07/06/03

New York by Civic CX

So here I am, back in the Newark airport awaiting my flight to Austin for a few days off, the past couple of days have been allot of fun, so here is a brief nondescript 1 page essay entitled...

LEG ROOM IS FOR WUSSIES

Along time a go in a Ford Galaxy far far away there was leg room, so much that you needn't worry about cramping or claustrophobia or arachnophobia or mysotheliomaphobia, but that no longer exists, today we have The Honda Civic CX, roomy for midgets, lots of amenities like 4 tires and a hole in the dash, that makes for an great storage receptacle.

The good thing about the car is it gets 30 some odd miles to the gallon, unlike our tour van that generally gets about 2 gallons for the mile, I personally think it would be a good idea for anyone who makes it out to the shows to cough incessantly instead of clapping to persuade Ian to trade in our gas guzzling roomy land yacht for a van that doesn't require it's own petrochemical plant, besides it doesn't drive well, it's ugly, and it would be great to feel like i am being transferred to a different prison.

Back to the trip, we get into the city, drop off Ian at S-ine (you know the place where Jeff Buckley recorded a live album) head over to a Punjabi deli and snarf (definition= to eat quickly as to avoid meter nazis). and then to Brooklyn to chill. The next morning get up and eat quiche at a great little french place down the street, the best thing about NYC is the fact that everything is great and down the street, pick up Ian at 2:00 and head for Boston.. Meanwhile the other 20 million people in NY decide to get on the freeway headed the same direction, so we spent 3 hrs going about 50 miles, great fun in a Honda Civic CX that has all of our gear in it, we have allot of gear, not so much to make us picky rockstars but enough to make it tight in such a spacious vehicle. (2 guitars , pedalboard, drums, live chicken, ashtray, dog, well maybe not the dog). We ended up showing up right before we were supposed to be on, so we threw our stuff onstage and played our 40 minutes, that is an incredibly small number in comparison to the 6 and a half hours we spent getting there, but i guess it was the Hootie and the Blowfish/ Indigo girls cover band night and we were their openers, the best thing about the Hootie sound alike's was the singer who wore his sunglasses on his head the whole show, just a reminder, the sun went down along time before his set, maybe he was just so into being in a rock band that sounds identical to another rock band that sucks, he forgot. Immediately after his set he was leafing through pictures of himself brought to him from his photographer (sister in community college) in hopes to find one that captures the essence of his music (dog poo) and the only time he has the time to make the decision is right after his gig because the whole next day he will be working at the local water treatment plant. I am not usually such an ass regarding another band but while this guy was leafing through shots of his own mug he stood directly in the way of me trying to get our gear out, not budging for statements like "hey man can you get out of my way", oblivious fuzzy headed schmuck.

After the show we went to eat at a great Punjabi Deli over by Ian's cousin's place with Ian's cousin Chris, our friends Andrew and Chris, and of course Ian, myself, and Chris Searles, if you were keeping count that would be a total of 4 people named Chris, the funny thing is that my middle name is Ian, so that rules out the use of that as an alternative for my given name, so Ian brought up the idea of my initials C.I.D. pronounced Sid, meaning king in spanish, which I am feeling more like since I happen to have a direct flight home with a seat in the single digits, not meaning 1st class, but bulkhead, whenever i say the word bulkhead i think of pirates, "ahoy ya mangy scallywaggers get me a cannon to the bulkhead and blast them darn sea urchins, aarrgg". I wish my head was more like a hard drive so i could de fragment it so random shit wouldn't spill out.

We drove home after eating as to avoid the possibility of more hellish traffic, luckily there was none at 3am when we got back to Brooklyn. I spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out how to sequence block rockin beats on Chris' sequencer, then off to sleep to the roar of cars and people.

The next morning we piddled around, met up with Ian and went to a Punjabi deli and then to load into the club in Manhattan, sound checked and ran off to Battery park to see Ryan Adams get drunk and make some stupid comments, (that Ian would emulate later that night at our show), than back to the club for a very odd feeling show, but still palatteable. The Amazing Andrew and Chris showed up and chilled with us backstage, they rock harder than frozen tofu ice cream sandwiches (cookies and cream). Back into the beloved Civic CX and back into Brooklyn, to go to a famous Restaurant that I forgot the name of, but they had enormous desserts that were so huge they were silly, made for the sole reason of having people say "you can't eat all of that". We wandered back to the apt. and I putzed around on the sequencer again and fell asleep.

Ian met us around 2 or so and we went to a really spiffy restaurant that had all kinds of neat fixtures like a aluminum sink that, oh just look at the picture.

If you were from Texas and didn't know any better you would think that this was a urinal, you know the kind that they have in seedy Texas bars and rest stops, but it's not, oh well I peed in it for good luck anyway. Ate, then off to New Jersey to play a private party, where they had a Bon Jovi CD that spelled his name Bon Giovi, you gotta love that, some hard core fans that were probably present at the concert Triumph the Insult Dog attended. The Host of honor did end up playing on a cover of Wanted, Dead Or Alive after we played, so it was kind of like we opened for them, hey at least they don't sound like Hootie. We stayed at a Hyatt and took off back to brooklyn in the morning, ate some Thai food and ran to the Airport, Ian's flight was earlier than mine so Searles and I hung out in the airport wearing our orange robes and handing out flowers

C.D.