Shit, haven’t written for a couple of days, got to catch up again.
Birmingham turned out to be great, or at least really fertile for the old tour diary. When I wrote that last entry, I was really feeling pretty awful, the whole venture just seemed hopeless. I guess it’s hard to put it into words now, as I’m feeling pretty good right now, even though I’m tired and still hungover. I guess I just had the same feeling that I had that ill morning in Youngstown walking around freezing and hungover, waiting for Derek to pick me up where I would have cashed it all in right then just to be restored to Allie’s loving arms.
In Birmingham, I had been thinking about asking Josh to ‘rally the troops,’ i.e. give me a pep talk, but I ended up not needing it. I took a fitful nap, which didn’t seem to revive me at all, then walked back into The Nick. (The Nick is a total fucking dive, from the outside it looks like a roadhouse, inside it’s a dark, moist cave, the walls just papered with flyers and old posters, the ceiling papered with outdated glossy 8 by 10 publicity shots. The exterior wall of the club is sinisterly saturated with staples, but not a flyer to be found. Well, one—a lonely Supagroup handbill, looking only pathetic.) Roy Owens, Jr. was hanging out, everyone in a pretty good mood, and the cute and sassy bartender—only a little plump—opened a can of PBR and stuck it in front of me without me asking. Well, fuck it then. Suddenly my ill mood lifted and by the time The High Strung rolled in, I was up and soaring. Had another great conversation with Josh, this time about Orwell.
I turned out a great drunken set. I made a coupla mistakes, but in general, it was the good drunk, where I put a lot of feeling into everything. It was hard to read the crowd, but I feel like Roy Owens Jr. and HS applauded more at the be ginning and then the crowd applauded more at the end. I’m getting through to folks, I just know it.
I just got drunker and drunker. The rest of the bar seemed to follow suit. During Roy Owens Jr., they launched into an impromptu cover of ‘Victoria’ and we all jumped up and sang along. I poured half an inch of beer over Shannon’s head. At the end of the song, two big black hoochie mamas came up and flashed us all their big floppy boobs. So fucking great. Then, of course, Morgan poured a full beer over my head in retaliation for what I hadn’t done to him anyway. Oh well. When HS played, we all jumped up for the end of WSV and fucked shit up together. Mark Owen really cut loose and howled and jumped around, really just fantastic. At the end of the night, I got carted off to Andrew the booking agent’s folks house and slept the sleep of the just, the just barely conscious.
Drove all day with Slow-going Mark Owen, which was great. He drove almost the whole time, which was a well needed day of rest, but we had some fantastic conversations, about the exclusive nature of romantic love and the different levels of intimacy. I love debating these guys.
I got stressed out driving into Tallahassee that we were going to have driven all day and then I was going to end up missing my time slot. Tallahassee ended up being pretty good. I had time to suck down a couple of beers after all and turned out a great set to the drunken appreciation of everyone there, meaning the other bands. Chad was drunk and hilariously belligerent and the night turned a little ugly when the band before the HS (five bands on the bill that night) took for fucking ever to set up and play. But somehow everyone ended the night on a happy note. Except me. I got too drunk and started freaking out about Jacob and then obsessing about Allie sleeping with some other dude after their show at the Mercury. I knew if I called her then that I was going to start crying and totally freak out so, wisely, I didn’t call her. But they’re going to be going on any minute now, so, fuck, I’ve got to call her now.