Stir Crazy

Stir Crazy - October 22nd 2006

Its sunday. We're passing through Maryland. Been in the van since thursday about 11am pacific time when we left Oakland, driving all night that night, crashing with some friends in Springfield MO on Friday, and finding a single vacant Days Inn Suite at 4:30 am after stopping at every hotel we passed after crossing from Kentucky into West Virginia around 2. After giving a a couple minutes attention to the seemingly rough sex being had in the room next door, I passed out.

Its been a month since we played our last show. I'm hoping that we won't be too rusty when we take the stage tomorrow to open up for lostprophets. Whatever. It'll be good to get back up there no matter what. We're playing at the Webster Theater in Hartford CT. Last time we played there a gaggle of goth kids spray painted "emo sucks" on the back of The Format's trailer and we found the dressing room walls covered in such an overwhelming amount of sharpie-drawn cartoon falices that it crossed the line from lewd to hilarious. I just hope the backstage bathroom works this time.

Anyway, I'll admit to getting a bit stir crazy on the drive, and I'll admit that I've allowed insignificant things drag me down, but we've all found ways to get our own space in the van. Each of us has tagged an extra couple hours on each driving shift to shake off the boredom. Joey has declared that he is going to drive the entire day today. Oh, looks like we're in PA now.... Anyway I've spent most of my time staring out at the turning leaves, at the passing country that I've been sheltered from by the cover of California upbringing. Hills and valleys are bursting with reds, yellows, browns, and greens, that I never would have believed to be so vivid.... though out on the east coast more and more trees are leafless, limbs zig-zagging naked in all directions, creating my most favorite sillouette.

At night I switch on my headlamp and page relentlessly through a book which really speeds up the passing of time.. I was towards the end of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being when we began and just finished a long overdue rereading of Huck Finn, which made our crossing of the Mississippi all the more exciting. Both of these books really reminded me of the reality of what we're doing. Its in the adventure that the most happiness can be achieved. The goal we put in front of ourselves is an abstract thing that we perpetually hang just out of reach. Its the moments where we're on stage doing what we love, or where we're in some backwoods roadside diner and I'm laughing my lungs out over my third cup of coffee, its those moments where we pull up to hotel after hotel in the middle of the night only to be turned away, when we're deciphering what sort of activity was going with those anonymous lovers in the room next to us.... It's these moments that are actually part of our reality and all those plans and all those regrets don't exist, they just guide our way. So why be angry about the past? Why fret about the future? I guess I'll keep asking these questions while the actual moments of existance fly by me.....

oh, its my turn to drive.

bye for now,

dave