-civilization town was full because of said birthday party taking place and so I was left with no choice. OK, deep breath. It was a family that owned the house, and judging by the look on their faces when I walked in they had either NEVER seen a tourist enter in to their hostel or they were just terrified that my grizzly persona was even considering staying in their home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got the tour of the place, the fella told me I could use any of the books on the main table entrace, yep yep, yadda yadda. He showed me a "sample room"-- a room at least 56 times more accomodating than mine-- then I met his daughter, their dog that made me want to cry because he smelled so bad and the laundry room. Oh the laundry room. It resembled a cold war prison and I was not going to use it. Then the kitchen. Jesus Christ. The kitchen. It was clean. It was nicely organized even. Lots of pots, even a fridge to use and WOW! they had a microwave. This was good news, great news! I had not had a microwave in a while. And then my head turned 30 degrees to the left and I witnessed the most horrific thing sitting at the kitchen table. It wasn´t another child or a furry creature that made me want to throw up. It was a COW TONGUE. A FULL COW TONGUE. This thing was massive, anf gray and it looked like it had goosebumps. All over. It was at least three feet long, and it was thawing on the table. I was terrified. I yelped a little bit. I was thoroughly disgusted and asked what in the FUCK that thing, that monstrosity, that AHHH! that WHATEVER IT WAS!

"Ahhhh senor, la garganta." He is pointing to his throat, not mine. Signalling to the region of the bull where this thing was taken from. Listen compadre, I get it. I get it.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si." I said it many more times than that because I did not know what else to say.

"Ehhhh, a BOOOOL, a vaca." He was trying to make it more obvious, but I understood, and it was terrifying me. I was already having bad dreams because of this TONGUE, this piece of flesh just sprawled across the kitchen table. The kitchen table that I was going to cook ravioli on. Oh jesus. I knew I should have bought those sanitary wipes. If not for cleaning my hands, then God, just to prevent the spread of some disease.

Deep breath. I turned around. I was sick.

"Claro, claro. Vamos a su habitacion!"-- OK, OK, lets go to your bedroom.

"Si, si, si, si, si, si, si."

And then the bedroom appeared, far different than the "sample room"-- it was a glorified closet, had to be. There were no brooms, no cleaning solutions, no light either. Ummm, was there a mattress? I lightly gestured towards the sample bedroom but this was apparently reserved for the caballeros that were coming later. Awesome. I had no choice.

Feeling as though I would happily take the train to the end of the world if it meant I could get out of Transylvania just a little quicker, I immediately hopped the next bus out. Being in the confines of that smooth 8 wheeler never felt so good. Bring on the candy! The tea! Poorly dubbed movies! Andale!

good airs

The bus-- el autobus. The driver-- forget it. Please-- por favor. To need-- necesitar. To get off-- shit. Address? I know that. I know that one. Jesus. I can probably muster something close to it. He will understand me. Maybe. God, I thought I was better than this. OK. Este or es? Who cares. He will understand. OK. Go.

"Senor, necesito bajarse de acqui (I am pointing to my hostel address on a piece of paper but promptly stop this as I realize I may become responsible for the bus to promptly crash as a result of a severely sidetracked driver. The news headline would read: "American Crashes Argentine Bus." This would be terrible. I think about all this and immediately retract my piece of paper and pointing method). Uhhh, bajo de Avenida de Mayo 1385"-- Sir, I need to get off here. Uhhh, I need to get off at 1385 Mayo Avenue.

Yes, of course I struggled with getting the numbers out. I could barely keep my eyes open at this point from not getting much sleep on the eighteen hour plane ride over.

He nodded looking at me calmly, "cinco minutos amigo"-- five minutes, friend.

OK, OK, OK. This is good or so I keep thinking. Back to the headphones with My Morning Jacket blasting my membranes and the general confusion of freshly arriving in a completely foreign city. The bus rumbled along. Scenes collided side by side as I gazed out the window to a busy universe around me. That clashing, that madness, that boisterous activity-- it somehow left me in a calm place as I looked out from the confines of that 8-wheel megabus.

Do buses have eight wheels? This is probably a good Wiki project. I have had many Wiki projects lately-- one of which has me trying to determine how many American cities end with ´ville. I know, this will be difficult and likely pointless information to have, but it is equally as interesting as approaching Wikipedia to answer questions about how many wheels a bus has.

"Amigo! Estas acqui"-- Friend! You are here. I think that is what he said. Pretty sure.

I made it. We always do. Patience. It was only hour three in Buenos Aires and I had managed to get off the plane, collect my bags and take the bus in to the city.

Awesome.

It´s been a long time since I have written. I know.

The last month has been a whirlwind of events indeed. I did a nice little roundabout circuit of travel in the US-- New York City, Austin-town Texas and an Americana road trip installment with Mr. Miguelito Sack through the mid-south (Tennessee and North Carolina). I returned home and ate about 28 home cooked meals. This was good. My grandma passed away shortly thereafter and this was tough for all the obvious reasons. She is certainly in a good place now though. And then, it was time for the grandiose departure that I have become quite good at-- another international adventure.

South America.

The last month has left me with more miles under my belt and a growing list of questions. Questions that are to some extent rhetorical, answered and unanswered. The questions seem to pile up to roughly 14 feet in height, and I, like usual, kill myself over the answers. We cant know them all-- all the answers that is-- I guess.

Theres beauty in the unknown! This, as a particular friend Kate would point out, is the essence of daily life.

Well, Kate. I agree.

Patience. With the unknown.

OK.

It was morning, way early morning on day two in Good Airs-- ehh, Buenos Aires. The cold air was bursting through the crack in my enormous window that was approximately 12 feet from my bed. My sleep patterns were still fucked from old habits-- night owl tendancies when I was home and an 18 hour plane journey to be precise. The night before I had walked to the point of partial leg failure so that could have played a role. And I went to bed at 8:30 to the sounds of everyone hitting the town for a big night.

OK. I figured it out.

ANYWAY, its morning and I approach the kitchen for some coffee. Everyone always jumps on the case of naive Americans traveling, so I will take this opportunity to be immature and share a casually tongue-in-cheek anecdote. The only reason, of course, is for the lead in to where this manifesto is going.

See, everything has its purpose.

So I go to get the coffee, something I should consider NOT doing because I have been getting heartburn lately-- this makes me question the validity of my 25 years of age... BUT I just cant veer myself from drinking the black magic. I was pouring a cup and looked to my left and saw an Aussie couple I had met on day one happily enjoying breakfast amongst themselves. I broke in to the conversation, rudely perhaps, and we talked for a few minutes. I spilled coffee on my hand while trying to simultaneously talk with hand gestures and stand on my two feet. This happens more times than not.

The conversation was on auto-pilot when suddenly I realized the Aussie girl´s shirt read "Happiness is Lake Erie" across the front with a outline of the state of Michigan to the left. I freaked out. Actually, I burst in to laughter spilling more coffee and probably scaring people around me because I tend to laugh louder than is generally acceptable. This, of course, gets magnified 40 times when you are outside the confines of the United States where everyone does everything just a little louder than necessary. They looked at me confused. I continued to laugh. This happens a lot.

So the laughter subsided and the couple was desperately trying to piece the puzzle together. I explained the oddity of the situation and mentioned her t-shirt. She looked back at me as if I had shot her with a BB gun right there. She had no clue. I mentioned LAKE ERIE, I mentioned MICHIGAN. Nothing. It was just a silly shirt from a trip to the US. But NO NO NO, it was not just a silly shirt. It was home. It was home! I explained the beauty of Lake Erie and the Great Lakes to a rather confused crowd of two Aussies. They were eventually on board, but still very very very very very very confused I was making such a big deal out of this.

I held the coffee cup up to my face during the deliberation to hide my laughter. In the process, I took the world´s longest slug of piping hot black magic that very possibly melted me from mid-chest to pelvis. Or so it felt.

CONFUSION. Or so they felt, but we all get that.

Wherever it is that we all belong (Michigan, Australia, Antarctica), how often do you think about the answer? I can drive myself crazy from time to time in trying to find the superhighway to answer-kingdom. Where do I want to live? How will I get there? Is this going to be a good city? We all want a good city, now don´t we? I mean... shit! What is happiness? Uhhh, candy. Starburst Jelly Beans are happiness-- the fucking grape ones. Oh man. But that gets me nowhere. Jelly beans get me cavities, not answers. Where will I go? Yes, but where do we belong? Me! Where do I belong? Do you feel comfortable where you are? Where you have gone? Where you are going? How you will get there?

Jesus. I mean these thoughts just race through my head.

There´s plenty of young people (and probably old, too) that are wondering aloud these questions-- well, to themselves at least. Some ask those questions too much (maybe like me) and many ask too little, accepting the mediocre at face value. So there´s this happy medium to strive for perhaps, something to work for, something to find, to uncover-- and then to LOVE. A place where the current position puts a smile on my face and the promise of future growth seems a joyful prospect.

I want to talk to this nation state of individuals. Perhaps we can talk over the evening news.

OK.

So Buenos Aires-- a fine place indeed. I managed to circumnavigate the city quite nicely despite the fact that it seems as though it is roughly the size of Vermont. My daily walks have lasted hours, after which I realize I have only moved a couple inches on the map. The pulse of the city beats steadily, it has a vibe to it. My watch still remains on Eastern Standard because the majority of Argentina is just one hour ahead. This provides a nice reminder of home with every casual glance of the time. I think the highlight of this place has little to do with all these THINGS per se. There´s something more to be said about the kinship you feel between people. People embrace each other, and this picks up the slack for any downfalls that come with the bland familiarities that a continental metropolis brings.

Interestingly enough, I am traveling with a cell phone for the first time ever. I have never done this, and given my experience thus far would not recommend against. In doing so, I had my little brush with human Argentine contact-- arguably the highlight of my existence in Buenos Aires.

I walked in to the cell phone store sweating-- obviously-- despite the cool temperature. I started talking with a fellow who I would later find out was named Guillermo. I sat there rattling off my best attempts at espanol churning out about 45 questions related to me having a phone in Argentina. Poor Guillermo must have been frustrated, but he answered all of them. Of course, as part of my standard procedure, I took the answers, had a walk to think about, and then returned to make the purchase an hour later.

Guillermo pushed buttons, entered codes, spoke very very quickly, waved his hands, swore a couple times and banged on his desk twice. He then looked at me and told me there was problem. There was apparently a problem with the activation network and I would need to come back the following day. No problem.

So I returned the following day to no avail. Still did not work.

The following day, still no luck.

Day three. Success. Cell phone in hand. Celebration. Calls are made. We´re in business.

The following day-- day four-- I went back to the store because I had gotten used to chatting over tea or coffee with Guillermo midday. I mean Jesus, in those three prior days we accomplished a lot. He knew about my family, how I got laid off from my previous job, etc. Guillermo was thirty years old and lived about twenty minutes outside of town. He once lived in the US in Council Bluffs, Nebraska of all places. A year ago I saw an 18-wheeler explode on the highway there. This provided arguably the most heated of the discussions because it seemed like Guillermo may have known the driver. No, that is impossible, but that is kind of what his face looked like when I told him. The guy has a fierce love for rock ´n roll. This is clearly evidenced by the voracious lip curl and air guitar tactics demonstrated when anything by The Doors, Metallica or Def Leppard (!) is played. This is probably 95% of why we got along so well.

Day five. Back again. We had lunch.

Day six. The same.

Afternoons with Guillermo became the highlight of Buenos Aires. Clearly.

Today will be my last day hanging with Guillermo. I will walk in to the store and say Hola Amigo! once again. I will get his address and tell him I am going to send him the discography of America´s best rock ´n roll band My Morning Jacket (Miguelito, I am going to need some help executing this). He will laugh and slowly scribble in his awful penmanship (worse than mine) and ask "entiendes?"-- You understand?. I will reply with SI! repeated three times very quickly because this seems to be my habit of affirmatively answering anything in Spanish. We will pause while I construct my next Spanish sentence in my head. Guillermo will then turn the volume up on the boombox that is about two feet from his desk so we can act out the guitar solo to Metallica´s "Enter Sandman." We will laugh almost the whole time as I start to sweat because the legitimacy of both our air-guitarness is really staggering. After the song is done I will leave saying I will see him not tomorrow like usual, but rather "sometime soon." I say this to everyone I take a shine to because I always find my way back.

You´ve got to.

SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?

Craigslist for the past few years has really been a big part of my life. I mean I could almost tell the story of my life post-college through the trials and tribulations of my existence with Craigslist. Actually come to think of it, I cant really tell the story of my life through the trials and tribulations with using Craigslist, I can mostly just tell of the failures in my life through usage of Craigslist. Craigslist is like the bad girlfriend that I keep going back to.

Let’s see, it was last summer. I was in the market for a full size conversion van—something that makes me want to laught hysterically and want to vomit as I think about it now. So I landed a deal on Craigslist for a Dodge van. This thing was roughly the size of a German U-boat and consumed roughly three times that amunt of gasoline but it was a beauty—full oak trim interior, TV/VCR combo, electric folding bed in the back, enough room inside to cart around a pack of wolves, etc. The thing was immaculate. And so there it sat in my driveway as I called Mom and brother Alex to come outside and look at the piece of machinery. I was so proud of my purchase. I was planning to go on a road trip with the beast and then move out west. Things were looking good.

So now that I had purchased the thing—and come all the way from Chicago mind you to land the deal—I had to turn it around and take it back to the Windy City. I was on the road for about 10 minutes when the red light on the dashboard lit up telling me I should check the engine. Super. I started to sweat. And by sweat, I mean I was lying in a grease pond of my own perspiration. I was just watching my $2700 prized purchase evaporate in to the summer sky. All the sudden the engine started to unnecessarily rattle and it seemed as though I had something of an issue—30 minutes in to owning the goddamn thing.

I took the monster wagon in to a local Auto Zone for them to hook it up to their computer and run the diagnostic—they do this for free mind you, it’s a pretty good resource. A fellow by the name of Steve came out to hook up the computer and I was genuinely frightened that this guy may try to beat my head with a hammer instead of helping me out. He looked like Sid Vicious and talked like Steve Carrell—a freaky combo. I never really got over this. He hooked up the computer, ran the diagnostic and looked me straight in the eye. I was in the middle of explaining that I had just purchased the car that day from an old man and Steve didn’t give a fuck—“DUDE, YOU GOT BONED.” He was screaming, probably from years of acid metal music killing his eardrums. “THIS ENGINE IS MISFIRING ON ALL EIGHT CYLINDERS.” I stared on with general dumbfounded-ness completely unaware of what an “engine misfire” was really implying. I didn’t say much and Steve knew I may be clueless. “DUDE, YOU GOT FUCKED. GET IT?”

Jesus Christ.

Long story short, I called the guy back that I had purchased the monster truck from and told him I was bringing the truck right back and that I wanted my money returned immediately. He was about 60 years to my senior so he had a genuinely hard time hearing me and understanding that I was bringing his van back to him. After about 5 hours of vicious arguing with an 80 year old man that smoked black and mild cigarettes throughout the entire course of our argument, I realized I was in a genuine conundrum. The old man would periodically change his argument completely mid sentence and this was really throwing me off. One moment we would agree he would give me all the money back that day, and then the next moment I was getting the money back the following week after a mechanic looked at it. The guy was genuinely crazy, and I was pretty sure that arguing with him cost me about 10 years of my life.

Eventually, a few days later, I got all my money back. That was Craigslist failure number one— with a minor twist of success.

Right around the time I voluntarily quit my last job at the office, I decided I would be needing a laptop of my own because I was going to have to turn in my work laptop. For whatever reason, it seemed reasonable for me to approach the market through Craigslist to find a used laptop. Not sure why this seemed like a great idea, but I nevertheless went forward with it. I found a very suitable Apple iBook G4 with all the specs that I wanted from a guy up in Wrigleyville—just a couple miles away from my apartment in Wicker Park. The guy’s name was Temi and we schedule a time to meet so I could have a look at the laptop.

Easy peasy.

I showed up at his apartment. Going in to strangers’ apartments is always kind of freaky— even when it is a stranger that you are aware of through a mutual friend or something. The smell is always the first thing I pay attention to. Temi’s apartment, as I approached the gleaming Apple laptop that I would be purchasing from him for $450, resembled the smell of a dead rat laying roadside for roughly 10 days in the hot summer heat. Next in a stranger’s apartment, you can’t help but look at the objects scattered about. Temi had computer discs covering the floor. I am guessing roughly 35,000 of these things just plastered across the floor boards. Every turn of my eyeball was potentially an opportunity for blinding myself because of the constant glare resulting from CD’s reflecting sunlight.

Awesome.

Temi was kind of freaking me out. Despite all these sings of Satanic-like behavior, I walked out of Temi’s Wrigleyville apartment with an Apple laptop.

I think two weeks later to the day I was sitting on my balcony enjoying a beer with my roommate Drew when I got a weird message pop up on my screen alerting me that my laptop needed to be shut down immediately. And so I did. No big deal. Well, it’s just that I got this message 600 more times every time I tried to turn the computer on. The computer never actually turned back on after that fateful evening on the balcony. So I called Apple Care and told them the issue. Well, my motherboard was fried apparently. I was furious. Here I had just bought the damn thing, and with my luck, the computer was now a vegetable. I could use it as a placemat now. Or maybe when I had kids I could let little Tommy sit on it to boost him up in his chair. So I wrote a letter to Steve Jobs telling the man what a disgrace this whole situation was. Oddly eough, I got a response in the form of a phone call from one of his “assistants” who wanted to try and fix the problem.

Well, he didn’t fix it but rather I just got a note from Steve telling me that I could pay $300 and have the thing back in working order. I declined. Craigslist failure number two.

Well, all things considered, I took a bit of a risk— given my track record with Craig and his list— by finding the Crocs job with Craigslist. I answered a very thorough ad when I was passing through Seattle and Portland in response to what was called a “Brand Ambassador” position. I got a phone interview scheduled and it went well. This led to the scheduling of a face-to-face interview when I got to Portland. This was the same trip that while sitting in a Laundromat one morning, a bum gave me HIS sweatshirt because he thought that I looked like I needed it. I took that as a pretty sweet gesture (still have the sweatshirt in my room) but nevertheless immediately realized that I must be looking AWFUL. The following day I checked in to the Hawthorne Hostel, had a shower and cleaned up for my job interview.

Things went well, and lets be honest, I was pretty sure that this job was the best thing that had ever happened to me—I would be traveling, meeting new people, driving a truck and oh yeah… doing marketing work. For the past 6 months I have been writing here of the adventures: trials and errors with a sexy imported box truck, adventures in truck stop America, the exhilaration of the open road, etc etc. You know the drill. Then I got moved to a different tour that went to MUSIC FESTIVALS and I was working with one of my BEST FRIENDS. It was like something was too good to be true. If Jesus were to live amongst us mortals, he would probably have a similar work setup. I mean that’s about how good it was.

So it all stopped and crashed because lets be honest—the curse of Craigslist had to show its face at some point.

And so it did the morning of July 21. My boss paid a surprise visit to Michigan which kind of made me poop myself a little bit when I was talking to him on the phone and he told me he was there. Mike was sitting passenger side as we were driving home after our event that weekend. I pulled the whole “holy shit!” face as I looked over at him and tried to mouth what was going on. I am a terrible multi-tasker so talking to our boss on the phone and trying to convey to Mike what was going on proved impossible. The news was in—Mike and I were to meet him at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham at 9AM the following morning. Yep, this sounded awful. And it pretty much was. We got laid off right there on the spot when we showed up. There was no getting around it.

All I could think about was Craig and his stupid fucking list.

Crocs decided to pull the plug on the Rock With Crocs tour that I was on because revenues were really shit for the third quarter and they needed to try and stop the bleeding somewhere. I guess it’s the nature of the beast depending on how you look at it. Either way, the romantic tour de force of Americana and its infinite glory is over. The curse of Craig, indeed.

But I feel OK. I really do. I am sad to see the touring life dissipate in front of me, but I am pretty sure that another opportunity is beckoning.

Right now I am sitting at home for about the tenth day in a row. And yes, its starting to feel weird. I am unemployed. This is typically brought up to me in the most opportune of moments. Most recently, it was standing in the grocery store and seeing an old unfamiliar acquaintance from high school. The vaguely familiar face approached while I was assessing which green peppers to purchase. Green peppers aren’t exactly cheap in the summertime at $1.99 a piece, so I typically look for the largest one in the pile of roughly 50 of them that sits in front of me. I always try to hide the fact that I am looking for the largest one which is kind of stupid, but its also the truth. So I am looking for the perfect green pepper and the said face presents itself in front of me with an absolutely wonderful fucking question.

“SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I thought you were living in a cave in Uzbekistan.”

“Awesome. Yeah. That’s the next stop after I start drug trafficking in Colombia.” At this point I really want to have this conversation with this person, but honestly, the fire isn’t there and I can’t even remember the person’s name. I could look in my year book that sits in the southeast corner of the basement at my parent’s house amongst about 10 years worth of shit, but honestly, that would probably even take forever and a day.

“Seriously though, what are you doing around here? Seems like the last time I saw you was in that world literature class with Mr. Palizzi.” I don’t remember what instance the familiar stranger recalled where we last saw each other, so I just inserted a relic of my high school days for the sake of telling the story. Mr. Palizzi, the teacher of said world literature class, is single-handedly responsible for the largest portion of my current vocabulary.

In second place was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Scarlett. That woman looked like Satan and was probably on her way to becoming his right hand man, but she still taught me a lot with my spelling tests. She drank coffee with the sort of intensity that suggested maybe she was an Alaskan killing wolf. It was downright scary to watch her lips pucker as she reeled in what I recall as a cup of coffee that was roughly the size of a mailbox. I would always be observing her chugging coffee from my desk in the rear of the room as she taught us spelling. My friend Billy, a neighborhood kid I used to ride bikes and go get cheap candy bars with, used to sit in the back of the classroom and masturbate under his desk while all this was happening. This is no joke or exaggeration. The kid used to rub his penis from the outside of his pants and pucker his lips while he was doing so—just like Mrs. Scarlett drinking her coffee. I once came home asking my mom why in the hell Billy was doing such a thing—to which I was introduced to the concept of masturbation. The reason why I mention all this is because on one particular occasion after I had scored a perfect score on Scarlett’s spelling test for the third week in a row, she told me that she was going to give me a special word list to pump up my vocab. Little did I realize that this new word list would involve words like Czechoslovakia (It took me three weeks to spell that one correctly—the biggest problem of whih was the second “o” in the word. I always wanted that “o” to be an “a.”) and a word that I erroneously mistook one week for “masturbate.” I was baffled as to why this was on the test. It’s funny because I don’t even remember what the word was that triggered my memory banks to think of Billy and masturbation, but I suppose that’s sort of irrelevant.

ANYWAY, familiar stranger was still standing in front of me as I tried to figure out if I was going to skirt around my recent layoff. I shot right back with confidence, “Well, in all seriousness, I am considering drug trafficking because the reason I am home is that I recently got laid off from my job.” At this point my attention is now back to the green peppers. I try to multitask between looking for the perfect pepper and attentively listening, but again, this is impossible.

“Ohhhh shit man. Bad news. What were you doing?”

“I was working for Crocs, you know, those goofy looking shoes.” Whenever I would explain to people my job that sentence was always the anchor of my description. And honestly, everyone knew what I was talking about when I said those three words goofy…. looking…. shoes. Now, those goofy looking shoes haunt me. I see stores with Crocs in the display and suddenly I lunge for Kleenex and a box of chocolate. This is weird.

“Wow. That’s a bitch. So you living around here for a while then?”

“Well, sort of. I am headed to New York then Austin. And then South America. I will stay there for a few months. Then I have a ticket out to Australia and will try to get some work out there. So I guess the answer is no.” As I got through those few sentences I immediately regretted getting in to that much depth. I started to look harder at the peppers that were now beckoning me at every blink of my eye. Hell, I was even considering the red and yellow ones at this point.

“Shit. Where do you get the money to do all that traveling? I mean where are you going to work?” Wow, if I haven’t had this conversation three thousand times before. Al Green came on the PA in the supermarket, so that was kind of helping me out a little bit.

“I’ll be selling drugs along the way. I am just kidding, man. I guess part of the beauty of all this is that I kind of figure it out as I go. It sounds weird, I know. But I guess it just works for me. I’ve gotta run though, it was really cool and random to catch up. Take care.”

I felt like I was Zach Braff in Garden State after he comes home for the first time in a long while and deals with the awkwardness of existing amongst the familiarities developed in previous years living in his hometown. There’s that feeling of misalignment, that feeling of sirens going off all around you, that feeling of shitting your pants while riding in the car because your fart was a little more powerful than you had expected. I really don’t know if the whole shitting-your-pants analogy was accurate, in fact it probably has no alignment whatsoever. I just stood there thinking about Zach Braff and what is next after going on my tangent with stranger man about drugs in Colombia, green peppers and goofy looking shoes.

“SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!”

It’s fucking scary.

It is no easy task. Up until the age of 21 everything was mapped, planned, charted and organized. School was the mainstay of existence occupying the months of August through June. Summers in grade school were spent at camp and on the baseball diamond. High school summers were spent bussing tables at the country club for the sake of some quick cash. In college, summers were spent developing your resume with work experience. It was easy. There was no wonder about what would bide your time, no question as to what should be done. There was really minimal choice in the matter even. I could choose the companies I got internships with in college, but that seemed like about as much wiggle room as I had. Now, I burst out of the gate from the university days with a sea of the most enormous question marks and suddenly I have quarter life crisis material—that is IF and ONLY IF I choose to be consumed by the inquiry of answering that simple question of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!?”. It’s easy to make yourself falsely comfortable with less-than-optimal situations to answer that simple question. I did it for a while in Chicago. You take the good with the bad and deal with the rest. At a certain point though, I told myself there was something better out there—slightly outside the conventional at times, but nevertheless a forward progression that I could plainly see in my thought patterns.

And so I move.

Perhaps all this quarter life crisis material is easily averted if you can train yourself to become comfortable with ambiguity—a moving object that serves as your final destination. I call it my happy place. My life essentially revolves around this happy place. One day I will get there after having traveled an assortment of different roads and accumulating roughly 4 million airline miles. BUT! BUT! I will get there and be completely pleased with the occupation or activity that is the mainstay of my happy place. There is going to be a marching band, moonwalking lessons and a giant fucking inflatable ball pit for the kids because its going to be a party when I get there. I think my happy place becomes something slightly different every 6 months or so, but as I continue to move, it gets more and more specific. And that’s success in my book.

And so I move.

But God knows that question “SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” is dangerous, dangerous shit. It forces you to advertise exactly what your plan is. And everyone has a different idea about what a good plan involves. Many times, it’s the furthest thing from my happy place. So that corresponding pressure of needing to advertise your plans properly can pull you in like a fucking angry grizzly bear, chew you up and kill your innards leaving you completely lifeless doubting whether you will ever move again. I can just as easily succomb to the pressures of falling in to the lifeless mold of second-rate decision making for the sake of advertising a publicly acceptable plan.

Or we can dare to be FUCKING BOLD.

Or so I would like to think.

Proceed forward young diplomat!

moustache rides

America, short of stating the obvious, is one of my favorite places in the universe. There’s quite a few things I love about America—I would say a good chunk of those things currently revolve around James Brown, Tom Petty, Sly Stone and all members of Kool and the Gang…

BUT! There’s more to it than that.

I love that in America New Balance sneakers are as popular as they are. I love that when you go to Starbucks, should the situation require a gallon of coffee, there is a size that accommodates such a desire. I love the idea of southern hospitality. I love that you really don’t find people wearing khaki pants as frequently as you do in America. I love Budweiser (this American fact is in jeopardy, as a Belgian conglomerate now owns my champion brand. Is it now un-American to drink Budweiser? Fuck). Hell, I love the word AMERICANA. I love American truck stops. I love legends like Kit Carson—troubadour of the western frontier.

Clearly there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Preference and penchant are very hard topics. With me it’s very hard for me to state a clean concise favorite. There are actually only two or three areas of my personal taste where I am able to distinctly proclaim a number one favorite. The first area of favorites is breakfast. My favorite breakfast food is easily biscuits and gravy. No questions asked. The second category where I can easily give you a favorite is with music. Every year I have no problem proclaiming my favorite album of the year. Everything else remains difficult, most of the time, to state concise favorites in general categories over time. Things change, places change, situations change and thus a new favorite for each category is inevitable.

Biscuits and gravy, however, are ALWAYS good and ALWAYS the best breakfast option. This is why it is easy for me to declare such a personal fact. But I mean other areas are extremely hard.

Favorite city in America? Favorite of the four seasons? Best magazine to read on an airplane? Favorite ice cream? Favorite article of clothing? On and on.. All of these areas are nearly impossible to state a concise favorite because so many different situations present different penchants. My favorite city in America could be Portland, Oregon—but then again, if it is winter time I prefer to say that Portland Oregon is the armpit of America with its consistent hellfire of falling rain. So the average of that puts it at what--- the 18th best city in America?! All that said, I therefore prefer to put everything in a top three list—of which the items appear in no particular order. They are just simply in my top three and get an equal amount of attention as such.

Favorite city in America? Nashville, Asheville and Louisville. This of course for the time being. This top three list is one that consistently evolves.

Favorite of the four seasons? Fall, Summer and Spring. Jesus, do not get me going on winter. This is probably my favorite top three list because there are only four possible choices to choose from in seasons, therefore the one that doesn’t get chosen is REALLY TERRIBLE. And that is winter in a nutshell. Really, really terrible. And if you live in Northern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota then winter is FUCKING AWFUL and makes you consider things like jumping off of really, really tall buildings.

Best magazine to read on an airplane? Under the Radar, Ready-Made or The Economist.

Favorite ice cream? Chocolate Peanut Butter, Neaopolitan or Superman.

Favorite article of clothing? A white v-neck t-shirt, a particular pair of cutoff jean shorts that have honestly lived beyond their years at this point (they recently went in to the seamstress for crotch blowout repair number three and overall sixth patching effort) or a pair of loose fitting cotton shorts.

Everything gets easier with top three lists.

So every year one category that consistently nags at me and begs a top three list is favorite holidays. Honestly, this is a tough one seeing as how we have an arsenal of options—all of which imply totally different activities and people involved. Christmas, while you usually acquire a stockpile of new shit, ends up becoming a game of “try to be everywhere doing everything.” Easter I haven’t celebrated in a good long while (actually this is 100% false, just this past April I spent a wonderful Easter in New Orleans with a friend’s family) so I will just ignore it. Things like Colombus Day, Martin Luther King Day or Presidents Day are meaningless because there’s always just a giant question mark declaring whether or not this will be a day off. Then there’s the big kahuna that is Thanksgiving—always a charmer. With no other holiday do your stuff yourself to the point of inflicting pain that is off the charts. This pain then induces you in to comatose-like sleep that involves laying on any conceivable piece of furniture. I mean, you ever notice that? After the family is done eating Thanksgiving dinner, there are people sleeping on the floor, in a chair around the kitchen table, on the arm of the lounge chair, hell maybe in the dog pen at some houses. ANYWHERE. Then everyone wakes up and eats again before going to bed. This is pretty American I think.

Now, recently I have to tell you my beliefs on holidays and top three lists took a U-turn when I wholeheartedly concluded that I can add a clean-cut favorite holiday—this of course adding to my list of categories where I can proclaim a favorite: breakfast foods and music. So bang on the drums, sound the bells, bring out the belly dancers, the petting zoo, a beer tent, fireworks, an arsenal of grillable food—hamburgers and hot dogs preferably, guest appearances including Tom Petty and Chuck Klosterman and a closing ceremony performance by Kool and the Gang doing 15 different renditions of “Get Down On It.”

Yep.

The Fourth of July can officially be declared my favorite holiday. Gone are the days of feverishly wrestling with Thanksgiving and The Fourth of July. Indecision no more. There will be no ties, no top three lists, no situational analysis.

The Fourth of July is hands-down my favorite holiday.

As such, this past Fourth, spent in the heart of Miller Brewing Country while working in town for Milwaukee’s famed Summerfest music festival, would need to be a seamless display of Americana. The whole affair started with a lake house and a pontoon boat on Lake Okauchee just outside of Milwaukee. Let’s be honest, is there anything more American than a lake house and a boat on the water blaring Tom Petty’s “Running Down A Dream”?! As a sidenote, our pontoon didn’t even have a gas guage, speedometer or a fully functional outboard engine let alone a stereo system that could shake a stick at playing Tom Petty over a non-existent loudspeaker. BUT STILL. It was lake house America at it’s best.

Good days always involve fun people. Great days involve occurrences that you never expected. Unbelievable days combine both. This past Fourth of July was unbelievable. It was somewhere around the 29 of June when I realized that all the ingredients were present for something of an amazing celebration—the lake house was there, the boat, the heart of Midwestern America and a Weber charcoal barbeque. It was too good to be true. I sent out a mass text message to all parties interested and I think within about 30 minutes we had unanimously declared that an unbelievable opportunity was present. Friends from all corners of the universe (Australia included, this was no joke) were in for this last minute thrown together celebration. Somehow Mike and I were given the entire Fourth of July off from working and would therefore have no problem selling our livers to the devil for the day. For the week leading up to the holiday, Mike and I had a running notepad titled “THE FOURTH” that we consistently noted down ideas that should be included in the celebration.

Naturally this list turned in to a poster size piece of paper that included thing like beer Olympics, moustache rides, piñata smashing, naked triathlons, pontoon adventures, burger eating competitions, dizzy bat races, Budweiser, mixtapes, cowboy boots, American heroes (Tom Petty, Sly Stone and all members of Kool and the Gang), cutoff t-shirts, plastic lawn chairs, patriotic beer cozies, row boat races and tire swing distance jump competitions. The list was honestly about five times this size, but some of them are unnecessary details.

The day of patriotism started with a trip to the Piggly Wiggly— the grocery store chain that runs rampant in the greater Milwaukee area—with a laundry list of participants, mostly friends from college and days spent in Chicago. We came out with enough food to feed the state of Nebraska, a boom box, ping pong balls, a piñata, approximately 30 mini American flags, two wiffle bats and balls, a keg of beer and more plastic cups than was necessary.

Let the games begin.

Moustache carving was first on the list— a particularly apropos activity given the penchant for American working class males to sport such a fashionable piece of Americana. All of us (including the women) had strategically grown facial hair to a feasible length that would be fitting for a carving session. What resulted was a half dozen solid moustaches resembling the father’s from that motorcycle reality show Orange County Choppers. His handlebar moustache extends approximately eight inches below his upper lip thus making it one of the longest tailed handlebars known to man. And it isn’t wispy in the least; you would have trouble getting a John Deere rider mower through his grizzle. Anyway, about two of the participants had facial hair that was of this caliber. Most didn’t shake a stick at such magnificence. The other half dozen or so were just sad, sad, sad attempts at bringing attention to one of America’s favorite facial tendencies. I happened to be a sad excuse. My moustache simply isn’t at the caliber that it should be. This is something I battle with on an every-other-day basis.

The piñata we purchased at Piggly Wiggly was clearly an attempt at paying homage to our Mexican brethren. It was particularly appropriate because Mike at times looks as though he is Mexican so really we just wanted him to feel comfortable. We stuffed the thing with about 50 pounds of penny candy and Jake even threw in some cigarettes to give a little added incentive to the smokers of the group. All hell broke loose when this thing was demolished open. Fistfights ensued for the lone snickers bar that was inside and I am pretty sure Jake was on his hands and knees looking for the cigarettes in the grass. OK, no fist fights were had, but we did light the discombobulated remains of the poor piñata doggy on fire and ceremoniously threw it in the lake.

The dizzy bat races ended up being catastrophic and I am pretty sure we axed those within a few minutes. Instead we just used the bats to break each others ribs showing that this day can’t just be fun and games. Sacrifice needs to be involved.

OK, kidding again.

The highlight of the day was clearly Hinano’s Challenge—an eating and drinking competition that was derived from a friend’s original idea between he and his brother’s friends. Their competition took place in Venice Beach at a bar called Hinano’s. Each competitor was to run from the starting point (roughly a mile to the bar) drink a pitcher of beer, eat an entire cheeseburger and then run back. My modified version involved no running whatsoever seeing as how my abdomen was still freshly sawed in to. Instead, we had a table set up on the balcony of the lake house armed with a dozen burgers and 24 large glasses of beer. Each competitor was to eat a hamburger and drink two beers in the fastest time possible. The winner of course was me, hence why it was the highlight of the day. My moustache sucked and I got a bunch of bullshit candy out of the piñata, so my landslide victory was very much so deserved. It was a competition amongst boys really and I am pleased to say that I was the gladiator of the operation. I am occasionally worthless in beer pong, usually can’t do any damage in wiffle ball games, but damn I can eat and drink fast.

I think by the end of the night when all the rest of my coworkers were back at the lake house we were all lighting fireworks and blasting things to smithereens with those little Black Cat sonofabitches. We had a nice collection of bottle rockets that we were attaching things to so they could get catapulted in to flight. The neighbors must have made a side trip to Mexico because they had some exploding shit that far trumped our meager attempts at patriotism. I am reasonably sure that the blasts coming from their yard could have been heard in Seattle. The resulting explosions jarred my ribs as we all stood there joyfully gazing up at the glowing sky. This was both jarring and extremely invigorating.

Once the blasts subsided and it was something like 3 am, everyone was scattered all over the floor of the lake house with moustaches, torn clothing, wounds, drawings on their faces, ketchup stains all over the body, empty bottles strewn about and the smell of sulphur stinged the nostrils from the pyrotechnics spectacle that still lingered in the air from next door.

It was time for me to finally call it a night.

Work the next day was pretty interesting.

I feel like I stayed remarkably on top of my game working that following day for one reason and one reason only: Tom Petty was playing a show that night at the festival and Mike and I saw this as the perfect closing ceremony to the overly American festivities that were still hazily remaining in my memory blocks from the day before. There was only one minor flaw to our plan: the show was sold out and getting in with our vendor credentials was next to impossible. If you were to rate the strictness of entrance and examination procedures by Summerfest employees and personnel, one could easily place them somewhere between Robert Mugabe ‘s Zimbabwe and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. We had about 15 different sets of credentials to get us access to different areas and the level of strictness amongst employees granting access was absolute cutthroat. This made everything difficult over the course of the week we were there, but particularly the whole part about us sneaking in to see Tom Petty. We were going to need a good story.

Right around hour three of working on Tom Petty day, after realizing we were not going to legitimately get in to see the show, Mike and I started to brainstorm. Everything was thrown in to the mix. We tried to sweet talk our way in to some sponsor passes—nothing. We tried to talk to the food service people to see if we could be snuck in hiding in a catering cart. Nope. We spoke with the keg deliveryman to see where there were weak points in security around the perimeter of the amphitheatre. This surveillance proved completely useless as I am pretty sure the keg delivery man was terrified at the intensity that Mike and I were bringing to the table. We were conducting the interview with the man as if we were plotting to blow up the place that night. Nothing. We exited the festival grounds and went to the area where we thought we may have a fighting chance near the employee entrance to the grounds. We chatted up a roadie that was doing the setup for Cheap Trick later that night. He was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a pair of knee high white socks which immediately told me this guy was a winner. We told him what we were trying to do and after about 20 minutes of conversation he pretty much told us there was no way we were going to get in to the Petty show. All Magnum PI efforts said and done, nothing surfaced. We were back at ground zero contemplating climbing a fence that was behind the main stage—this fence had barbed wire.

Awesome.

We continued to walk and brainstorm concocting about 12 different fabricated stories that involved roadies, faux names, Crocs employee passes, free shoes, cash and heart doses of false confidence. With each story we fabricated, we made every effort to make it seem like we knew exactly what we were talking about. In fact, I think we tried to even make the guards that we spoke with feel stupid for not knowing what we were talking about.
Not a single person bit on to any of our intricate ploys. We were told in 25 different ways, by 25 different gate guards to go get stuffed 25 different times. We walked back to the Crocs trailer and sat there almost ready to throw the towel in. We could hear Steve Winwood playing at the amphitheatre, which implied that the show was already underway as he was opening for Petty. This was mildly devastating. There had to be a way though, there just had to be.

There was one corner of the amphitheatre that was opened to employees of Summerfest to use the bathrooms. We had talked to the guard that was stationed there about 4 or 5 times throughout the course of the day but had no success convincing him he should let us in to the show. New light was shed on the situation, however, when a new guard showed up, and this one looked like he had just graduated middle school. Perfect. He appeared supremely unfitting for the verbal ass-kicking that Mike and I were plotting to dish out in an effort to muscle our way through. Mike and I approached the gate with puffed chests and a plotting of bologna and cheese statements to increase our legitimacy. The young fellow looked on completely baffled as we outlined our scenario. It is really mind blowing that the story that actually got us through was telling this pre-pubecant security guard that we had a meeting with our “event team” just around the corner past the gate. Within twenty seconds we had gotten past him silently fist pumping and were well on our way to passing through another set of gates. At just the opportune moment we slipped through the final gate and that’s when Mike and I gave a nod to each other. We held off on full fledged celebration until we were absolutely certain we were going to be strumming our air guitars to “Breakdown.”

We had a stoop on the lawn that night watching Mr. Petty and the Heartbreakers labor away on stage to a crowd of probably 20,000. When they blasted in to “I Won’t Back Down” I immediately had a hard-on thinking about a few weeks prior when I got wheeled in to the butcher’s block to get my midsection destroyed by the scalpal and that song was on in the operating room. Tom Petty, the American legend that he is, was a perfect close to our time in Milwaukee and put the icing on the cake for the overly American celebration in the last 48 hours.

America is a great place and you should like it, too.

crotch rocket

Right around week 12 of the Crocs job I started to feel lightning bolts striking my balls whenever I would exert myself to a certain degree. That weekend when I flew home from Orlando after being terrified of Disney World, I went and paid a visit to my doctor. After turning and coughing about 3,000 times I was diagnosed with a subtle inguinal (in-gwin-ullllllllll) hernia on my right side. This was going to need some attention-- and by attention I mean that I was going to need to step away from this life on the road business and get my midsection sawed open.

Awesome.

Yesterday morning, June 19, I woke up at 5:15 am to make my way with my Mom and Dad to Crittenton Hospital in Rochester. I was in good spirits and fully prepared to be in and out of that operating room. Hernia surgery seemed like the pre-school of anything involving a scalpel. The night before I even made a Mettalica playlist that I was going to listen to as I was wheeled away on the surgery board. If candy bars could be a measure of my preparedness then I was a King Size Snickers bar. The one's that are roughly the size of a machine gun.

As we pulled in to the parking area G at the hospital I approached the counter and got everything ready—told the woman my vertical leap, stated my preference for Subway sandwiches, etc. I sat in the waiting room reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone. I about shit my pants when I noticed that the Fleet Foxes were featured with a little mini-article. Waiting. Waiting. At that point all I could think about was getting home and being able to sit on my ass for a few days while I had an unlimited supply of mother-made Turkey/Ham sandwiches. Ohhh god, Mom makes the best sandwiches. For what its worth, I would have her creations over a Subway version any day. And Dad does OK with sandwich creation as well, his are just 8 times the size of Mom’s and big enough to feed a full grown-male thoroughbred horse.

I practically moon-walked to the waiting room where I stripped down and donned the hospital gown— wearing those things are kind of like fitting a curtain on yourself as an evening dress. I was having some extreme difficulty tying the back and so I requested the help of the nurse. As I turned around to get her help I could feel my ass just hanging out the back, but I figure it wasn’t the first time she had to deal with such a spectacle. I flexed to compensate for what is undoubtedly one of the world’s flattest rear ends. Afterwards, I sat there still reading my magazine when another nurse came in asking me a few questions. Before I knew it she had the buzzers out and instructed me that I was going to need a shave. My beard was quite ragged looking so I assumed she was referring to my face.

Oh no.

She was going to need to shave the “surgical region.” And not fully understanding that the surgical region was my entire abdomen and lower pelvic region, I was in for something of a little surprise. I didn’t realize I was going to get a full shaving that involved making me look like a pre-pubescent 4 year old boy. I jokingly asked her if she would shave my initials in my chest hair. I didn’t really get a response other than her thanking me for being a “good sport.” I gave a good laugh instructing her I didn’t have a choice in the matter. She proceeded to give me some interesting stories about typical responses from the average male when the nurse wants to stake a claim on his entire pubis region. This was arguably the most entertaining portion of the pre-op procedure. As I continued to talk about it with the nurse you could tell she was kind of appalled at how much of a joke I thought it was.

My parents came back in and I was quick to tell them that the nurse had just removed all my pubic hair. Mom looked like she was going to vomit on me and Dad just kind of giggled and asked many more questions like “really, ALL of it? We sat there and talked for about 30 more minutes until another barrage of nurses came in asking questions and reporting the happenings of the morning to me. I got an IV popped in my paw and was told that was how I would get the “twilight drug” later when it was time to get my abdomen sawed open. Awesome. This was getting more and more exciting. I was envisioning Amsterdam and the red light district when she said twilight drug.

Soon the surgeon came in and he carved an X in to the right side of my pelvis, just above the weiner, so that it was pretty clear which side would be hernia-free in an hour or so. As I pulled my curtain dress up so that he could draw on me I was reminded once again of my Kindergarten crotch. Meanwhile, my Mom who had been sitting next to me on the surgical bed completely turned around in her chair and faced the wall covering her eyes.

I had my death metal playlist cued up when I was instructed there would be no iPod coming in to surgery with me. According to nurse Kevin it would not matter “what in the frick” was going to be playing because I would not be hearing it. Ohhhhhkay. I threw my iPod over to my Mom and gave them the ceremonial kiss goodbye as I was wheeled away to the butcher’s block. If there was one moment where theme music would be kind of cool, I am guessing it would be best when being wheeled in for surgery—get some dramatic bass lines with a little synth thrown in there. Nothing like a little jive step in to the cutting room. Come to think of it, if I could choose my getting-wheeled-in-to-surgery musical theme song it would be Kool & the Gang’s “Get Down On It.” Either that or Def Leppard’s “Make Love Like a Man.”

At this point I was not nervous really in the least. I was thinking more about my barren crotch and the lack of Metttalica blaring through my ears as the wheels turned in to the operating room. I entered the swinging doors and the place felt abnormally cold. Kevin, the nurse, was standing around fiddling with what looked like a set of pruning shears that could easily sever the entire lower half of my body. Within 40 seconds I noticed that Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down” was playing on the stereo inside the operating room. To say that this pumped me up is an understatement. To say that it was twenty times harder to knock me out with the twilight drug because I wanted to finish the song is more accurate. I was, however, ecstatic about getting my abdomen hacked in to. Tom Petty, the American legend that he is, would be the artist I would choose to usher my troops in to battle should I ever become a war general. I would undoubtedly choose “Running Down a Dream” as the specific song choice. So next thing I know, Kevin was administering the happy drug to me. All the while I was mouthing the lyrics to “Won’t Back Down” as I became consistently more and more incoherent—but feeling fucking fantastic. My surgeon was going through formalities as I asked him if his son had fun at Bonnaroo (we had established this fact at my diagnosis visit). I don’t remember his reply. The last thing I remember is telling the surgical staff that the happy drug was really working well because I felt like I was playing soccer on Mars with a bunch of people that looked like they were in the formation of clouds. Yep. I am curious if you can get the twilight drug on the black market for recreational use. My guess is that this stuff could potentially take over the methamphetamine problems we have in the US.

Time flies on the happy drug and next thing I knew I was being wheeled out of the operating room and served graham crackers and cranberry juice. I got put in to a new room with about 5 other people that looked infinitely more fucked up than I felt. My mouth was on auto-pilot, I couldn’t control it. I was talking to everyone in that room and had no control over what I was saying. I was making sure that everyone in the room was OK, asking if anyone wanted some of my cranberry juice. I asked the elderly woman next to me if she wanted to go dancing. I think she was terrified. But seriously, I couldn’t stop talking. I got in to a very in depth conversation about vegetation in the Pacific Northwest with the nurse. How we even got close to talking about Portland and surrounding areas is beyond me.

My crotch was feeling good, although I could sense a little bit of tenderoni down there. I downed a couple of Tylenol III and hoped for the best. Within about 30 minutes I told the staff I was ready to go home and that was pretty much the end of it. I crawled in to the car and Mom and Dad hauled me off. I think by the time we pulled in to the driveway the Mr. Twilight Drug Happy Pants days were over. It now felt as if someone was stabbing me with a blunt metal pole just north of my weiner over and over. The pain was creeping to my side as well.

I almost immediately went to the couch to sit down. Walking was nearly impossible. Rotating my torso was in fact impossible. I got up to take a piss and staggered to the bathroom. As I stood there I began to see every color in the rainbow. I was reasonably sure I was hallucinating and questioned if maybe I got some PCP instead of Tylenol III. I remember closing my eyes to try and make it go away but that was about the end of me staying on my feet. BOOM! Down to the floor. Mom and Dad heard the thump of my 190 pound frame hit the deck. I don’t remember falling or the impact I just remember not having a fucking clue what was going on as they were both crouched over me in the bathroom. Yep. My first words to them as I awoke from my mysterious slumber was “I pissed all over myself.” Turns out I did actually piss all over myself, too. Awesome. So that was great. One hour in to recovery I am passing out and excreting urine all over my split open torso.

I went back to the couch and ended up having some form of a back spasm. My parents at this point are putting on award winning performances and could easily pass as paramedics, but I was just a flailing ball of randomness— shooting pains coming from every corner of my body, spasms, irregular breathing, explosions of sweat—EXPLOSIONS, my face would go white from time to time. My mom whipped out an electronic blood pressure meter from somewhere and apparently my blood pressure had plummeted. I felt like a helpless little pile of shit laying there on the floor. Yep, the floor. The couch was causing me to go in to said convulsions because of an irregularly soft cushion that apparently wasn’t supportive enough for my back.

Awesome.

Hours later, still feeling like the Incredible Hulk was punching me in the abdomen every 5 seconds, it became obvious that this was a little more serious than I had planned for. I stood up to try and go take another piss and the started seeing explosions of purple all over the room. I had to sit down and my mom had me breathing in a paper bag. The bag smelled like cinnamon and for whatever reason this made me want to throw up even more. My face turned the color of cotton balls and I had a waterfall of sweat bursting out of my forehead. This was really working out well.

I decided to sit in a chair in the living room and just not move at all. This worked out really well. Couple this with the fact that I graduated to Vicodin instead of Tylenol III and things started to take a calmer turn. I spoke with my medical guru genius Mr. Bryan Sack who has mysteriously transformed from being my global travel partner to a full-on physician. He instructed me that the twilight drug—the anesthetic that was used while the doc was sawing my midsection—was making me loopy and causing the fainting. OK, so that was good news. I wasn’t going completely crazy. Things were on the up and up.

If I was responsible for distributing the golden statue at any sort of awards academy I would present my mother and father with bronzed statues of a male herniatic midsection. Yep. All of this in recognition of the impeccable care they have been providing me through this little ailment. At one point, I was convinced that the Vicodin was giving me the munchies because I think I ate somewhere in the neighborhood of three dozen turkey sandwiches. And sure enough, they had the sandwiches out to me in a jiffy as I lay comatose in the living room like a little baby forlorn calf unable to take his first steps. It has become blatantly obvious how much your core strength is necessary in this lifetime. I mean honestly, I try to scratch my head and it hurts. Need to change the channel on the TV? Well, when I reach for the remote it feels like Godzilla is pouncing on my stomach. Want to roll over? Just forget it, not happening.

Bryan Sack, the legend I went globetrotting with this last time around, came over on Saturday to say hello and get a haircut. That’s right, Bryan needed a tune-up on his mullet. Lord knows I could barely clutch the scissors in my right hand, let alone stand on two feet, but the old boy got his haircut. There was no chance of me backing out of that one. Cutting his hair was actually the first time I saw a ray of sunshine pierce my eyeballs since the doctor sliced me open. It felt pretty good, I have to tell you. The mullet turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Bryan came to the house with a withered ball of fluff hair shaped in to what appeared to be a bouffant haircut. He left, however, with a chiseled work of perfection— razor cut sides with specific attention to the fade up to the top and delicate tail flowing in the back. Perfection.

Later that day I was able to stand in the mirror and look at the creation that the nurse had given me. I had shorn features, or the lack of any sort of surface hair, from my balls right on up to my belly button. This was sort of alarming when I could actually look at it. I assessed the situation as code orange-- nearing a state of emergency and in need of immediate attention. This was one thing I could actually probably take care of. So I took the old buzzers and went clear on up to my neckline to even everything out and officially make myself feel like a 7 year old boy. Two weeks later I am still praying I get some chest hair back. Oddly enough, three weeks ago I was cursing the new arrivals that were peeking through my v-neck t-shirt line. Now, all I want is my chest hair back. Please. Just a few of them.

Later on Saturday afternoon I called my doctor to request more Vicodin. Yep. I think he was actually quite appalled as he called me back after being paged by the hospital. As I spoke with him on the phone it became clear he was under the impression that I had gone through 30 tablets of Vicodin in less than two days and suspected a little bit of “patient abuse.” Well, I went through 18 in two days—just as directed by the instructions on the side of my pill container. I did some explaining and ended up getting the re-fill on my prescription. Phew.

After 2 days of Vicodin splendor and about 6 total days of relative non-movement (and a hell of a lot of sandwiches), it was time to enter the real world again. Unfortunately. Sometimes it can almost be fun getting your midsection dissected—if only for the tender, love and care that comes from it. I mean really, short of that day when I lay motionless on the floor feeling like 14 different varieties of dog shit, being home for those days was kind of nice and not THAT bad. So anyway, I had to get back to the Crocs gig and join up with the tour again. I caught a flight to the great city of Chicago, Illinois where my new coworker Mike Sack was going to pick me up and take me to the lake house we had rented on Lake Okauchee for the time we would be spending up in Milwaukee for Summerfest—a 12 day music festival.

As I said goodbye to my Mom at the terminal and began walking with my old Detroit Tigers tote bag I quickly realized that the cumulative amount of steps I was taking to get to the Northwest Airlines check-in counter was more than I had taken in the past week combined. Awesome. As I rounded the corner through security to my gate I felt like my midsection was on fire. Hmmm. I swallowed a handful of Ibuprophen and kept on walking. Of course my gate was on the other side of the McNamara terminal and of course I am too stubborn to ride the tram to get there. So I walked—at a snail’s pace mind you. I felt like I was moving at about 1/20 the speed of the rest of the universe.

Baby steps.

I sat at gate A29 and the flight was delayed. I cracked open “Killing Yourself to Live” by Chuck Klosterman and began to read it for the third time. There was a large group of what appeared to be some “business travelers” around me. They talked at volumes rivaling the blast of a circular saw so I was really trying hard to focus on my book. There was one particular woman, I concluded her name was Diane. Diane was a rather interesting gal—I am guessing about 33 years old. Once she got to talking I was no longer reading my book, but rather just keeping my eyes fixated on the words and listening to this crazy mammal speak. She was going on and on about how she had just hotboxed the handicap stall in the women’s bathroom and simultaneously dropped a couple of Percoset to “ease the pain” as she put it. That phrase “ease the pain” was repeated probably 140 times while I was sitting here. I was thinking maybe she had just gotten in an awful car accident where she endured some traumatic injuries. Nope. Turns out the “pain” was battling flight related anxiety. I mean it seemed a little ridiculous seeing as how we were a whopping 250 miles away from our destination and the total flight time was going to be in the neighborhood of 45 minutes, but hey. As I looked over to see these events unfolding, I noticed that Diane and her fellow travelers were all donning their “Kaplan Test Prep” tote bags. Jesus. These people were instructors for those SAT prep courses.

So I boarded the plane feeling pretty good. I knocked out about 50 pages more in the book and had a good playlist playing. It apparently wasn’t playing loud enough, however, because I could still hear Diane shouting about 5 rows back inside the airplane. She was asking her coworkers if they wanted anything out of her “bag of tricks.” This, of course, was referring exclusively to the bag of narcotics she now had with her in her tote bag. I was fulling expecting her to pull out a water bong and have a pull right there in row 10 of the plane. If this were to have happened I would have 1) seriously questioned the legitimacy of airport security and 2) requested a hit, only so that I could say I took a hit off a water bong, in an airplane, from a complete stranger, hopped up on Percoset, named Diane, who also happened to teach High School kids how to do well on their SAT. Those kinds of things just don’t happen everyday.

Meanwhile, the pilot was speaking over the PA and said “Uhhh” 42 times (this I can proclaim with a margin of error of +/- 3. This is one of the many advantages of always carrying a pen. I was able to mark dots on my boarding pass as he spoke marking the exact number of times he said “uhhh”) in a span of roughly 4 minutes while he announced to the cabin crew that the in-flight black box had failed on the previous flight and was needing a bit of repair. The standard chorus of groans erupted from all around me. I just kind of sat back and clutched my groin. Looks like we wouldn’t be taking off any time soon. Chuck Klosterman to the rescue.

The guy sitting next to me on the plane looked exactly like Sean Astin playing Rudy in the movie “Rudy” – so much so that I took it upon myself to whistle the theme song to see if he would awkwardly mention the movie and tell me that he was in fact Sean Astin who played the main character. If that were the case I would have undoubtedly asked him about the scenes in the movie where he got pummeled on a daily basis playing scout team defense at practice—especially the day where the guys from the O-line finally stuck up for him and I had goosebumps in every corner of my body. Oh, the days of competitive sports. So the guy never fessed up to being Sean Astin. He instead played with his iPhone for nearly all of the 1.5 hours we sat on the tarmac waiting to take off while the black box was being fixed. I thought about Diane. She was probably asleep having hallucinogenic dreams. Rudy was talking to a coworker about rolling out some new “strategic efforts.” This put my memory blocks right back to sitting in the bullpen front and center in Corporate America. Goooood lord. I am feeling very, very, very much so OK with the decision to exit gracefully from that scene.

So we took off at a certain point unbeknownst to me because I was too busy reading the chapter about when Klosterman goes to a Cracker Barrel and has conversations with a teenage Kafka-reading waitress in North Carolina. The best part is when Klosto declares that he had fallen in love with the woman in 18 minutes—see that’s the sort of precision I can appreciate. ANYWAY, the plane eventually landed in Chicago and I made it the arrivals pickup area—about 30 minutes later. Mike Sack was waiting for me. We caught up on the 2 hour ride from Chicago to the Lake House up near Milwaukee. We stopped at a service station to fill up on diesel and I picked up my favorite truck stop snack combo— Chex Mix (original flavor) and a cold 20 oz Coca Cola.

All of the sudden with crumbs covering my lap sitting passenger side, a ¾ empty Coca Classic after 8 minutes of swigging, My Morning Jacket blaring through the stereo, windows down, and a sensation that there was a forrest fire in my crotch, I realized one simple thing: I was back in the wicka-wicka-wicka-wicka mothafuckin’ game.

Time to be back… ON THE ROAD.

one big holiday

Any great weekend starts off with the purchase of a straw leisure cap and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

It was Thursday, June 12 and I was sitting with Blake, Pedro (friends from high school) and Katie (from work) in a Popeye’s Chicken off of Interstate 24 out of Nashville, Tennessee headed towards Manchester for Bonnaroo. Never in my life was it so obvious that Popeye’s could very well be one of the best fast food choices in the nation. Their chicken makes me want to save the world. I sat with about 5 pounds of crispy strips at a dingy service plaza with a side of Jumbalaya feeling like I was king of the castle. I was eating heavily trying to lay the beechwood in my stomach for what would likely be a fairly disastrous weekend at Bonnaroo. Between the two cars we were driving in to the festival, I believe we held more Jim Beam per capita than residents in the state of California. Any music festival is best experienced through our good friend Jim—Bonnaroo 2008 would be no different.

I made a controversial move this year with my Bonnaroo ticket purchase. I opted for the VIP ticket upgrade. I would say that in most cases this goes against my thrifty spending patterns, but Jesus, if there was ever a way for me to enjoy a vacation, it would be at the hands of a padded experience at a music festival. There was slightly more involved than a commemorative lanyard and special access to hospitality lounges throughout the grounds—there was food served all day, acces was given to air conditioned bathrooms, the main stage was within spitting distance to our campsite and we had special zoned off viewing areas that just generally made the festival experience considerably more worry free. The overall verdict on the experience: sell your soul to the devil if it means you can get the VIP upgrade—it is worth it.

Arriving on the grounds was something of an adventure. I was expecting to wait in line for hours on end with hordes of hippies all over meditating to the sun and doing interpretive dance maneuvers. There were no lines and the hippies were just congregating under trees in the Wal-Mart parking lot. It seemed an odd gathering point, but I wasn’t going to argue with what seemed like an army of about 55,000. We went in to that Wal-Mart and picked up some essentials—folding lounge chairs, sunscreen and a Snickers bar. We finished up and entered the Bonnaroo grounds further. There was oddly no line to get in—perhaps another benefit of the ‘ol upgrade package.

We filed in to the camping area, directly across from the main stage. I think within 10 minutes we had the cars parked and I was wrestling with our monstrosity of a tent. And when I say wrestling I mean that wholeheartedly because my partner in trying to unfold the damn thing—Blake—was completely useless in that endeavor. There were two gentleman adjacent to our site who we got to talking to. One was a banker out in LA and the other an architect. The architect was wearing a pair of quasi-Capri pants with the multicolored patches and corduroy patterns. They actually looked like really comfortable pants but I am reasonably sure all of us couldn’t stop laughing about them. Nels was the guys name, and he was talking for hours and hours on end about Burning Man—another festival of sorts. The website describes this festival as: “Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace.” Nels has been going to Burning Man for what seemed like the last 20 years and it seemed his goal was to do everything in his power to steer us away from the festival. Maybe it was my straw leisure cap, or perhaps Blake’s nylon Beatles vest. At one point Nels specifically said “If you guys were to show up to Burning Man looking like that you will be humiliated.” Awesome Nels. All in all, he continued to pretty much tell us that if we ever went to Burning Man we would die. Overall, quite entertaining. I was feeling great, even with one of the Burning Man Federales telling me that I looked like a toolbox.

I still remember my very first music festival—the year was 1997, the day was July 27. The HORDE festival came to mid-Michigan and it was monumental for a few reasons. For one, it was the first time I saw Ben Folds Five. Two, it was the first time I saw things like lesbians making out in public, weed smoked out of a corn cob pipe and things like patchouli and multi-colored tapestries roughly the size of a small house. Neil Young, Primus (who was easily making their way in to my current top 5 bands at the time after I had bought Tales from the Punchbowl at Big Whale Records in Keego Harbor), Domestic Problems, Morphine (before the death of Mark Sandman, I still consider this to be a cool performance) and Medeski, Martin and Wood were on the performance bill, but Ben Folds Five was easily my favorite. They played with a strings section that day. I ended up scaling a fence after the show to get my t-shirt signed by Ben. Not really sure where I got that idea, but I look back admiring the determination of the whole occasion.

My attitude over the years has deviated with regards to music festivals. Once the year 2000 hit, my idea of how to properly appreciate a music festival was to have a structured outline of the day—I wanted to know where all the bands were at all times, when they started and finished, at what stage and how I was going to coordinate my Euler circuit so as to get in a piece of each performance. I look back on this now as organized suicide. Right around the year 2006 my attitude took a completely different turn. Gone were the days of killing my innards trying to beat the heat and crowds to see 6 minutes of all 90 different band performances. I was more concerned with sneaking my pint of whisky on to the festival grounds. At times I wouldn’t even carry a festival lineup. I had maybe one or two bands I really wanted to see and then the rest I just chalked up to happenstance. I took a similar approach with Bonnaroo—all I really wanted to see was My Morning Jacket. Their set was at midnight on Friday night. The rest was just going to be icing on the cake.

I am reasonably sure that Blake and Pedro weren’t really aware of the fact that live music was actually a component of the Bonnaroo experience. Of a higher priority were two things—the silent disco and a place/concept that came to be known as “the booty room.” The silent disco was this area where a DJ spun dance tunes but each of the participants wore a set of headphones to enjoy the performance. I think I heard Pedro talk about the merits of such a setup approximately 450 times, each time illustrating his point with the same cell phone story— Pedro’s consistent claim was that he could dance and grind up on some honeys, but then if his phone rang he could just remove his headphones and take the call—in perfect silence. Pedro, at a certain point in the weekend, was actually going to the silent disco to field work-related phone calls. Now, the second place you could find Blake and Pedro was “the booty room”—something that still remains a mystery to me. I can’t explain the booty room, describe it or even try to wrap my arms around the occurances in “the booty room.” Honestly, I don’t even know if the booty room was a physical place because I never actually went there, I just know that Blake and Pedro had a “booty room” that they visited every night typically after the hours of 1am. Apparently they danced, apparently they made friends in the booty room but other than that it remains a mystery to me.

Bringing the conversation back to live music, the first day of the festival I was able to catch one performance—Vampire Weekend. I cant say I love this band, but I do have to tell you they put a bit of thump in to their live performance making the whole occasion entertaining. I also know that I had consumed roughly 10 bottles of Budweiser that evening so perhaps anything would have been entertaining. Other notable performances were Jose Gonzales with his slow guitar strumming. I thought Death Cab was exceptionally good for the sole fact that those guys have their live shows down pat. Some of the new record I really like so that was enjoyable. Similar to days at HORDE festival in ’97, I got to see Ben Folds. This was enjoyable, but the luster of the old days has sort of worn off. Jack Johnson was exceptionally good on Saturday night as the sun set. Eddie Vedder came out and did a rendition of “Constellations” with him. Pearl Jam played a three hour set as well—pulling out the stops with eight songs played off of the album “Ten”—something of a rarity these days.

The first morning of the weekend I woke up feeling like I was sleeping within the confines of a forrest fire. I was covered from head to toe in sweat baking in the direct rays of the morning sunrise. Breathing became difficult. I still felt like a million bucks as the sun pierced my eyeballs for the first time as I stepped out of the tent fumbling with the shitty zippers. As I stepped away from the doorway I marveled at the disheveled state of the tent. One of the main poles that criss-crossed to hold the entire cabin upright was missing in the tent bag, so there was an awkward dip across the entire midsection of the roof that was now being jimmy-rigged by a pole that was found on the ground. It looked terrible, but the tent was still standing so I was happy. Meanwhile Blake and Pedro were slumbering away 15 feet to my right in my rented Kia Optima sedan— with the air conditioning on. The poor fellas exerted themselves a little too much the night before at the booty tent.

I would say a good 40% of Friday afternoon (day two at the festival) was spent marveling at the Centeroo Fountain. I couldn’t tell you if that is the official Bonnaroo name, but for the sake of simplicity, that is what I will call it. The fountain was a free standing contraptions that shot out water that got continuously recirculated for roughly 10 hours straight on to those that chose to stand in the line of the spray as it came down. To the casual passer by it looked like a nice way to cool down and get a spritz of water down your back. After about 2 or 3 hours of analysis, the thing looked like a harbor for disease as the same water went through the fountain over and over. Little Johnny thought he was washing his hair in the nice cool fountain, but what he didn’t realize was that roughly 450 people had washed their hair and bodies in the same water that day. We watched this occur for a good chunk of Friday as we stood taking photos and drinking whisky. I have a disdain for getting unnecessarily wet so I happily refrained from entering the fountain, although at times when the heat got up in the high 80’s I entertained the possibility.

I can’t really hold it in any more so I will just go ahead and call the My Morning Jacket show epic. And by epic I mean it was probably one of the best rock ‘n roll shows I have ever seen. Yep. That’s right Kevin Sack. ONE OF THE BEST ROCK ‘N ROLL SHOWS I HAVE EVER SEEN. They started their set at midnight, which means I left the Mettallica performance at the main stage to get there at 10:30 pm for a prime spot. I was probably 10 feet back from the center. I waited and waited, slowly friends came to join as midnight approached. I was slowly pulling on my Iced Tea bottle filled with whisky. Yep. With every sip and the burning inferno that crept down my chest, I became more and more excited. Over the years I have seen these guys a handful of times, and I feel like they play the only shows where I walk out not only completely pleased but also wondering how in the hell they pulled off some element of the performance.

The stakes were high I guess.

For those that have the new MMJ album, you may be reading this wondering what I am really referring to when I throw out words like “epic” or “completely pleased.” Listen, I realize the new album isn’t stellar, but see I am not here to debate the intricacies of their recorded material. I think “Evil Urges” is the first album to leave me desiring something, but for the sake of this argument that is irrelevant. I am talking about LIVE PERFORMANCE here. I am talking about a rock ‘n roll band that PLAYS TO AN AUDIENCE. I am talking about RAW ENERGY that bleeds through each strummed guitar chord. I am talking about the essential components that make a live performance epic.

Right around midnight, the thunder clouds simultaneously exploded and a band called My Morning Jacket burst on to the stage. The audience roared. There’s that moment of anticipation seeing a band you love when they first step on the stage— the lights are usually dim, a few of the members are perhaps tuning their guitars. You hear a few partial chords strummed in to the darkness and you are wondering what the hell they will play first. Jim James, the lead singer of the band, had a goofy straw cap on. Before I could really realize that it was already raining, “Evil Urges”—the opening track on the new album— blasted through the PA. I was almost half expecting that, so at this point there was no real surprise element involved. I was just getting comfortable with the mob of people around me who were jumping up and down. Jim James broke in to a painstaking guitar solo to break the song up about ¾ of the way through and that is when I knew it was the real deal. A few months ago, Jim James did an interview with NPR talking about “being in the zone” on stage performing— the idea of getting to a place in a show where its as if the mechanics of strumming the chords to the songs are on auto-pilot and the focus shifts to the performance and letting the songs beam the emotion that created them in the first place. THIS is what makes my Morning Jacket so good. Even one song in to the performance, you can tell they are all in the zone. There is passion on that stage, those guys love what they do.

Now, go listen to the song “One Big Holiday.”

Do you think that when MMJ wrote “One Big Holiday” in some barn out in god knows where they were sitting there playing it and casually strumming away thinking that it was a good track? Hell no. They were probably brewing with the kind of intensity that Russell Crowe brought in the film Cinderella Man. They probably recorded that song for the first time and Jim James needed to take a vacation because he had fractured both ankles and broken a wrist while laying it down. In all honesty though, when they wrote that song, there’s just no way they didn’t step back from it and think to themselves “holy shit, that is pretty intense.” So, with most bands, the emotion of such a song is captured on the album and then potentially in a casual few of their live performances. Most bands get tired of the road and the performance of it all—performing live becomes a chore as it feels more and more like a day job as opposed to a hobby. The emotion of what created a song in the first place is lost to the hardships of just subsisting on the road. This is where MMJ is different. They let the emotion of every song be attached to the lifeline of every audible chord you hear played. What gives them that ability you say? Passion. They are a passionate group of individuals that have no problem giving you that emotion and instensity because its effortless—its coded in to what they do. MMJ doesn’t try to be epic, their passion for the music they play just makes them that superior.

Halfway through their set, a fellow by the name of Kirk Hammet strutted on to the stage with the signature black tank top. Hours earlier he had just wrapped up a 2 hour plus set with his band Metallica but stepped out to play a song. It was a pleasant surprise to see such a voracious guitar mongrol up on stage with Jim James and the rest of MMJ, but the surprise got even better when the drum beat fixated on the opening rhythm to “One Big Holiday.” Any positive thoughts I had about that show immediately jumped up about 16 notches. Yep. Epic. The crowd went bonkers and it seemed like the woods aroun us were going to spontaneously explode. There was palpable energy in the air. Everyone felt it. The rain came down and people were dancing as the highlight of the weekend unfolded for me. They wrapped up "One Big Holiday" and took a breather only to come back on and play 2 more hours of music.

All said and done, the band played for 4 hours in the cool night air while the rain sporadically burst out of the clouds. At about 4am I wandered back to my campsite thinking to myself that i should fully expect to see that show mentioned on VH1's Classic Rock Moments in about 20 years. I walked along watching the night set in on Bonnaroo. I still had my sunglasses and straw cap on-- completely unnecessary, but overall a very sound decision given the feeling in the air.