Notes from the Road... volume 2

     So I left you there in BFE (ask for definition) Michigan in a rain storm, Tatiana and myself drinking car bombs and trying to keep dry.  God I love being on the road!  Well our next show was in Hell, Michigan. This was a big night for me you see.  I had to finally play the “Hell song”. Mike from the Damn site Inn didn’t seem too concerned whether or not I wrote the song but hey, a deal’s a deal. I wrote the song “Greetings from Hell” at the side of a lake in West Virginia.  (On a side note, if you’ve ever camped on the side of a lake in West Virginia, then you’ve been treated to the most bizarre cacophony of animals and god-knows-what-else that roams the area.  I could swear that at any time Bigfoot himself would tear through the side of the van and kill both of us).  Anyway, I was sort of under the gun for this song, so I tried to make it have all of the clichés that the town of Hell is known for; (cold as hell, hot as hell, etc).  I tried... but it sounded like crap .  A voice inside said, “Erik, just write the goddamn song!!!”  Well the rest is history.  We showed up in Hell the second time and camped at the Hell’s Creek Ranch, which is basically a big field with a shower.  It was then that I saw the sign for canoeing.  As luck would have it, canoeing was only available on the weekends, with reservations etc.  However, the canoe bug was firmly stuck in my head.  Damn it!  We were going to canoe if it was the last thing we did.  So we did.  I can’t remember the name of the place we got our canoes from but two things were certain:  you could rent a canoe, and you could buy model trains.  As a matter of fact you could canoe and buy a shitload of model trains.  There’s one thing I noticed about model train store owners.  It takes a long-ass time for them to put a canoe in the water!  There was a group in front of us who required 4-5canoes and we waited for oh… and hour and a half or so for the old man to put the damn things in the water.  I would have launched them myself but dadgum it, he could do it by himself! (Erik’s note:  Ironically enough, dangerously old people, the people with the least amount of time left here, take their sweet ass time doing everything.  You’d think there might be a bit of hustle in there to save time to tie up some loose ends before swimming towards that light).   But once we finally got into the water it was awesome.  It’s been a while since I’ve been in a canoe and not 5 minutes up the river we had seen all kinds of turtles, frogs, and one big-ass Great Blue Heron.  Awesome!
    Well that night in Hell was great (a lot cooler than you'd imagine).  We had a pretty great crowd for that size town and managed to record the “Greetings from Hell song” without a hitch.  You can actually hear the owner Mike yelling at someone during the song, “Bones, SHUT UP!!!  Listen carefully.  But damn it, what a great night!
     The next night was close to Hell at a place in Pinckney Michigan.  I and the other five people there had a great time.  Just kidding.  No one was there except for a handful of ex-Hellots, me, and the loudest goddamn blender on earth.  I tried to take some songs from that night for the CD, but right in the middle of every song came this blender, “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH…”  Me, “That thing got a Hemi?”
     So onward we go, norther and norther (Yes I can make up my own words) to Owosso Michigan.  Of course thanks to Lefty’s Steakhouse for having me there twice.  The live CD is made up of the Hell performances and the Owosso performances because the crowd… well because the equipment worked for once.  I had a couple of awesome nights of fun up there, with my grand finale being the arrival of the police (summoned by some fat guy in a red shirt  <--).  Yes! I’m not sure who, but apparently someone was in Lefty’s singing some obscene something or other.  I couldn’t believe it.  I just hope whoever it was got what was coming.  All I’m going to say is (and I don’t mean to be vulgar…), lighten the up Francis.   Thanks to an awesome complaint letter to the local paper in Owosso,  I think I have all the advertisement I’ll ever need to go back there… “Lock up the kids!  That asshole is coming back!”  Hmmmm, I think I may write a complaint to the paper before I come back…   Thanks Lefty’s!
     Well that was the last official night of the tour.  Next stop was Moab Utah for some epic mountain biking before we got back to Maui.  I never really spent anytime in the desert (outside of the Marines) and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, and how bad of shape I’m in.  We rode the slick rock trails of Moab in the morning and moved up the road to Arches National Park that afternoon (why aren’t there any American people in any national park?  Come on people, take a look around once in a while).  God that place is beautiful. Just when you thought you’ve seen it all stands a 200 foot rock penis.  Well not much else to compare it to.
    The next day we had to make our way to Los Angeles and officially end of the road trip.  However the air conditioner shit itself right in the middle of the desert in typical Erik style.  Soooo, we cruised through Las Vegas right at 4:00 in the afternoon and got stuck in traffic.   Need an excuse to go to Tommy Rocker’s?  Well we had one.  We stopped in for a beer on the off chance that Tommy would be there. As I got out of the van I said to Tatiana, “How funny would it be if the Parrotheads were having their meeting today?”  Well sure as shit, they were having their meeting and Tommy was in the house.  One thing led to another and next thing you know I’m on stage for an hour and a half by myself, and then Tommy comes up to do an impromptu duet.  Damn how things a happen!  (On a side note:  This is the night they were planning the last man standing party for the 15th of October.  I met with all of the Las Vegas Parrothead club honchos who assured me that this time I would definitely be on the bill for the show, as my name has been left off for the last two years.   Well it’s now almost October 1st.  I’m not on the bill again and won’t be.  But you know what?  I have the same happy hour slot on the inside stage from 4-6 again and I’m smiling because of you all who are reading this.   I’ll once again have a kick-ass crowd of Whaleshark fans singing all the words, and getting down and dirty the way we all love it!  Shit, I can’t wait!  Plus It’s the release of the new CD- Live from Hell).  You know, I don’t really like Vegas that much but Tommy always makes it feel like home for me.
    We left Vegas late that night with Tatiana driving as usual.  I had to be on a plane the next morning in Los Angeles at about 8:30 Am.  We planned to camp at the KOA in LA but discovered that the camping fee was about $40 for the night.  $40.  A shower and 6 hours of sleep is not worth $40 to me so we cracked the code to the showers, had a brilliantly high-pressured hot shower (on the house) and continued to the airport.  Now, living on the road is just that.  There’s a fine line between road-trip, and home-less.  Luckily for me the $765.07 I pay a month for that van assures us we’re just road trippin’ and not dumpster divin’.  So we “parked” in the long term parking at LAX and had us a great (not really) night of sleep.  Well, I left…on a jet plane… don’t know when I’ll be back again… You know the rest, and that my friends, is the end.