Tour Diary: 2003 > Page 3

But it's AFTER the show that of course the real fun happens and it happens when I'm braced by the shotgun-toting Richard Compte. He, who used to helm France's answer to OXBOW, this band formerly known as BATON and he's a fucking genius and he's taken the photos from our last show in the next nearest town St. Etienne and reintroduces me to all of the people who I pawed and bumbled through back then and since this show finds me in the same buzzy head space, aided and abetted by the libations pouring cook-sip, watch, sip, wait-I latch on to him and his friends, one of which includes Marie-Claire. Now not the FAMOUS Marie-Claire whose mother strangles cats from a tour diary long ago but a FRIEND of that Marie-Claire who fixes me, watches me and tells me all of what I'm about to tell you... She says, "Well yes, I know what they say. They say he had a few problems with murder. He's had some trouble with," and she makes that great French hand gesture that seems to say comme ce, comme ca, "murder back in San Francisco but he's OK now. He's better. He's moved past it and now he sings these nice shows, with the acoustic guitar and he wears suits and he's turned his life around. The music has turned his life around. His ART has kept him from going crazy again and so it's alllllllll right." "What the fuck are you talking about? WHO says that?" "EVERYBODY. That's what they believe. But not me. I have you on top of my refrigerator." "A place you might actually really find me." "I'm an artist. And I sculpted a bust of you. Well not of you, but it looks just like you and it watches over me and my kids." "Well good. Your phone keeps ringing. Is that your husband calling?" "Husband? No. He left me for a younger woman. A blonder woman. A woman with bigger TEETS. But they're just men who want something from me." "What do they want?" "They want one or more of the following things: they either want to go snowboarding with me, they want to stay at my place, which is at the base of a mountain, TO go snowboarding.." and though I like snowboarding my attention is starting to drift... "or they want to fuck me. Or they want to do drugs with me.." ..right back front and center. "Well speaking of the fucking thing.." "Ah. I don't want to fuck anymore..." "Uh yeah..well listen it's been nice..." And I rush for the exit and drive my head into a low-hanging French beam and I hear the bells tolling for me and we go to a guy named Jean-Louis's tattoo parlor, which has just opened up and it's totally fucking swank and called VIVA DOLOR and he and his pal tell me and Niko some long drawn out JESUS LIZARD tale that has as it's extended punch line David Yow commenting that he couldn't take it when confronted with his 8 hours of intensive alcohol consumption and the bleeding, recently hemorroid-ass-operated on roommate that was rolling around their place like a drunk (LIKE?!?!--editor) in a blood stained diaper and while I'M perfectly well entertained I see a picture on the wall of his parlour resplendent that catches my eye.

"Who is this?" And I can tell suddenly by the flush of blood to his face that I got a live one here. "That's my girlfriend." "Oh." Wait for it. "So, uh, where is she?" "Look. Don't even fucking THINK of it." He's smiling but there's a madness in his eyes that clearly indicates that the universe he lives in is PRE-OXBOW. Because if it's POST-OXBOW you know certain things. You know for example 1) that when you don't see your lover, they are gleefully fucking as many people as they can. Do you understand what that means? The full RAMifications of that? WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT WHENEVER YOU DON'T SEE HER OR HIM YOU SHOULD JUST IMAGINE THEM WITH A COCK IN THEIR MOUTHS BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE THEY ARE. EVEN IF THEY'VE ONLY STEPPED INTO THE OTHER ROOM. ESPECIALLY IF I'M ALREADY IN THAT OTHER ROOM. "Hey I just wanted to know where she.." "She's not HERE," he said a little too quickly. See, my motives are frequently misunderstood. Someone once asked, "how come you talk about sex so much but you never get laid?" Well my objective is NOT to just get laid. My objective is to serve as a catalyst for the kind of life change that YOU need the most. I mean WHATever that might be. Of course it interests me more if it involves my COCK but not necessarily and here what he needs is to have the thick slather of paranoia spread over his idyllic dreamscape. "So she doesn't LIVE here? "She lives in Rennes." He's smiling the whole time but I can see the sweat on his lip and I'm in fucking heaven. "Rennes hunh? Nice town Rennes. A college town. Full of lots of college dudes. What does she do for a living?" "Well she's got a tattoo parlour there..." And the smile starts to slowly spread on my face... "Ahhhh..FUCK YOU. I'm going to call her right NOW." "Nah, nah. Don't do that. You'll just make her angry and then I'll have to calm her down and..." "Fuck you." And he walks around with his phone in his hand and he's almost pacing until the cook and HER boyfriend show up." And so on the full on roll that I'm on it's clear I'm not going to be happy until I've ruined everything for everybody so I wait for the cook's boyfriend to leave the room to piss and I ask her. "So. Is that your man?" She ignores me and I know I'm right in the midst of having one of the best times of my short and totally dickish life. "Is he your boyfriend? I mean are you two TOGETHER?" And she concedes, almost sadly, "Well, yes..." Almost apologizing. Jean-Louis is still pacing the room and now he's screaming "you're fucking EVIL..." And Niko, ever the peace maker, is nursing a glass of something and serving as the official Eugene Apologist but I won't be stopped and like some scene out of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I keep it up until I notice the time. 3 am. We have to catch a train in 4 hours. Jesus Christ. We turn in and not for the first time it's insinuated that Niko and I are more than just FRIENDS and bandmates.. "I only have ONE bed..and I don't want t hear any noises from down here." "Oh. You won't. We're very quiet when we do it." And I can see from his face that I need to add, "I'm joking." But Jean Louis is a great guy, a great artist and I'm going to go back and get a tattoo from him some day but when he drives us to the station in the cold morning frost and early rain of Lyons I ask him one last question. "How long have you and your girlfriend been going out?" "Well just 3 or 4 months now." I say nothing until he leaves and I turn to Niko and say, "He's doomed." And he is. And so are we all. The Genius Richard Compte, former singer for BATON (the french OXBOW), wishing us all a prosperous and head-wounded new year!

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