And I say to myself, this is how the story ends.
I wake up in a car again, a concept Something Corporate predicted for me years ago. Nate wakes up too, in a fit of energy as everyone on this tour has become accustomed to, and before long we are driving down a long flat road sided with farms, arguing about scene boys and listening to the Maine. Yep, this is it.
I have chipped black nail polish and a faded Sharpie heart on my fingers. I have upwards of ten bracelets on my wrists and a “chrome” ring in my nose. A beater that’s a couple wears old and scene hair that looks the best when it goes a little unwashed. I wear a drummer’s watch even though he stopped texting me over a week ago. There are no boys for me but the 6 in this van and the 6 in the other, and I love them more than I could any random scene crush. Except maybe Kennedy Brock.
I think love isn’t about looking for the perfect someone. I think it’s about stumbling across someone who likes you for the dumb fuck you are. Maybe that’s just what I want to think. Maybe it doesn’t matter afterall. I’m finding a lot of things don’t matter. Nate says tour will do that to you. Material things don’t matter; yes… this includes bracelets and clothes. Showers don’t matter. Text messages and grudges don’t matter. Forever doesn’t really matter. Peanut butter filled pretzels though, they matter. Nate matters, although he’d like me to say he doesn’t. Money matters, however much I’d like it not to. I am at the end of something, I just can’t put my finger on it. Ends don’t matter anymore.
As always, I’d like to say I know exactly what to fill the last 2 pages of this Book with. Some sort of insight to tell of these times and keep all of you reading. But it’s not perfect wisdom, I realize, that I am looking for. It’s a scenario. I waited to fill these lines, and this is what I stumbled across…
There will always be a show, no matter how dead the scene becomes or how much the economy fucks over the touring bands. Enough traces will remain that there will always be a rock show. And the traces are as follows:
There will always be the local band that proves fun over sound can work in circumstance. There will always be that Minnesota band that delivers enough of both. That drummer who’s way too young to be talking to, but hits too hard to let get away. Woopsies? There will always be pretty cool girls in the front row, and girls pretty enough to sit on the sidelines. Maybe girlfriends, probably posers. There will always be that girl who wants to dance but has no rhythm whatsoever. Super scene kids that’ll grow out of it in a year or two, and newbies who are still too scrawny for even the skinniest skinnies. There will always be the touring musicians standing smug but supportive ¾’s of the way back in the crowd. I hope there will always be the kick ass parents in the back, probably wanting to fork their ears out but bringing their little punks out to the shows anyways. There will always be the epic onstage water bottle spray that slows time and speeds heartbeats, immortalizing that moment in that song eternally and selling another unsuspecting soul to the scene.
There will always be the worries. The pacing and fretting the crew does trying to come up with any gimmick to get their boys more vox in the monitors, more kids up front, more reassurance that yes, what they’re doing in worth believing in. I should pray every night that there will always be the exchange: smile to band boy, band boy to me. Obviously.
I am completely a scene junkie. Not born and self-bred. I will always love stick flips and high hats. I will always be able to see better in the dark and never be able hear you the first time you say something. I will always get embarrassed by between song banter and never by eye sex. I will never discriminate band boys by the instrument they play… I will take them all!
Score24 and This Condition will always each be one half of my heart in the summer that was 2009. We got piercings and slept in junkyards. We ate chicken salad and drooled over Kennedy Brock. Yes, we lost our merch guy on the Las Vegas strip. We hardly ever showered and never gave up. Cuz when it comes down to it, what really mattered was the 20-30 minutes every night when they battled feedback in the monitors. There will always be feedback in the monitors. And there will always, always be this.
“Is this Heaven?”
“No…it’s Iowa.”
...Terica.
"This City Is Contagious" by: the CAB
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Those skinny jeans I bought for you.
I look at Nate. He is so young. We stand in a Los Angeles open air mall, a little down time before the show tonight. Most of us are looking out at the timeless HOLLYWOOD letters that rest in California's grandiose hills, but not me. I’m looking at Nate.
He looks out over today while everyone else snaps cameras and sends picture messages. And he is still. His chin is closely shaven, though this thin scruff is the only thing about his face that proves to me he’s not just a boy. His jaw is closed, tranquil but firm. I consider if I know Nate’s expressions better than I know anyone else’s, better than I know my own. Because his eyes have been full all day and though I pretend to ponder over what’s on his mind, I could probably make a pretty good guess. It’s not one thing, it’s many. It’s a handful of things he can neither control nor change. But Nate’s the kind of poser that can handle that. He can twist them around and coat them with sugar. Like frosting.
I decide this expression this afternoon is him taking a break from poser-dom for a few seconds. A stern breath while everyone slips on without noticing his walls are down. Right now his eyes are bluer than that man-made river we saw in St. Louis. I wonder what he sees when he’s like this, when he’s looking at nothing at all. And I decide in this instance that youth, (however relative a term it may be,) is honest. I look at Nate. He is so young.
...Terica.
"Walls" by: All Time Low
He looks out over today while everyone else snaps cameras and sends picture messages. And he is still. His chin is closely shaven, though this thin scruff is the only thing about his face that proves to me he’s not just a boy. His jaw is closed, tranquil but firm. I consider if I know Nate’s expressions better than I know anyone else’s, better than I know my own. Because his eyes have been full all day and though I pretend to ponder over what’s on his mind, I could probably make a pretty good guess. It’s not one thing, it’s many. It’s a handful of things he can neither control nor change. But Nate’s the kind of poser that can handle that. He can twist them around and coat them with sugar. Like frosting.
I decide this expression this afternoon is him taking a break from poser-dom for a few seconds. A stern breath while everyone slips on without noticing his walls are down. Right now his eyes are bluer than that man-made river we saw in St. Louis. I wonder what he sees when he’s like this, when he’s looking at nothing at all. And I decide in this instance that youth, (however relative a term it may be,) is honest. I look at Nate. He is so young.
...Terica.
"Walls" by: All Time Low
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
When air is filled with dust and dying dreams....
Tour is...necessary. Completely. Because there isn't room for anything that's unnecessary. And tour in seeing. Seeing and believing, though, I'm holding off on narrating the believing aspect of it until I've seen enough. Hindsight is my favorite perception. Don't fret @justjoefox, I will post it eventually. But for now I breathe easy on the simple things...or should I say, the minor details; minuscule in general importance but brilliant in terms of my own amusement. Nate says most everything is amusing to my mind. I find he is pretty much correct. Today it is, yet again, the morning that intrigues me.
I wake up peacefully to a not-yet-hot Arizona horizon, mountains and cacti letting me know where we are. Everyone is still sleeping save for the driver and his copilot and I hop into Row 4 to give Mike more snoozing space. I'm sitting back here watching Nate and Tim casually converse, which for them means going at it over any minute thing they can find to debate over. I smile to myself, a fitting audience, to see Nate get all worked up over a point Timmy is trying to make. He grabs the pole in dramatic style and begins to bounce up in the driver's seat, obviously unable to contain himself. I know he's squirming for his chance to strike back. I'm quite awake, still I don't want to go up there and disrupt this stint of exchange between them. So I sit back and enjoy the subtle show, side-minding as to @thejohnset 's whereabouts and reciting The CAB lyrics on my silent lips.My feet are blatant with New Mexican dust. They amuse me as I wiggle them around in accordance with the same lyrics. Despite my hefty collection of bug bites from last night's venue, I inly itch to get up and dance. Woah oh oh, woah oh oh!
Others start to stir. I have to treat Mike like a child. He wakes up complaining, ruining my perfect morning in his perfectly predictable way. He begins to torch the smoothness Nate and Timmy have going and I draw my line. I have to reel him back and ask him quietly but sternly to keep it to himself for one day. Then I show him where the last chocolate chip cookie is to seal the deal. We are not 5 years old, but whatever it takes in this confined space.
Timmy gets excited about everything (i.e.- state lines, urban legends, an iced soy latte.) Mike gets excited about nothing (i.e.- the fact that he's so young and talented and this far away from home.) I laugh thinking about the latest MyWetSocks blog as the morning unfolds according to its accounts. Anthony says good morning to everyone individually and Nicky sits up with a fro in the shape of the mountain to my left. I shake my head remembering Stevie singing Rocky Horror Picture Show tunes as he drove last night. The day has officially begun. I wonder how it would be to wake up in something still and luke warm. I decide I don't need it that way at all. TimmyEPIC tweets.
Ricky
"This City Is Contagious" by: The CAB
I wake up peacefully to a not-yet-hot Arizona horizon, mountains and cacti letting me know where we are. Everyone is still sleeping save for the driver and his copilot and I hop into Row 4 to give Mike more snoozing space. I'm sitting back here watching Nate and Tim casually converse, which for them means going at it over any minute thing they can find to debate over. I smile to myself, a fitting audience, to see Nate get all worked up over a point Timmy is trying to make. He grabs the pole in dramatic style and begins to bounce up in the driver's seat, obviously unable to contain himself. I know he's squirming for his chance to strike back. I'm quite awake, still I don't want to go up there and disrupt this stint of exchange between them. So I sit back and enjoy the subtle show, side-minding as to @thejohnset 's whereabouts and reciting The CAB lyrics on my silent lips.My feet are blatant with New Mexican dust. They amuse me as I wiggle them around in accordance with the same lyrics. Despite my hefty collection of bug bites from last night's venue, I inly itch to get up and dance. Woah oh oh, woah oh oh!
Others start to stir. I have to treat Mike like a child. He wakes up complaining, ruining my perfect morning in his perfectly predictable way. He begins to torch the smoothness Nate and Timmy have going and I draw my line. I have to reel him back and ask him quietly but sternly to keep it to himself for one day. Then I show him where the last chocolate chip cookie is to seal the deal. We are not 5 years old, but whatever it takes in this confined space.
Timmy gets excited about everything (i.e.- state lines, urban legends, an iced soy latte.) Mike gets excited about nothing (i.e.- the fact that he's so young and talented and this far away from home.) I laugh thinking about the latest MyWetSocks blog as the morning unfolds according to its accounts. Anthony says good morning to everyone individually and Nicky sits up with a fro in the shape of the mountain to my left. I shake my head remembering Stevie singing Rocky Horror Picture Show tunes as he drove last night. The day has officially begun. I wonder how it would be to wake up in something still and luke warm. I decide I don't need it that way at all. TimmyEPIC tweets.
Ricky
"This City Is Contagious" by: The CAB
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