Show Day in Baltimore

In my bunk around 2:15am, jolted awake by the driver jockeying the bus around in the parking lot of the venue at 6:20. Back and forth, left and right, rinse and repeat. Try to go back to sleep. Fuck it, not gonna just lay here. Get up, and ask a venue security guy for directions to the Starbucks. I know there's one nearby, but can't remember exactly where it is. It's on the street level of the Radisson Hotel 1 block away. Starbucks here I come…

Back at the venue and bored out of my mind by 8:00. Not a stick of furniture in the production office yet, so no way I can set my shit up. Head out again to go find some newspapers. You'd think in downtown you'd find paper boxes on every corner. Not here – I actually spend a few minutes chasing 'em down. Back at the venue and have my world set up and rocking by 9:30. Shower Time!!!

Today is Saint PD's Day (I distribute per diems on Monday), so I'm everybody's favorite guy today. Money always makes people happy.

I take another walk over to Starbucks around 4:30 to reload. Gotta ween myself offa this shit.

Eddie's old friend Walt shows up around 5:30. Walt always comes out to visit us whenever we're playing in the DC/Baltimore area. As usual, he's brought a BUNCH of steamed shrimp and three of the most awesome baseball-sized crabcakes I've ever had. Me, Eddie, Andy and Walt retire to a table in the catering room to attack the goods. Walt's also brought along about a gallon and a half of his mother's shrimp soup. It smells amazing, but I'm not gonna have any because he tells me there's a couple of big old chunks of ham in it, too. I do eat about ½ of one of the crabcakes. Heavenly! One thing I miss about living in Maryland is the seafood here.

My buddy Ivan surprises me by walking into the production office. He's married to my travel agent Debra Copelan. He's out tour managing the band Seether (from South Africa). They've got a gig here in Baltimore tomorrow, and are staying at the hotel on the corner across the street from our gig today. We hook the band and crew up to come to our show – all they have to do is flash their laminates to get in.

Meet up with Ivan at FOH when it's time for System to go on. Watch my usual 2 songs, then back to production. Ivan comes to hang out for a few minutes, then heads back to his hotel. Says he has work to catch up on, and just dropped by to see me and watch a couple of songs.

Janet, our production assistant, sits in on settlement with me tonight. She wants to learn how to do it, and I don’t mind showing her the ropes.

I quit working around 11:15, write a bit in the blog, then start in on the 2 newspapers (USA Today, Baltimore Sun) I bought this morning that I haven't even touched yet.

Out to the bus and in my bunk by 2am…