Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Moving sucks but when my mind is clear, I must follow the direction I feel. The twin shorties were 9 when I started this, now they are 11. Living an hour away was beneficial financially as I was close to Hollywood and Hollywood is full of people that love to rock. As one that connects those that rock with those that bask in their rockness, Hollywood is an open slate of opportunity where pretty much whenever I am willing to stay up late in the world of loud, I can drive home avoiding drunks with some money in the mail. That was then and this is now and now I am a bit more free to be more creative in my endeavors and less geographically limited.

Current supplies:

1- Australian tent, don't know what they are called but they are canvas, rectangular and for camping in the rugged outback (hey, a little help from my Aussie friends on what they call these things?). I brought it home and it already is coming in handy though I wont "tent it and will just use it as a mattress.

2- Jesus candles I bought at the liquor store for illumination. That's his gig, may as well put him to work.

2- Bottles of wine that I found in the house unopened, one bottle is still unopened.

1- Liter of Fiji water, room temp. Also from the liquor store, I had them grab a room temp bottle from the back, cold water is just too discomforting to enjoy drinking, except as a shock while in overheat mode.

1- Of the shortie's sleeping bags and a pillow borrowed from the shorties' mom, thank you!

1- iPod Shuffle. Yes, I do feel a distaste for them and Mac and Apple as well as everything else that pretends to be nice while secretly trying rope me in, but the music on it is magic and makes my heart hurt but in a touching happy way and I have not taken the time to bypass Mac's annoying attempt at blocking me from taking the music off it. I kind of like the idea that the tunes are captured in a tangible entity, old school style like before all this ripping happened and I also like the reminder when I charge the iPod shuffle by plugging it into my computer that Mac's iFucked software tries to erase it and I kind of enjoy my often frivolous battles against the things with which I disagree. As in "I can't stop mosquito's from biting but I can put up a mosquito net and move on as they struggle in trying to feed upon me."

1 - Pair of old, like 15 years, little plastic stereo battery powered Sony speakers that I recently repaired that were my 'hotel room stereo' from back in the early 90's when cassette tape Sony Walkman's were the thing to have. I didn't hate Walkmans but also they did tiny policemen injected into their electronics. And no, I don't hate cops and in the words of Barfly, "I just feel better when they are not around," especially inside something I purchase. Oh, so I do a search on the little speaker's model #, SRS-57 and whoa look at this: http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/13/5/637 . Which I found quite interesting not only in the use the speakers but also in that these female birds apparently call out to their dudes to get them food and the neighboring male birds eavesdrop. Turns out that if the birdy boyfriend/hubby does not bring her enough food, she will keep calling out and nearby single male birds listen in and pop on over for a conjugal visit and the chicky birds have a go with the neighbor. Uh oh, I have this overwhelming desire to head off to the grocery store to stock the fridge with lots and lots of food and then open all the windows and listen really carefully.

1- Mini travel pack with all the stuff I would bring if I was doing a trip to San Francisco for an overnight and a gig.

1- Me. My own humanly self and as I lay here I realize that I have already mentally acclimated to my new home yet it will be three weeks or so before I can actually entirely move. I feel more comfortable here camping in a powerless house than I did walking back into full familiarity. And I realize that last night my displaced feeling was less about tour ending and more of being in the construction phases of a new home world beginning.

And speaking of beginning, here is me in the earlier beginnings of my humanly life with my pop teaching me to ski

Roller coaster. Right now I am sitting in the seat of the roller coaster of decisions I made and beyond the point of turning back, and must feel the string/sting of outcomes unfolding. Scary, fun, fast, nauseating, and everything in between. Parts I love and parts I hate but hey, I made the choices, no complaints and just because I chose to do it does not mean it will be easy. Roller coaster. Surrounded by so many people and more alone than ever, roller coaster. Re-acclimation to being home. And now that I think about it. Sitting in a seat, whether in a living room stationary or on a freeway going 60, it's all good. But introduce an abrupt transition and everything changes. Try launching a couch potato with a catapult or putting a halt to a freeway driver with a brick wall and all of a sudden that seat sitting takes on a whole new dimension. Perhaps that sheds light on the underlying trauma experienced when transitioning between the high speed motion of tour and the grounded base of being home.

Good morning sunshine,

Dave Rat

So yesterday we flew home and enjoyed all the associated amenities that go along with trans-earth travel. Van rides, airport lines, shuttle busses, security lines, airplanes, more shuttle busses and finally a town car home

and the occasional oddity catches my eye for a picture.

Now, I guess that in the realm of avoiding being offensive to our neighborly fellow airporter's this makes sense but one has to wonder what could have possibly occurred where spitting in trash cans became such and issue that they hires a graphic artist, translator, metal plate maker and a handyman to create and install anti-spitting signs. One could also wonder about the cost of the endeavor as well as ponder whether airline passengers who find themselves encountering this sign while also in spit-preparedness-mode, would actually go "Oh, wait, I was just about to spit in the trash can, but I can't spit here, I wonder where the toilet is? and I sure hope there is not a line for the toilet."

I started out this blog with a loose structure and momentum and here I find myself now feeling more like it has been captured by the ways of the wind as my life transitions back from tour to day to day life. The words I write are focused on the concept of a life in motion and as the tour winds down, it involves less and less of the world I live. But it's not over yet as there are more adventures ahead and as I lay here in ben I wonder and hope that I have accomplished what I set out to do so many months ago. I guess time will tell as I must wait for hindsight to tell me whether the bloggery adventure truly captured the sensation of the state of mind, or states of mind of what it feels like to let go of life at home and tour and travel as a way of life.

And enough of that noise, I just got home, change gears and rock on in whole new direction. If it does not make my heart hurt when it ends, it was not worth starting in the first place.

Dave Rat