birthdays are the absolute worst. like halloween, all this expectation leading up to the event, worsened by the dizzying ring of family & a couple of friends, hovering around, emotionally poking the fuck out of you “so what do you want to dooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?”
see because unlike halloween—when the witching hour strikes & the miracle 24 hour period of weirdo-tolerance descends upon america, making it not only admissible but the down right fucking reasonable norm to wake up, have a cup of coffee, crazy spray some moldy katsup on a damp trash bag & walk around all day with the stinking shit duct taped to yourself, under the jagged halo of yr aquanet hair (& let’s be honest, all yr really trying to do every halloween is creatively stick it to yr boss, in a refreshing i know that you know that i know that we both know you can’t do shit about my outfit kind of way)—anyway, unlike that, birthdays…people want to know, they need to know, they’ll have you convinced that out of self-respect to yourself, you really oughta have The Plan all worked out for them. as if you’re the kind of asshole who sits around for weeks, concocting bizarre ritualistic obstacles & activities for yr loved ones to celebrate your tired ass, as if you would ever do that, as if that would make your birthday any better, to know that you must demand their love. i mean damn, just dump a cup of robin’s vegan shitake gravy on a french fry po-boy (go to the place with the good bread), hand me a baker’s dozen of boston creams from vegan treats, followed by a coupon for a 30 day session at a detox clinic, a working car, an opening slot on the next springsteen tour, some new underwear, fill up the propane canister on my coleman, find my iPod & we’ll call it a day.
to use the old cliché, tour was amazing. thank you all for coming to the shows & putting up [with] 13 people. thanks especially for the vegan feast in atlanta, the 47lbs of pu-erh tea in richmond, the vegan chocolate mouse pie in NOLA, the gallons of free beer in abita springs, the killer brunch in gainesville, the 24hr vegan ice cream shop in gainesville, the plates & plates of vegan jamaican food consumed in gainesville, the freakishly spot-on $5 palm reading, ben davis’s smokin new keyboard player AND to the hoard of super insane Festerz who made the bananas 3am Wayward show a bodacious time. i thought i was too jaded to play shows that start at 3am, but i’ve officially been proven wrong.
watching two incredible bands, every night, for ten days of your life, it can really do some good things for you. ironically, going on tour with a bunch of old farts who’ve been “doing it forever” managed to relieve some deep-seeded apathy i’ve been carrying around. hallelujah i feel un-stuck.
i left for what was supposed to be a 4 day end-of-summer trip, but the trip just kept on tripping, and the impending cold just kept on colding, and suddenly it’s been three weeks and it’s winter, and it’s raining all the time now, and still all i got is this borrowed bag stuffed with summer clothes and a couple days worth of underwear, a swimsuit and a toothbrush, cold cans of lentil soup, almond butter, apples and a teapot. and at the fall of the sun each night i’m in a parking lot somewhere, digging through the trenches of my car, getting dumped on by the cold cold rain, pulling out any extra layer i can find to keep warm. but this is the life, my favorite life. it is a life whose survival depends on bonfires and blowing up chestnuts on an open fire, a life that finds sustain in shitty seven dollar acoustic guitars and in friends you’ve found over the years, your storytellers.
