"Black Coffee"

Just had breakfast at the Spirit Restaurant here in the motel. Ate there yesterday as well and I just have to give props out to the waitress there. On top of having extraodinary great coffee, she, being the only worker there, refilled me quite often. She also didn't have that faux, happy-to-serve-you-waitress-working-for-tip attitude. Even more on top of that, that let her more than deserve the 40% gratuity (which if I had more, I'd of tipped her more), she got me a coffee to go.

That's more service than you get at most other restaurants with more staff on hand. Granted, they were slow, but getting service like that at other places is pretty hard to come by, if at all.

Today she refilled me lots but I never got the to go one, but it was really busy and she's still the only one working, so we just went to the gas station for coffee. I still tipped her the same, because she was still right on.

So we're back in the room, got a paper, a great cup o' coffee, a book, some writing to do, and a new "Sopranos" tonight.

By the way, the Rollins "Uncut from NYC" is fucking great. It's one of those shows where he's good all the way through. He was on a roll. He busted on Wal-Mart a lot in a way I'd never thought of. Not totally that way, at least I have but have not been able to sum it up in a way to effectively get my argument across. Because he, like me, hates Wal-Mart on lots of levels that one could go on and on about. But he, like me, gives them business because it's the only place to go at all hours of the day, night, or morning, that you can get a big vehicle (he his tour bus, me our truck) and get provisions. But while shopping there, you notice different things about people working there, people shopping there, and mostly the type of stuff they sell there. Not going to spoil it for you, but it's definitely worth watching.

William Shatner's Has Been is fucking awesome. Hands down the best album I've heard in the past two years.

Kansas City, MO

At the hotel.

I called the shop to see about the truck and it needs a part that will not be in until Tuesday. So I called my fleet manager and he's out until Monday, but I may have to get a new truck on Monday. But it may not be a good idea. If we just have to wait until Tuesday, I'd rather just wait and not go through the trouble of switching trucks on Monday, as that would take a long time.

As it is, though, we're enjoying the time off, although I hate not being able to drive in nice weather. Yesterday was stormy so I was content to have to just hang out.

Getting a lot of reading done and making a new Rollins minidisc and probably going to watch this DVD tonight and also "Sopranos" is on, so that's uber dice. I think it's a new episode. Not that it would matter, since I haven't seen the past three seasons.

There's not much to do around this area, unless you want to eat fast food and fill up your car with gas. There is, however, a tobacco house down the road. I stupidly bought a pack a cigarettes a few weeks back as I had been craving them for a while and I got drunk and bought one. I slowly smoked it all and though I still crave cigs and would like one once in a while, I don't think I'm going to go get another pack. It's been about two years since I've quit.

Well, we've got a huge cooler full of food in this here room and may try to get a workout in and then lounge about later.

Kansas City, MO

At a hotel. Took our truck in for it's scheduled service but added the needed other services it was needing like the "check engine" thing. So earlier in the day, while waiting for it to be ready, the mechanic told us the truck wouldn't be ready today and we couldn't stay in it since the engine was all apart. Hence, we're at a hotel watching (groan) "C.S.I."

My younger brother Shaun got married today. I really wish we could've been there. My other brother and sister and sister-in-law are there. Angela, my sister-in-law, found tickets for $350, roundtrip Vegas to Hawai'i. So my mom called after the ceremony and had me on the phone the entire time so I told her while taking pictures she should hold the phone up and that could be my proxy in the photos.

I said it jokingly, but she thought it to be a good idea and did it.

Hopefully we can get to Hawai'i next year to hang out and have the family meet Jeanne and her meet them.

Ainsworth, IA

Luckily I was able to re-set my dental appointment and, luckily, I was able to set in on the same day and time as Jeanne's one. We will also have insurance by that time so it may very well be free or next to nothing. Hopefully.

I got up extra early today to deliver the load as early as possible in order to get another load to Omaha and relax. I got to the receiver and followed the directions to the address and everything. It was the wrong place. The right place was down the road, but it was still pretty dumb because the directions I got and the mapquest directions and the directions from the atlas software on the computer all pointed me to the wrong address.

Anyway, I was unloaded and ready for a new load by 0835 and I'm still waiting. I should have been home yesterday. I wish they would just tell me to go straight home from here. I'm losing my momentum.

I was thinking of some movies about things in them that if avoided in the beginning of it the entire movie wouldn't exist. Instances like in Star Wars if they blew up the escape pod. Or probably the worst of all Frantic. As great as I thought that movie was, it's the stupidest movie of all time.

The entire movie was Harrison Ford looking for his wife after she was abducted from the hotel by the people whose luggage got switched with Harrison Ford's one, because they wanted their luggage back. So in an attempt to get it back, they go to the hotel, call their room, get the wife to come down to the lobby, and then kidnap her to get Harrison Ford's character to give them their luggage back.

Seems to me that they could've just gone up to the room and say, "Here's your luggage. I guess it got switched, could we get ours back?" Everyone's happy.

I guess I'll have two whole days to do whatever in Omaha now that I don't have a dental appointment. I don't know what I'll do. I hope my bike's in working condition. I'd like to go on a long bike ride. Down to Bellevue or something.

Gotta get a new cooler for the truck as well. A bigger one.

"...just when you thought we were slipping..."

If I sat down for an hour or so, I think I could go on and on about Dashboard Confessional guy and it would just be his quotes against himself. Self-incrimination, I think it's called.

Of course on my way back to Omaha my truck's check engine light goes on and stays on. They want me to take it to the shop to check it to make sure it's okay. This is what I wanted to avoid and wanted to take the truck in last week, so as not to delay my Omaha hometime.

The light went off after I got pass all that stupid insane mountain inclines of Virginia and West Virginia but they want me to take it in, just to be sure. I hope it doesn't take long.

Speaking of the check engine light, one of the best things about the Ben Weasel ESPN radio thing was the DJ asked him, well first he asked if he like the Beach Boys or the Beatles. He said neither and the DJ was like, "Oh. I thought you liked the Beach Boys." I'll forgive Ben for not liking the Beach Boys.

The second one he asked was, and this guy knows Ben and I can't believe he asked it, let alone his response to it, "the Clash or the Ramones." Without missing a beat Ben, of course, says the Ramones. The DJ is flabbergasted saying, "The Clash made cultural statements about a nation and was political..."

Ben says, "Who cares?" Then went on about how people just want to have fun and dance and just rips the Clash apart. It was great.

Either there really are a shit ton of Virginia Tech alumnus or current students or the same thing with flags after 9-11 and the "Support the Troops" ribbon thing is happening, Virginia Tech style, because nine out of 10 cars have Virginia Tech stickers on them, and they are all bad drivers.

I don't know what it is about driving that people don't see the dangers of just drifting into lanes. And it's not always intentional like they were going in the lane and just didn't signal. When you watch them it's like they're just gazing off in the distance and sort of letting their soul be their pilot or something.

"..."

There was a journal entry in Get In The Van where Rollins was talking about a show they did once in Black Flag where there were only a few people there and he had a bad attitude for the show. Chuck Dukowski took him outside and told him that it doesn't matter if there's one person there, that person came to see us and you play your ass off. I like that attitude and respect that.

It's one of those things that keeps bugging me thinking about it, because there was a show at Ted & Wally's and I forget what other bands were playing but Toys That Kill were playing. Toys That Kill was FYP and Todd was in some skate videos that me and my buddies were into. Toys That Kill were friends with my friend Jonah Ray who moved in with them and I hadn't talked to since a while before that and was interested in talking with them because I wanted to see what Jonah was up to and also see this band.

There's an interesting side note to this. Jeff came to visit me once in Cali and I was hanging out with my neighbor Jeri and her boyfriend Jason. They invited us to a party his friends in San Pedro were having. We went to the address given and we approached the houses and Jeff said, "I think we're at the wrong place. These are all hipsters."

I agreed but we headed on and it was the right house. So we were hanging out and stuff and I overheard Jason talking to this guy that gave his friends X-mas presents which were Ken-type dolls of his friends. It was pretty awesome. Anyway, I started talking to this guy and found out it was Todd from FYP (later of Toys That Kill). Anyway, that was that.

Forward to the Ted & Wally's show, Justin and Fischer and all those guys came, because I think their friends' bands were playing or a band they wanted to see was there. Anyway they showed up. I cleaned up the stage area and set up and all that jazz and this girl showed up as well.

Her deal was that she was in town with her parents on vacation and she saw the flier for the show and she liked Toys That Kill and showed up. I told her that was cool that she showed up and how awesome it is to be in town somewhere on a night that a band you're into is playing a show. We talked for a bit and all that.

No one showed up for the show except Justin, Fischer, the workers, bands, and this girl. Toys That Kill decided not to play and head out to their next city. Justin was trying as hard as possible to get another venue going, somewhere with more people. Toys That Kill were not interested. I was really bummed out but I went to their trailer and told them we were trying to get stuff going for another show but they said, "It's cool, but we got to get going to the next city for our next show..."

I thought it was a lame excuse because if the show went on, did they plan their tour that bad that they were only going to play a two song set and jam out or something? Were they on that tight a schedule?

I told them to tell Jonah I said hi and I bought a record from them. Justin and I got in Kate's car and drove to the Brother's to ask Trey if we could have the show there. They were into it except that it would talk a few hours to set up there and since it was already like 10 in the evening it wouldn't work. We went back to our place with the bands, sans Toys That Kill, to hang out.

For the obvious reasons it bugs me whenever I think about that and know for a fact that I wouldn't ever do that.

Emporia, VA

So of course I'm not getting back to Omaha in time for the dental appointment. I need to learn how to set it up so it works out better because I can't keep missing appointments or weddings or things with molecular structure.

So I got a load this morning from Winchester, VA to West Point, VA. Of course with the trailer that you can't slide yourself because the rod won't stay out I get all the runs that you need to slide it. So I did this run and went directly to Franklin, VA to pick up the next run (which originally picked up tomorrow - hence the only good thing going for me today) that delivers to Mount Pleasant, IA on Monday morning at 6 AM as the earliest delivery date. So the only good news is that I can drive hard tomorrow and Sunday I can drive a little, stop somewhere in IA or IL and do laundry and shower and just hang out or something.

So all day today was rushed and, luckily, I knew the area the second pick-up was or I would've been later. I almost missed it, too.

Anyway, I pulled my back and almost touched centipedes that were on the tires and now I'm stopped and I decided that I wouldn't shower until Omaha because I don't have clean clothes and decided not to spend money on washing clothes on the road. But of course with the weather being nice and all the running around and sliding tandems and the works, I got all sweaty and now I need a shower and need to do laundry.

I listened to Ben Weasel on ESPN radio. I never knew he was a baseball fan and he talks ball pretty well. I was very impressed. He knows what he's talking about and has a good view on it all.

I wish that I had some Riverdales on the truck.

Toms Brooks, VA

It's getting closer to my scheduled hometime and it's cutting it close to be back my Sunday. I have a dental appointment at Creighton which takes a long time to get and if I miss it it will take a while to get another one and I'm long overdue for one.

I keep telling the dispatchers but I've been empty since this morning and I'm fourteenth in line for a run and I don't have a current fleet manager so I don't know how well they're scheduling me to be back in Omaha.

This sucks.

Mount Jackson, VA

Picturebox: "Arrested Developement"

Previously on Jukebox: Betty Davis - "Dedicated to the Press"

A lot of Virginia Tech students driving somewhere today. Maybe their minds are on the shooting and if so, I'll forgive them for their stupidness in driving. It totally mirrors driving most people do anyway, but I guess they've got a lot going on and therefore drive even more stupider.

A lot of stupid things about gun control that comes up with situations like this and how if students had guns they could've avoided the whole situation by shooting the suspect. That's great. Have you ever seen how stupid people are? Watch them in anything they do. They can't walk, drive, or even function in things like purchasing something at a store or ordering food at a restaurant and now they should carry guns all the time. There's no way the wrong person could be shot or collateral damage that would most probably include an innocent bystandard.

Anyway, why is the right to bear arms always the answer when a shooting occurs? Why not stuff like how to better situations and try to understand things and try to get people to think for themselves and not be fucking automatons and other stuff along those lines? It's like all the problems in this fucking country. It's always the same arguments and it goes nowhere. Why not step back and look at things from afar and try to what's not working and what we can do to remedy the situation and not let personal politics and religion and social status and all that fucking dumbass superficial bullshit get in the way.

Hebron, IN

Got a delivery in Chicago tomorrow morning.

Gonna sleep but needed to post about a dream I had last night. I was on "the Henry Rollins Show" for the Adam Carolla/Dashboard Confessional show. It was going horrible, just the Adam Carolla one, not surprising but when Dashboard came on, it got great.

Henry had not heard of him before and since his assistant, Heide May, is in charge of the musical guests, she brought Dashboard Confessional on there just to piss him off. Anyway, Carraba started playing his "Screaming Infidelities" song and I looked at Rollins and he made this face of disgust like, "What the fuck is this shit?" Then he looked at Heide and she was laughing.

I told Henry how bad Dashboard was and that the song he's singing was a hit for him like five years ago and he's still living off of it. Believe me, I can go on and on about how bad Dashboards is.

Mineral Wells, WV

I tried to post this last night but it wouldn't:
Today is our two-year anniversary. I just talked to Jeanne via payphone since I have no service in the entire state of West Virginia.

Today was very exciting driving all day in heavy rain through mountains. It's funny. Virginia and West Virginia has this extreme take on driving. See most places have this thing where they let you know ahead of time, so as to prepare yourself if you're driving a truck, a downgrade ahead and how steep and how long. This gives you a chance to get in proper gears and stuff so you don't lose your brakes going down.

Not in these states. Or at least not on the I-77. This major one, I only knew because I assumed the sign that said, "Escape Ramp 1 Mile Ahead," meant that there was a downgrade coming up. And it was a long steep one that is rather tough on its own, let alone in heavy rain.

Anyway, I've been missing Jeanne a lot. I need her around, else I just become stupid. I've been in the state I was in when I left Los Angeles for Omaha. My mind's in complete shambles and it's been hard for me to figure stuff out. My mind's been bothering me for a long time and I've been sussing it out, but not too well, and it's just gotten worse recently because I've been left alone and to my own devices.

I'm watching Mumford. I'm gonna listen to some albums and get some writing done and maybe some reading.

I think I lost my Fear tape with the Beach Blvd album on it as well. Two fucking awesome albums lost.

I just ordered the following:

1) Henry Rollins - Live at McCabe's (I've realized that I only like the sort of, best of Henry Rollins. The full shows always has a bit or so that I can't deal with but the best of is all bad ass,)

2) William Shatner - Has Been, a long sought after gem.

3) Henry Miller - Black Spring. I bought a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi and Siddartha at the Henry Miller Library while driving through Big Sur on the way to Frisco. I was thinking about Al Jardine and I knew he lived there and we passed by the library and turned around and went there. It's like a house that you'd see on the North Shore. It had all these art projects all about the landscape and free tea & coffee. I really wished I could've seen Rollins do his thing there last year.

Wade, NC

The weather cleared up but I don't know how much better that makes me feel knowing that there's a goddamned movie of Borstal Boy that I can only imagine is very bad. I don't know what's worse, the fact that there's a movie made of that book or that I have it on my Amazon wish list. Such a great story by such a great writer and I bet Brendan Behan is rolling in his grave.

Speaking of Amazon wish list, I'm deciding whether or not to order a Shane McGowan and the Smoking Popes DVD. I hope I don't. Not that I don't like them, but the fact that I have several other things I'd like to order.

It's so hot in this truck. I need to take this truck in for service and get the air condition working.

I'm outs. Gonna finish my "Arrested Development" marathon.

R.I.P.

Sad day for us all. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died and right now there's a Cher song on the radio. That "Do You Believe in Life After Love" or whatever this song's called.

Gotta drive through rain in a tornado watch area. Yay!

These cayenne pepper capsules I just took are giving me a burning sort of headrush.

meanwhile...

It's amazing that I also get to a place with good internet connection.

I just read a thing about David Cross and Jim Belushi and this fued they're apparently having. I'm not sure if what I heard is correct, but on YouTube they have Jim's shitty corporate-sounding blues band playing and he asks the ladies on stage to dance, so David gets on stage to dance and he kicks him off and has the guards throw him out.

If the reason for the fued is correct, which I have no reason to suspect otherwise, I think it's awesome.

Anyway, just watching David dance was funny as shit.

Maybe I should ask Mike. I think he knows Jim's son.

Lebanon, TN

Jesus Christ! Can this severe weather just leave already? It's just one after another after another. I drive through New Mexico on Saturday and it's the only area not in the northeast that snowed. It was ridiculous.

I check the weather for the next day and there's snow over the exact area I'm going through the next day.

Today's all sunny and clear and then I check the weather and there's a freeze expected tomorrow morning and thunderstorms and all that shit.

Whatever.

I'm outs. I'm going to enjoy this nice night while it lasts.

Newberry Springs, CA

It's hot as fuck here! I have no air conditioning in this truck. I should've stopped in Boron, CA but thought I'd get to Barstow and hit up the truck stop there. But since fucking Cali doesn't have mile markers, I didn't know if it was south or north of where I ended up and it ended up nowhere in sight so I had to trudge on and am now in Newberry Springs, CA at a truckstop in the backlot where there was a pitbull running loose and no trucks but me. I also have no phone service, but that's because I've got goddamn T-Mobile (hopefully switching to Verizon soon).

If I stopped when I thought to stop, I could've showered. No shower here, so I'll have to incorporate it in my drive tomorrow. Probably in New Mexico.

The truck, on top of having no air conditioning, is having trouble on inclines. It's gotten better but yesterday I had to cliimb up 7% grades or more for 8-10 miles at a time and the "check engine" light kept coming on. It was doing that on small inclines earlier and then I had to go through these really nice mountain passes on the eastbound Highway 58 and it was just non-stop, ridiculous inclines and the "check engine" light kept popping up. I'm going to call the roadside guys tomorrow when I stop to shower because I've got lots of tough mountains coming up as I go through Arizona, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Virginia. Some of those aren't tough mountains, but in this current condition they are.

I hate going to places and having people stare at me. I don't mind them looking at me, but people always fucking stare. I mean, it's just plain rude and uncomfortable. Like they can't just look for a few seconds and turn away or whatever. It's like I enter the room and they turn and look. And they won't stop looking even when I make eye contact and stare back at them and I end up turning away because it's just so uncomfortable. I just really feel like going up to them and smacking them.

I'm outs. Gonnna eat and watch a movie.

Peace.

"the Henry Rollins Show"

So I mentioned earlier about Rollins having Dashboard Confessional on his show. I just looked at the guest on that episode and it's fucking Adam Carolla. What a fucking lame show we have to look forward to.

Oakland, OR

Picturebox: Ghost World

I realized that although I may be going crazy on my own and being depressed, I need just comfort stuff. Like I shouldn't have tried to watch Natural Born Killers the other night.

All this idle time is just making me think too much about too many things, which is not a good idea because then I get depressed and then I become preachy and/or just talk about things that no one cares about or they have no idea what I'm talking about.

Last night was bad. It just snowballed from locking the keys in the truck. I have a lot that I've been thinking about recently and that only added to the drama.

I kicked some ass playing pool last night and then I played this dude who just saw all these angles and could just do them so accurately and nonchalantly. Like a while ago Jeff sent me this video footage of this skeet shooter with a shotgun and he was so good and ridiculous that he would do stuff like lay his shotgun on the table, throw three discs in the air, turn around, pick up his gun and shoot all three discs. That was this guy. Like, he was showing me kicks and banks and then just placing the ball randomly and not looking at his shots and making it. Jeff also sent me to this skater who's like that, as well. Fucking awesome.

The best thing recently would be that I should have some money for "Henry Rollins Show - Season 1," "Live from NYC - Uncut," and I just saw a new John Lydon book and there's also one about PiL. Super stoked on all of those.

I talked to this Russian dude at the loading docks at the receiver yesterday. I told him that I'd been learning Russian via tapes and told him phrases like, "I understand Russian a little bit," just to show him I wasn't making shit up. Though I dont' think he understood anything I said and just smiled when I said something Russian.

I need to find my warranty for my minidisc player.

X-mas may be spent in Vegas this year. My parents want to meet Jeanne and I want them to meet her and all that. My parents may be moving to Vegas. My dad will know soon and, if so, he'll move up and help my brother with his work. If so, my mom'll still stay in Hawai'i for a few years until she can retire and get her full pension. Then they'll fly back and forth on the weekends or something. I really hope they move so we can see them more often. I haven't seen them in five years or so.

I'm outs for now. Gonna be in Cali tomorrow.