Been there*

*for Jackie

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Portland, OR

Following a weekend in the Twin Cities for a chum's wedding, I made my way to Portland to stay with my most famous friend, Sean McGrath. The inspiration for the trip was the opportunity to see the rare thing that is a North American Nick Cave show at the Crystal Ballroom. So I dropped a chunk of change on a plane ticket (it was a good thing I was able to consolidate the two trips...) and the ticket at face value that Tony Tonucci and J-Bone picked up the instant they went on sale (yeah, I still owe you the $35, Mark).

Now I'm poorer.

But I digress. I flew in Sunday, hung out with my boy, went to a play, inadvertently squirted clumpy hot sauce in Antigone's eye as a result of my untold strength, and fell asleep.

Monday, I got pumped. I ate lunch with some of the Austin boys at Greek Cusina, spent entirely too much money at Powell's, drank at $5 pitchers at Rocco's, supped with Sean and friend, and then embarked on a mission to the Crystal Ballroom. As we neared the venue, my excitement was almost causing nausea*. We met up with Noocher and Steenburgen (Sean getting to use the ticket that a certain clamato lover didn't deem worthy of putting off motorcycle repairs to be able to afford a plane ticket to Oregon for) at the bar near the club, where I claimed my ticket, and we all headed off through the labyrinth to get into the club.

*This nausea was probably complicated by the worrisome chance that we were possibly going to be able to get our way backstage as a result of the opening act (Ghost Writer) having been from Austin and knowing one of the other gents we were with. Honestly, much like Mark's younger brother having run into Tom Waits on the beach in Hawaii and electing not to speak a word to him, I, too, feared the worst: that we'd get backstage and Nick Cave would say something that would destroy me. Alas, much to my relief/disappointment, the opportunity did not present itself...

When we stepped into the ballroom, it quickly became evident that despite the fairly impressive surface appearance of the club's interior, the floor was going to collapse and we were all going to die. At least we weren't going to die seeing Great White in Providence. The impending death was an easy one to reconcile.

While the volume levels were more than appropriate during the Ghost Writer set, it took two songs of blaringly unintelligible instrumentation for it to become clear that the Nick Cave set was going to shatter ear drums. Now, I've heard others say that the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds shows they saw were also very loud, but this was borderline obscene. For the opener, "Night of the Lotus Eaters", all that was discernible was vocals and then racket. By the third song, everyone's sense of hearing had been so thoroughly defeated that some instruments were able to bear themselves out and emerge from the sludge.

Now sound issues notwithstanding, the show was outstanding. The tracks off the new album played great, and since the nature of the album is so much more of a rocker, I'd have to say I'm glad I saw them first on this tour, where Nick's presence came out in full force at the mic. Particularly affective were "We Call Upon the Author" and "Today's Lesson", which stuck out as being (at the very least) slightly more intelligible than some of their couterparts. Just as importantly, they played many of the classics that I desperately wanted to hear. "Deanna" fucking rocked. "The Weeping Song" played just as well as it does on Live Seeds, which is saying quite a lot. Nick Cave belted out "Red Right Hand" to the delight of his followers, while Mick, Warren, and Co. firmly had his back. And when I was sure during the fourth song into the encore that I'd miss out on some "Stagger Lee" action, Nick busted out his cocksure strut, put on his best badass front, and killed each and every person in the crowd, showing he was just as bad a motherfucker as Stag could ever be.

Even with the shoddy sound, Cave's stage presence more than made up for the fact that I thought my ear drums were actually going to explode during the third song of the encore, which I can't even remember the name of because I'm now brain damaged. Regardless, the show was great in spite of the sound.

As for what happened afterward, it's probably not a good idea to relate what else happened while in PDX. There was a travel scare, as Mark and Jeremy coincidentally ended up in line behind me at the security checkpoint only to have one of them get stopped for something (non-narcotic) being in their bag by accident that was a felony pre-9/11. Luckily, they were let through (hell, they'd gotten through the Austin airport without a flag being raised leading me to believe that the ABIA security is the most lax in the world) without said item and boarded their plane with about twelve seconds to spare.

I had my own travel snafu, as minutes before my plane landed in Austin at 10:28 pm, the power in the main terminal went out, and our plane, which was the first to land after the outage, sat on the tarmac for--no shit--over an hour and a half, while they restored power to our wing. Of course, every other plane that landed after us was able to go to their gates and deplane (deboard? Des Plaines?), but if there's one thing that my experiences at ABIA have taught me it is that I do not matter to them at all.

Tom Waits - Dallas

Forget what I just said, I guess. There have been far too many Tom Waits related hits of late to not keep on truckin'.

So, Andrew was my travel companion this time around (no rental car was needed), and we made it to the road by about 2:30. After a short detour to the Czech Stop in West for real kolaches, we rolled into Dallas with about an hour and a half to spare. We found street parking near the Palladium--our spot happening to be right in front of a bar where we drank until about 15 till show time. When that time came, we mobilized, made it to the door, grabbed two beers a piece at one of the side bars, cut in front of a good chunk of the crowd masquerading as friend-searchers, handed a beer to each of the guys we'd be standing in front of, and prepared ourselves.

The wait for Waits was about 30 seconds, and we immediately found ourselves in the middle of the "Lucinda"/"Way Down in the Hole" two-song kick start I'd grown accustomed to over the past few days. After taking "Anywhere I Lay My Head" out for a walk and following it up with a little "November" and megaphone enhanced "Chocolate Jesus" action, he busted out the first shocker: "Frank's Wild Years", which at one point was my ring-tone until I realized that I was missing just about every received call. It was so fucking unexpected I nearly shat myself from glee. Obviously, it was great.

Maintaining the oldie-but-goodie momentum, the crowd was taken to a small island of the Malay Peninsula that some like to call "Singapore", and while no one was actually caned, Tom Waits did kick all of our asses just a little bit. After the tour standards "Hoist that Rag" (which was performed the best in Dallas of the three Texas shows) and Mississippi Delta hole-in-the-wall vibed "Get Behind the Mule", he played the pair of Eyeball Kid related songs, "Such a Scream" and "Eyeball Kid", which was probably the high point of the entire Texas leg of the tour for my money.

Following that, he made his way to the piano for piano set standard "Lucky Day" with special treat "Invitation to the Blues" coming right on its heels. Then he swung around to the reed organ for "Lost in the Harbor" after which I assumed he'd make his way back to center stage--as he had in El Paso--only to be surprised with "Innocent When You Dream". I suppose here would be the time to point out that of the crowds I saw Tom Waits with (my personal company excluded), the Dallas crowd was the best. Maybe it was the communal heat stroke that was going on in the Palladium, as it was hot as fuck in there, but the crowd was much more into participating in the show, not just sitting there. I guess that's probably caused by the assigned seating versus general admission nature of the shows, but unlike in Houston, Tom Waits didn't have to ask the crowd to sing louder on "Innocent When You Dream" in Dallas.

Hopping back onto his circle of sawdust, he broke into "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six", which I kind of hope he didn't play in Houston just to spite the retard who kept yelling, "16 Shells!" after every song had already started. It was pretty fucking primal, honestly. He then built on that energy with "Lie to Me", which has quickly made its way to the top of my favorite Waits songs after seeing it on this tour. Then, again hopefully to spurn Houston, he dropped in "Fannin Street". He kicked it back up a notch with an new version of "Black Market Baby", which plays just as well as it does on the album, if not better, and then closed the regular set with "Misery is the River of the World".

As he came out (quickly again) for the encore, I was sure that he'd crank out "Goin' Out West". No dice. First, he made it rain, which was tight once again, then he treated us to the blues jam "Jesus Gonna Be Here" (which the more I think about sounds kind of like what Sam Beam has done with a lot of the reworked Iron & Wine material when they're playing live). Expecting him to be done after that, he shocked me by going into "9th and Hennepin", which was fucking stellar and was exactly what I wanted to hear (as I kind of doubted he'd be busting out "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" again on the tour, and I like to get my Minneapolis fix anyway I can), and then he sent us home with the classic "Time".

Honestly, without any hesitation whatsoever, this was the best of the three shows I saw. I thought the set list was the best. The crowd was the best. The sound was the best. The band was the best. It was a great fucking show, and it made me wish I was going along on the rest of the tour.

As Andrew and I made our way back to Austin, we stopped at Jack in the Box in Hillsboro and then again in Waco. Bad move. Andrew didn't shit for a day. I, on the other hand, did. More than I'd have liked. That's saying something. I also decided that I was just going to need to make myself throw up at about 7:30 am if I was going to get any kind of decent sleep.

Maybe it's time for me to swear off fast food altogether. I've done it before. I can do it again.

Tom Waits - Houston

When I got home Saturday night, my cell was finally back in able-to-check-messages range, and I was treated to a message stating that the guy who'd called to see if I had an extra ticket a couple of weeks ago had gotten dicked over at work and was needing to work through Sunday to finish a product. Great...

I asked my roommate if he wanted to go. Too much to do on Sunday. Made a call to a Spaniard. Maybe. Called the inimitable John Pike. Sure. Why the hell not? Once the Spaniard had deemed himself too Spanish, it was John Pike to the rescue. So--after a ridiculous wake up from friends and an unwanted detour to Spider House--we rented a car and headed off to Houston. Not wanting to deal with some retarded traffic jam on I-35, I took to the city streets of East Austin, which led me to FM-969, which I left for a road which was to take me Elgin and presumably US-290 only I somehow managed to miss US-290 and found myself in Taylor, from where I knew how to get to US-290. I didn't have to get out and ask for directions, though...

After the detour, we were really off to Houston and arrived with plenty of time to spare, having only stopped off for what turned out to not be "the best kolaches in Texas", despite what the sign said on the highway. We found Jones Hall, parked a block away, and moseyed on down to the first of two cookie-cutter Irish pubs on the 500-block of Main Street. Neither were particularly impressive and won't even get a shout-out by name. After wasting our hard-earned money on Houston-priced beers and substandard food and making a phone call to Jackie on her birthday, we made way to the venue, bought oil-stain shirts, and headed to our seats (which were much farther away from the stage than our El Paso tickets).

As the show started, it was quickly clear that it was not going to be loud enough. Maybe the lack of clarity and volume was related to the fact that we were sitting in fucking Galveston, or maybe it was because we were under the balcony, but the sound definitely wasn't loud enough and certain vocal flares were not as pronounced. That being said, he started out with "Lucinda" and "Way Down in the Hole" again, and once again they really got the show kickstarted. The next three songs, "Falling Down", "November", and "Dead and Lovely" were all great and started to set the tone that would permeate the show. This was going to be more of a balladeer set--well, at least as close to a balladeer set as Tom Waits can get.

After another raucous rendition of "Lie to Me", Tom jumped on guitar and played "The Day After Tomorrow", which was particularly affective. He then kicked the shit out of "Hoist that Rag" again, with the first breakdown sounding more together than it did in El Paso, but that may have just been the result of not being able to actually hear it from where we were sitting. Three great songs passed ("Get Behind the Mule", which couples very well with "Hoist that Rag", "Cemetary Polka", and "Trampled Rose"), and Tom went to his radically reimagined "Jesus Gonna Be Here".

After the dirty blues bar jam of "Jesus Gonna Be Here", Tom made his way to the piano and belted out "Lucky Day", "Tom Traubert's Blues", "House Where Nobody Lives", and "Innocent When You Dream", which made for a helluva piano set when coupled with his piano banter and the mandated sing-along with "Innocent When You Dream".

Taking his place back atop his sawdust-laden personal stage, Tom broke into "Make It Rain", which he followed up with a version of "Murder in the Red Barn" that took me until the chorus to place (no, he didn't kick the song off with the lyrics from the album). Following "Murder in the Red Barn", we were all treated to "Come on up to the House", then "Dirt in the Ground" (fucking amazing once again), and finally a completely rearranged "Eyeball Kid", which closed off the set with style.

Coming back on stage to rabid applause (and much faster than he did in El Paso), he quickly made his way through the sublime romp of "Goin' Out West" and closed it off with the unexpected "All the World is Green".

Surprisingly absent was "Fannin Street", which made the cut in both El Paso and Dallas but not in the town it's about. I guess Tom Waits does whatever Tom Waits wants to do.

All in all, I'd have to say the El Paso show stands out as being slightly better, which may very well be the result of my proximity to the stage at each show (or the jackass singing off-key but emulating Tom's vocals in my ear behind me, or maybe the incomprehensible frequency of dickheads in the rows around us getting up to go wherever it was they needed to go only to come back 30 seconds later), but I think the El Paso set was more to my liking than the Houston set. Was it better than Dallas, though? You'll find that out soon...

After the show, we made our way out of Houston and sped on home, managing to leave just about every toilet from Austin to Houston on US-290 and back to Austin on TX-71 virtually unscathed--which was a let-down of sorts for all you readers out there, I suppose.

Tom Waits - El Paso

I'm of the school of thought that more so than most other events in one's life, the concert goer's experience is formed by what leads up to the show, the contents of the show, and whatever happens after the show. Keeping that in mind, this is going to be a long fucking post.

Brace yourself.

When the tickets for the Glitter and Doom Tour went on sale, I was on top of things and got pairs of tickets for each show without definite takers for any of the extra tickets except for the El Paso show at the Plaza Theater set for June 20th. That taker was one John Michael Pike. Along with Pike, we had six others heading out to El Paso--two carloads--our car being driven by Mark with his old lady sitting shotgun.

After running Pike errands that led us to a Juneteenth parade with black cowboys on horseback riding through the middle of Austin, we hit the road on Thursday with a planned stopping point of the Holland Hotel in the Alpine. As we approached Johnson City, Pike decided that he was going to let us choose what he was to slam at every gas station we stopped at along the way. We chose the Budweiser/Bud Light Clamato Chelada. I was lucky enough to get to drink any tall boy I wanted. By the time we arrived in Alpine, Pike had ingested 96 ounces of that shit, having stopped in Johnson City, Ozona, Bakersfield (where we were hoping to catch a glimpse of a previous mirage of a beautiful girl working in a gas station about 50 miles from nowhere), and Fort Stockton along the way. Despite all the stops--many including adventurous shits throughout West Texas--we made pretty good time to Alpine and coincidentally got in at the very same time the Steen & Co. car was pulling into town.

We all checked into the hotel (Harley and John 2 into the Sunday House Inn famously possessing Texas-sized rooms and adorned with an autographed picture of Thomas Haden Church as Lowell in the lobby), defecated (some of us multiple times, and Pike's being especially rancid as the amount of the semi-toxic clamato he'd put in his body caused him to emit horrifying odors in myriad ways), and dawdled. After wasting a proper amount of time, we headed down to the Buffalo Rose, receiving surprisingly good fare all the way around, and then made the rounds to various Alpine Bars on a refreshingly cool desert night, spending a large chunk of time at the Railroad Blues Bar, where Pike was fortunate enough to find another Clamato Bud Light (light to maintain his figure, of course), upping his amount imbibed to an even 120 ounces on the day. Impressive? Yes. Would I advise anyone to ever attempt such a feat knowing what I know about the endgame? Never.

Upon returning to the Holland, Jeremy and Pike shared some special moments (and some delightfully lewd ones), some of which were forever captured on film for posterity's sake by Miss Shelley. More drinks were consumed. People were happy.

When we woke up, we discovered that the amazing breakfasts that were included in our last trip to the Holland were only on weekends, so we chowed on our continental breakfasts and headed to Marfa, where we proud defecators made sure to leave our mark wherever we could. Pike and I washed down our Pizza Foundation grub with tall boys, and before you could say "I shat" we were heading towards El Paso (some of us going a more direct route than others) and a date with Waits.

We rolled into El Paso, dropped Pike off at the border, and headed off to find a hotel. Luckily, El Paso is rife with Gentlemens' Hotels and we found one befitting the reason we were in El Paso in the form of the Gateway Hotel. It was dirt cheap and centrally located, mere blocks from the Plaza. As Mark, Megan, and I walked around stomachs a-growlin', we attempted to get in contact with the second car (who, it turned out, were a few miles out after having been pulled over twice by those always diligent West Texas Peace Officers), so that we could eat. Once they pulled up behind us, we (sans Pike, who was presumably up to no good in Juarez) headed to Kiki's, where we had great dishes including the Machaca and Rosa's Mole. The food was so good, in fact, that the other crew returned the next day for lunch.

After Kiki's, we headed back downtown to the Plaza, where we began the process of entering the theater, looking around, breaking in the toilets, etc. By 8:00 pm, we were in our seats awaiting what we assumed was going to be greatness.

We were not disappointed.

As Tom Waits walked onto the set (which looked pretty much the same as it did in Phoenix), the crowd went crazy, and Mr. Waits promptly busted into a most stomping-up-the-sawdust rendition of "Lucinda", riling the crowd up. As he rolled through early numbers "Way Down In the Hole", "Falling Down", "Chocolate Jesus" (megaphone and all), and "Singapore", it was clear to all that this man and his band were really at the top of their game. Honestly, aside from the first breakdown in "Hoist that Rag" not seeming entirely together (the second breakdown was fucking amazing, though, with great sax/guitar interplay between Vincent Henry and Omar Torrez) and the occasional lead guitar part seeming slightly off effects-wise, there wasn't a weak point in the show.

"Hoist that Rag" absolutely brought the house down. His monologue between songs while seated at the piano was especially engaging, having chosen to regale the audience with animal kingdom factoids and shrimp-jokes. The combination of "Lie to Me" (in which his yowl is at rabid peak to start) and "Goin' Out West" (where he really plays up the "I look good without a shirt" line) could have ended the show without encore and everyone probably would have clapped and hollered till their hands bled and their throats exploded. He started a rearranged "Jesus Gonna Be Here" a capella, and it absolutely captivated the audience until the instruments came in surprising everyone with a much more relaxed, lounge-y feel than I think most were expecting.

For the encore, his aping on "Make It Rain" was perhaps the peak of his theatrical touches in the show, and "Dirt in the Ground" (lowered considerably) made for an optimal closer.

As we left the theater sated, everyone looked at me with jealousy in the eyes and hearts, wishing that they, too, were seeing him again in Houston and Dallas.

Following the show, we headed to a terrible bar called "The Black Market" or something to that effect, which was not any place any of us wanted to be (Mark appropriately deemed the experience at The Black Market the reverse of the afternoon that we went to Pirates 2 (shit heap) and then had to watch The Thing to make everything better). We quickly made our exit, informing those who'd not yet returned from a pick-up that we'd not be staying there, and headed to an underground punk show. We left that after realizing that there was very little alcohol and no way for most of us to pay for it as we'd run out of cash the day before (but not before Jeremy discovered a secret room of dick paintings) and made our way toward the hotel and The Tap. The Tap was much more our kind of bar, and we stayed there till they kicked us out, headed to an alcohol-less party with a stroller in the hallway and baby stuff throughout the apartment, promptly left (but not before Pike informed them that he'd be back at 6:00 am to steal the baby), and returned to the Gateway with a small party that ended pretty much when the alcohol ran out, but not before a former co-worker who has since moved to Las Cruces and we ran into at the concert called needing a place to crash, meaning I got to sleep with Pike.

Don't worry, Jackie, nothing happened. Well, I did wake up in the middle of my four hour slumber to ask Pike, "How much did you bribe the Priest?" After gathering his druthers, he replied that he'd paid the Priest $100 and that the Priest had baptized the baby.

The next morning the members of the Tonucci party and our Las Cruces add-on headed to La Malinche*, where Pike could not get bread to save his life, but the rest of us received everything we wanted. We then parted ways with the New Mexican, packed up our things, and headed out of town.

We left El Paso at about 1:00 pm MDT. We arrived back in Austin at about 2:00 pm CDT. In between, Pike ate a pancake sandwich at the Sands in Van Horn, which somehow managed to usurp the place that his chilaquiles had occupied and blocked up everything that came after it for a good five hours; we hung out in the parking lot of an Ozona Town & Country for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour, scratching off lottery tickets, eating Godfather's Pizza**, destroying the men's room, and furtively slamming the latest in our series of tall boy buys (I actually went in and bought a second, since we had been there for so long); and Mark managed to avoid all deer that got near us, including the one that jumped in front of the car. It was pretty much the lollygaggingest return trip from El Paso you could imagine, but there was no rush, and there was enough conversation about bowel movements (especially regarding my recent ass illness) to keep things light.

We did return to that gas station at the Bakersfield exit, but it had closed fifteen minutes earlier, so no clear determination as to whether or not the beautiful gas station employee--who Pike had straight dibs on, and Mark's old lady had lesbian dibs on--A) still worked there, or B) existed at all.

*As we were choosing to eat at La Malinche, Pike told us the story of La Malinche and expressed his admiration of the naming of the restaurant. While I'm not sure why they'd named it that, it is pretty awesome.

**I was especially pleased to find a Godfather's (albeit one in a gas station) in Ozona. When my siblings and I were but mere children in Cedar Falls, IA, we were treated to Godfather's almost every Friday night as our one night of eating out a week. Later, when we lived in Kansas, we would go after church. It has long since become nearly extinct, with only a handful of Godfather's still in existence, to my knowledge. I can only think of two that I have seen in the past ten years. One was in Moundsview. The other is in Ozona about 1500 miles away. I was truly shocked to find it.

Travel Update

Tomorrow morning we head out for Tom Waits in El Paso, stopping in the Alpine/Marfa area on the way.

Buffalo Rose, here I come.

If you haven't heard from me in the next week or so, assume the Juarez Cartel got me. If so, hopefully I went out in a blaze of glory.

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A gem from Posnanski on Michael vs. Kobe.

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Interleague play sure seems to be treating the Royals well. If only they'd made the switch when they had the chance...

Travels with Charley

So my left ear is fucked. It hasn't popped since we were flying into St. Louis on Friday. It is not fun.

You want to know what else isn't fun? Travelling. Especially flying American.

Friday, the old lady and I got to the airport at 8:15 for our 9:50 flight. By 9:30, we had boarded and were awaiting the go ahead from O'Hare clearing us for a landing around noon. Well, that didn't happen, and we were told that we could get off the plane for about fifteen minutes but that we had to be back to take off shortly. So we grabbed a quick snack, got back into out spacious seats, and soon the plane was taxi-ing (?) to the runway. The plane picked up speed, preparing to finally take off, and then we were jarringly torn from the grips of a flight to be brought back to the gate as a result of a 'stall warning light' coming on as the plane accelerated. The pilot explained that a maintenance man would board, fix the problem, and then we'd be off. The problem was fixed, we left the gate, and prepared for take-off. And then we flew to Chicago.

Oh, wait. No we didn't. That's right; the same fucking things happened a second time, and we got to go back to the gate and have maintenance board again to not fix the problem and they put in a call to Tulsa (always a bad sign when Oklahoma's getting a phone call) and they cancelled our flight, letting us de-board at about 2:30. Yes, 2:30. 9:30 to 2:30 on the same fucking plane, and we moved two gates down. And when we got off the plane there was one whole person to take care of the entire plane of pissed off customers. So we called some phone number, and they rebooked us to fly in to Milwaukee through St. Louis, but not without a wait at the Austin Airport. So just a few miles from our home, we got to spend nine hours in an airport, waiting for flights that would have us conveniently arriving at our final destination at 11:15 pm instead of about 2:00 pm.

American Airlines cancelled four flights to Chicago from Austin Friday. Two due to weather, the other two the result of mechanical errors. The big question for me is how can this joke of an airline still be in business? Riddle me that.

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And how the fuck can any respectable airport stop serving food at, like, 8:00 pm? There was like one prepared food option when we got in at 7:45 on our concourse in St. Louis, and the bar had already had last call. What the fuck is up with that?

It really make me question their spirit.

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The wedding was nice, and seeing friends was cool, too. Congratulations Andy and Jenny.

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Congratulations are also in order for my fantasy baseball teams, as both of my head-to-head teams maintained the first-place status in the standings. I lost in my keeper league but closed to a respectable 7-5 loss from a 9-3 deficit on midday Saturday.

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The Royals completed a two-game sweep of the Indians to follow their disappointing visit to Arlington. Gil Meche finally pitched well. Hochevar did as well. Soria has still yet to give up an earned run this season. He's been absolutely dominant, allowing four baserunners all season. Phenomenal.

So far, of particular worry are the performances of Guillen and the Royals' one-dimensional shortstops. Now, I know as well as anyone that Guillen is very hot/cold. I have had him as a fantasy owner when he was cold, and I've been scorched by him when he was hot, and the streaks can last a long time. Let's hope the hot streak starts soon. As for the shortstops, I really wish there were a way to get Callaspo's bat in the lineup more regularly because TPJ has been putrid at the plate. Rany just noted that TPJ's OPS+ just got into the positive at +1. Abysmal.

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Scrumptious Chef sent me an email with this link and advice to avoid drinking in the northwoods.

Now, this smiley face killer story seems to have legs to me. Obviously, the gang theory takes this to a whole new level of conspiracy theory that I'm hesitant to jump on board with, but these detectives are closer to the facts than any of us are. I don't think you come up with a theory that complex without an abundance of clues leading you there.

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In the past week, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova were on Fresh Air.

Nick Cave was on, too. Also, Nick Cave tickets across the country went on sale on Friday. Tour dates here. I already have a ticket for the Portland date. Guess it means I get to hang out with Seany.

And Tom Waits is announcing tour dates for his upcoming Glitter and Doom Tour at 6:00 am.

Bruuuuuuuuuuce

If I were to start this tale at the beginning of the day, this would be a long entry. One far too long for my energy level at this moment, so I'll save Sunday morning for another time...

After getting off work at 10:15 am when my roommate/relief got there, I called Chad to tell him I was off, grabbed coffees at Little City, changed, and waited for Mark to be somewhat ready. As tends to happen when a road trip of any sort is being undertaken, Mark was not ready. This being at least the third time the three of us have gone galavanting across the Great State of Texas we were more or less expecting it and were not really bothered by it, nor were we in any particular rush.

For the greater part of the ride towards Waco, we sat trying to guess what the next song would be on the "Hair Nation" (inspired largely by the fact that I'd just begun my detour from McCullough's John Adams that morning and was quickly becoming enamored with Klosterman's Fargo Rock City) and "Movin' EZ" stations on Chad's Sirius Radio, starting with Hair Nation, going to Movin' EZ, then switching back to Hair Nation when it was determined that Movin' EZ tendencies to play more Streisand and Warwick than Bread and Hall & Oates was going to make us gay. In case you were wondering, no, they did not play Minnie Riperton's "Loving You", which was quite the disappointment.

Despite Chad's primal urge to gorge himself on Flying J fare, he was more than willing to forgo a meal there in favor of buying half of Mark's $6 way in to the Dr. Pepper Museum in order to take a gander at the scariest thing ever:

Animatronic Doc Alderton, complete with moving eyes. After being scared sufficiently shitless, Mark met us back at the soda fountain, where Chad and I were trying not to be lewd, which requires herculean effort on even our best days. In no more than ten minutes, we'd shown Mark what he needed to see, grabbed Dr. Pepper soda-fountain-style, and got back on the road.

Our next stop was a brief one in Hillsboro, where we couldn't help but feel bad for the gay young Black man working the counter at Taco Bell, as Hillsboro did not strike us as a town that would be especially open to that. I made sure to be especially nice to him, as I'd imagine most people who come up to the counter at a Taco Bell in Hillsboro, Texas, just look on in shock, afraid that they're going to catch the gay. But I could be wrong. Probably not, though. At any rate, we determined that he'd more than likely end up in Austin within the year.

Back in the car (and following my realization that as a child I had really gay taste in music*, which probably means something), we resumed out retarded guessing game and put in calls to find out the following two things: 1.) Was Lou Gramm the lead singer of Night Ranger or Foreigner (the latter)? and 2.) Who was the non-Paul Carrack singer in Mike + the Mechanics** (Paul Young)? I split on those, so pride was won and then promptly lost, leaving me empty inside, right where I started...

* This was set off when I reasserted my belief that Okkervil River sounds like Counting Crows, whose CDs were in my collection back in the 1990's but were sold at least eight years ago. I then proceeded to admit that I also owned Throwing Copper (I still kind of like "Lightning Crashes" although not nearly as much as I used to and I'd love to watch the episode of Strange Luck that it was featured in). I saved face when I could truthfully say that I hated Collective Soul and that Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid was unquestionably garbage and that Billy Corgan pretty soundly burned them back when Collective Soul tried to knock the Pumpkins. Ryan, if you're reading this, and remember the details, please post the story in the comments section.

** By the way, Rutherford does appear to have co-written almost all of their songs and wrote "The Living Years" with some dork named B.A. Robertson. Both of them had recently lost their fathers.

Eventually, we rolled into the American Airlines Center Platinum Parking Ramp with an hour to spare before we were required to have gotten our wristbands for some retarded lottery that they were going to have for the floor ticket holders for the evening's festivities. Wristbands firmly sealed, we set off to the Victory Tavern and Grille, which you can most definitely avoid, mostly so that Mark could take a dump before setting foot in an arena. Absolutely retarded pricing. I, too, made use of their facilities and believe I got my $28 worth out of that place in one way, at least. Mark said that it was the most expensive shit he'd ever taken and all he got was a bowl of soup and a beer.

Upon settling our bill (and getting the $10 I was almost shorted in change), we headed over to the Floor Ticketholders Retardo-Lottery where we lost and were stuck in the second section of the floor, but it took the Keystone Kops about 45 minutes to get the second flight of floor people, so we got to wait for a year or so before we got to go in.

Once set in our spots on the floor, we waited. While we waited, we wondered to ourselves why we didn't just get assigned seat, but in retrospect we didn't really know that we'd get dicked by some nonsensical lottery system or that we would've been able to see just fine from just about all the seats in the joint. But after suffering through an insanely long sound check and a howling group of fucktards from Vidor*, the Boss finally came on stage and unfurled this set. Anyone who's seen the Boss already knows what I'm about to say, but if you haven't, here you go. He's fucking amazing. He's so high-energy. He's coming up on 60 and could run circles around my lazy ass. And I truly believe he's one of about four artists (Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan) who have been around since the 1970's or longer and are still producing relevant music.

* For the first time, I was at a concert where I was largely impressed by the fans at the show. It really seems like the only people who were a problem were 20-somethings. In fact, all of the people around me who were more middle-aged were pretty awesome. They were really into everything but didn't let their enthusiasm turn them into annoying assholes. The same cannot be said for about half of the 20-somethings around me. Coming in at the top of my shit list was a guy in an Asbury Park three-quarter sleeve shirt with two trampy East Texas girls, all of whom were extremely fucked up. Unfortunately they were not so fucked up that the tone-deaf, rhythmless choad--who I'll refer to as Wayne from here on out--forgot the lyrics to all of his songs. Nope. Wayne sang out. Loudly. And off-key. And he clapped. A lot. Out of rhythm, like the drunk-ass white guy he was. And he really loved to shove his open hand up into the air, then clench his fist meekly, then lower his hand, wait 30 seconds and then repeat the whole process again. Slowly but surely, these assholes tried to wedge themselves in ahead of me, to which I did not budge, despite the whore-y attempt by Harlot #2 at grinding against me in what I can only assume was a brilliant attempt to use her feminine wiles to gain access to the slot in front of me. And were this a person who was not incredibly irritating for so many more reasons that I don't care to elaborate on I'd have probably allowed them past, but not here.

As far as the set was concerned, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" was probably the song I'd ideally have heard first, so to have him kick off with that was pretty great. The Magic songs really fit in well with the rest of the set (especially "Devil's Arcade" and "Last to Die") and are a testament to his consistency over the years. I loved hearing all but two tracks from Born to Run, an album I used to not be too crazy about (the prevalence of the horns bothered me) but have recently come around on. "Because the Night" was amazing. Clarence Clemons' solo in "Jungleland" was completely arresting and borderline shocking, since he's coming up on 67 years old. Hell, all of "Jungleland" was arresting. You kinda just stood there in awe. "Born to Run" was great, and the Born to Run trifecta to start the encore was golden. The weirdest/best moment had to be when Bruce brought Jon Bon Jovi on stage to sing "Glory Days" with them. And the closer, "American Land" is one helluva knockout punch.

As we walked out, there was no doubt in our minds that we'd spent roughly $100 well. The show was one of the best I've ever seen, if not the best.

In what would become arguably the worst spending of money (Victory does factor into the equation), we decided to hit the Jack in the Box drive-thru, and Mark and I fell asleep, leaving poor Chad to the road and his sleep-deprived depravity. Waking up in Austin an hour-and-a-half later, Dokken was on, and I couldn't believe I'd fallen asleep for so long. After dropping Mark off, we pulled up to my house with Bon Jovi's "Runaway" rattling out of the speakers, bringing the day in which I finally saw the guy whose "Tunnel of Love" became the first tape I ever owned to an appropriate end.

I hope there are many more times.