What you call them things there?

We sit on the threshold of an important time in this countries history.  It’s sink or swim.

Our jobs have been steadily shipped overseas for the past 30 years.  Our manufacturing centers turned into loft apartments, or bulldozed for low income housing for the children of the workers who once manned the machines.  We import more that we export.  We put value on jobs that involve pushing paper (or emails) around instead of on the people who build, create, service, and maintain tangible things.  Does the American dream still consist of a wife, kids, house, and a car (or two) in the driveway?   Or has the dream boiled down to a mafia-like value system of take-take-take?  

Hard work.  Is that really all that is needed to make it in this world these days?  I don’t think so.  It takes a lot of luck.  A whole fucking lot of luck!  

Turn on your TV.  Watch network news for a few hours.  You will be flooded with more op-ed style “journalism” than you will be with facts.  You will have statistics and survey results thrown at you.  If you watch daily, you will see those survey results change after the talk radio tastemakers and commenters have their useless points of view edited down into a 15 second clip that is replayed every ten minutes.  

If you only get your news from these sources, you will soon find your own opinions right in line with those surveys and polls.  Changing when they change.  You will be the guy that “almost voted for Ross Perot”.  

Let’s get back to the “American dream”. 

Everyone thinks they work hard.  Some do, some don’t, but everyone THINKS they work hard.  That’s because LIFE is hard!  Sometimes you just don’t want to get out of bed because you are so sick of the routine, and that in itself makes you feel like you did something because you didn’t put a bullet in your brain the night before.  So if everyone THINKS they work hard, how can we all live the American dream?

The dream as we know it is dead.  Yeah, dead.  Gone.  Kaput.  Hijacked by people who couldn’t take pleasure in it unless they were the only ones living it.  Taken from your pockets and given to some guy you will never meet.  Your entire dream used to pay for one months mortgage on some asshole’s McMansion.  Why?  Because they are smarter than you.  They are better organized that you.  The law is on their side because they wrote the law.  They feel no guilt because they haven’t broken the laws that they themselves wrote.  

There is nothing wrong with being rich.  Most people would love to be rich and have the security of knowing they never have to work again to survive.  It’s all just how you get there.  

We have been sold out.  Greed is not the right word anymore.  It’s way deeper than that.  It’s a sickness.  

Let’s start by being honest with ourselves, and then each other.  If you inherited your money, you did not earn it.  If you profited from the losses of others, you did not earn it.  If you used your position of power for unjust personal gains, you did not earn it.  If you sell the workers who helped make you rich out, you did not earn it.  

The social classes are getting spread further and further apart.  Crime is rising.  Tensions are getting higher.  The powder is being packed.  The fuse is about to be lit.

You can laugh at how  ”lazy” those college kids are that are camping out in your town square.  You can laugh at them for their way of dress, their hair, their hygiene.  I’ll be honest with you though.  They don’t care.  They know the dream is dead.  They know they won’t get theirs.  They know the deck is stacked.  They want the same things as you, but you won’t give them a shot at the ring.  They want their slice, but you want the whole pie.

You can hide behind the law.  You can move further and further away from the cities.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  Eventually the tax dollars you don’t want to pay will run out.  The police will be furloughed.  The firefighters put on volunteer duty.  The roads will fall apart.  There will be no one to save you.

Your McMansion will be pillaged and burnt.  Your cars stolen.  Your bank accounts hacked.  

Then who will have pity on the rich?  

I think that’s how many I’ve killed on this trip.  It’s been lots of daylight driving across the midwest, and it’s butterfly season I suppose.  Every few seconds I see one come into my field of vision, make a quick attempt to turn, and then spill it’s yellow and green guts across my windshield.

I dropped the band off in Nashville the other night.  I just glad I got there alive after the stand off we had in the TA parking lot.  

I’d been telling the tour manager for days he needs to pay me, but that little weasel kept dodging everything.  Finally I had to park the bus and tell them I wasn’t going to move it until I get my money.  I was pretty convinced they were going to kick my ass, so I stayed by the gas counter.  After some heated discussion, phone calls, and pleading, we got back on the road with nothing more than a promise of payment.  Not to happy about that, but I guess I just have to wait and see if they come through.  

This band has been miserable to work with, and dishonest from the get-go.  I will never, ever, work for them again.  

I got called out last minute to take a country band out on the road.  This is the first country tour Tour Transport has ever done I guess, and it’s definitely a whole new world.  Country bands don’t tour like other bands.  They’re weekend warriors who book a few shows, then drive back to Nashville for the rest of the week.  They don’t book months in advance like rock shows do either.  They’ll get a bus with one show booked, then make phone calls on the road to get last minute gigs.  Last minute gigs that pay thousands of dollars.  

Things started out pretty rough.  The bus went out last minute and didn’t have time to make the first gig, and of course the tour manager blames it on us instead of admitting he dropped the ball by not sending in the first payment on time.  It smoothed out today after I picked the rest of the band up in Lincoln, NE and drove up here to Gordon.

When I got to the “venue”, it was a straight up rodeo.  I pulled the bus onto the dirt field they ride the bulls on, right behind a little makeshift stage they dropped off with a truck.  They still had the bulls in a pen right next to us.  I couldn’t help but laugh.  

I was pretty tired, so the promoter offered to take me to the hotel.  On the way though, he took me to get food.  I was expecting the typical catering, or a deli tray, but it ended up being some family’s house, with amazing home style cooking.  Enough food to feed an army.  Definitely a nice change from eating the shit they have at the local Pilot or Flying J.  

They added a show in Sturgis, SD tomorrow so I guess we’re headed there in the morning.

The best moments in the world sometimes are when you’re alone, and instead of feeling abandoned you feel in control.   Like a God overlooking the earth. 

I used to go on long bike rides at night back in Tallahassee.   Night was my favorite time to ride, especially through campus in the summer.  I would always cut through FSU if I had the chance.  It was so silent.  The only noise was the wind and the faint whirl of the cogs on my hub.   I would pretend that all the college kids had been wiped off the planet by a mysterious comet, and I was the only one left to wander their old school.  Inevitably, I would see somebody walking and my daydream came to an end.

The bike riding experience seems to have been spoiled for me for a while.  I don’t like the fake populist culture that has sprung from this simple activity.   Track bikes, bike polo, deep v rims, Brooks saddles, etc.  I don’t want to be looked at as a part of a club.  I just want to ride for the freedom it brings me, not for the fashion or the politics of the new millennium bike culture.  I’m going to go buy a new one next week. (In addition to the new folding bike I have)

You won’t see me riding it to the bar downhill, only to be thrown in the back of someone else’s car for the begged ride uphill at the end of the night.  I will not be riding it to the coffee shop two blocks away so I can hang it by the door to display it as though it were some kind of trophy.  I will not ride in critical mass trying to piss off the drivers of cars who hold my life in their hands. 

Chances are, you will never see me riding it at all.  I’ll ride alone in the darkness while everyone sleeps, and imagine I’m floating over what the town has become.  

It’s kinda weird of me to start this near the end of a tour I guess, but that’s where I am right now.  It’s crazy to think about it.  Hopefully the last two weeks go a little bit smoother on the mechanical front.

We’re supposed to go to Edmunton, Aberta Canada tomorrow.  We aren’t gonna do it.  We would have had two days off before the show to make the drive (32 hours plus stops and border crossing).  And then one day off after that show to get to Salt Lake City.  Whomever planned the routing for this tour fucked up bad.  It seems like we’ve been zig-zagging for weeks, driving through one town to get to another, only to backtrack to the city we just drove through.  I’d bet it’s a money thing, and “necessary” if you were to ask one of the promoters, but it’s bumming everyone out.   This one show would cost the band over $4000 just to get there, which is way more then they would get paid to play it.  It just doesn’t make sense.  

We hear rumors that lots of bands are planning on canceling for this very reason, and that the people high-up are pissed and threatening to ban no-shows from future tours, and maybe even withhold pay for other shows.  It was agreed upon after all, and contracts have been signed, but I think everyone is just burned out on this tour.  Not just drivers like us, but bands, caterers, staff…..  tensions are high.  Spending five days of travel time for the smallest turnout of the tour just seems like insult to injury at this point.  Kids in Edmunton are probably going to be pretty upset when only half the tour shows up, but I guess you are used to disappointment when you live in a place like Edmunton.  Too harsh?

So, I guess it’s onward to Salt Lake!  A few days off, take it easy, maybe climb a mountain or something.  I don’t know.  I’m just excited to have a break.  

Not much to see yet.  In the future I plan to use this space to irritate you with my constant, yet rarely documented ramblings.