Road Trip

(February 25, 2003)

There's a problem or two with keeping an online diary...

I don't even mean the online part; that easy-to-forget fact that people actually read it, resulting in the daily realization that people know stuff about me, given my proclivity for saying things like "Hey, I farted in the ATM vestibule!" These realizations come at the oddest moments. I should really try to stop looking so surprised and/or squeaking mid-conversation "When did I tell you about that?" only to have you patiently explain, "I read it." Huh huh. Oh yeah, of course...you read it...I didn't tell YOU, I told...everyone...hm." So there's that whole online thing. There's also the diary thing. This can't really be a diary, per se. In a real diary, You can rant for pages about your dumb-ass blithering idiot friends, your absolutely impossible relatives, who you're sleeping with, how did THAT happen, and oh yeah, your best friend's baby looks exactly like a cross between a catcher's mitt and Don Rickles. But just how much can really get written up in here? I often think "this would be SO much more compelling if I didn't just gloss over that part." And yet, I gloss. I gloss like Farrah Fawcett's 1975 lips. Damn. Seriously though. What if I just went for it and told all.

Eh. Maybe someday there'll be a blitz. You know the scene in Liar, Liar when the dragon lady boss finds out that Fletcher can't lie and traps him into having to tell the board of directors exactly what he thinks of them? He holds off for as long as possible and then explodes, nailing them one by one around the table with his formerly unspoken opinion. "YOU have bad breath caused by gingivitis. YOU couldn't get a porn star off! Your hair-piece looks like something that got killed while crossing the highway-- I don't know whether to comb it or scrape it off with a shovel and bury it in liiiime! Loser! Wimp! DEGENERATE! SSSllluut!"

But that's not really even a problem. The problem at hand is the keeping part. There's so much going on I can't keep up! My mother is opening a consignment shop! My brother is shooting a new series for HBO! My severence pay is ending next month and I'm gonna be poor! See, days go by and I have all these gweat and tewwible things to tell you. Then it just gets to be too late-- the moment has passed, I'm over it and therefore you miss it.

In addition to the problems of keeping an online diary is the expectation from friends and family. I think Jess did an entry once on the whole "Are you going to write about this in your diary?" phenomenon.

Okay, so you guys missed last week. Uh...stuff happened, some good, some bad, some unbe-freakin-lievable. Skip to the weekend. I decided to go to Philadelphia to do some advance promo for the All the Queen's Men show Saturday night. Hub came with! "I haven't been on a road trip with you in SO LONG!" he said. Yay! It was fun... for some unknown reason. Let's see, we were both up until a million o'clock Friday night, so we got a late start. It was supposed to be an early start. "Eight!" I'd boldly announced as our departure time. Eight, eleven, whatever. (I was seeing Shelley Winters Project with Tamora Friday night. It was IMPORTANT!)

On the drive it was pissing rain through five states. Traffic in New York and New Jersey was a slug race. We couldn't agree on the best exit to take into Philly. We were ready to kill each other.

But that night we went to a club in East Buttfuck, PA (I'll never remember the town) to see a band that's part of the Three Hot Chicks roster of acts. These are the girls I found via online searches for contacts in other scenes. They're doing the same thing I'm doing with Low Budget Superhero. The chicks got the Queens a bill in a freakin' awesome South Philadelphia club. The chicks freakin' RULE. Cute and smart and friendly and enthusiastic-- it was totally great. I'll tell you more later. Sunday I flyered the whole of South Street and some side streets, put matchbooks in bars and restaurants, flyers and stickers and demo CDs in indie record stores (two of the stores specialize in electronic and dance music, so I gave THEM the full-length Curvy Baby CD with the bonus remix disc), and of course posters and matchbooks and demo CDs in the bar where they're playing. A note and a CD for the sound guy, hopefully he'll play Curvy Baby between bands all week.

Tangent. Cheesesteaks are no big goddamn deal. I'll make you a cheesesteak. I didn't even KNOW I made cheesesteaks, I just make this steak sandwich thing with cheese and peppers and onions that Hub loves, and he'd rather eat that than...tangent aborted, the debate is too cliche to keep my interest. Eat 'em if you like 'em. By the way? Nathan's hot dogs have always sucked.

On the drive it was pissing rain through five states. We couldn't agree on the best exit to take out of Philly. Traffic in New York and New Jersey was a slug race. We were ready to kill each other, and I could not stop laughing. I swear to god I must have laughed for five straight hours. It was Hub, he gets hilarious when yelling at traffic and stupid shit. I should point out that when I was in college in New York, Hub was in college in Pennsylvania. He has Pennsylvania drivers, New York drivers, and New Jersey drivers categorized, and his theories are constantly tested and proven. I know, most of you think Hub is quiet and reserved. Get in the car with him. It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mister GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, ASSFUCK! The thing that makes me lose my shit laughing is a)what he comes up with to rant about and b)he spontaneously invents new insults. Because of Hub-rants, we have expressions like "shit hook" in our private arsenal of insults. As in "the only thing you're good for is hanging shit on, you shit hook."

And then there's New Jersey. I don't know if there's anything that New Jersey has ever produced that Hub likes.

"LOOK at that. That is a CELL TOWER and they tried to make it look like a TREE." I looked around and found the "tree" he was fuming at. He was quite right. It looked like someone tried to disguise a...a cell tower...with like...fuzzy green stuff. About as convincing as holiday garland glued to a bike rack. I got the giggles and couldn't stop. "Seriously though, Jesus Christ! That is the WORST fake tree I have ever seen!" God help us if we need gas in New Jersey. (In case you don't know, you can't pump your own gas there, it's been that way forever). "Why. WHY?" and then later, after a particularly egregious set of near-misses and radio reports of accident after accident on I-95, "They can't pump their own gas because they CAN'T BE TRUSTED! How many gas stations had to blow up...is there a mandatory course called HOW TO DRIVE LIKE AN ASSHOLE?"

Just before New York, Hub had to use the bathroom, so we pulled into a rest stop somewhere a few towns before the Meadowlands. "Portapotties?! THAT is not going to work for me."

"But you just have to pee-- just don't touch anything!"

"Nooo, I have to drop the kids off at the lake too, and I prefer not to sit down somewhere where I'm going to get the clap!" He pulled out of the rest area and we headed north again. Another toll. "FUCKING NEW JERSEY!" Then, ah, the Vince Lombardi rest area ahead...only, he exited too soon. "What is this...did I just bone us? Oh no...NOOOOOOO!" Indeed, we were being funneled off towards Giant Stadium. There was no other way back except to go through the toll again. "NOOOO! WHHYYYY is New Jersey such a FUCKBUCKET!!"

Add "fuckbucket" to the list of on-the-spot Hub-rant insults.

"This Vince Lombardi station better freakin' be open. I'm pinching it off at both ends here! If this place is closed I'm...I'm gonna crap on their sidewalk! I'm gonna dig a little hole in the snow and leave a steamer right on top!"

The Vince Lombardi station was open.

We got Cinnabons.

I eventually recovered from the giggles and now the thought of "WHHYYYY is New Jersey such a FUCKBUCKET!!" only undoes me for about one minute instead of five or ten minutes. (....laugh break here...) Hoo. God, that was funny. Anyway, somewhere in the "in excess of one hour" wait to get onto the George Washington Bridge, Hub said, "Jeez."

"What."

"Joe is really gonna hate THIS entry."

"How do YOU know I'm even going to write about this?"

"You're already composing it in your head."

There's a problem or two with keeping an online diary...