09-06-98 Day off. Wildwood Missouri.

Days off. They keep giving us days off. Torture. Days off get you into trouble. The tour manager stuffs the daily money into your hand and it sits there screaming at you: "Day off, DAY OFF! Whatcha gonna do Johnny boy? No gig tonight. Nothing to keep you occupied. Can't get that kick from playing tonight Johnny boy. Whatcha gonna do? Spend me, SPEND ME! Cds, clothes, cabs, booze, drugs, girls! SPEND MEEEEEEEEEE!"

Today we're lucky. The double Id on my shoulder can scream blue murder all day because we're in the country. We've stopped off in Wildwood Missouri to spend the day at a friend of the tour managers. Everyone in the neighbourhood has come out to see what the hell a 45 foot long block of chrome on wheels is doing parked outside one of their front lawns. The Euro-Freakniks have come to down baby. The tour manager's friends are a nice couple. We eat their food, we drink their beer, we swim in their neighbour's pool, we torture their kids with water pistols and we sneak joints around the back of the house when they're not looking. A dysfunctional family outing with Pitchshifter. Should've been made into a holiday. It's national 'Let the stoned lunatic punk rock band from England corrupt your children Day'. Lovely. After the barbecue Scott decides to take us out in his new 4x4. We drive up the hill to a secluded field.

"I thought you guys might like to see these . . ."
"Holy shit!"
"Wow!"
"Whoah!"

What's up there in the top field minding it's own business as we fall out of the car to take a closer look? . . . A herd of buffalo. Not content with the deer that roam free all over the hill and the turtles that swim in the lake by the bottom of the houses. The people of Wildwood Missouri have a real live heard of buffalo roaming around in a field out back. Rolling, rolling, rolling . . .

The granddaddy buffalo's head is as big as my upper torso as I try to get a photo without getting too close. This thing is a car with a heart beat. We marvel at it's enormity for a while then head back to the house to torture the kids some more. The time to leave has come and we say goodbye to the kids and thanks to Scott and Lorrie for letting us corrupt their children and ruin their lives. We disappear into the belly of the chrome beast once more and head off back on the road in search of depravity and evil. Rolling, rolling, rolling . .