May 11 - Mastermdam, goo d job

Breakfast was an individually packaged danish and explosive yogurt.

The Bitter Tears landed at the Schiphol Airport in The Netherlands.

For this tour we are a quartet: Alan (guitar), Mike (bass), Reid (keyboards) and myself (drums).

We picked up the van in a suburb of Amsterdam.

It's a nicer van than the last one we had.

It's a Ford version of a Sprinter with only 46k kilometers, and mostly importantly, it has seat belts!

Mike drove to another suburb through the endless canals of Holland. We saw strange leafless, lifeless trees that looked like giant ginger roots. We saw windmills, cyclists, tiny bridges, cows, and sheep along the one and a half laned biways. Eventually we were in an industrial park and picked up our gear from Gijs, a well-humored Dutchman. His name is pronounced "high-sh", not "jizz", you American smart asses.

I'll be playing a smaller Ludwig kit with a 12" snare, a 14" floor tom, and a 20" bass drum.

Jizz told us to follow him to "the most famous cafe in all of...the world."

We thought maybe we were going to Paris, but instead we ended up at this place.

We drank a total of 10 cups of coffee, and ate assorted Dutch fare, like bread with ham and fries with mayonnaise. Jet lag made everything taste tired.

Mike continued driving to Amsterdam, where we met my friends Rod and Lieselotte.

Alan and Reid split off to find Alan's friend Greg at a squat for a vegan feast. Oddly enough, Lieselotte had met Greg earlier in the week, and could describe his girlfriend. Small world.

Mike and I crashed at Rod and Lieselotte's flat until the simmering smells of dinner aroused our spirits. Rod had made a traditional Dutch dish of rookworst with stampot, sausage with mashed potatoes and cabbage. It was delicious and comforting.

Plans for a boat ride and an evening of open mic jazz were aborted when Amsterdam's cold rain decided to blow down on this Tuesday. Instead, we walked a few blocks to a groovy bar, where quality beer flowed inexpensively and conversation veered toward cooking.

Back at Rod's we enjoyed fine generic chocolate and stroop waffle with hard candy butter waffles made by Dutch Masterpieces.

I crashed upstairs with Mike and a hard copy of Curb Your Enthusiasm The Book.

Verdict: Win

May 10 - In The Air Tonight

Today The Bitter Tears boarded a plane for Europe.

This will be our second tour of Europe.

It will also be my fourth extended visit to the continent in two years.

Seems I like it there.

In the air I watched The Odd Couple and Temple Grandin's biopic.

Some people cry when they watch movies on airplanes.

I get crushes on Claire Danes as an autistic legend.

Verdict: Win

May 9 - Oh Brother's Day

Today was the last performance of Rush Limbaugh! The Musical. I will miss playing this show. I don't know how to convey it without sounding showbiz sentimental so I won't bother trying. Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of time laughing during the entire process.

Today was also Mother's Day, so I took my mom out for dinner at Big Jones. We ate pork belly, croquettes, gumbo, wreck fish, and of course desert. It was a great feast.

Sometimes or always, my mom isn't the best listener. She likes to interrupt and finish your sentences, which end up being different sentences than the ones you had started.

She asked about my new moustache.

"So what's going on with this thing?"

I told her I was going for a sort of Spanish look.

"You want to look like Jesus?"

No, I don't want to look like Jesus. I want to look like I'm on foreign currency-

"Oh, kind of an Abraham Lincoln look you're going for then."

No, that's American currency.

"Oh."

I don't want to look like Abe Lincoln or Jesus, I just-

"This gumbo is a little spicy."

Nevermind, Mom.

What are you going to do?

Verdict: Win

May 8 - Nurse Nausea

A whole day to myself!

I watched Chinatown, I fell asleep, I ordered a pizza, I drank beer.

I ate over 100 square inches of pizza.

That's too much.

Tonight The Nurse Novels played our second preview.

We played Cal's Bar, located just blocks away from the Metra, the way to really die.

The set went really well.

This time we practiced before the show, AND we had a setlist!

Now all we need are some monitors and a sound check.

We threw in covers by Van Halen, Brian Eno and Willips Brighton.

The Nurse Novels are here!

Immediately after the set, I felt completely ill in my downstairs. It would require action soon.

Unfortunately, I was at Cal's, one of my favorite places to play, but one of my least favorite to shit. It's a scummy, one-man hole. There would be lots of dudes knocking and waiting while I painstakingly rid my body of sickness.

No.

So I zipped out of there and into the van, homeward bound.

Lake Shore Drive seemed like Ohio, it went on forever.

Meanwhile I felt more and more green, and it got hotter and hotter.

I cracked a window to no avail.

At Montrose, I exited, hoping to find a spot on the harbor to just puke or something.

But the harbor was closed and some guy in a car was hanging out by the barricades.

So I went back onto the on ramp for LSD, but my body would not let me continue.

I put the blinkers on and got down on all four in front of the van.

The damp dirt felt cool on my palms.

I started to wretch, but the muscles that wanted to work weren't in my throat.

I clenched everything tightly and carefully wobbled back to the car.

At home, I did my business.

But I couldn't stay long, as the van was double-parked.

And I had to go back to Cal's anyway.

That's where my drums were.

On the way back, I listened to The Heavy Bombers CD that the bass player had given me prior to my illness. When I walked into Cal's they were playing a song I had just listened to in the car. Unfortunately, most of my friends who had come to see our band had left, and I never got a chance to say thanks. Meanwhile The Heavy Bombers covered Little Richard and The Vaselines, and I bopped around until I felt sick again. So it was back to the van to lie down.

We didn't make a lot of money tonight, and I don't like feeling sick, but The Nurse Novels proved something to themselves tonight.

Verdict: Win

May 7 - That Toodlin' Town

This morning I had a delivery to a gift shop.

The name on the package was Russ.

Russ used to be my supervisor when I worked for the Chicago Trolley Company (1998-2000).

Russ didn't like me very much.

I didn't like him.

Russ was kind of a dick.

And I was kind of a spazz.

One time I flipped out in the trolley barn before going out.

See, my trolley's stereo had eaten one of my tapes.

It was a cassette of a Pavement bootleg (Appetite For Deconstruction) that I had just gotten in a trade with some kid in Ohio or Montana or somewhere.

At the time (1999), this cassette was new and very important to me.

So when it got eaten by the trolley, I fucking flipped out.

Russ laughed and made fun of me.

In retrospect, rightly so.

But at the time, it was like making fun of 9/11.

Also, at some point I called the trolley supervisors "nazis" over some stupid bullshit.

Like I said I was a spazzy Pavement troll.

But Russ enjoyed making my life difficult, particularly about dress.

"You look like shit," he told me one time based on the tasteful collared shirt I was wearing underneath my trolley jacket.

"Those aren't khakis," he would point out when I wore tan colored jeans instead.

One time Russ, who was in charge of assigning the trolleys, issued me an old borrowed trolley with air brakes.

To operate a vehicle with air brakes requires hours of training and a certain kind of license. My training was a couple of laps around the stockyards.

I had to use this monster to pick up the bride's party for a wedding.

Then drive around Michigan Avenue for pictures.

I did a competent job, but competent is not what is demanded of anyone on a wedding day.

Any time I had to brake abruptly, the whole trolley jerked like a bronking bull.

If you've ever been on a city bus with a new driver, it was like that.

Everyone on board gave me dirty looks, like I was an incompetent fucking asshole.

They complained about the fumes from the old diesel engine.

I smiled drowsily.

That day I worked my ass off, and got no tip.

Because of that ugly, diesel-fuming, bronking trolley.

The one that Russ purposefully gave to me.

I dunno, I have forgotten about most of that stupid shit.

But I do remember our relationship as adversarial.

So when I saw his name on the package, I hadn't decided how to feel.

It's been ten years.

I was ready to let go of the silly nonsense that defined our relationship.

But it's been ten years, and I was still in the humble position of messenger.

Then again, he's working in a gift shop.

So I decided to bury the hatchet and just be human when I saw him.

Unfortunately, the gift shop was closed.

Even though it was supposed to have opened two hours ago.

Maybe he saw me coming and got scared.

So after all that, I never saw him.

Our relationship would remain unresolved, like a broken suspended 4th chord.

Russ and I are a Cdim9.

That made me tired, and it was around 11am, so I took a nap in the van under the El at Randolph and Wabash. When I awoke, the traffic was horrendous for no reason. The radio informed me that a murder-suicide had occurred at the Old Navy on State Street, just a block away.

Also in the same breath, they mentioned that the chief of Metra had committed suicide using one of his own trains to run him over.

Sounds like that Sinatra song could use a rewrite.

Chicago, Chicago

That toodlin' town

On State Street, that great street

I saw a man

He shot his wife

And then himself

Dum-dum doodle-ee dum-dop

Chicago, Chicago

That skoodlin' town

Where bodies of honchos are found

Oh Metra

It'll getcha

The town that Mayor Daley wants to shut down

Doom-dom deedle-deep dop doom

After work and band practice, I went home and fell asleep on the couch.

On the couch I had a nightmare.

I was driving in rush hour traffic, when it just stopped.

Then it began moving backward.

Most cars lost control and crashed.

When people got out of their cars, they were coughing and choking.

Most people collapsed to the ground.

They were dying.

Some sort of terrorism with gas was happening.

I ran out of the car and back, looking for Lauren in a Jonestown sea of bodies.

I pictured having to discover Lauren.

So I woke up.

Verdict: Loss

May 6 - Me To

My pager went off at 8:30am.

Yes, a pager.

My work issues them to the messengers.

It has a full qwerty keyboard.

You can email anyone you want.

I actually prefer my pager to my cellphone.

So at 8:30 my boss was paging me:

WORK: tony, are you on the way?

ME: Not yet. I work every minute of my life and i'm exhausted.

WORK: ME TO

Decent day at work.

They sent me up to Waukegan, Glenview, and Winnetka, which enabled me to drop off The Nurse Novels 1/2" reel to Carl Saff for mastering. Our single will be mastered within the month!

Carl lives near the site of an old Magikist sign, a giant pair of lips that used to lurch over many Chicagoland expressways. Coincidentally or not, there's a small street right around there called Lipps Avenue.

The afternoon was dead and I slept for over two hours in an Office Depot parking lot before heading to Nurse Novels practice. It was our first time playing since the lackluster Quenchers preview. Repairing the rust.

Speaking of Quenchers, that's where Thea and I went after practice to see The Columbines. They opened with a few new numbers that sound right. John grips this one chord that covers eight frets or something, like he's on the cover of Cave Guitar World Magazine. We booped around with popcorn in our mouths, which made it difficult to sing along with Knox on their version of Danzig's "Killer Wolf". But I did. And then I bought their record on vinyl.

Verdict: Win

May 5 - Crazy Town

It was noon and I was in Pilsen, Chicago’s most known Mexican neighborhood. So I went to Taqeria Los Comales III for lunch. What a zoo! There were scores of chattering field trip groups, excitedly screaming and talking about tacos. The line to the register was crowded with kids, fogging the glass containing a variety of Mexican candies. In the myriad of decibels and chaperones were three distinctly separate races in the same room. In Chicago! Black, white and Hispanic. We had the Moonbenders sitting next to The Van Pelt Rolos. And nobody was wasting nobody. Caaannn yoooooouu diiiiiig iiiiiittttt!

Wow, this place was doing great business for a Thursday afternoon. A few hours later I realized it was Cinco de Mayo.

Later I met my friends Jess, Ross and Nikki at Davenport’s in Wicker Park. It was the world premiere of Crazytown, a cabaret starring the vivacious and voluptuous Meghan Murphy, the hilariously prickly Jordan Simonson, and kooky Diana Lawrence, all under the direction of my bestest homosensual friend Mitchell Fain.

I think cabaret may be my favorite medium for entertainment. You get music, you get comedy, you get honesty, all in a loose atmosphere that encourages participation and dialogue.

MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: You've got great tits!!

MEGHAN: So do you.

Meghan, dolled up in a dazzling 60’s bouffant, sang some favorites from the ship (“Pearl's A Singer"), dabbled in Lou Rawls sing-speak, and performed an original instructional club hit about preventing your breasts from getting weird. Jordan sang a trifecta of tragedy about love lost that had me crying with laughter.

JORDAN: Your hair looks really fucked up in the back.

MEGHAN: Your face looks really fucked up in the front.

At one point in the show, after a particularly stirring number, I could only yell “FUCK YOU!!” I had a great time at Crazytown. So fuck you.

After the show, Ross, Nikki and I walked to the crotch and drank at Big Star, formerly the Pontiac café. Whoa, man. I know Wicker Park has changed over the last twenty years, but this is way koo koo. It looks like Southport Avenue. We only need one of those, you know.

The more things change, the more they still stay the same. Now I’m just as scared of Wicker Park as I was in 1991.

IRRRRRRRegardless, we had a good time drinking all of the beer. I drank nine beers in all. I don’t remember a lot about what we discussed. Bob Dylan…tacos…chips…Blonde on Blonde….horchata….Highway 61….

The other day I subbed a class at The Annoyance. During an improv exercise, one of the students asked, "Did you come up with this when you were high?"

This is one of my least favorite things on earth.

Since goddamn grade school, people have assumed that I am a pothead.

For the record, yes, I have smoked marijuana. I first tried it when I was 18 and I had just moved to the desert. I smoked it every day for a month, and then I got tired of it.

And haven't smoked it with frequency since.

I've gone years without smoking marijuana.

I have never owned a bong or a pipe or a one-hitter.

I have never purchased, sold or grown marijuana.

I have never owned my very own personal marijuana.

I think the hemp movement was stupid, and continues to be stupid if it still exists.

I don't enjoy pot humor.

Other than "Basketball Jones," I find Cheech & Chong boring and unfunny.

I have plenty of friends that smoke with frequency, and offer it to me.

I have no issues with this.

But I usually decline it politely and life continues as it was.

When I do smoke I'll get either really goofy or really anti-social.

I like being goofy.

But I certainly don't need pot to be anti-social.

The last time I smoked was in September when we were in Amsterdam.

It was fine, but unnecessary.

So when people suggest that I am a pothead, I don't like it.

It's usually said with a tinge of judgment.

And it's usually after I say or do something that requires imagination, or I'm choosing my words carefully, taking my time in the process.

If you ask if I was high when I came up with something, what you are doing is negating that I could come up with something imaginative or thoughtful on my own.

That in order to have an imagination filled with humor and color and well chosen words, I need steroids.

Nope.

My brain is just better than your boring one.

So fuck you, but for real.

Meanwhile, back at Big Star, I was Big Drunk. A fellow stranger accused me of wearing a Members Only jacket and offered me a cigarette.

"Is it laced with angeldust?" I slurred.

"Yeah, man. PCP."

"Oh good, 'cuz I WANNA LIFT A CAR TONIGHT! Tonite! I'm GONA LIFT A KAR, THEN I'M GUNNA JUMP OUTTA FIVE STORY TOWER IN HAWAII!!"

So you see?

This mind can only come up with that good and imaginative stuff when it is lucid and free of toxins.

Verdict: Win