17-06-98 Will Rogers Theatre. Oklahoma City.

I think the suffix to Oklahoma was a little adventurous? We are still entrenched in the Bible Belt. I'm still wearing a pentagram T-shirt. It's still funny.

Pre-show I go to the tailors right across the street from the club. I need to get the sleeve sewn back together on the shirt that got ripped by the girl with no shoes (see columbia date). I look kinda weird wearing a pentagram T-shirt with one sleeve torn along the seem. The tailor is a jazz drummer. We talk about music and he doesn't charge me. Music truly is the universal language . . . of blagging.
I do an interview for a Texan radio station. There's no production office >at this gig and so I have to do the interview from a payphone out in the street. I can't find my shoes but the ground is warm and my T-shirt has two matching sleeves now. The wind is high and I can only just hear what the DJ is saying.

"You boys are heroes round these parts."
"What?"
"You boys are heroes, h-e-r-o-e-s in these parts."
"Why?"
"Genius is the most requested song on our station."
"Cool."
"You come down here to 'kfgwyfgbf' (indecipherable name of a town in Texas) and well throw a party for ya the whole town'll never forget."
"Cool."

I never figured Pitchshifter as town heroes. Maybe we should all marry >cheerleaders and quit being so cynical. (Sorry, I lost my mind for a second there.)

The show goes (surprisingly) well. Before the show it was looking bad. Not too many people and a tepid atmosphere. When we take to the stage everything hots up. We are rocking tonight. The crowd know the words to a lot of the songs (!) and we all have a good one. Jim was getting a little embarrassed about the group of screaming young girls circling his section of the stage and the young guitar freaks who shouted every time he hit a solo, but he soon got over it. Singers never get that kind of attention of course.

After the show the Christian girl from last night turns up again with her Christian sister. Jim and I make devil signs out the bus window at them. She starts making the sign of the cross. How much do these fuckers need to belt the bible out here? Last night she was belting the bishop and tonight she's belting the bible, at me. Marilyn Manson must have had a real blast when he played here. . .

"Antichrist superstar? wears make up and acts like a girl? Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!"

I get in my bunk at 6.00am. The lone female survivor killing the psychopathic killer and safely landing the 747 in the disaster movie the boys are watching with some new friends. Tracking satellite TV on this beast. Hundreds of channels. All at your fingers tips. You aren't safe anywhere anymore.

"I'M CONVINCED YOU WILL NEVER ANOTHER ABDOMINAL PRODUCT!"

Get me to Dallas.