Show Day in Austin

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today we're in Austin, on the campus of the University of Texas, at the Bass Performance Hall.

The humongous South By Southwest Music Festival is going on here this weekend. I've got friends playing, and friends attending. Wish I had the day off. Terry Anderson played this afternoon with Walter Clevenger, a power-popper I like. And I’m stuck in a basement instead.

I decided to Zep out today. Listened to all 56 songs in my iTunes Library. It made my day go by in a more rockin' way. And that's important.

I gotta buy some Zep CD's and round out my collection. I could see myself sitting on the rear deck of my new house vegging out to some cool tunes. Here's the view of the back yard while I'm rocking and drinking a Bud…

Show Day in Dallas

Got up at 5:30 this morning. It was still very dark outside. We have a 7:45 bus call today. I really like the venue today. It's the Nokia Theatre here in Dallas, and my buddy Billy Morgan is the production guy there. He came up and did our show in Oklahoma City the other night, too. Great guy. Great room. Great crew.

I'm all kinds of busy today. Never get a chance to slow down until after 1am. Now I'm just too damn tired, so I'm gonna head out to Bunky World.

Day Off in Dallas

Got in my bunk last night around 1:30 am. I wasn't really tired, but since there are 8 other people who live on my bus, there were bodies everywhere. I needed some alone time. I read maybe 4 pages before sleep took over…

I woke up at 5:40 as we pulled into the lovely Sheraton Suites. Sure wish I could have gotten more sleep than that. Gratton's back in a few minutes with room keys. I head up to my room and try to catch a few winks, but it's just no use.

Knock out most of USA Today, then head down the block to Denny's for breakfast. There's absolutely fuck-all to do around here. There's a montrous Hilton across the street, a Renaissance, a Wyndham, a Ramada, a Fairfield, and a few others. We're talking a 2-block stretch with tons of hotels, yet the ONLY restaurant (other than the ones in the hotels) is a Denny's. Not just any Denny's, but the Denny's with the worst staff in America. I've stayed here a few times, and eaten at this damn restaurant more times than I can count. Pretty sure I ranted about it last August when I was here during the System of a Down tour.

So it's Denny's for breakfast, then back to the room to blog, read, and watch Headline News.

Back at Denny's around 2, where I meet up with Carlton (monitor engineer) and Big Bob Fontenot (venue security guy). We laugh through lunch and then discuss going to Jade, the Oriental massage joint 2 doors down. Can you say "happy ending?"

Instead, we all head back to our rooms. I'm just gonna kick it here for a few more hours.

Man, I just can't get motivated to do anything tonight. I'd like to go down to Deep Ellum (the Dallas equivalent to the French Quarter), and eat 'n drink at Sol's Taco Lounge, but it looks like I'm gonna just stay in. I order a small pizza and some Budweisers from room service and that's gonna do it. Watch the season premiere of the Sopranos and off to sleep.

Show Day in Houston

Our show today is at the symphony hall. Nothing much to report, except that this building has lots of stairs.

Lots.

Today is a one-in-a-row. We've got another day off tomorrow in Dallas.

Day Off in Houston

We arrived at the hotel this morning around 8:45. Rooms were ready and waiting, which was great. I grab 3 papers in the lobby – the Houston Chronicle, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Guess what I'm doing today?

Strange internet at the hotel today. I can get on AOL and handle email, but I can't use Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, or even the AOL browser to get to the web and hit all my usual websites. Bummer, because I was gonna get the blog all caught up today. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day off, which will be Wednesday in Dallas.

Big, big mall a block away. I head out of my room around 2. It's about 75 degrees, but a lot of cloud coverage. I think it rained before we got here, and it threatens all day long. On the way to the mall, I come across The Container Store. Man, I sure wish there was one of these in Raleigh. For a new homeowner, it just might be the coolest store on earth. I spent about 45 minutes wandering around in there. I never knew there were trash cans worthy of being lusted over. Believe me, there are.

Spot a Starbucks in the parking lot as I'm leaving. I haven't eaten today and it's nearly 3. Looks like they've got about a dozen tables outside, so I'll grab something and enjoy the sunshine. Before I get too close, I spot a half-dozen familiar faces, including the boss (R. Kelly). They've got a couple of tables pushed together, and a small group of women are getting autographs from Rob. I don't like to run into folks I tour with on my days off, so I decide to bag the 'Bucks. No biggie, because I immediately spot a Barnes & Noble across the street, with another Starbucks inside it. Score…

One cinnamon-chip scone and a grande hot chocolate later, I'm wandering around the mall. The very upscale mall. I find The Walking Store and buy a new pair of Merrells, as mine are on the cusp. New dogs here:





Wander the mall for another hour, then take about a 30 minute roundabout walk back to the hotel, searching out dinner options. Some cool stuff in the area, but I'm not sure I'll feel like venturing out again later. Just off the lobby is the Omaha Steakhouse (a supposedly good steakhouse), so that might be the choice for dinner.

We have so many show days and so few days off on this tour that I'm just rolling in per diem money, so I won't mind springing 18 bucks for the grilled salmon. If you didn't know already, I'm a cheap fucker when I'm on the road. Standard per diem for crew guys is $245 a week ($35 a day for you Liberal Arts majors), and I like to stash at least a hundred of that every week to take home. If there was a Subway in the lobby, I'd eat there in a heartbeat over a sitdown dinner. And this whole homeowning thing has made me even more frugal.

So…..

Wound up at the hotel bar. Had dinner there – the salmon was good. A really cute blonde named Lisa came and sat beside me. She works for a German software company and lives in San Francisco. Originally from Pennsylvania, lived in Chicago for a few years, and has been in S.F. for the last 5 years. Her job has her travelling Monday through Thursday every week, except for holiday season, so about 200 days a year. I can relate.

Really cool girl…

Show Day in OKC

Today's show is at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City, which is the symphony hall here. Beautiful room, but I'll take the Fox in St. Louis anyday.

I stay incredibly busy all day. Seems like it's 8pm in the blink of an eye. All the better, as this is the 4th show in a row. Tomorrow, we've got the day off in Houston.

Show Day in Oklahoma City

Today's show is at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City, which is the symphony hall here. Beautiful room, but I'll take the Fox in St. Louis anyday.

I stay incredibly busy all day. Seems like it's 8pm in the blink of an eye. All the better, as this is the 4th show in a row. Tomorrow, we've got the day off in Houston.

Show Day in Tulsa

Yuck! The Brady Theater in Tulsa. This place is a complete shithole. I haven't been here since 1999. I was tour managing Machine Head and we were out opening for Sevendust.

Anyway, the Brady is a bit too small for this tour. Tiny production office – me and Gratton barely fit in there.

Merle Haggard played here last night to a packed house. Wish I could have seen that.

I actually watch the first 5-6 minutes of the show tonight. Definitely not my thing musically, but a great entrance.

Show Day in St. Louis

Today we're in St. Louis, playing at the beautiful Fox Theatre. Have you ever seen the Chuck Berry movie "Hail, Hail Rock 'n Roll?" It was filmed here. This place is amazing. Sorry to say that I didn't get any photos today.

Janet's dog Baxter comes by to visit today. He's a big goofy boxer, with a great personality. But since we've now become a "no visitation", he couldn't come in and hang out. So all Baxter hangtime was in the parking lot.

My old buddy Sunil brought him by. Sunil and JT used to date. Sunil used to run the amphitheater here, but these days he's Rod Stewart's tour accountant.

Catering was great today. The best so far. Considering today's only the second show, I guess that doesn't mean too much...

Show Day in Kansas City

The first dump truck started backing down the giant ramp at exactly 6:38 this morning.

Fucker.

You'd think that being 23 floors up would alleviate some of the noise pollution.

You'd be wrong.

Fucker.

Trucker.

Trucker-Fucker.

Noisy-Assed Trucker-Fucker.

OK, I'm done.

First show tonight. As always, I don't see a minute of it. There's supposed to be a couple of cool production bits in the show. I'll catch it in a few days, maybe.

After the night is done, I sit in production listening to tunes and catching up on the blog. People are complaining that I'm not keeping it up. Not for lack of wanting to, I promise…

Rehearsal Day in Kansas City

More of the same.

More of the same.

More of the same.

More of the same.

Man, screw all the rehearsing. Let's get this show on the road.

And really, fuck this dial-up internet crap.

And really, really fuck that construction going on next door. I can't wait to get in my bunk on the bus, so I can get some sleep.

The buses arrived today. Prevost H-3's. All of 'em. Pretty much the worst buses we could have. I'm bummed. As is typical, no storage cabinets or closets anywhere on the bus, so I'll have to have my safe mounted in a drawer in the back lounge. These things ride like shit, too. The only good thing about it is the fact that the bunks are just HUGE. And that's with a 12-bunk setup. Cool.

Gratton tells me that our bus used to by Monkey's bus. I think Monkey (or Munkey, or whatever…) is a musician in Korn (or maybe Limp Bizkit). One of those bands that Gratton worked for.

Hope the driver's good.

Finally get out of the venue around 12:30. Don't have to be back until 11 tomorrow morning. Yay!

Rehearsal Day in Kansas City

Another day pretty much like yesterday. I'm up just after 6:30, which coincides with all the construction guys cranking up next door at the site of a very big project.

At the gig by 9, out just after midnight.

Rehearsal Day in Kansas City

Well, I guess I deserved that. I was asleep last night by 9; so I was wide awake at 1:30am. Finally fell back asleep an hour or two later, only to be up for good before 5.

I make the 2 block walk to the venue and arrive around 7:45 for our 8am load-in. Gonna be a long day.

And a slow one. No high-speed internet service here. Which is really a bummer since we'll be here until Thursday night. I'm sharing a phone line with Bob Fontenot, our venue security guy. We're both using the one line for all of our calls AND for dial-up internet service. Man, I forgot how s…l...o…w this crap is. Three days of this is gonna be torture.

Out at 10:30pm, because the band never made it today. A bunch of folks head straight to the hotel bar – I join 'em for a while. Slap back a few $4.25 Buds and head up to my room shortly after midnight.

Travel Day to Kansas City

Up at 6am. Run grab a paper and a hot chocolate at Starbucks. Call Paige around 9am to make sure she's awake. She sounds like shit. She's been up hurling since (I think) around 4am. I offer to call myself a cab ("I'm a cab!"), but she says she's OK to drive. She picks me up around 9:30 to head to the airport. She looks more than a little green around the gills. She only had a couple of drinks last night – that's not the culprit. Might be a case of food poisoning, or maybe a bit of this nasty flu bug that's been going around. I thought she was gonna puke the whole way out to the airport. She's even got a plastic puke sack in her lap in anticipation. I offer to drive, but she still says she's good.

I find out when I call her later that she DID throw up after letting me out at the terminal. Puked right into the bag and kept on driving. That's killer!!! I'm damn proud of that girl…

I have a connecting flight in Cincinnati, and about an hour and a half to kill. I've always liked the Cincy airport, so I wander around and do some window shopping to kill time.

I make it to Kansas City around 3:30 and to the hotel around 4:30. We're staying 4 nights at the Radisson downtown and I gotta tell ya, downtown KC is deader than hell on the weekends. I spent about an hour walking around. It's like a freakin' graveyard. Wind up back at the hotel, eventually heading down for dinner around 7pm, where I got just what I was trying to avoid, a $55 dollar meal – Salmon and smashed taters, and the best salad I've had in months. Oh, yeah, and 3 Buds.

In the room and I was asleep by 9. Dreamed about moving into my new house. Here's what the view will be like when I'm sitting in my rocking chair on the front porch:

Last Day Off at Home

Last full day at home – gotta fly out tomorrow morning. Start the day with my customary 3-mile walk to clear my head and set my agenda for the day.

Errands, errands, errands…

All damn day.

Oh, yeah. A little bit of ACC basketball action on TV, too.

And I got this shot of the house from across the street in the park:





Pick up Paige around 6. We're driving up to Wake Forest to have dinner at Chris Sheridan's house. Big fun - good food and good times.

I'm back home around 11 and do a final pack.

Day Off at Home

Hit it early this morning. Lots to do today – last business/banking day before I leave. Get the rental turned in an hour early and head back to Home Depot. Those damn cheap-ass gloves I got yesterday gave me 2 mondo blisters. I think I'll spring for the good ones. It's always true: a price buyer is a twice buyer.

Get to the house and discover that the contractor has put in the porch ceiling this morning. Here's the "before" shot:





And here's a couple of shots of the new tongue and groove plank ceiling:








Yay! Another step closer to moving in. One day. Maybe.

Go to dinner with some friends. Mmmmm, cold beer…

Home by 10pm. I'm boring today.

Day Off at Home

Nice to sleep in my own bed a few more nights before being gone for 10 weeks.

The TAO guys call mid-morning. Bad news. They can't get the starter they need until tomorrow morning. Not good. But that's life.

I jump online and rent a car from Enterprise. They'll come pick me up later (around 2:45) and take me to their office downtown to pick up the car.

Yay! Rolling again!

As soon as I get the car, I'm off to Home Depot to get some tools. Grab a hoe (ho-ho), two kinds of rakes, a shovel, a cultivator, a spade, and some work gloves. Geez, Louise, Mr. Homeowner! Head to the house to do some work.

Looks like I have gutters now:





Still no porch ceiling yet, though:





Gotta call the contractor.

Again.

Sheesh!

Travel Day to Raleigh

Uneventful flight home from Chicago. As soon as I get home, I have to run a few quick errands, then drop my car off at TAO Auto to get the starter replaced. Hopefully, the (always efficient) guys there can get it back to me by mid-afternoon tomorrow. I've got a helluva lot of stuff to do during my few days back in town.

Last Rehearsal Day in Chicago

Today's the last day of the Chicago rehearsals. Rob has to do an awards show in LA, so everyone is flying home for a few days. I'll get home to Raleigh Wednesday afternoon, and I get to spend 4 nights in my own bed. On Sunday, everyone flies to Kansas City for 3 more days of rehearsal Monday through Wednesday. The first show of the tour is on Thursday the 9th.

One of my Chicago "daughters", Evie, came to visit today around lunch. I hate that I haven't been able to spend any time with either her or Kim (other "daughter"), but I've been stuck at the gig all day, every day since arriving. So anyway, I managed to get away for an hour and go to lunch with Evie. We went a few blocks away to Harry Caray's and sat in the bar, as the dining room was closed. It was good to get caught up with her. She's just returned from 3 weeks in Europe with some godawful metal band. She's a masseuse, and on this tour, was also doing merch. Poor thing.

Long day of rehearsals, with load-out to commence around 10:30. The load-out will probably run until about 1 or 2, but I see no reason for me to be here. I'm hoping to be at the hotel by midnight.

Update…

It's now after 1am, and I'm still stuck here. Hope to be in my room and asleep by 2.

Fingers crossed…

And Again...

Another cush day. Up early and read a bit in my room. Have a muffin for breakfast. Grab a shower and head over to the venue at 11. Hope to finish my show files today so I can start on other stuff.

Great news today! We're hiring JT to come out and do the tour with us. Janet Taylor was our production assistant on System of a Down last year. She's the Queen! Best damn PA I've ever worked with. She's gonna do dressing rooms, help a little with wardrobe and help a little in the production office.

Suddenly, this tour just got a lot easier and a lot more fun!!!!

I bang out files most of the day. Hit the Staples store a block away around 8:30 to buy an adding machine and some other office stuff for the tour.

Work until midnight and then back to the hotel for some sleep. As usual, some of the crew guys are going out for beers, but I'm not ready to lose any sleep in the pursuit of malt-beverage-fueled fun. Maybe in a week or two...

G'night!

Another Rehearsal Day in Chicago

I grabbed a copy of today's Chicago Tribune on the way back to the hotel last night around 12:30. So nice to have a paper in my room when I woke up. Read the whole thing, then grabbed a shower and headed over around noon. No one's coming in today until after 5, but I've still got lots of show files to set up.

Thought about hanging out in my room and watching NASCAR, but I totally hate the track they're running on today.

So I have the production office to myself for a couple of hours. Gratton comes in after lunch, and everyone else starts to filter in around 5-5:30.

I keep working until just before midnight, then head back to the hotel with the other few stragglers.

Big, exciting day, huh?

Rehearsal Day in Chicago

There's no way yesterday could have ended any differently...

Got back to the hotel around midnight. Gave the bellman my luggage receipt while I was picking up my room key at the desk. He came back a minute later – couldn't find my bag and could I please come take a look in the storage area to see if I could ID it for him. No sweat, I go check it out. Oops, not there.

OK, still not a problem. Between him, the desk clerk and me, we decide that my bag must have been placed in my room sometime during the day when the room became available. I really don't like having hotel staff come into my room anytime during my stay, but since I hadn't yet been up to the room, I can overlook it. Up to the room I go.

No bag. Anywhere. Looked under everything, over everything, behind everything, even looked in the tub. No bag. Not good.

Head back downstairs. Re-search the storage area with the bellman. Go to the desk to confer with the clerk. A few (tense) minutes later, my bag is located in an office area behind the desk. Whew! This could only happen on a day like today.

On to today…

Got up around 7:30. Still feeling washed-out, but some of that can be attributed to the Mucinex I've been taking. After a long, hot shower to clear out the sinuses, I feel pretty darned good. Do some reading and email, then head to the venue around 11. Stop at Subway for a "Veggie Delight" for early lunch.

Work on setting up my files most of the afternoon. Rob's manager/business manager Derrell comes by with his 3 kids. We get introduced, but since he's got his kids hanging out, we'll talk business tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, guess I should mention. I bought a house over my wintertime break. I've been renting apartments for the last 15 years, so this was a pretty big step for me.

After pissing away all of my money all my life, I stopped dating about this time last year, and by the end of '05, I suddenly had more money than I'd EVER had in my life. So I bought a MONEY PIT. Gee, from one deep hole to throw my money down, to another…

It's a cute little brick bungalow in the Hi-Mount neighborhood in Raleigh, which borders the Five Points neighborhood. Two bedrooms, one bath, about 1030 square feet total. Which is as big a house as a single guy needs. Not too much to heat, to cool, or to clean.

Having a bunch of work done to it. The plumbing and electrical was taken care of a couple of weeks ago. New roof put on last week. Front porch flat roof fixed. Next comes new gutters and the rebuild of the porch ceiling.

Here's a couple of shots of Mike Brown's crew doing the roof. These guys had the whole roof stripped and the felt down within 2 hours. Pretty awesome.

Travel Day to Chicago

I managed to get my butt on the plane today. I am sooo glad I didn't fly 3 days ago. It probably would have killed me.

Got on the ground in Chicago around noon, then it took over an hour for everyone's bags to come in from the plane.

Cab to the hotel to check in before walking over to the venue. Well, except that my room isn't ready. It's now a little after 1:30 – I can either sit here until it's ready (uh, that'll be hell no), or I can have them store my bags and walk on over.

The venue's a couple of blocks away. Chris has a table ready and waiting for me when I walk in, so I get to work.

An hour later, I get a dehydration/flying/still-sick headache so severe that I consider going to the hospital. I thought I was gonna pass out. Throughout the course of the day today, I'll drink nothing less that 2 gallons of water. I finally start to feel human again around 9pm.

Meet about a bajillion new folks today. I'll 'splain more about them later.

Rashod the tour manager comes in around dinnertime. Totally cool guy. Pretty sure we met in 2000 on the Britney Spears tour, when I was TM'ing BBMak. He gives me a lot of background on this tour and how things are gonna go. Sounds like I might enjoy this more than I thought.

I piddle around and get some more work done. Can only do so much before I receive the show contracts. Looks like I won't see those before tomorrow, so I just set up a bunch of other files.

Decent dinner in catering. I have some Portabello Ravioli, along with Greek Salad and some hummus with pita points.

This being a union building, we'll be out the door by midnight. We don't come back in tomorrow until 2pm, so I plan to get plenty of rest tonight.

Too Sick To Travel...

Well, today was supposed to be the day I flew out to begin work on my new gig, R. Kelly. Rehearsals start tomorrow in Chicago.

Here's what's going on instead...

I've been battling some sort of bug for a few weeks (picked it up in the Juror Lounge, while on Jury Duty in late January). Thought I was pretty much over it when I went to visit my mom in Charlotte last Thursday at Elmcroft, the assisted living facility she resides in. But perhaps I picked up something else while I was there.

I started feeling like crap when I woke up on Saturday morning (around 4:30am!) and only got worse throughout the day. Got less than 3 hours sleep Saturday night, waking around 3am, and was up from then. Was running a fever over 101 by 7am. By 11, I was waiting outside for the Doc-In-A-Box to open. My BP spiked while I was there, too. Got the doc to write me a scrip for a Z-Pack, got it filled, grabbed a little grub from the grocery store, and headed for the couch.

By 4pm, the fever was running 103. Felt like shit. A fever this high can be dangerous, so I filled a bowl with rubbing alcohol and started sponging down my head, neck and chest every 10-15 minutes to help bring my body temp down. Can you guess - my mom was a nurse, and I actually learned a few things from her.

Early evening I called Chris Gratton, our production manager. He agreed that I was too sick to fly, and that it would be bad if I came out and infected others on the tour. My Tuesday flight was delayed until Friday.

My personal nurse (and Angel of Mercy) Paige came by around 8pm with lots of goodies. VapoRub Inhaler, SudaCare Inhaler wall plug-in, VapoRub Cream, anti-viral wipes, anti-viral Kleenex, Mucinex, Mucinex DM, lots of Gatorade, a box of Hot Chocolate mix, and a bowl of her homemade vegetarian chili.

I sniffed, snorted, wiped, creamed, drank, ate, etc. everything in hopes of feeling better. Even tried the little known remedy of applying VapoRub to the soles of my feet before going to bed. And yeah, you have to put socks on when you do this.

Monday was better. My temp pretty much ran between 100 and 102 all day, but I could tell I was starting to feel better.

I've been reading James Patterson's "Mary Mary" over the past week or so, but I've only gotten to page 32 so far. Well, I knocked out the other 276 pages on Monday, finishing it just before midnight. Good read.

Slept over 6 hours last night. Most in a week. Temp's been under 99 so far today.

Things are getting better!

COMING SOON...

Flying out Tuesday February 21st to do 3 months with R. Kelly.

Watch this space...