Truck stop living. There's sort of an unspoken nod or agreement with every band on tour. You see each other in all kinds of truck stops and gas stations and even diners.. you notice that maybe you're the only people in the place with weird shirts or messy hair or a pink wallet. You don't talk about where you just played.. you don't talk about your rig or your rack-mounted bass tuner.. it's weird. Why wouldn't you? Maybe you do?
In the middle of the night at a Flying J truck stop (the ones with the indie-rock color scheme) I noticed some weird goth-y dudes walking around and checking out the offerings of old flying man J. I found a bin of discounted VHS cassettes. There were all kinds of miserable crap tapes. I finally decided on seriously making a purchase and $9.99 for 3 tapes was not only the catalyst for this decision, but also a genuinely awesome deal. My first two choices were pretty easy; an instructional/propaganda video on the ill-fated milk cap craze and a really, really weird puppet movie about historical and famous people and events. My third choice was a little rough..either a children's action horror "film" called "Gator Face" or another propaganda video, but this time on awesome in-line skating. I noticed that one of the goth-y dudes was leaning over the depressing sandwich and salad cooler and was basically asking for someone to talk to him. I asked his opinion on which movie I should buy and without hesitation he lovingly chose "Gator Face."
After drinking a little coffee, eating some terrible french fries and terrible apple pie and purchasing my awesome tapes I walked back to the car and noticed our goth friends piling onto a huge tour bus with fancy trailer attached. It immediately made sense.. of course. Goth dudes in the middle of Idaho, totally. Reprise and WB logos embroidered on the hood of his sweatshirt? Totally. Major label goth dudes. I had Adrian pull up to their van and I knocked on the door. I sort of got nervous at the last second and totally stammered my way through the a little more than awkward interaction of giving them an "Own Zone" comp CD, a Super Warren and a "So Long and Thanks for all the Birds" Thanksgiving CD. They acted as if they got this all the time, which made sense. They gave us a couple stickers and we were off. When we got back to the car I inspected the stickers and was excited to see that they were, in fact, the awesome mildly electro, pretty metal, sort of goth-y band STATIC-X.
I hope they like the CDs.
Truly,
Jona
Yes, this is a good story.
Well, admittedly, I have modeled my b-log after your's, and after reading this entry, I feel as though the bar has been raised. I've got to start writing with a little bit more detail. All my ambiguous ramblings just aren't raking in the comments enough.
To the point:
Could you describe, please, what elements of the man's attire were "gothy"? What does that mean?
thanks, love,
khaela
Jona,
Are you trying to print maps? Like from Denver to Provo? Because maps are getting printed at weird times here at work.
Very awesome.
YOU ARE GATOR FACE!! THAT MOVIE IS ABOUT YOU!!! Boners, I am going to the aquarium today to see your friends THE CRABS!!!! I plan on telling a lot of shark jokez. What shark is always depressed? The BLUE SHARK! I just made that one up!! You can use it--it's cool. Use my joke.
So there I was in the salt lake city mall inside the hot topic looking at all of these shirts. A band walked in and I kind of looked at the one with the long hair thinking it was a girl, but it wasn't. I went to buy my stuff and the guy in the band came up to me and said, "Hey we are in a band called The Used and you might like our stuff" does a little dance - hands me a cd and walks off.... a year later they were "big" hahaha!
My funny story...
that is the coolest story i have ever read.