|
This page: Count It When You Get Paid; Eat Real Food at Least Once a Day; Good Tape Decks Make Good Neighbors; If You Expect to See It Again, Don't Leave It in the Van
Count It When You Get Paid
There's always a first time, so always be smart! It's the end of the night at a new club. The club manager takes you aside and (hopefully) hands you a roll of bills. On the outside of that roll will be a dollar-amount figure, usually on a yellow adhesive note. (Usually yellow paper/blue ink.)
 Count it right then and there. It'll be right, and it'll be right the next time too because that person will remember you counted it the time before. Club owners are like old-line Soviets who have to be dealt with but not trusted any further than you can throw one of them.
Counting all your money is a good thing to do several times a day. It keeps your short-term goals realistic and it helps pinpoint how recently it was you got ripped off.
Eat Real Food at Least Once a Day
 The drive-thru network of fast-food chains has smothered the world like Georgia kudzu and reduced it to a vile and colorless wilderness. But these grease pits are all too often necessary evils. With road schedules tight, one must stomach what one must of Wendy's and Burger King.
You're a vegetarian? Then either learn to like drive-thru potatoes and salads or track down the trail mix in the grocery store and buy five pounds at a time. It keeps and you'll need it at some point. Also be aware of the Taco Bell bean burrito, possibly the only vegan meal consistently available on America's roadways -- not to mention it's plastic-free and under two dollars.
Finally, once a day, sit down and eat something real somewhere, at a table, without an engine rumbling underneath you. One must still deal with chain establishments all too often, but many of them at least have soup-salad-and-fruit bars, from whence all true nutrition is possible.
Good Tape Decks Make Good Neighbors
Do not leave town for a serious road haul without an acceptable cassette and/or cassette/CD sound system installed. At least have a jam box or headphone/Walkman to toss around. When you're on the road with four or five other guys all the time, a proper vehicle stereo is not a luxury item. It needn't always be turned on, but it has its definite place, use, and time -- mainly when everybody's tired of talking but enforced silence feels oppressive and you can't exactly pull down a screen and show Patton or anything.
Do not assume you will pass the time listening to the radio. Radio is a nice idea gone horribly, horribly wrong. Someone in the vehicle will be sick of whatever you find in an endless quest up and
down the dial of dreck, so don't even bother trying. It's much better to slam Beggar's Banquet in the dash, crank it up, and, if anyone objects, throw them out of the band immediately.
If You Expect to See It Again, Don't Leave It in the Van
You will get ripped off eventually, and that's when you'll learn to stop bringing precious possessions from home with you. Like, for instance, your entire CD collection.
When, as a young man, I first played clubs in the seedier underbellies of this great nation, we occasionally opened up a bedsheet, tossed everything into it, tied up the corners, and took it all inside the club with us. If the van itself was still parked where we left it, we considered ourselves lucky and got the hell out of there. (I also walked six miles to rehearsal every morning you Korn-playin' sonny-boy! Go get me my teef!)
You eventually learn to not bring precious things on the road with you in the first place, whatever it is. Possessions are for wimps, anyway.
Next Page: If You Wouldn't Say It to a Cop, Don't Say It to the Soundman; Learn to Read; Love & Respect Your Van Zone Neighbor; When You Can Afford a Hotel Room, Get It....
|
