European Tour Diary 2018: Day 4 The Pits

Morning comes early.  For some reason my feet and ankles are killing me.  From my lower calf down I have morphed into an 85 year old man while sleeping.  I don't know what happened as I cannot recall any crazy physical activity.  I had forgotten about Leo ramming me with the roadcase loading out.  My right ankle is now swollen.  I creak downstairs.

We decide to head to Gent center city to walk around.  Sugar, Hector and I cram into the back seat of Anna's Ford Festiva.  We take a short drive in a total clown car situation.  It hits me that Leo's bag, which went MIA on Friday, is still missing.  The last conversation we had with a WOW representative was that the bag would be delivered to Bux's address on Saturday.  It is now Monday.  There has been no communication of any kind from WOW, the local reps, or more importantly, from Leo himself.  Leo hasn't attempted any follow up, asked anyone else to follow up, or even mentioned it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  He remains blissfully detached from the entire situation.

We stroll around Gent and stop for coffee at an outdoor cafe.  Moments later the coffee turns into Sugar ordering a beer, which means Leo is going to order a beer.  I am going straight edge today, so I get Bux to join me on a walk around town.  By the time we return to the rendevous point at the appointed time, Sugar is wandering around the square with a bottle of beer and Leo is trying to light a joint by an 11th century castle wall.  It is 3pm.  

We stop at a small gift shop by the pretty canal where Hector had spotted a novelty corkscrew with my name on it.  It is the famous pissing boy fountain statue where the penis has tastefully been replaced by the winding corkscrew.  It's a real find.  Sugar buys a coffee mug with a kitten on it.  This is a 100% impulse buy as it has nothing to do with Belgium, this town, or have any connection I can see.  This is a direct result of several high powered Belgian ales consumed in the sun.  

We are playing a short drive away in Kortjik at a legendary club called The Pits.  It is a right of passage to play this venue.  The Cowslingers played the room on our second tour I think, probably 16 years ago.  The room is totally unchanged.  The performance space is about the size of a small apartment.  There is a small adjoining room that serves as the merchandise area which is 7 feet away from two urinals on the wall.  This presents the opportunity for male patrons to piss, and look over their shoulder while deciding on a shirt from the band while maintaining a conversation with anyone else in the room.  This aligns with the odd quirk in Belgian culture in which urinals seemed to be purposely placed to display men urinating in as full a view as possible to passersby.  It's the weirdest thing.  Toilets are consistently designed to be placed in areas of full view.  Urinals are placed in high traffic areas where the sink is placed in obscured areas.  No one I have ever asked in Belgium has even noticed this phenomenum much less explained it.

Before the show Chistoph and I walk to an Army Surplus store he spotted on the drive in.  I have only seen Christoph in jeans twice, and every other time he has been in camo fatigues.  I have known him 18 years.  He knows his way around these stores.  This particular store is huge.  There are all types of treasures in here.  I almost bought a Mongolian looking hat, but toss that when I see a Russian gas mask for a reasonable price.  It might not have been my most sound decision to walk back to the club through a quiet neighborhood wearing the gas mask.  Yet, if you aren't going to wear the gas mask, why have it at all?

Before the show we have the traditional Pits steak dinner.  It is quite good, especially with the peppercorn sauce over the deep fried sticks of whatever the fuck they contained.  The opening band is from France.  They are called White Trash Bang Gang and are running late.  Leo seeks to gather praise from the Roths with airing anti French sentiments he has heard elsewhere.  This is despite him having no real bad experiences first hand, any awareness of current events, or any solid background in history of any kind.  He lets out his Homer Simpson chuckle while making a remark about the French surrendering or being rude, and I call bullshit on all of it.  "You don't know what the fuck you are talking about."  I then get an intense response that justifies any negative comments about France and the French people which is based on a single bungled late night McDonald's order on a French highway about 8 years ago.  I stand corrected.

White Trash Bang Gang is good, and also really cool guys.  They have a Boss Martians surf garage thing going.  The room is dark and claustrophobically crowded.  We start our set up and I have issues.  The straight stand is a tripod so I can't move around like I normally would, or the stand will knock my fucking tooth out.  I unscrew the mic during song two and decide to do a full Tom Jones hand held show.  The tiny stage forces Hector to be set up behind me and me to stand right next to Leo's brutal rental ride cymbol.  The only thing I can hear is guitar and the tinny crash of that cymbal.  A guy up front spends the entire show yelling out for Dead Cities.  We blast through the punk covers at the end.  The crowd is really into it.  We encore with Airplane.  A fun room with a great crowd.  Love this place.

An interesting drum mishap occured during the middle of the set.  I have no idea what went wrong but during Swim the Lake, a song we have played 143,783 times, Leo totally loses the rhythm.  I am not saying a wrong hit.  I mean he is playing free jazz in the middle of the set.  Leo is playing Sun Ra while the rest of us are playing Swim the Lake.  Hector and I just stare at each other not comprehending what is going on.  It is so uncharacteristic for Leo to lose it like this.  Then again, he has done nothing else for five days but drink, smoke weed, and smoke cigarettes.  Something has to give sometime.  Then, miraculously, he finds the path back and we are back on the rails.  Crisis averted.

The people are really getting after it on a Monday.  Dudes are absolutely pounding beers.  There is much freedom.  We are introduced to the man who will be putting us up tonight.  He sort of looks like Andre the Giant, but much smaller, so he is code named Andre the Not So Giant.  He is totally shitfaced and has a limited English vocabulary.  The combination is very confusing.  “You my place?  Hahahaha.  There this guy.  Looks Asian.  Not dangerous though.  Kazakhstan.  He quick.  Karate!  Hahahahaha!  My garage.... my garage...”. I don’t really know what he is talking about but he’s friendly.  I think.  I feel confident that we are about to roll into a real scene at this guy’s house.

Christoph’s sister Antje has arrived and she has elected to drive the van from the club.  This is fabulous news to Christoph as he can now live his “best life”.  I have already taken his photo from the Pits window, which was his #1 priority.  Now he has gotten to work on the cheap Dubel beer that allegedly is an Aldi house brand.  He’s essentially drinking Milwaukee’s Best.  The plan is that those two are going to a hotel while the rest of us stay at Andre the Not So Giant’s house.  The thought crosses my mind that I should attach into the hotel plan as I fear the worst at Andre’s.  I foresee lots of late night partying and shit talk and I’m focused on sleep.  Maybe it will be ok...

The apartment is in a modern upscale neighborhood of well tended units.  Our host emerges from his doorway in a very gregarious manner.  He is really nice in his actions but if this was a movie you would cast him as the guy that buried the mailman in the woods.  We walk in and there are two other guys drinking beer at a table.  A tall skinny slightly Asian looking guy with very long hair silently sips at a beer.  Ah, the Kazakhstanian.  There is also an old man with a cane that has lost what little is left of his balance.  He gives me a slow high five.  A tall toothy man in a track suit and baseball cap nods in our direction.  It is almost impossible to come up with a scenario in which these guys know each other much less are all fucked up listening to doom rock on a Monday night together.  David Lynch might have put this together.

There is only one extra bedroom.  It has a double bed that Andre puts Hector and Chanda in.  The place is very bachelor pad with messy clutter everywhere .  It’s a fucked up college crash pad.  As I noted before, I wasn’t drinking.  This means I have nothing to do but wait these guys out to then try to fall asleep in this room on one of the couches or portable mattresses.  It does not look good.  There is no way they are going to bed anytime soon.  Sugar has a small fit when she realizes the same scenario unfolding and grabs a mattress and drags it down the hall to Hector and Chanda’s area.  I sit on a couch writing this to see if the worm turns and I can sleep in here.  There is no way.

I grab a small filthy mattress and go down the hall.  It looks like someone got stabbed on it a few years ago.  I jam it into the bedroom with the other three and it can’t even fold across all the way.  I am

nothing more than a filthy animal which has made a nest in a cave.  I am sure I am going to get bedbugs or chiggers.  I begin to psychosomatically itch myself.  I can’t even consider sleeping as Hector starts heroically snoring and Chanda is talking in her sleep.  Every one in awhile Sugar flops around nearby with a displeased grunt.  Two o’clock rolls into three into four.  I hear Leo down the hall using his “outside voice”.  I finally fall asleep around 5:30.