Tampa to Tulsa

On the twelfth day of the tour I saw it in his eyes. The empty sockets, eyes fixed on the half creased cigarette, black baseball cap hiding brow. The smoke rising up next to him, the only true friend he’s got. Ragged purple shirt, black tatoo’s, behind him the everchanging view outside the tourbus, right now its palm trees. In a few hours it will be cacti, and the deserts of Arizona, the plains of New Mexico. I brought all the usual tools, 35 90 minute cassettes for the interviews, cartons of American Spirit cigarettes, the Indian insignia greeting me each time I take one of the packs out of my duffle bag. I stare at the ground of the tour bus as my hand slaps the back of the cigarette pack.

He hasn’t been the same since the last radio show, hasn’t been the same person since the old band broke up. He was so young back then; he didn’t even know who he was, doubtful if he still does.

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It’s just outside Barstow when I realize I am out of cigarettes. The bright blue package on the pack of American Spirits withers, and then falls to the ground as I remove the last cigarette. I know that Smokey has two cartons. Its’ part of the tour rider to have at least 4 cartons in the bus at one time. I think they’re over by the deli counter, but I too deep in thought to get up, circulate the legs, break the concentration. It’s a superstition, to break thought when you’re in the middle of an idea for a song, or an album, when I know the chord on my telecaster but I can’t put the feeling in my head. I know how it sounds, but I can’t reproduce it. Sometimes I think I’m overpaid, actually, I know I’m over paid. The last radio show was a disaster, and still I continue to sell records. Become more of an enigma and they will love you for it. Youll voice everything they’ve ever thought and they’ll want your thoughts, why would anyone want my thoughts. I cough, settle down into a E major chord change. I let the chord ring out. Set the guitar down, get up, stand outside, watch the train pass by the cliffs and palm trees. You’re in California. You always dreamed of this, or did I? Sometimes I read too many interviews with myself, I cant tell which part of me is journalist embellishing or what part of it is me trying to be an enigmatic little fucker.

It all comes out sounding like Neil Young at this time of the afternoon. I pour a plastic cup full of beam and ice and sit Indian style on my rug. The rug placed on the faux hardwood of the cabin to pretend like I haven’t been to 36 different towns in the last three months, when I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been through Tulsa even though I’m in San Lois Obispo, or Santa Cruz or San Diego, or Sioux Falls.

I keep having those dreams again “You sold out motherfucker”. I wake up to the sound of train whistles, like in “On the road”. I think about the last time I read that and actually felt young. I get up and stare out at the countryside forever coasting forward. Momentum, that’s what my life is about moving forward, being suspended in the forward movement by staying in my little cabin and writing songs, and trying to counteract the movement, try to get the car to move backwards solely through the power of song. My cap is filthy, I run hands through hair but cant feel the follicles and I wonder how much of my detachment is pot induced (having ingested my last joint 4 hours prior, when I didn’t even want to it was the roadies, right before we pulled out of LA) and how much of it is because of travel and how I miss my friends, my real (non showbiz friends and I remember when I that word entered my vocabulary)

My cell phone goes off. I know this because it rattles down by my balls. It vibrates the way a massager would. It carries on like this for a few minutes. I continue to stare out at the scenery, try to immerse myself in each shot that passes by. And I think about my friends who died. The band. When I was just a little fucking kid man, didn’t know all the other members would FUCKING DIE. And how come I’m not dead? How come I have to wander around with friends who kiss my ass and can’t trust anyone and this is some other asshole on the phone who wants something from me, “when is the new record coming out?”, “This album is shit.” “I cant market this Tony, I just cant.”, “Radio wont play this, shit I wont play this for my daughters, man.” “When are you going to clean up?” Too bad I cant ask them the questions I want to ask them. What’s it like to have a mother and father, what’s it like to be loved for who you are and not for some sort of marketable position in the charts? Too bad I can’t ask them how to be a man, whatever that is. I can’t show them, ‘cuz they’ll bleed me alive. Once they realize how lost I am in this its’ all over, the wolves will fucking rip me apart. So it’s up to me to fight all this from within and with my songs. And try to relax, and play with the session musicians, they’re ok guys, they just want to play, they play for the love of it, and sometimes after shows when its just us in the early morning hours doing Neil and Dylan covers, and I’m singing “Idiot wind” like I’m the one who just got divorced, and all the little plastic cups are filled with diluted whiskey and thanks to Bob and the booze and the late nights I’m convinced I have friends and can relate to people but it’s a lie when I wake up and were still in motion and there’s a grown man in charge of me waking up in the morning for Christ sakes. And it’s my manager on the cell phone and I totally know this, so I pour another drink and try to go to sleep but it’s no use. And when I finally fall asleep I dream of her, and I can’t have her because she’s dead and you can’t ever lose the past especially at 3am in another hotel room when all you can feel is the rough edges of the blankets, as they scrape my face. And even the womb of the comforter at the Holiday inn, with the little pill packets all over the floor can’t help me escape the feeling that the whole world is caving in and I wrote the soundtrack.