VENTILATOR BLUES

It’s another day and another train, this one headed to Verona from Arrezo. I’m listening to Iggy and The Stooges’ “Raw Power“. Raw Power is in very short supply right now. Not even The Stooges can kick my back brain into gear. I’m tired and depressed. Just going through the motions...dragging myself around with all the grace of an aged mule awaiting a bullet. I’ve been trying to muster the energy to play well, but my hands are weak from carrying my heavy suitcase up and down the endless series of stairs and my voice is hoarse from too many cigarettes. It’s been ragged and sloppy. I am getting old. I’m not sure how much of this sort of activity I have left in me. My rapidly swinging moods have left me feeling spent and weary. I caught my reflection on the train yesterday and I didn’t recognize myself. My eyes were dull glassy slits surrounded by wrinkled flesh and oily stubble. It was the face of a middle aged man trying to keep up with teenagers, the picture of Dorian Gray in reverse. My legs are burning and my injured rib feels like a knife in my polluted lungs. I need a transfusion. I need an electric shock. I need some fire.
The show in Arrezo was actually in a small town outside of the city. Our promoter Alez informed us on the way to the gig that the venue was not ideal for our kind of music. It was not what I wanted to hear. After soundcheck I received a phone call from a friend with very bad news. I took the cordless phone into the bathroom and crouched in the corner with my head in my hands unable to muster anything reassuring. I was powerless. I spent the rest of the night consumed by panic and anxiety. I needed to talk to someone familiar and trustworthy, but I was cut off. No call shops and no internet were within reach. I was trapped in my brain and I couldn’t get out. During dinner (which was really good), I attempted to be genial to our hosts but I couldn’t stay focused on the conversation. The terrible words and images in my mind kept interfering. I finally gave up and left the table to type a letter.
The gig turned out OK after all. During Micah’s set, the audience was loud and only a few people watched. He reverted to social music mode and played mostly instrumentals, but ended with a stirring version of “In The Pines” sung with all the cold vitriol the song deserves. The place was nearly empty by the time I started. It didn’t bother me. I channeled all of it and attempted to turn in a powerful set despite my failing hands and voice. I played a tortured rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire” as a subliminal confession. Micah told me that it was my best set of the tour. I felt slightly better afterwards.
We stopped to do a fast internet check at a friend of the promoter’s house and it yielded more bad news. I wrote a quick note to Gillian, and we sped through the countryside to the apartment in Arezzo where we would be sleeping. The place was really quite old and beautiful, but there were a lot of stairs and they were narrow. My rib pulsated dull stabs of pain as I lugged my bloated suitcase up the endless stairs. Micah went to bed and I tried writing, but it wasn’t coming. I gave up, quickly viewed a truly idiotic pornographic video on my laptop and went to sleep feeling insulted.

When we arrived in Cesena the following day, things were looking up. The Lego Café was a small and fairly cozy venue. They had WiFi and there was a call shop nearby. Orion Rigel Dommisse had written me to say that she sensed trouble and was worried. She told me that she was staying with Gillian and David in Philly and told me to call. I found her number and walked to the nearby call shop. Orion is my ex-girlfriend. She is a talented musician and an incredible songwriter. She has an uncanny ability to comfort me and an equally uncanny ability to push my buttons and make me incredibly upset. I‘m still terribly in love with her, and she with me, but we know our limitations too well to get back together in an exclusive way. We talked. She did not push my buttons. It was good to hear her voice. We had a few laughs and I told her not to worry. We made plans to meet in Philly after the tour. Afterwards, I called Annapurna, my confidant and personal assistant. Annapurna is very dear friend, but she is howling mad and I worry about her a lot. She told me that she was going slightly crazy and that she had smashed her stereo with a hammer while drunk on homemade absinthe. I reassured her that I would be back in Providence soon and we could resume listening to The Fall and waxing misanthropic deep into the night. I felt a lot better as I walked back to the club. Though they torture me, the ladies always cheer me up. My needs are simple.
The show was very short. I was told to play a 20 minute set. The place was loud, but there was a small group of people in front who all bought CDs afterwards. Micah played loud, ferociously tearing through a medley of “New Orleans Bump” and “The Sheik of Araby” . The crowd went wild. He was on fire. It was one of his best sets of the tour. He played his most high energy material. It rocked.
We stayed at a very cozy bed and breakfast and got some much needed sleep. In the morning I washed three days of disgusting road filth off myself in a shower that was almost as big as the bedroom we stayed in. We went downstairs for a breakfast of…you guessed it! BREAD AND CHEESE (Europeans eat an awful lot of this stuff.). Then more fucking trains…more teenagers….more lugging….