Spent last night spanking myself half to death watching Skinemax on the floor of Carl’s apartment. Turned the sound down at one point because I suddenly got concerned and didn’t want him to hear me, and heard the exact same lame soft-porn rock and faked moans coming from his room. Ah, human closeness, alienated together.
Van’s running great again, the control panel cleared of warning lights. It feels like a fresh start, which is good in terms of the van and bad in terms of me, in that the resilience/momentum I got from muscling my way through all the sucky shows/open mics feels gone. I’m nervous about the open mic tonight. Urbana looks like a decent place to play despite the slightly menacing name. The Mon/Tues/Wed nights actually have been easier for me, as I can jump on an open mic; Fridays and Saturdays it’s clear that I don’t belong; the hopelessness of my venture becomes transparent.
Heard the new Strokes single on the radio tonight as I was pulling in to Urbana. I’m underwhelmed, but it does seem a little more hard-bitten than the last stuff. I wish I could write more knowingly about hotels.
There’s a cute girl in a wheelchair here. She’s wearing a cotton top w/ little flares around the shoulders and could it be a bow in her hair? The wheels of her wheelchair have big gaudy stars and stripes inserts, but it can’t be a joke, not here, not in Urbana, IL. I don’t want to stare; it carries different weight when the object of your attentions is in a wheelchair. I’d love to go home with her. Why must it always be the sordidly hot or the aberrant depressing? Dear Sweet Allison, your eyes grow bigger as I recede into the distance.
I’m consumed with the same string of anxious thoughts as I drive. I’m not writing/ I’m not writing songs/ I’m running out of money/ I can’t see a time in the future when this’ll get easier/ I should have made more out of my time in NY/ I don’t have any friends that I’ve had for a long time, etc., etc. I could go on, and I will, tomorrow in the van, driving to Nashville.
***
Curious show tonight. An open mic at a huge venue, like 400+. I got into town early, blew my chance to play at an open mic at the coffee shop next door where I may have actually made some fans and sold some CDs, then played on this mammoth stage to a mostly empty room. The few people who were there shot pool as I played, and there was always a long pause after I finished a song where people realized “Oh, he’s finished a song, we should generate some polite applause.” But somehow, I turned it out, had a great time playing and sang my guts out, totally hoarse after five or six songs. Then I sold no CDs, got no names on the guest list, couldn’t even bring myself to give a CD to the guy who ran the night. As I was loading out, the next band was rocking out, a huge ska band w/ sloppy horns, lame keys sound and distorted guitar with some nineteen year old dude rapping his way through that Cake song that was on MTV, what, six years ago?
Posted by Mishka at October 7, 2003 12:13 AM