Get Off, Then Write About It
I stayed up late. Not because of insomnia, not because of work or worry. I stayed up late because MTV still played music videos back then and my mother wasn’t awake. She was convinced that the Devil was in that music. I wasn’t so sure, but every time one of those videos showed a tour bus, I wanted to be on it. So, when I dropped out of college and stepped onto one, she was disappointed, but not surprised.
I played in two bands. I had read countless magazines and watched dozens of bootleg VHS tapes. I had tour shirts and a leather jacket. I went through three Walkman’s® in High School. My life was music and touring was the next logical step. Just twelve hours after stepping onto that bus, I knew that all the stories I had read were true, but under-reported.
“I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.” -Hunter S. Thompson
Our first stop was Nashville. It was a twelve hour drive and I was so excited I couldn’t sleep, so I sat in the front of the bus with Ron, the driver, who was loaded on speed and sharing stories of his prison time.
A balding blonde pipsqueak with bad breath and a sneer was waiting in the parking lot when we arrived. He bounced up the stairs onto our bus. We called him Gleg because no one could remember if his name was Glen or Greg. He had a clipboard in hand, he…
