Pre-Tour Spiel!

OK!

Teaching is done...this week went on forfuckingever. Is it like this for all bands before they leave for tour? The week dragged, and I felt mixes of excitement and apprehension (leaving Sarabird sucks)...but now it's here, and we leave tomorrow...air-drumming to "Young, Loud, and Snotty," trying to actually PRACTICE the drums for once on cushioned barstools in our apartment. Johnny Mandansky...he had this dormant Bonham gene that not even punk could kill, and I like playing along to the Dead Boys...to something relatively straightforward, w/ fills--TRIPLET FILLS (John Bonham, to the white courtesy phone!)!!!--

Ready to get out of Chicago. Living here for 9 yrs.--reeling in every year--and the HIGHFALUTIN THRILL of it ain't there no mo--I don't know if it's just because it's unaffordable or if I'm just giving in to natch tendencies of jadedness--usually when I travel I appreciate Chi more than I did before--but Hoben's leaving in Sept., and you start thinking of Nelson Algren and that whole thing about "no matter how much you love [Chicago], it will never love you back..." And that's not to say I give a runny crackwhore's turd what these snarky indie-rock faggabeefy chinstrokers think, but it gets a little old being just another toothpicked horsdeouervre (did I spell that right? no? sorry...) on the tray. But then there's something special to latch onto...all the little things that make living here so goshwow neat.

But it's also like 110 degrees Celsius outside, and that's no fun. Leaving sounds like a good thing rights about now...and really...when it's all said and done...I'm just stunned that more than the four people who play in this band even give a shit about what we're doing. That in itself is tremendous fortune. It's not triple-platinum fortune, and let's not kid ourselves, it never will be, but that's definitely just as well.

I'd like to think that I will take voluminous notes while we play all these places, but I doubt it. I would love to write the definitive tour diary, but--[like, ugh!]--is there anything duller in zinedom/blogland than a guldurn tour diary? It's like the collegiate kid's hippy journey to Yosemite betwixt semesters--it seems so EXCITING when you do it--but when you actually try to write it--it's the same ol' same ol' routine of 1. get to town 2. play the show 3, be stunned by some quirky person you meet who doesn't act like people from where you live 4. drink a lot 5. etcetera (whatever that is for you) 6. lather 7. rinse 8. repeat....and don't get me wrong here because I LIKE IT and IT BEATS THE SHIT OUTTA WORKING and it is a whole lot of fun, it's just that writing about it rarely does justice to it.

Hmm...maybe I will write on here and tell you all about how it's going, but maybe I won't, and go into it later when I go back...but I feel way more optimistic about this tour than the other 2 tours we did. I don't know if it's because I'm not the one who owns the van or if the band itself feels like something less stupidly chaotic than it did 2 yrs ago, but I think it will be a real real good time.