So today we arrived in Posnan. I played here in 1989 with my old band Soulside and it was in this very location that we played in a huge outdoor amphitheater to at least 20 people. Minimum! They wanted us to play for 3 hours and when we only played for 1 they chased us out of there giving us the finger the whole time. They were quite serious about their rock-more then we can say, apparently.
We drove for 3089 hours in traffic and made it to this beautiful town. The venue was a really cool place but they sure had a lot of stairs. There were many different levels with tons of different secluded spaces to eat and drink: Perfect for a secret getaway with your favorite lady or man friend, but not so perfect when you are loading a bunch of stupidly heavy amps up and down and up and down and up and down a bunch of stairs in order to get to the second floor. But this is a beautiful venue, Dragon, the place where we are playing is this beautiful long room with wood floors and great lighting. We have a cello with us so I think we are accenting this classy room pretty damn well, thank you.
Anyway, the show was very fun and then of course we dragged ourselves out for drinks at some bar with striped wallpaper. I think it was pretty great but there was a lot of cherry vodka swirling in my vision and I only have photos to prove that I was there. Come on liver, hang in there.

Devil's Stairs in Posnan-load here and die

Clash: Soviet Worker Propaganda Helps Sell Fried Chicken

Posnan Rock Personnel

Posnan at night- not too bad

Chris "Lenny Kravitz" sings lady cab driver

buzz bleep vibrate brrrrr… it’s 8 am and I’m getting a wake up call in the Czech mall. Is it time to go to Poland? No, it’s time to find out that America has overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Wow. Every one of my friends is texting me to tell me the latest-indiana goes blue! tons of electoral votes! Florida and Pennsylvania go blue! 69 million people voted for him – the highest number ever. 22% of americans voted for him – the second highest percentage behind Reagan. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day here in the Czech mall. It’s going to be a good day to go to Poland and find out how much it’s changed since the iron curtain came down. I’m also thankful that I don’t have to live in this mall for 4 more years.

The drive to Poland is long and we have to get to Warsaw to pick up Karolina, the polish cellist who has foolishly agreed to drop everything, learn our songs and come play with us without any practice whatsoever. I don’t know if the introduction of capitalism into the Polish system is the real reason but Poland has really wholeheartedly discovered the traffic jam. We are stuck on the highway for hours and hours. This will be a reoccurring theme. So will cherry vodka. But anyway, we get Karolina at the Warsaw train station (she has a horrendous 8 hour train ride from Gdansk) and we head to the little cafe where we will start this tour.

And today is Scott’s birthday-Chris brings him a PJ Harvey dvd all the way from Belgium and for what? Not one bit of thanks, none. Just a lot of slurring words and non-sequiturs. Chris perfected this earlier by yelling at the policeman who stopped him for running across a highway: “I’m a nice person!!!” “I don’t care if you’re a nice person, you can’t cross the street here!” More cherry vodka shots, Chris?

Warsaw train station

a friendly gift from friendly Stalin

our first show in Warsaw

Welcome Blinky Midnight

John Wayne? Another Cherry Vodka shot?

Our Warsaw pad.

So Libor, our friendly Czech ambassador, picks us up at the Prague airport and after futzing around in some cold, damp industrial spaces moving pieces of heavy equipment and forcing ourselves to stay awake, we hit the road for Poland. I have not been to Poland since 1989 with my old band Soulside. We played there before the Berlin Wall came down. In those days the highways were cobblestone, the stores had no bread and we were innocent and free. Now, we are jaded old cynical bastards except for one glimmer of hope: today is election day and we can only hope that our country has opened its eyes and voted for someone good… we’ll see… we are driving through very small towns in the Czech republic and there’s not a lot of news going around.
It is a funny feeling to fly 8 hours from New York City to Prague, spend part of the day in an industrial suburb, sit in a van for 5 hours and then hole up in some random small town with a mall as the main entertainment. In the Czech republic. This is no James Bond movie, that’s for sure. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn my tuxedo after all.
There is nothing to do now but eat some chinese food in the mall, look at a cool old train, watch a few czech game shows and go to sleep. I know I’m missing something big in the US and I can only hope it’s good and not bad. Bad might mean I want to stay in this Czech mall for another 4 years.

Our hotel looks out onto the mall parking lot. James Bond eat your heart out.

cool old train in a Czech mall

I go to the airport to fly to Prague – I like saying this because it sounds pretty high class. But first I have to get through security which is has really begun to rain on my “I love flying” parade. Going through security reminds me a lot of being in public school gym class: totally embarrassing and completely stupid. Face north, stand on one leg, raise your left hand to your forehead, recite the gettysburg address backwards! I made it through and get ready to get on Czech Airlines – CSA (not the official airlines of the Confederate States of America). I am packed into my seat like a sardine for 8+ hours and I think I am going to lose my mind. I have a paper to keep me occupied – puzzles, news and… good god… Garfield. Garfield is going to keep me sane?
Hellish. Hellish. But we touch down in Prague without any visibility whatsoever – it’s so foggy here that you can’t even see the ground. Amazing but we made it and it’s great to be here because Prague is a fantastic city.

Garfield to keep me sane? seriously?

Can't see a damn thing

Hi there! I just wrapped up a recent European tour with one my bands, Paramount Styles. My old friend Scott began to rapidly lose his mind after the total collapse of our last band and this is how he chose to regain his sanity. Why go back to doing the same thing that drove him to the edge? Get on that horse again! Tame that Beast! Or more appropriately, it’s the only thing we really know how to do.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein (attributed)

I’m reading a book called the Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb about probability and narrative fallacy. One of his many points is that people create a narrative to explain historical outcome when in fact the events that led to that historical outcome could just as well be considered completely random. That’s a pretty general summary but I will be creating a narrative fallacy using previous events to explain the how things came to pass. In other words, fantasy. But i like fantasy (though reality can be pretty hilarious too).

So blah, blah, blah…