Top 5 Things You Wake Up To On Tour In The US

Reposting this from another blog because it's beautifully written by Efraim of Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion

1. THE SOUND OF DRILLS RINGING THROUGH POURED CONCRETE WALLS: the hotel bed you wake up in is half an hour from where you were and 6.5 hours from where you need to be. you took the expressway here and arrived at 3 AM. check-in involved bulletproof glass and a night clerk who is either young, angry and underpaid or old, underpaid and crazy. the day manager pegged you as degenerate musicians the moment your reservation details blinked across her database, and assigned you to the fourth floor. the fourth floor is undergoing either fumigation or construction, or both. the power drills start at 7 AM, ominous as distant aeroplanes until the 1/2-inch bit finds its torque- then the ceiling and walls vibrate at their own sympathetic pitch and sing like enormous concrete strings. you are a musician in a moderately popular rock band, your head is like a clapper in a giant muffled bell.

2. “FREE BREAKFAST” IN THE LOBBY: in the corner of the lobby there’ll be a breakfast bar. the breakfast bar is complimentary, which is another word for prepared without love. coffee, bagels, donuts, and a poster depicting either a beaming hotel employee holding a basket of cinnamon buns aloft, or a man in a handsome business suit grinning wryly over a cup of steaming 100% arabica coffee. in both of the posters, the sunlight is as rich and orange as a jar of honey. the actual lobby sunlight that you find yourself standing in is rather more atomic- thin and white and unforgiving. it washes through the windows like a dirty grey sheet, backlighting the potted dwarf-fir bushes which sit hunched along the front driveway like orphaned blast-barriers. the breakfast bar will sit in that glow until 11:30 AM, at which point all that food will get bagged and dumped in a utility closet next to the bottles of clorox, roach dust, and flower-killer.

3. 4 RIVAL GAS STATIONS STARING AT EACH OTHER ACROSS THE EXPRESSWAYS’ WINDSWEPT CROSSROADS: you’ll have to cross a broad expanse of concrete to get to the streetlights. regardless of the season, the wind will be a tribulation. the light will stay green just long enough for you to make it halfway across the expressway, at which point you’ll have to stand on the concrete median and wait. you’re a greasy, under-slept, longhair musician stuck halfway ‘cross a rush-hour highway, means that you’re the 9 AM headliner at the rubberneck jamboree. it’s a five minute show- stand there as still as a frightened cow and sadder than any mime, avoiding eye-contact with every idling driver until the light changes, and then cross the street and walk into the gas station. the gas station is ringed by more hunched bushes and tangled plastic bags flap from their branches like sad little flags. buy yourself a bottle of tap water and two packs of menthol cigarettes for the drive. menthol is a good driving cigarette for american highways- smoking them, you can pretend like you’re maria in “play it as it lays,” pretty as jackie-o in headscarf and shades, grasping at redemption by crossing four lanes of highway at 75 mph in a smooth arc that’s as sublime as the orbits of jupiter’s 63 moons.

4. BURGERKINGTACOBELLSUBWAYWAFFLEHOUSEWENDYS: cut to the chase and go to denny’s. buy yourself a boca brand vegetarian hamburger with american cheese. they’re manufactured by the prepared-foods division of lockheed-martin. they don’t taste much, but neither do they haunt. they’re as simple a protein-delivery device as you’ll ever find on a highway, and they will do. somewhere nearby, two children with ketchup smeared on their cheeks will pummel each other while their mother stares into the pained sunrise. as you sit waiting for your bill, your presence in the restaurant will anger some, sadden a few, and amuse many. the waitress will not call you ’sweetie.’

5. ONE ABANDONED SHOE, SWEET AND BEDRAGGLED, AWFUL AS THE BODY OF A DEAD CHILD: on the walk back to the hotel, there will always be an abandoned shoe somewhere. pick it up and carry it with you. show it the rest of your band when you meet in the parking lot. embrace it as a totem to the loneliness and dread of the modern touring musician, and love your band. know that you will carry the noise of these highways inside of you for the rest of your life, and love your life. know that you’re lucky to see the things that you’ve seen. go forth, get down, and be proud of the fact that ship hasn’t yet sunk. grin into the sunlight as you yield and merge- playing music can be an honest trade.