November 16, 2006 "I Know You Know You Know I Know"

11/16/2006 The Intersection - Grand Rapids, MI
Other bands: Smile Empty Soul, Action Reaction


Photo by Joe Major.

It gets so cold up in the hand in the middle of November. It's like a permanent ache.

We arrived at The Intersection in the sallow light of afternoon, biding our time by hanging Brazil posters all over the venue. When we weren't drinking, we kept ourselves busy with our own marketing. Our secret goal was to make ourselves look like a bigger deal than the headliner.

Wireless internet was a comforting blanket, a thin tether to the outside world. It was my lifeline home, but was unfortunately rarely used as such. We were both busy. Alison was still working at the home for troubled kids and my topsy turvy hours didn't help to make the communication any easier.

The set went on and went off without a hitch, a solid reality now as opposed to a rare and fleeting occasion for celebration. James best friend was a drum machine and a pair of ear buds. Aaron knew how to beat the shit out of his guitar without beating the shit out of his guitar.

We bought a hotel room almost every night now. Pleading with strangers for floorspace on which to sleep was becoming a burdensome humiliation in this day and age. Now that we were making three-hundred a night plus buyouts and merchandise, we could more or less afford it. Especially if we didn't think about the money we already owed.

We piled in the same room, seven or sometimes eight of us, like illegal immigrants. And in a sense, in the world of hotel rules, we were illegal, squatting in a room that was only paid for for two people. We piled on the beds, on the floor. Seven or eight showers, piles of wet towels. We always sent only two guys in to get the room and parked the van off the side in the shadows. They were to ask for a room in the back, under the pretense of wanting peace and quiet away from the road, but really so that we could sit outside the room and drink and smoke and talk on our cell phones before coming back inside the rapidly deteriorating atmosphere of the room.

When we left, the rooms were always rich with the must of seven grown men and our perennially dirty laundry. And while we always had to sneak past the desk clerk the night before, we could always hit the complimentary breakfasts and walk out proudly the next morning with the knowledge that there had been a shift change and the new person was none the wiser. This was our game and we never lost, not for seven years.

The one good thing about this run was the close proximity of all the dates. Over the years we'd been trained to do marathon drives for weeks at a time, and now we had the luxury of driving no more than two to four hours for most of these shows. It was a godsend to be out of the van and away from the radiating anxiety we were all emitting.

But it was also more time to think, more time to brood. More time to ask silent questions.