Look in the mirror dude, no really, look in the mirror!"

Well, I’m coming to the end of this particular adventure, two shows left to do, Birmingham tonight and London tomorrow. After that I will crawl into my hyperbaric chamber and sleep the sleep of the angels, until my natural beauty returns. I wouldn’t have traded this experience for anything, but I have to say, I am definitely to old for this shit. I wish I had been doing this job 15 years ago when I was still dreaming of being a rock star and I had the energy to knock back 10 pints and smoke a thousand bong hits and some how remain alert and cool. Nowadays I can drink about four pints, which means I have to pee every ten seconds and I start worrying about whether I should be drinking cider instead because the carbs in beer are going to make me fat. I have finally reached the age when an evening of Megadeath, The Saints and X sound much better with a comfy chair and a bottle of cheap Tescos amontillado sherry, £5.50 at Tescos, rock & roll in a bottle I swear.

I have been unbelievably well behaved on this tour. Not that I am one to misbehave all that often, but I made a point early on that I would stay clear headed and on the ball for this job and leave the, naked women and mudsharks to the band. We have already done three shows in the UK Manchester, Glasgow & Newcastle. Going back to Scotland was particularly bittersweet. When I was living there a few years back and I was having a really hard time adjusting to living in another country. I went to Scotland with so much hope and enthusiasm and left having made painful decisions that would change my life in ways that will stay with me forever. So, short story long, I have conflicting feelings whenever I'm there, but I still love it nonetheless.

The Drive from Manchester to Glasgow is about three and a half hours of mind numbing highway driving. The closer you get to Scotland the scenery starts to get significantly wilder. Scotland is as beautiful as it is tough and the people directly reflect the terrain around them. There is an excellent book by Arthur Herman, How the Scots invented the modern world about how the Scots literally went from hunter gatherers to leaders in political philosophy, Science, Art and Industry to name a few with in a matter of two hundred years. Just read it you will find yourself having tons of "really?" moments over and over again.



As I said before I have been pretty teetotaling for the majority of this trip, but when the band said they were all going to Nice and Sleazy I figured I would tag along and have my first rock & roll night with the band. The band are good friends with the drummer from Glasvegas and she led the evening by buying several rounds of drinks. Buying rounds in the UK is considered good etiquette, If your on the winning side of this you can find drink after drink lining up in front of you before you ever get a chance to finish the first one.

It's an extremly F'd up realization when you realize that your old enough to be the dad of the majority of beautiful girls in a place. I had no intentions of anything other than flirting, I have a beautiful awesome girl at home who I miss terribly. Besides it's always nice to know if your mojo is still working and "J" doesn't mind if I do. It all started out nicely, I was having a really great conversation with a couple of young girls about architecture and art and we were getting along famously. I know I'm not the only one here who has moments in their life when you look back at your behavior and think "Ew!" "Look in the mirror dude, no really, look in the mirror!" Apparently with each succesive drink a frightening transformation began to occur and I became "that" drunk guy at the party. One of the band guys actually took a picture of this moment, I am pleased to say I don't have it and I would prefer that it was never seen again, but if your curious it looked something like this.Anyway, lesson learned. So I packed up my pride and went back to the hotel, where after an hour of moaning and dry heaving I finally fell asleep. It really is incredibly funny how we all do this to ourselves at one time or another and swear "I will never do that to myself again!" Well at least not until the next time.