10-06-98 The Bottle Neck. Lawrence Kansas.

Hello middle America. This is the country boy, and boy are there some BIG people. If you don't like meat then you'd better like pancakes or you're going to starve. So I order pancakes at the local diner. Half way through the dish I notice that one of the bits of pecan nut on my pancakes has a head. As I look closer it becomes apparent that it's a dead chrysalis that looks like a piece of nut. Very nice.

"Hey boss we got some vegetarians on table 12."
"Pour some maggots in the pecans. That'll get rid of those European beatnik faggots."

10 weeks left to get me boys. . .

We play to a healthy crowd through a thunder storm in a dark hole. The microphone cable breaks and they replace it. . . with another broken cable. Maggots, cables, Kansas.

People like to get wasted in Lawrence Kansas. I ask a stocky women why that is,

"Wellll therezz fuck all else to do around here."

Thank you madam.

After the show I head off to a bar with a guy from the record label and a few retailers. All nice people. We order drinks. There's something seriously wrong in this place. No one else seems to notice and they happily sit and sip. There's a guy leaning on a pin ball machine with a broken nose. A freshly broken nose. Still bleeding. There's another guy in a trilby hat over by the video game machine with two black eyes and a broken nose. There's blood on the windows and band gear over the floor. It's either a punk's wedding reception or one hell of a gig. I don't like to mix blood with alcohol these days, so I return to the gig. Only D (drums) and Greg (tour manger) remain, with a host of wated Lawrencians. There's a drunken tattoo artist sitting with them. They're all leaving. I sidle up to D.

"Where you going D?"
"Back to my friend the tattoo artist's house."
"He's gonna tattoo us."
"No matter how much of a good idea that might sound, don't get a tattoo tonight. Remember Mick? Got that tattoo when he was drunk and the woman who did it was so wasted she tattooed 'MUCK' instead of MICK on his arm?"
"Yeah."
"And then when he wanted to get it covered over the only thing the guy had big enough to cover it was a full colour bald eagle that went half way up his arm."
"Yeah."
"Remember what I'm telling you."
"Yeah OK."
"G'night."
"G'night."