The whole idea of a socio-political band heading down to a three-day festival in a swing state on a six-day tour leading up to a historically significant presidential election is about as fit for the silver screen as anything this side of Richie Tenenbaum.
Climbing into a van with my four bandmates and one dear friend/roadie to head down to Florida for "The Fest 3"-a 75-plus band Halloween weekend shindig/massacre with bands like Hot Water Music, the Blood Brothers and Mates of State among others-I decided to take a risk that our antics would be worthy of record.
This is what went down as the "Influencing People Under The Influence" tour, and it went down hard.
Wednesday, October 27: Three hours earlier in chilly weather outside our bassist Nate's Allentown apartment, a shirtless Latino man almost crashed his dirt bike into our van. It probably should've been a clue that Wednesday's show in Huntington, W.V. was not going to go smoothly.
1 p.m. found white smoke billowing in through the back windows of our beloved $600 1991 Ford Conversion van. A couple calls to Triple A and we would surely be towed to the next exit for a routine hose replacement, just barely behind schedule.
Now at 4 p.m., outside an auto repair shop in Dunkirk, N.Y., it's safe to say that the show is not going to go at all. One of the head gaskets on our engine is shot and we need a new motor. And apparently, while we went to Taco Bell, someone stole our mattress full of thousand dollar bills. Phone calls are made and it looks like we're heading home. What a great tour!
Mere minutes before the first car arrives to bring us, and all our belongings, back home, I come up with the best and worst idea of my entire life.
"Let's call Tabula Rasa (our best friends and tour mates from Pittsburgh, Pa.) and see if they'll let us use their equipment. We'll take two cars down."
It will be 2,200 miles and five days. It will also be stupid.
Thursday, October 28: It might sound like common sense, but driving to John Edwards's home base of Raleigh, N.C., in one eleven-hour trip is a lot less digestible than a much shorter jaunt from West Virginia. It is even less digestible when NPR is on election overload to the extent that I now can adequately describe each president and vice president's preference in pajamas and oatmeal. Cheney likes evil and brown sugar and footsies.
We arrive at the venue, the Brewery, very early. Seeing the name "Slave Machine" on the marquee doesn't exactly lead to optimism regarding the night's show, or the upcoming election.
Roadie Matt Wypycha and myself deem it an appropriate time to find some food. Next door to the venue is a pizzeria that turns out to be run by a Rochester man. Inside, we are gifted with fliers for the next day's Edwards rally. We find out there is a surprise musical guest: Jon Bon Jovi.
We head next door to a chain-looking restaurant called Zaxby's. They call their hors d'oeuvres "Zappetizers." This is enough to make Subway the night's meal and a new slang term for defecation.
The show goes all right. Meeting up with Tabula Rasa was by far the best part of the night. There's nothing like good friends to make two days worth of stress feel a whole lot better.
After a couple hours of asking around, we find a place to stay. As I reach down to put my car into reverse, my car is jolted from the side. I jump out just in time to see some serious damage to the body of my car. What could be sweeter?
The driver of the truck that hit me is terribly drunk. This kind of puts a damper on the evening. His friend tells me, "I'm surprised he'd drive a car after the three D.U.I.s he's had."
My only comfort was preparing the piece of my mind I'd give to Allstate the next morning for insuring someone like that. A pox on both their houses.
Friday, October 29: Finally, Florida. 83 degrees is just a little bit better than late October in the Queen City. I can even ignore the verbal lashing that is sure to occur as a result of last night's accident. However, I cannot ignore the fact that here in this most crucial state, Bush/Cheney signs outnumber Kerry/Edwards signs by at least a 2-to-1 margin.
After long-deserved showers, we go down the street to pick up our "band allowances:" two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and some free meal passes to Leonardi's. The PBR comes in more than handy for our road-tested warriors who, with the exception of non-drinking guitarist Chase, head down the street to the Atlantic to catch Circle Takes The Square.
The line to get in is so absurd that Matt and I go down an alley to explore. At the top of a fire escape lies access to a couple Gainesville rooftops. The hijinks that ensue cause a cautious exit of the roof and alleyway, which worked out for everyone except Matt, questioned on his knowledge of the streets of Gainesville by some hard-working local law enforcement agents.
After discussing the election with a couple "undecided" voters, we made our way back to the hotel, stopping only to implore a drunk girl to try and beat me in a long jump contest over a sand pit (I destroyed her). After Matt and I take a short dip in the pool, we pile into the hotel room around 11 p.m. to watch some C-SPAN and prepare for the next day's show.
By prepare for the next day's show, I mean get kicked out of out hotel room at 3 a.m. for having too many people inside. Apparently the extra friends in sleeping bags on the floor watching replays of Edwards and George H. W. Bush on the campaign trail was a much worse offense than the people jumping off the two-story roof into the hotel pool. Who knew? 5 a.m. found us sleeping at a Knights Inn a couple miles away.
Saturday, October 30: Ah, the big day. Armed with fliers toting our performance later that night and minds intent on propping Senator John Kerry, some of us take to the streets of Gainesville while the rest of us pile into my car for a trip to Crescent Beach.
It's safe to say that the beach is somewhere between eight and 4,921,703 times better when the alternative is raking wet leaves in Tonawanda. The waves are higher than I can ever remember and I'm starting to feel good about the night's show.
The odds improve for our 9:40 set as the Blood Brothers/Against Me! show reaches capacity. Feverish fliering, leftover PBRs and a $15 bar tab have us whiskeyed and wonderful for the 50-or-so kids who show up for our night opening set. Between songs we, in my humble opinion, unload rounds of democratic rhetoric that would make Eddie Vedder proud. Everyone has a blast and I arrive at our hotel room at 2:30 a.m., three hours earlier than nearly everyone else.
Though we grew up hearing Less Than Jake sing about "Gainesville Rock City,"it never quite made sense until tonight. Between many girls thinking that underwear is an adequate Halloween costume and seeing a man dressed as a Viking essentially disrobe his Tinkerbell in the second row of the crowd, it's clear that there is just something different in the water here.
That something different is vodka. Or paint thinner.
Sunday, October 31: My dad and brother call me at 11:30 from the Bills game and I quickly convince some of the guys to find a bar where they would be showing the game against Arizona. We shower faster than hippies, using soap to boot, and are about to leave when, well, let's just say that Florida hotel owners' shoes are very, very familiar with our behinds.
Homeless again for the night, we do get to watch the Bills move to within nine wins of an automatic playoff spot by improving to 2-5 with a 38-14 win over the Cardinals.
Twenty hours from home and 38 hours away from the election, we decide to leave for Buffalo, where the real fun begins. President Bush can't resist at least one more chance to stall progress: our road out of town is still blocked off from his airport speech earlier that afternoon.
Monday, November 1: On the way down, we passed the "#1 mini-golf course in the world," a little place tucked inside South Carolina aptly named, South of the Border. On three coffees, a football-shaped Dr. Pepper and some sort of bizarre energy drink, we cannot possibly ignore the 18 billboards announcing its existence.
At 1 a.m., we see the lights.
Between the 20-foot tall plaster Mexican man, some sort of bizarre rabbit with antlers and six exhausted travelers, I don't know that there was anything better on Earth at that moment.
One of my best friends, Joshua, lives in Dulles, Va., about three and a half hours away. We weren't too concerned about falling asleep behind the wheel until Richmond, Va., decided it would be a good idea to do all their city's highway repair that night, placing us right in our nation's capitol during morning rush hour, the day before the presidential election.
This obstacle shut the window of getting to Joshua's before 10. Forced to wait for his phone call in a nearby mall, our fill-in drummer Ryan, from former Buffalo band Elad Love Affair and current local hardcore outfit Bitterness, found a nice massaging chair pagoda and went to town. I followed suit until Joshua called.
From then on, most of us received some much needed rest and food before the last leg of our trip. I played "ESPN Hockey 2K5" with Joshua and ate some Baja Fresh enchiladas. I also found out I can totally spit for distance from a fourth floor apartment complex way better than Joshua.
Tuesday, November 2, 1 a.m.: There are rest stop gas stations called Sheetz all over the East Coast, but this one was by far the best. Between the dance club lighting and plush carpeting, this rest stop also featured a new breed of fast food.
2:30 a.m.: Available via touch-screen ordering, anyone with a taste for it can order all kinds of misspelled food. From the Shmuffin to the Shmagel to a plain old order of Fryz, Sheetz is the place to teach your kids to read, George Walker-style.
9 a.m.: I wake up, hitting up Hamilton school to record my preference to Kerrify this nation. On my way in, I remember thinking how many plays on words there would be if Kerry and Edwards were as good at foreign policy as Bush and Cheney.
"Putting the 'err' in Kerry" and "You can't spell Edwards without 'war'" are my two personal favorites.
6:47 p.m.: I've come to the realization that this election is by far the tensest event in years for me. For a soccer fanatic like myself, it's like the World Cup times 12 million.
7:13 p.m.: Ice rink maps? Window-washer leader boards? Pat Buchanan? These are all terrible signs.
8:01 p.m.: I understand a lot of their quirks, but I'm requesting emails from any hippies at UB regarding how often they shower and if they use soap or not.
9:42 p.m.: If Bush wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral, I'm willing to bet any money that the Republicans pretend that it is unprecedented.
10:16 p.m.: What percentage of Yankee fans are Bush voters?
11:55 p.m.: I just want to say I hate NASCAR.
12:27 a.m.: I wouldn't mind having a President with the last name "Celery."
1:05 a.m.: I wonder what Elian Gonzalez is up to right now.
1:44 a.m.: There is no antidote for this. I've spent a long, idealistic time rummaging through an attic of optimistic thoughts with regard to politics and I've just come up with a lot of mothballs. There is no way to adequately state exactly how hard this is to take.
I can say with an overwhelming determination that I will not stop pursuing a better America, even when it seems America doesn't want it itself.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
