DEAD CITIES

I’m sitting in a small café in Mostar, It’s part of small complex of buildings along with a bar, a theater and a live music venue. Surrounding it all sides are buildings that were bombed into rubble during the 90s. It’s a little oasis in the midst of a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Mostar has been a hotbed of religious and ethnic tension for more than 500 years and it got hit really fucking hard during the war. It makes the Detroit Ruins look like the Hollywood Hills. I wandered through several blocks of it. Old stone buildings shattered by bombs and tank fire. Carcasses of crumbling Tito era apartment buildings sprouting like broken teeth from the sidewalk. Bullet holes in the cracked concrete. Abandoned storefronts full of trash and empty beer cans. Trees growing out of the broken windows. Whole neighborhoods left to rot. Terrible shit went down here a scant few years ago. Unfathomable atrocities. Death and torture. Intolerance followed through to terrifying ends. It’s everything you could possibly imagine and worse.
A few blocks later and I was back among the cobblestone streets and Muslim-run restaurants. Historic mosques and Cathedrals surrounded by vast mountains that stretch as far the eye can see. There so much beauty and so much destruction here. The rebirth of the city seems to be in gear. It’s pretty exciting to see. The Balkans seem to be slowly crawling back. So far all my fears of corrupt police and crumbling infrastructure have been for naught. The trains run on time and we haven‘t had to bribe any crooked officials. We were supposed to play at a venue down the street from here, but we got stuck in traffic in Dubrovnik and missed the only available bus. It was bummer because this was the most highly promoted of all the Balkan gigs. We continue to kick ourselves over this.
I’ve gotten a second wind and I’m really enjoying myself again, but I’m eager to get home and start writing some new music. This has been an incredible tour but my mind is on home now. There’s only a few days left. I stayed up all night last night so that I would be sure to sleep on the 12 hour bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia which we’ll be taking in a few short hours. Dragan, who booked the Balkan leg of the tour has asked me to be less ironic on the blog, so I’m going to try to be less of an asshole and keep this entry on the positive tip.
We played at a small pub in Split, Croatia 3 nights ago. It had a large terrace that was enclosed by palm trees and other plant life that I am too ignorant to identify. There were several cats, a dog and 3 large peacocks roaming about in the yard and terrace. The owners are from Sydney and the inside of the bar is decorated to the hilt with various paraphernalia from Australia. We ate an incredible home cooked meal that was prepared by our more than gracious host, Jaika. Jaika had several pictures of herself hanging out backstage with The Stranglers (she gained some punk-cred points for that). She and her roommate Helinka were most kind. They helped us deal with a huge problem that I can’t discuss at this time*. It was way above and beyond the call of duty, and we are incredibly lucky to have met them.
The show was a lot of fun. There was a small appreciative crowd and I got some great feedback. A crusty old rocker kept offering me cocaine, despite the fact that I explained my complicated history with hard drugs to him several times. I think he just kept forgetting …cocaine ain‘t so good for the memory. We left the next day and took a train to Dubrovnik.
In Dubrovnik, we played at a place called the Orlando. It’s the only rock club in town and it’s fairly new. It was the first really punk rock venue of the tour. Micah remarked that it was comforting to play on a sticky stage again. There were a lot of metalheads there and I felt right at home, arguing the merits of old vs. nu metal. We ended up spending two days there due to the fact that we missed the bus to Mostar. One of the guys who worked there was a great cook. He rolled the largest joints I have ever seen and prepared a couple delicious meals for us. He told us a great story about giving his friend Mandrake root as a joke. Mandrake root apparently grows wild in in Dubrovnik and is a very potent naturally occurring psychedelic. His friend ended up tripping for days and he stole and crashed the car of some government official while he was high. He ended up having to flee and stay out of the country for a while…good stuff. The people there are young and the excitement is palpable. It was a good energy for my tired brain to absorb.
We went into the old city to check out the castle and cathedrals. The place was swarming with American tourists. We were among our own, for better or worse. It was incredibly beautiful in the old city. Mountains on one side and the Adriatic sea on the other. We stumbled over the cobblestones with all the other American clowns gawking at the old cathedrals and watching for pickpockets. Micah and I sang in the chapels. I felt like a tourist and I suppose that I am a tourist. The bus is leaving...onward to Belgrade.