14 days in a row and counting

At what point does a tour bus become a pirate ship? If you’re like me, you’ve lost precious hours of sleep pondering this great question of life too. Jon Bon Jovi compared it to a steel horse but last night I felt more like Noah than John Wayne. We left Indianapolis, fresh from overindulgence at Steak-n-shake, and headed to Atlanta for another non-Hannah radio festival. This time with Avril Levigne. I remember covering her song “complicated” once when I was in high school. I can’t really figure out why I would do that. My band was probably playing a sweet sixteen at the time and we thought girls would like it. But ok enough about Avril and more about pirate ships. You see, as we traveled in the night through middle America, our bus was rocking back and forth on the high seas – ‘Perfect Storm’ style. This is no knock against our bus driver – in fact he’s brilliant – but it was raining like we were prepping the set for the straight-to-DVD Waterworld 2 movie. I can’t be sure, but the waters may have risen and overtaken our wheels, in which case we officially and legally became a ship. I was getting knocked around into tons of stuff as I walked through the yacht to the back lounge after another 3-hour Arrested Development DVD marathon. I swung the door to the bunk area open; I found myself in complete darkness and thrown like a rag doll back and forth down the narrow hallway. What’s this? A tee shirt? A sock? A sock puppet?! I’m feeling my way through to get to the back lounge. I think I just hit Yogi’s foot. Sorry Gurt. Now MY foot is caught on John’s blanket and I accidentally pull on it. He probably doesn’t notice. Hope he does, though. In the back lounge I have a small closet area pictured below:

Packing for tour is never easy. Most of the time tours get extended and you end up staying on the road longer than you originally planned. For this tour I had to pack 3 months into 2 suitcases, whose contents threw up into this 1 closet. Which would explain why you could see my multi-layered winter coat inches away from my bathing suit. Surprisingly, HOTlanta lived up to its nickname. We’ve had snow at the past few shows, but today caught me off guard with some nice weather. You know my parents met when my mom playfully threw a snowball at my dad to get his attention? This is way more romantic-comedy than how my grandparents met, which was at a White Castle. Actually now that I think about it, perhaps the latter is more romantic-comedy…
All in all, I like being a pirate. The tour bus-turned-pirate ship has a way of rocking you to sleep like an infant. …or in my case a grown man with a mother who has very strong arms. Uhhh, you get the idea. I’ve just convinced myself to go to sleep. The ship is now taking off on another 6+ hour trip to Ohio.

Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhh!!!