Uh oh, I think Jello may have been right. The first thing I see in California is a series of signs along the pavement: "NO SKATEBOARDING". It seems that it's OK to stumble around like a spastic skier on roller blades, and it's OK to for the athleto-frisby goons to tool around. They even let people play beach volley ball legally but if you want to skate to your shitty job in the morning because you can't afford a car then you get arrested. I bet Jerry Brown never had to skate to work.
The club is 20 feet from the beach. San Diego beach is an episode from 'Chips'. I keep looking for Eric Estrada but he must be off today. There are fake breasts and there are low riders and there are some of the worst dressed people I've seen in a long time. Rainbow mirrored cycling shades are my personal favourite. I take a swim in the sea (oh the hard life) while Gravity Kills soundcheck. You'd think the sea would be lovely in San Diego, with all the prosthetic breasts and roller blade warriors, but it's not, it's bloody freezing. I fly 4000 miles to the land of opportunity to find that the sea is as cold as it is at home. What a rip off. It's nipple hardeningly cold. My penis has managed to shrink to a quarter of it's original size by the time I have to stroll up the beach past all the bikini babes to sound check. Franz Kafka is on life guard duty today. I can see him staring at me through his binoculars from the observation tower. He gives me a little salute. The bastard. He ordered the cold sea. He can ruin anything. I fear for the gig.
The gig is a bag of arse. It had to be a shit one. Two important people from the record company are here and Franz Kafka is on life guard duty. That'll always guarantee an appalling gig with no crowd and a terrible atmosphere. Tonight is no exception. It's one of those 'the promoter is on holiday and we didn't even know there were two bands' kind of gigs. We've been playing together long enough now to be able to enjoy playing for ourselves when the crowd is sparse. We know the show's going to be quiet before we go on and so we just goof around and amuse ourselves on stage. Someone in the 'crowd' buys us all a beer while we are playing. A welcome consolation.
After the show we get thrown out of a local bar for telling the doorman that he's an insufferable arse. Well, he was an insufferable arse. Him and all the happy beach volleyball bastards can go to hell. What I want to see is goths playing beach volleyball. Two teams of goths in full length leather overcoats and face paint with black lipstick and sunglasses, smiling like Coke advert happy TV people and athletically whacking the ball over the net in the sand. Just a thought.
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