WAY Off My Mark

Thursday December 11th, 2008 - Waukegan, IL/Eastman, WI

Hot streaks don’t last forever apparently. The one I was on before my car wreck is gone and I’m starting to slide back into the mud and am pissed off at the world. It kind of feels like I was wearing a pair of funky grimey shorts and hadn’t scrubbed for a few weeks and then I took a piping hot shower and cleaned up nicely but now I put those shorts back on.

It’s been one annoying thing after the next since the wreck and I’m still trying to figure out how the tide turned so quickly from kicking ass to sucking it. I felt bullet proof for the previous couple of weeks and today I feel like putting a high caliber bullet in my skull.

What went wrong? Part of it was buying the ‘new’ Toyota at the auction. It’s a chunk of Japanese dragon poo. I needed a car so I forced it rather than letting a good deal come my way like I usually do. I shouldn’t have bought it but I did and now I have to deal with it.

I made another mistake by taking it to a garage in Waukegan that was recommended by my friends at WIIL radio in Kenosha. The place advertises on the station and I’d met the owner a while back and decided to take it there to get it looked at. My first big mistake.

They upsold me on getting brakes and a radiator and a major tune up put on it which is a lot more than I’d planned for. My last Camry didn’t need a damn thing and it was great. This one needed a lot of things and since I already bought it I decided to just get it fixed.

The garage promised me I’d have it yesterday by 5pm and I was still sitting there when they closed at 6. THAT’S when they told me they wouldn’t have it ready and I went nuts. I wouldn’t have had the work done if it wouldn’t have been ready and to add insult to it I was expected to pay for a rental car for the third straight day. I flipped out at that point.

The owner ended up giving me a ride home and tried to make jokes which I absolutely didn’t want to hear. He seems like a nice enough guy but his hatchet man at the counter is a flat out LIAR. He’s just like my old man who used to paint flowery word pictures of an end result which was never going to happen and disappointment was always the outcome.

The hatchet man swore on his honor and promised me the car would be ready by 10:00 this morning. I called my friend Shelley who was nice enough to help me out and came to pick me up around 10:15 just so I’d give a cushion so as not to flip out again. On the way there the hatchet man called and told me there was a ‘slight problem’. I was FURIOUS.

I don’t care about any ‘slight problem’. FIX MY DAMN CAR you lying fat tub of axle grease. Then I was told to get there at 11:30 and ‘absolutely 100% your car will be ready then’. Ok, sure. I ended up getting out of there at 12:10 and I was pissed beyond words.

None of this should have happened and those slithery bastards didn’t even thank me for my business. I’ll be dipped in piss if I ever bring a car within five miles of those guys but the damage is done. Like it or not I now have invested more than I should have in this car.

It seems like the ‘worst case scenario’ bug is starting to bite me again. I’ve said it before that Mr. Lucky is a fun character to play on stage but not in real life and it’s true. I bought the wrong car this time and it hurts even more since the last one was such a cherry. I can’t even sue anyone because the lowlifes who hit me fled the scene. The whole situation rots.

Then to make it worse I stupidly took a gig in Eastman, WI tonight which is way on the western part of the state by Prairie Du Chien. It came up earlier this week and I could use the money so I said yes. Another mistake. I should have stayed home and kept working on any number of projects that are all slipping away as I get cars fixed and ride to hell gigs.

Eastman has a population of under 500 and I can’t believe it’s that high. Who in the hell would want to live there? There are four bars in the downtown ‘strip’ and the show was at one of them. We were late because the opener showed up late and then wanted to stop for a meal in Madison. I was hungry too so it was partially my fault but I agreed to the deal.

Another mistake. By the time we ate and got back on the road there was the biggest and longest traffic jam I’ve ever been in in Madison, WI. It did NOT move and we were stuck in a mess for about an hour. Now we were late and I just despise that feeling of having to rush to get there knowing there was no chance of making it on time for the show. It sucks.

We were supposed to be there at 7:30 but there were long windy roads through the hilly western part of Wisconsin and we didn’t get there until 8:15. The room was not even half full and there was a weak sound system and horrific stage lighting to boot. This was not a gig I needed to be doing after all these years in the business and I felt like a gigantic loser.

I looked around the room and there were a lot of ball caps and hunting gear and they did not even turn off the TV. These were not my fans and I had to plow through another night of drunken babbling to make a couple of bucks so I could start paying off my car repairs.

There was a boozed up shlub in a cowboy hat and Harley jacket right in front that had a loud rambling comment every twelve seconds that threw the opener off and I just was not going to let that happen to me. I lit into him for about thirty seconds right as I got up there so as to establish my turf. I had to. There were no security guards to shut him up for me.

This whole scenario depresses me and I’m angry at myself for taking the gig. It’s totally my fault and I take full blame. The booker is a nice guy and the lady who owned the joint was very nice too. There were some friendly people besides that drunk cow poke but none of that mattered. I am beyond gigs like this and the thrill is totally gone. I hated all of it.

I’ve done way too many of these over the years and my patience is totally gone. I’m just not interested in fighting drunks in a saloon in a small town who have never seen comedy before. Am I snobby? An elitist? Too big for my britches? All I know is this wasn’t fun.

This was a big red flag tonight and all the way home the opener tried to cheer me up but I knew deep in my heart I’ve lost the fire. This was a long hard ugly day. I‘m out of sync.