Day X - Nowhere-Denver

No end

Stopping for food

Day ten of this tour. Still on the road, literally. Been driving a few hours now, and we just hit the state of Colorado. Looks the same, though. Never ending fields of corn or just yellow grass and dust. I wonder how it would be like to live out here in these desolate plains. Somehow I have this romantic approach to it, like it would be cool to just live out here for a couple of months and do all the daily ranch stuff, and then just sit in the yard doing nothing but dipping, drinking beer and make moonshine. Maybe go hunting, although I don't see how you could hunt in these areas since there are no places to hide.

Had a nice sleep in Gothenburg, NE tonight. All-night sleeps are rare on this tour, so that was a refreshing experience, and I even found time for a good run. Now we're just passing time in the van while waiting for the hills to emerge in the horizon. So, no stories, no controversy, no incidents, just rednecks and hillbillies. Still 170 miles to go. Won't be much to write till after tonight's show, so in the meantime you can enjoy the clip below from Minneapolis. One thing is the American restrooms where there are like big cracks and openings in the stalls; you never have complete privacy when dropping goods. In Europe, at least in Northern Europe, most public toilet stalls are real rooms with real doors and walls that go all the way from the floor to the ceiling. At Ground Zero in Minnesota the stalls are something out of the ordinary as you not only have to take a dump with no doors, but you also have seats for spectators. I thought they were all Scandinavian descendants up there, but I guess most of them emigrated before the water closet or something. Or, maybe it is a sexual thing - I dunno.

Just reading about the riots in the underdeveloped parts of our world. Nothing against any of the nationalities or religions or anything, just amazed and angry seeing all these people going fucking nuts setting fire to schools, embassies, KFC's and now even the German embassy in Sudan. I support tolerance, cultural respect and freedom of speech, but no one should tolerate this kind of behaviour. No matter how fucked up US foreign politics is, this is just a disgrace to humanity. I can understand their anger and frustration, but nothing can justify actions like these. It is puzzling though that so many muslims actually partake in this - frightening actually. Islam as a religion condemn such behaviour, but I guess that is how religion is and always was. You can say you'd rather kill yourself than not being allowed to wear your religious piece of clothing, like for example a Niquab or a nun habit, but at the same time you kill, rage and rape while holding the holy book in your hand. Fucking hypocrisy!
... now a stop at Walmart - America's finest ;-)

Sooo much to choose from at Walmart!

...Haven't been able to write in a few days, so now, on our way out of Salt Lake City, I will try to recollect what has happened the last few days starting with the night in Denver. So, we finally saw some mountains in the distance meaning we were getting closer to Denver and civilization. We were going to the airport first to pick up Andy's girlfriend Layna, and so we had 30 minutes to just hang out in the sun before she arrived.

Ape: Doing merch and being awesome

Waiting at Denver airport

Waiting (?) at Denver airport

After an interesting drive through the "ghetto" of Denver, where there must have been like 15 dispensaries within a stretch of like 4 miles, we got to the club. A nice club, really clean - reminded us of a lot of European venues and bars. The entire upstairs of the club was our backstage for the night. So we basically had a 800 capasity venue all to ourselves, with a bar, pool tables and decent restrooms. Good times! We were planning on taking it easy that night, but that turned out to be quite difficult to follow since a few guys, VIPs that we'd met earlier that night, kept feeding us Jäger shots from the side of the stage. So the ominous mix between the energy we got from the great Denver crowd and the brain devouring jäger came into effect the second we went off stage after doing two encores. Well, I guess I can only speak for myself, but the truth is I don't recall any fucking thing from the time we went off stage till I woke up in the van the next morning, freezing my ass off somewhere in Wyoming, and with a damn nasty scratch on my head.

Backstage @ Deathwish in Denver

Andy & Layna backstage @ Deathwish in Denver

VIP crew and Jäger suppliers

Gorbachev is the one to the left

So, apparently I was blazing back and forth backstage screaming and acting like a dick, getting more and more shitfaced. I was insisting we wouldn't leave although everybody was ready to leave for SLC (overnight drive). Anyway, I got my ass into the van eventually and passed out within seconds. Not far into our drive, I was starting to make funny noises - like roars from the deep, like if someone put a jar up my ass, maybe. Not that I know how that must feel like, but I know a jar is an astonishly huge item to be stuffing up you pooper. The other guys asked if I had to throw up, to which I replied with weird bodily motions and small grunts. Chris wanted to show some love and help me by holding my head up, but that just backfired as I was drewling like a bitch all over his arms. As soon as the van stopped, Chris tried to give a helping hand by escorting me out of the van, but I just pushed him off and literally dived out of the van, head first into the concrete crash barriers! That hurt so fucking bad, and I do actually remember those few seconds. Someone must have been tampering with the steps out of the van, cause I usually find it easy to step out. After I got up on my feet and I got some fresh air, my memory was lost again. I have no clue whatsoever what was going on till we all woke up in Wyoming, but that is part of next blog post.

"I'm not drunk, just retarded"