Touring and Road Sex

I’m too old.

Well, at least too old to go on a tour bus to promote a movie for 35 days;  much less a movie aptly entitled I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

It’s a decent film and all, and I’m getting paid American dollars, but I’m not in my early twenties anymore, and the potential PTSD  experienced by my bowels alone is enough to make me reconsider.  Let’s face it, the American heartland is beautiful (arguably) but a constant intake of dairy, wheat, and corn by-product — after 6 months of holistic colon pampering by a healthy LA diet – is going to wreak havoc on my asshole and Usher’s former tour bus.

Even if my small intestine survives the ordeal, there are other factors which make me trepidant about the whole concept of ‘touring.’

I mean, ten years ago, I could get away with a baseball cap wedged all wiggity-wiggity-wiggity-wack, askance with an attitude, onto my cranial area.  I could even do jager bombs without feeling the instantaneous fizzle of brain cells and I could survive solely on the laughs of getting busmates to smell my finger after trysts with co-eds in Whattownwasthatagain?, Illinois .  I would probably switch it up sometimes and make them smell the wrong finger when I got bored (see previous paragraph on shitting).

If I was 21 on a tour bus for a movie about drinking and debauchery, I would commit with the abandon of Daniel Day Lewis method act.  Thoughts coming within the stratosphere of love would skip like stones across my synapses.  I would focus on ‘the game’ and probably even smuggle dog-eared literature about procuring poontang under my pillow.  I would manufacture empty Cheshire Cat grins and lie to girls to lure them into my 2.5 star Hampton Inn.

“Yeah, the lead character Drew in the movie is based on me.”

“Really?”

“Sure, I would have played him instead of Jesse Bradford, but I wanted to focus onproducing instead.”

“Wow, producing, what’s that like?”

I might say something that sounds erudite in response to this (and I might even say it with a British accent), instead of the crass truth:  producing is just a license to print pu$$y.

At some point during the tour – hey, I just turned 21! — I would get black-out drunk and either get arrested or destroy public and/or personal property.  I might possibly even do something a little rape-y.  That sounds creepy and harsh.  Okay – rape-adjacent.

“Just drink, come on.  There’s hardly any alcohol in it….”

The next day, over continental breakfast of Frosted Flakes and whole milk and tablespoonfuls of Jiffy’s peanut butter  — like I would need to worry about being bloated at all! Pshaw! – I would regale everyone with embellished stories of both my idiocy and my prowess.  I would do this while putting on the charade of pretending to care about other people’s stories.  My intestines would noisily announce the brewing process of a batch of post-wood liquor diarrhea as I slurped the dregs of my sugar broth cremy.  However, most importantly — at the free! breakfast in the Hampton Inn — I would high five a lot of white people.

But, alas, the road is lonely to me.

As soon as the green rectangle lights up on the lock and I enter the hotel room, I feel empty.  The cyclical chirring sound of mildewed Freon being circulated within the hermetically sealed room triggers a Pavlovian response of depression.  It makes me want to have sex with something, anything.  “Housekeeping?”  You betcha – who cares if you’re 220 with a lazy eye and mastery of four Englisss words, I wanna make a mess in your mouth or your hair.

Of course, that’s hypothetical.  In truth, the only words I’ve ever said, or ever will say, to housekeeping are, when they knock on my door in the morning to clean, and I scream:  “Could you come back in an hour!!?”  I usually repeat this request an hour later… for the next 4-5 hours.

Usually, my mind desperately begs my body to get up and place the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob, but I’m overcome with inertia.   Instead, I make a mental note to put on the Do Not Disturb sign for the next morning (but I never do).  Sometimes, I think about the more provocative Spanish version of ‘NO MOLESTARE’ and giggle.  I think about putting something about that in my standup act (again, I never do).

Before I go to sleep, the silent ambition of the wide book on the coffee table seems to mock me as I watch Sportscenter, seemingly on a loop in the wee hours of the night.  “Tomorrow I will read about ‘Buzzmarketing,’” I tell myself as I drift off to the muted reaction of the Yankees celebrating another walk-off homerun….

This Tuesday begins my first day on the tour bus (http://www.ihopetheyservebeerinhell.com/tour/) and my first day on ANY tour bus.

There is a quantum dilemma which has defined all of theoretical science in the past 30 years, and that is the conundrum of non-locality.  According to the latest quantum theory, one particle can be in two places in space at the same time, verily confirming the existence of alternate universes.

I feel like this trip represents that enigma for me in a more personal way.  In one universe, I am partying without regret, beer bongs and errant thongs.   In the other simultaneous universe, I am a responsible working adult, focusing on my career and work.

I will probably pass through both realities at the same time… or at least I’m going to tell myself that when I’m wasted.   Stay tuned for the tour stories….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 6:16 pm and is filed under All blog entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.