AARON'S DIARY
A Catalogue of Near Disaster
On the Jupiter Sunrise summer �02 tour
(an ongoing piece chronicling those almost tour halting events,
which we laugh about now�)
Of course we neither expect nor want
More experiences such as those
Listed below and while this prose
is neither brag nor flaunt
It�s these bits of nasty weather
That make the nice days brighter
And, in the words of our Piebald pals
�the best job ever�
Let me set the stage,so to speak
For the first of what in hopes won�t be too many
Entries in this diary
We�d been driving for a week
Up all night taking shifts, seeing the west
Our last show was Vegas and we were ready to play
Lucky for us we show up at our next gig
In York, PA
We unloaded some gear
And noticed a small tinkling
It wasn�t rain
It was all the tubes (a crucial part of amp working)
From Ben�s volume machine
Which had fallen out of their sockets
From our cross country trip
Along roads built by the lowest bidder
(except Nevada, they�ve got nice asphalt!)
Then we heard a large tinkling
It was rain
As if to explain to us:
�You aint in the west anymore, suckas!�
I remember cloudbursts
Refreshing, even warm, afternoon bouts
Of water, mopped up by the sun as fast as they fell
But I had never had to haul
Hundreds of pounds of expensive electronics
Which, if lost, would be the downfall
Of all we�d worked so hard for
In an insane torrential five minute downpour
I�ll remember cloudbursts better next time
You know the outcome of all these stories already
We�re still on the road
Ben�s guitar buzzed like a bee that night
Through his miraculously saved
Piece of technological wizardry
We floated like a butterfly to our next show
Albeit, like a butterfly with no wings
And the body of a dodge caravan with a trailer attached.
Oh, let�s skip back a couple days to tell a small
tale regarding a place in Des Moines
Specifcally, the Merle Hay mall
We�re minding our own business
Ain�t no one bothered
Just getting the word out about our brand of rock
When a venerable old security man
Turned into a venerable old security�jerk!
We complied with his request
Which was for us to leave
And decided the way that was best
Was out the back
Then something happened that seems native to the midwest
We were essentially escorted out the back door
Which was about as far away from our tower of touring power (the van)
As we could get and still make the authorities angry
On our way around this nation�s glorified manifestation of capitalism (the mall)
We ran into security guards watching every entrance!
Of course we stopped to talk to one who looked nice
And just as he was about to listen to Super X-ray
The venerable old jerk shows up and says the vice
Is about to show up to take us down!
This wasn�t new to us, hardened ex-con criminal masterminds
That we were (wink), so we just kept walking along
And nothing happened.
Wouldn�t that have been cool though?
The sissiest band in the world gets thrown in the slammer!
Watch those headlines folks.
This next tale is one of our best
And at least for Chris
One of our scariest
It was a big outdoor shindig called Parkfest
Beautiful day, all our friends we�re playing
So there we were, rockin� out
As is our idiom
The last song in our set was on its way out
(do ya like how I rhymed �out� with �out�?)
we like to jump, as you might have found
if you�ve ever seen us live
so the last chord of the song is supposed to be played
on the instant of our feet touching the ground
This is how it turned out instead:
We all looked around for something to jump off of
As a jump from something above ground maximizes
Potential rock benefit and looks extra super cool, especially
With a little spread eagle or some other fancy trick,
The only item on the stage that was near enough and sturdy
Was Chris� drum riser
We all stepped on the front of it and at the crucial moment
Leaped off with full force
Bystanders say: Mark went down flat on his front, guitar underneath him
Ben landed on his knees, increasing his grunge credibility by ripping his pants
And skin
Aaron went backwards, cushioning the blow with his tuckus, legs flailing
And poor Chris thought two things in this order:
�Dude, is my band dead?� and �am I going to fall off the back of the stage and also be dead?�
because Chris was on a rolling drum riser that had been unlocked at the start of the song
due to a miscommunication with the stage crew
though, as you may have guessed, neither of those things happened
and that was actually a really hilarious, rock star way to end the set and we were happy.
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