Wednesday
Dec052007
Road Report: Michigan Wrap-Up
The moment my bags hit the cigar-and-sex stained comforter at the Philadelphia Airport Hilton, I knew that despite having only acquired six hours of uninterrupted sleep over the last two days, my often fantasized "power-nap" simply wasn't going to happen. For starters, my body (surprisingly unaccustomed to caffeine) was still churning through the hotel-room brewed Starbucks-branded-sludge I prepared hours before in Michigan. In addition, the kind souls in room 334 have decided that early-morning Galavision variety television is best viewed at a volume of eleven with the actual set facing toward the paper-thin rust-stained walls that divide my headboard from their stereo speakers and lack of common courtesy.
So, with that typed, I figured I'd actually jot down a recap of yesterday before attempting to lug my tired body to the Hilton's patented fitness shoe-box to work off the Sun-Chips and Airborne(tm) road diet that has deteriorated my spirits for the last few days.
Yesterday was incredibly eventful, and anything but. Apparently Michigan is the dichotomy state. After hopping on a 7am flight out of sunny Miami, I arrived in ice-cold Detroit with a t-shirt, retracted manhood and nipples that could pierce a Capri Sun. After recharging my iPhone and defrosting my testicles at Avis, I tossed on a scarf and hopped in a Suburban with Matt (the Production Coordinator for this whole AOTS-on-the-road stunt). We were headed two hours north to a town called "Mount Pleasant", which I would later find out the residents accurately describe as neither.
Along the way, Matt and I waxed philosophically about jam bands, the state of the union, Gavin Rossdale, fetishism, snow, satellite radio versus terrestrial and "words that start with 'K' for 300, Alex". Our varied conversation was punctuated by lengthy periods of silent admiration of the ferociously uneventful scenery whizzing past our respective car windows. Then without warning, the good lord parted the ominous black clouds above and delivered onto us promise in the form of a billboard proclaiming: "The World's BEST Hamburgers! Over 50 Varieties!" Cue Guy Ritchie quick-cut-montage; the windows roll down, the MapQuest directions are ripped and thrown from the vehicle, the E-brake is engaged, the wheel is violently thrown to the right and the Suburban's traction control struggles to keep the vehicle upright as we swiftly exit the highway towards our new prophetic way point. Enter, the Country Chef Cafe.
Apprehension set in the moment the front door flew open. I missed the memo and was terribly under dressed, yet decided that a lack of camouflage was not going to stand between me and the best meat on a bun this entire planet has ever witnessed! I sat down, and admired the paper coupon-riddled place mat before me. Interested in becoming a door-to-door Avon rep? Want to join a "Cremation Society"? Need five bucks off your western-wear purchase of fifty dollars or more?! Well, you've chosen to dine at the right establishment.
The waiter was heart-warningly courteous (according to the Los Angeles 'City Folk' scale), as was the coffee he diligently refiled throughout the afternoon. He was even kind enough to recommend the burger that would define thirty minutes of my near future. Ladies and gentlemen, meet, the "Moosebreath Burger": A concoction of two charred buns, a thick (thoroughly cooked) meat patty overflowing with grilled onions, mushrooms and a somewhat-spicy sauce, tomato, lettuce and swiss cheese. The burger was quickly devoured, and while it struggled to even rival a Junior Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's (or Hardee's, if you're nasty) in the deliciousness department, it did have a little extra "kick"... literally.
No sooner did I throw a few bucks on the table to cover my portion of the bill, did Mr. Moosebreath transform into a giant black Swiss-Army boot and begin angrily stomping my anus. Now, I'm the type of guy who can typically eat chili-cheese-anythings from the greasiest of spoons without batting a perfectly crimped eyelash, but the culinary ninjas at the Country Chef stealth-attacked my colon and left me defenseless. The sprint to the men's room was accompanied by a spartan-like struggle that lasted two lifetimes. I ran a faucet to cover the sounds of my 300'esque war-cries. Between alternating sessions of Blackjack and Bejewled, I managed to snap a photo of The Lion on the bathroom wall, watching over me like Jeff Goldblum. The lion's support, along with an Apple-Cinnamon scented glade plug-in or twelve, helped me through the Moosebreath ordeal.
I sprayed some potpourri on a roll of police tape, sealed off the water closet, leapt back into the Suburban and pressed onward to Mount Pleasant.
An hour or so later I met Steve "Captain Smee" Welsh, his roommate Mattius and a handful of their friends. I bitched about the cold for what was surely an annoying amount of time, admired the giant movie posters strewn about, went over some of the bits for the live show with my producer Corrado and caked on makeup in the bathroom that Matt had somewhat-apologetically destroyed courtesy of HIS burger from the Country Chef Cafe.
Ninjas, I tell ya.
The next few hours were a bizarre mashup of microphone checks, chatting with sword-wielding pirate extras and fighting pointless battles with producers for the sake of creative sanity. Par for the live-check-in-course. If you watched Attack of the Show, you know pretty much everything that happened in Mount Pleasant between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00pm, eastern. What followed the show, however, was a jam-session the likes of which (I like to believe) Michigan had never seen.
Mattius and Smee quickly assembled their entertainment rig which included a 20-something-inch television and Rock Band for the Xbox 360. Several shots of Captain Morgan later and I was drumming through Coheed and Cambria, strumming through Boston and (after much goading from a Stickam chatroom and Smee) wailing through "Celebrity Skin". There is nothing in this world more satisfying than a room filled with genuine souls, and I felt truly blessed to spend my time with such amazing people. I fought back the incredible internal frustration with my schedule after we nailed the button-mashing score bonus at the end of Dani California, for it proved to be the last song of our set.
Unless of course you count me cutting off a lock of my chest hair and taping it to the giant poster of myself which we hung on Smee's wall as an encore. Or if you count the "Granny Transvestites" porno I hid in Steve's mini Webber Grill on the way out of the apartment. Which, if he's reading this blog-post (and I'll assume he is), he JUST found out about.
Wait. Tense-breaker: Anyone else childishly giggling at the thought of someone reading this, then racing up a flight of stairs and bolting outside to find an over-the-hill-transvestites video hidden under the lid of their barbecue? No? Just me? Oh fine...
The rest of evening consisted of a lengthy drive back to the Airport, chatting about things that went wrong and celebrating things that shouldn't have turned out so right, more whining about the restrictive schedule that prohibits me from actually hanging out with some of the best people on this planet, returning the 'burban, checking into my hotel room, a surprise skirmish with the remnants of the Moosebreath burger, twittering during said battle and nodding off for an hour or two of sleep.
It's now noon-something in Philly and my eyelids are sagging to the point where I'm blogging blindly; I can only make out the start-bar on this equally exhausted laptop. Which reminds me, I really need to get that Macbook. Anyway, enough rambling. Here's to Red Bull, granola and treadmills!
HEY, LOOK! HERE'S SOME MULTI-MEDIA:
So, with that typed, I figured I'd actually jot down a recap of yesterday before attempting to lug my tired body to the Hilton's patented fitness shoe-box to work off the Sun-Chips and Airborne(tm) road diet that has deteriorated my spirits for the last few days.
Yesterday was incredibly eventful, and anything but. Apparently Michigan is the dichotomy state. After hopping on a 7am flight out of sunny Miami, I arrived in ice-cold Detroit with a t-shirt, retracted manhood and nipples that could pierce a Capri Sun. After recharging my iPhone and defrosting my testicles at Avis, I tossed on a scarf and hopped in a Suburban with Matt (the Production Coordinator for this whole AOTS-on-the-road stunt). We were headed two hours north to a town called "Mount Pleasant", which I would later find out the residents accurately describe as neither.
Along the way, Matt and I waxed philosophically about jam bands, the state of the union, Gavin Rossdale, fetishism, snow, satellite radio versus terrestrial and "words that start with 'K' for 300, Alex". Our varied conversation was punctuated by lengthy periods of silent admiration of the ferociously uneventful scenery whizzing past our respective car windows. Then without warning, the good lord parted the ominous black clouds above and delivered onto us promise in the form of a billboard proclaiming: "The World's BEST Hamburgers! Over 50 Varieties!" Cue Guy Ritchie quick-cut-montage; the windows roll down, the MapQuest directions are ripped and thrown from the vehicle, the E-brake is engaged, the wheel is violently thrown to the right and the Suburban's traction control struggles to keep the vehicle upright as we swiftly exit the highway towards our new prophetic way point. Enter, the Country Chef Cafe.
Apprehension set in the moment the front door flew open. I missed the memo and was terribly under dressed, yet decided that a lack of camouflage was not going to stand between me and the best meat on a bun this entire planet has ever witnessed! I sat down, and admired the paper coupon-riddled place mat before me. Interested in becoming a door-to-door Avon rep? Want to join a "Cremation Society"? Need five bucks off your western-wear purchase of fifty dollars or more?! Well, you've chosen to dine at the right establishment.
The waiter was heart-warningly courteous (according to the Los Angeles 'City Folk' scale), as was the coffee he diligently refiled throughout the afternoon. He was even kind enough to recommend the burger that would define thirty minutes of my near future. Ladies and gentlemen, meet, the "Moosebreath Burger": A concoction of two charred buns, a thick (thoroughly cooked) meat patty overflowing with grilled onions, mushrooms and a somewhat-spicy sauce, tomato, lettuce and swiss cheese. The burger was quickly devoured, and while it struggled to even rival a Junior Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's (or Hardee's, if you're nasty) in the deliciousness department, it did have a little extra "kick"... literally.
No sooner did I throw a few bucks on the table to cover my portion of the bill, did Mr. Moosebreath transform into a giant black Swiss-Army boot and begin angrily stomping my anus. Now, I'm the type of guy who can typically eat chili-cheese-anythings from the greasiest of spoons without batting a perfectly crimped eyelash, but the culinary ninjas at the Country Chef stealth-attacked my colon and left me defenseless. The sprint to the men's room was accompanied by a spartan-like struggle that lasted two lifetimes. I ran a faucet to cover the sounds of my 300'esque war-cries. Between alternating sessions of Blackjack and Bejewled, I managed to snap a photo of The Lion on the bathroom wall, watching over me like Jeff Goldblum. The lion's support, along with an Apple-Cinnamon scented glade plug-in or twelve, helped me through the Moosebreath ordeal.
I sprayed some potpourri on a roll of police tape, sealed off the water closet, leapt back into the Suburban and pressed onward to Mount Pleasant.
An hour or so later I met Steve "Captain Smee" Welsh, his roommate Mattius and a handful of their friends. I bitched about the cold for what was surely an annoying amount of time, admired the giant movie posters strewn about, went over some of the bits for the live show with my producer Corrado and caked on makeup in the bathroom that Matt had somewhat-apologetically destroyed courtesy of HIS burger from the Country Chef Cafe.
Ninjas, I tell ya.
The next few hours were a bizarre mashup of microphone checks, chatting with sword-wielding pirate extras and fighting pointless battles with producers for the sake of creative sanity. Par for the live-check-in-course. If you watched Attack of the Show, you know pretty much everything that happened in Mount Pleasant between the hours of 7:00 and 8:00pm, eastern. What followed the show, however, was a jam-session the likes of which (I like to believe) Michigan had never seen.
Mattius and Smee quickly assembled their entertainment rig which included a 20-something-inch television and Rock Band for the Xbox 360. Several shots of Captain Morgan later and I was drumming through Coheed and Cambria, strumming through Boston and (after much goading from a Stickam chatroom and Smee) wailing through "Celebrity Skin". There is nothing in this world more satisfying than a room filled with genuine souls, and I felt truly blessed to spend my time with such amazing people. I fought back the incredible internal frustration with my schedule after we nailed the button-mashing score bonus at the end of Dani California, for it proved to be the last song of our set.
Unless of course you count me cutting off a lock of my chest hair and taping it to the giant poster of myself which we hung on Smee's wall as an encore. Or if you count the "Granny Transvestites" porno I hid in Steve's mini Webber Grill on the way out of the apartment. Which, if he's reading this blog-post (and I'll assume he is), he JUST found out about.
Wait. Tense-breaker: Anyone else childishly giggling at the thought of someone reading this, then racing up a flight of stairs and bolting outside to find an over-the-hill-transvestites video hidden under the lid of their barbecue? No? Just me? Oh fine...
The rest of evening consisted of a lengthy drive back to the Airport, chatting about things that went wrong and celebrating things that shouldn't have turned out so right, more whining about the restrictive schedule that prohibits me from actually hanging out with some of the best people on this planet, returning the 'burban, checking into my hotel room, a surprise skirmish with the remnants of the Moosebreath burger, twittering during said battle and nodding off for an hour or two of sleep.
It's now noon-something in Philly and my eyelids are sagging to the point where I'm blogging blindly; I can only make out the start-bar on this equally exhausted laptop. Which reminds me, I really need to get that Macbook. Anyway, enough rambling. Here's to Red Bull, granola and treadmills!
HEY, LOOK! HERE'S SOME MULTI-MEDIA:
Dec 5, 2007
