Well it's time for another Bastard tale. Today's contribution is from some dude whose last name I forgot, but I'm pretty sure his first name is Bill (hey, I received his story over three years ago!).

PASSIN' GAS

By Bill

I grew up on what is now the popular tourist/lemming resort port o' call, Hilton Head Island, off the South Carolina coast. Upwardly mobile fuckheads congregate on the island to play tennis, to pay upwards of two hundred dollars in link fees for the ridiculous number of golf courses that pockmark the island, and pay chump prices to windsurf, jet ski, parasail, deep sea fish and ride together in groups straddled on hydro-sled tubes which look like giant dildos being dragged behind power boats. Bizarre! Although I had moved back to Chicago with the family unit at age sixteen, I still visited the island sporadically to see friends and it was into the above described hedonistic yuppie playland I sojourned in 1985, traveling in my Chevy van. A case of Old Style and some munchies were my only travel companions on the seventeen hour drive to the Carolina "low country", which had probably been named by an early denizen of the area, who looking around and seeing all was indeed flat, officially christened the area in his swamp mud-thick hick twang, between gums packed with chewing tobacco and breath reeking of cheap corn whiskey--"Yup, this here's surely be the low country, as opposed to the step hills farther inland that make up the beginning of the Appalachians and is intriguingly called "The High Country"!

Outside of Savannah Georgia, I was reinaugurated to the warm hospitality that has been such an intrinsic feature of the Southerners' generosity since the days before the Civil War, or "Northern aggression" (as they commonly refer to it) and that pinnacle of Southern cultural pride--slavery! Entering a speed trap, and a twenty yard stretch of highway where the speed drops from 65 to 35 certainly qualifies, the screaming cherries of a Georgia state trooper beckoned. I was somewhat nervous as I was a very long haired eighteen year old buzzed on warm beer and trying to keep my tunnel vision at bay. The cop saunters up-a big fat example of Southern manhood--eyelids squeezed together into slits like knife gashes on the side of a freshly butchered pork shank, sweat beads dappled on his forehead like it had been freshly buffed with Turtle Wax, looking distinctly as if he'd just stepped out of a sweat box on Devil's Island. Opening my window, I was told I had been speeding and was given an ultimatum (and it was this that kept him, I believe, from checking out my van and giving me a field sobriety test) namely that I was to pay him on the spot seventy five dollars for the ticket or spend the night in the Savannah jail. Images of beer bellied sweaty hicks with soiled ball caps bearing tractor company insignia and tattoos of eagles grasping rebel flags, and me a scrawny long haired teenager just didn't jive--"Come on over 'chere missy and sit on my lap and tell 'ol Bud alls about your troubles." Lucky for me I had the cash--but it was a huge chunk of my spendin' dough. As expected the ticket never was reported to Illinois, which was cool because I already had two tickets at the time. Negatively, I can imagine the fat fuck of a southern pig greedily counting the money and treatin' himself right with a few buckets of fried chicken necks and ice cold Budweiser for a couple of weeks--maybe picking up his wife a ten pound bag of boiled peanuts. However, things could have been worse. When I stopped to fill up the gas tank in Savannah proper, I recited my experience to a black employee of the gas station. He told me that I was lucky and said he had been pulled over in South Carolina with his sister and brother when they were on their way to visit their mother in North Carolina. Ostensibly pulled over for speeding, all three of 'em were arrested and thrown into jail for the night without being allowed to make any phone calls and their car was impounded. The next day when this guy was finally allowed to make a phone call, he had to get another family member to drive down six hours to pay off their mostly fabricated charges and get the car out of impound! So figuring I had indeed been lucky and remembering that dark skin is still considered a symbol of second class citizenship to the average dumb shit redneck and that long hair at least has a proud history in the southern ideology (consider Gregg Allmann and Gary Rossington, the one time Lynyrd Skynyrd geetarist, now dead, as prototypes) I set off towards Hilton Head proper. This is where the story of drunken mayhem and debauchery island style truly begins.

Arriving on the island, I met up with Eric, who was a guy I had gone to school with on Hilton Head and along with a small handful of people was one of the select few who despised the whitewashed polo shirt wearing, soccer playing, homogenized, cookie cutout kids that made up the mainstream at school, and as a result, looked and acted differently. It had only been a couple of years since I had moved back north and Eric looked the same--a Motorhead T-shirt, leather biker jacket wearing (even on the hottest muggiest days), long haired freak. We started partying early and met up with a couple of buddies of Eric's who I hadn't known when I lived on the island. I should state here that Hilton Head is broken up into thin strips and pockets of land owned by descendants of slaves and other early residents, public areas, and what have been dubbed plantations that go by such names as Sea Pines Plantation, Wexford, Spanish Wells, and Port Royal. To get into any of these you need to get a pass at a guard gate and have a destination in mind--like a restaurant, golf course, or a friends's house. No, there aren't any cotton picking slaves to be seen in these plantations, but the proliferation of multi million dollar beach homes with Mercedes and Jaguars parked out front, with mostly white occupants (mirroring the "big house" and ornate carriages of the antebellum era) and black maintenance crews who manicure the golf courses and tend to private yards does certainly seem to suggest some sort of cruel irony is at work. Anyway, John, who was one of the guys we were hanging out with, had just been fired from his job at a medical distribution complex on the island. This complex provided the hospital and the local dentist along with private practice medical centers in the area with tanks of oxygen and more importantly to this story, nitrous oxide. As we partied at this dude James' house (the other guy and their names suggest a Biblical slant I had never considered, making the rest of the story a possible modern version of a lost disciple parable?!) and smoked a few bongs and slugged down some beer, John began to feel like he had been fucked with royally by the company for canning him and he said he owed them a payback. (Apparently the fact that he missed work regularly didn't suggest the real reason for his axing). Suddenly he stood up and said "Fuck I know what we should do" and produced a pass card he hadn't yet returned, which would get him past the security guard at the enclosed complex. "We should steal a tank of nitrous oxide, the security guy doesn't know I've been fired yet and this will get us in." The idea of nitrous was enough of an impetus for the rest of us, so we piled into John's early 70's VW van and set off.

Sure enough, the security guard at the fenced in complex cursorily eyeballed the pass card without so much as a glance into the van full of the other three stoned bastards and even proceeds to shoot the shit with John briefly about what a slow day its been and how no one else is on the grounds. Gee, thanks for the info brother! We drive through the gates and come to this open sided covered building about 50 X 50 loaded with tanks of all sizes, from little Billy Barty jobs that looked like household fire extinguishers, to four foot tall obelisks that weighed around two hundred pounds. We drove around to the side where the nitrous oxide tanks were kept. The tanks were color coded depending on their contents--oxygen red--nitrous green. The latter two hundred pound tank is what we went for and stumbling out of the van we awkwardly hoisted it into the sliding side door. We laid it on its side and John immediately took the first blast, turning a small lever at the top that released a powerful jet of fine white/blue vapor. This was no wussy "whippet" variety cartridge used for deluxe William Sonoma whip cream canisters, this was a two hundred pound tank with some serious pressure to contend with. John proceeded to laugh like a particularly dazed Spiccoli and got back into the drivers seat as we piled in and took off.

We headed for an area on the island where a new plantation was under development. It provided plenty of unpaved dirt roads, so John put pedal to metal and we bounced and jolted along at a fast clip, in a way unique to old VW vans. On one long stretch everyone was taking turns on the tank and passing around a bowl and a joint. I remember taking a healthy blast from the nitrous and looking out the front window through a haze of pot smoke. John, who had just taken another massive inhalation off the tank with the gusto of a blood swathed newborn taking his first breath of Earth's acrid air, suddenly slumped unconscious over the steering wheel. James tried to grab the wheel but was too late, John's stupefied stoned torso had spun the wheel sharply to the left. Before anyone else could react (not that any of us were capable in our present mindset to react to something like this) the van veered lurchingly and spun around a complete 360 degrees before plunging head first into a shallow ditch. The fact that the van didn't flip over defies all logical explanations, as VW vans have a center of gravity equivalent to a weak kneed seven and a half foot drunk--spin them around and give 'em the lightest push and they're goin' over. Or so it would have seemed. Well, Newton can shove the proverbial apple up his ass and note with pained interest that it won't drop because his bowels are completely obstructed, 'cause we didn't flip. However, the rear seat where Eric and I were sitting was not bolted down, so I found myself crunched up against the front dashboard, luckily not impaled on the stick shift. Eric had fared worse-while I had been ejected forward between the front seats, he had become smashed between the driver seat and the unbolted rear seat which pinned him like a vice at chest level. This didn't phase him though as the nitrous oxide tank had rolled inches from his head-"I'm not gonna feel any pain" he cheerily announced as he turned on the valve. Ten seconds or so later he exhaled the fine bluish mist. We all laughed and James lit up a bowl. Just as Black Sabbath's song "Trashed" concludes--"and as we got trashed we were laughing still well bless my soul." Meanwhile John was coming out of unconsciousness slowly--"What the fuck man, I was enjoying the buzz but then it overtook me." Indeed, anyone who's done nitrous oxide knows that it provides what I can only describe as a sense of supreme euphoria accompanied by a dark, swirling, fog shrouded visual perception. It's a great feeling but with a nearly limitless supply we were getting the sensation amplified by a hundred fold. Once the buzz would even minorly begin to subside we'd just take another mega-blast. When John saw the van was in a ditch, he laughed, took a heavy hit of nitrous and we all got out, pushed it back onto the road, and took off again. About a minute down the road a state trooper, making rounds through the uncompleted new residential area, passed us glancing suspiciously at the van but he didn't turn around. Little did he know the four punks he had passed had just crashed, were wasted, and were in possession of the mother of nitrous oxide tanks (a felony) and a shitload of pot.

Next we headed for Sea Pines Plantation, acquiring a day pass at the guard gate easily, as we all knew people who lived there. Sea Pines is seen by millions of zombified viewers each year who tune in to catch the gut-wrenching, edge of you seat spectacle professional golf offers, when the PGA's Heritage Golf Classic invades the Harbour Town Gold Links. The famous red and white striped faux lighthouse (it was built as the centerpiece of the tourist mecca known as Harbour Town in 1969) that looms over the eighteenth green is considered a golfer's historical landmark by the thrill seeking players and the individuals who watch the heart stopping drama of a little ball plopping down on well trimmed greens (or better yet sandtraps) for hours. These rabid fans that make up what is known as "the gallery" in golf rival any hockey fan with their insatiable desire for action and excitement. Consider the similarities between two hockey players knocking out teeth and busting noses in a show of "male bonding" and "dominance" (consider each description carefully-hockey players do!), and a golfer with a name like Davis Love III, who on missing a put for birdie, looks down at the ground, angrily thrusts his putter back into his golf bag, looks at his caddy and mutters "shit!" Christ, I could go on but it's clear for all to see. Instead of watching a gripping golf match or descending upon the sandy beaches of Sea Pines like turkey buzzards on a rotting road kill carcass of an opossum, we headed for a swimming pool in a condominium complex known as Stoney Creek (and no, there's not even one braindead DeadHead to be seen). Most of these units are rental units but a few are permanent residences. A friend of mine named Tad (a guy who also fell into the outcast group I had been a part of and was opposite to the preppy turd burglar the name implies) lived in this complex with his father, this old cat who was always drinking red wine and cranking opera while painting with his shirt off and gullet protruding precariously over a belt pushed to the limit. Tad said he'd meet us out at the pool and so we decided to lug out the tank and bring it with us, since the idea of time away from it seemed pointless to our hazed consciousness. A few tourists eyed us suspiciously but James assuaged their concern by announcing us a "pool maintenance". When Tad finally joined us, he must have been a bit surprised. We had decided to bring the tank in the pool itself, and holy shit, it sure did make some big ass bubbles! Dragging it to the shallow end and uprighting it allowed for easy hit access and one could lay back and float with that intense dark buzz and the deep sensation of elation. This impression, accompanied by the counter sensation of floating on water, combined to create the illusion that one was actually soaring placidly through a cloud bank--weird feeling.

While Tad tried to understand garbled explanations of the tank through broken laughter and the brain ripping buzz we were all experiencing, an older couple in their sixties sauntered in for an afternoon swim. The man looked at the tank and me taking another heavy bang off of it--"Say are you boys trying out some diving equipment here?" I looked at him through bleary eyes with a mind racing through more important issues, such as every reason the day was so beautiful, the hint of salt in the air, the feel of the water, the buzzing sound of the two year cicadas, all of which were amplified by a torrid adrenaline driven buzz. "Yeah man, we're working with the Cousteau Institute."* This old bastard looked at his wife and said "That's really interesting. So is that some kind of new underwater propulsion unit?" Yeah well, whatever fuckhead, we're a bunch of fried freaks, check your goddamn Chrysler ground glasses at your optometrist!

After a refreshing swim on such a hot day--shades of Norman Rockwell gone bad--we decided it was time to move again. As Tad didn't want to partake in the debauchery (he hadn't been partying all day) he stayed at the pool and apparently had to evade several more ridiculous question concerning our underwater "propulsion unit". The rest of us lugged the tank out with tourists looking on stupidly, believing what they wanted to see, oblivious to the obvious. After loading the fun tank back into the van, Eric realized he had left his cigarettes at the pool. On returning, Eric, bleary eyed and wasted, was moving a bit too fast and misjudged the height of the side door on the van--on entering he ducked too late and hit his head on the top of the van with such ferocity the van shook with a sickening thud, like a cantaloupe falling several stories onto a concrete sidewalk. With a red stripe already rising on his forehead, a still wasted but now thoroughly dazed Eric announced for the second time that day--"I'm not gonna feel that "and took an inhalation off the tank that matched the sound of his head ricocheting off the van. Every time the pain seemed like it might be coming back on he'd get his pain fix--how convenient! By now we were rumbling along towards an area called South Beach, where we could kick back for awhile by the marina there. On the way John, James and I were toking on a couple of bowls and laughing at the stupidity of the sun worshipping tourists at the pool, who seemed to be suffering from acute sunstroke, when it struck me that it had been a while since we'd heard Eric's voice. I glanced at the floor by the side door where Eric had been situated for easy nitrous access. What I saw almost gave me a fucking coronary--Eric was lying on the floor with the tank lying alongside him, the valve on the tank was open and was blowing the mist on to his face--which looked cadaverous! His lips were blue from the nitrous oxide and there was no indication he was alive. "Holy Shit" I yelled "How long has he been out?" John and James glanced back and freaked out. I quickly turned off the valve and started yelling at Eric, giving him a couple of slaps to the face ala several old Three Stooges comedy shorts. Nothing. By now we had pulled into a parking lot at South Beach and John jumped out of the van and had come around and swung open the side door. Eric looked like a corpse--blue lips from the nitrous hitting them directly (for quite awhile by the way they looked), pale pasty complexion, no apparent breathing. All of us tried to figure long the tank had been on and could only figure since we left Stoney Creek. While we freaked out the tank provided a nice false sense of security. Just as James said "Yeah he really looks dead," Eric stirred and opened his eyes--"What's goin' on?" We relayed the story to him and he laughed--"Fuck I was out that long? remember my head hurting and taking another belt off the tank and enjoying the buzz, then just blacking out." Well at least he was alive, and thoughts turned from dumping the body somewhere and thinking up alibi's to our next location. As it was getting later in the day and the sun was beginning to set, Eric said he wanted to get his car at James' crib and that we'd follow them to our next stop, which we had now decided would be John's house. Yeah--his mother and sister were home, but if he didn't give a fuck neither would we.

On our way to John's house in Palmetto Dunes (another resort area) Eric and I stopped off at a liquor store that would sell Everclear to Macaulay Culkin, where we picked up a fifth of Jim Beam and a couple of cases of beer. When we got to John's he came out the front door and filled us in on the deal. We were to carry the tank over to his first floor window and lift it to the sill, where John and James could haul it in. Then Eric and I would come to the front door like we'd just arrived. It was awkward (like a degenerated Hemingway tale--nitrous tank substituting for bloated marlin) but we got the monster in, along with the beer and whiskey and then we knocked on the front door. John's mother was oblivious and seemed about as sharp as a spoon (which proved to be the truth). Soon, after smoking several bongs and guzzling back mucho whiskey and beer, the tank again began its workout. At one point, the tank was being used so much it wasn't even shut off. Now the tank wasn't exactly quiet--when fully open the sound was akin to a broken spraying water pipe. A knock came at the door, John briefly left the room and came back saying, "It's cool, she just thinks weire smokin' pot with some new type of bong." Hey man, far be it from me to say but a nitrous tank doesn't sound like any bong I've ever heard and apparently she allowed John to smoke pot quite freely in the house. Whatever.

Both cases of beer and most of the whiskey was consumed along with more bongs and countless "hits" of nitrous oxide. Eric again tried to break the world's record for longest hit off the tank and this time stood up straight after a thirty second KO punch--eyes closed, completely unconscious and fell backwards into John's half opened closet door. Now Eric was a large guy, about 230 pounds, a big fucker and the closet door was on of those folding types that fold out on tracks--well Eric falls into this and crumples it like its made of balsa wood sending splinters everywhere. Another knock at the door again finds John's lenient mom and sister wondering what the fuck is going on. "I just fell Ma," John yells. Somehow this seems to take care of things. "Alright but be quiet, don't get so rowdy," and his sister adds something to the effect of "Learn how to control yourself." I mean fuck, are these complete brain dead morons? The answer at the time was a resounding "yes." Did they fear confrontation when others were around? Did their lack of a central male figure leave them cliched knuckle under females? Who knows! I decide I'm gonna top the longest hit without falling down, so far twenty seconds or so completed by James. I get to around twenty-five (taking quick breathers--you can't inhale continuously for this long) and stand upright--briefly at least-before I crumple into a corner of the room laughing like a true bastard and then pass out. When I come to Eric is standing above me with the bottle of Jim Beam in his hand--"come on man get up, the show's gonna start in a couple of minutes, are you gonna be alright?" I muttered something like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" when Eric replied that I was the old bass player for Uriah Heep,** namely Gary Thain, and that I had to go on stage in Birmingham, England and play. Now this may sound bloody idiotic, but I was so fucked up from all the partying and the non-stop brain cloud of nitrous that I bought it! "Yeah man, I'll be alright" I told him, envisioning the back stage area and hearing the crowd. "Hey, fuck, I wanna think I'm Lemmy" (from Motorhead) John chimed in. At this point I was standing up and was coming out of the fog bank that separates reality from fucksville. "Oh shit, I was believing that, man" I told the stoned faces surrounding me. I've never had an experience like this before or since but for a few seconds there I was a long dead bass player getting ready to hit the stage with the lads and perform the Heep battle horse, "Stealin." Weird shit!

After a few more hours of tank time, Eric and I decided to call it a night and we left with James hitching a ride with us. The next day I'm hanging out with Eric at this public beach area by this Holiday Inn (by day two his lips are thoroughly blistered from the nitrous oxide hitting 'em when he was unconscious) and we bump into James, "Hey you guys heard the news?" "What fuckin' news?" was our general reply. Well, it seemed that after we left, John passed out with his stereo still cranking--Jim Beam, beer, pot and nitrous oxide can take its toll--and his sister came in to tell him to turn it down. Well the disaster area that met her eyes was enough to make her get momma. The tank wasn't explained away easily, and earlier in the day she made John return the tank to the distribution plant, explain to his ex-boss what he had done and then, with his mom as instigator, turn himself in to the police with a full confession! Actually, this route probably saved him from a lot of extra trouble he would have found himself in had he not done this. After all it is a felony! Anyway he had to pay a few hundred dollars in fines but it seems his dumbass hick boss and the tobacco chewin' police found his honesty refreshing and didn't press charges or arrest him--did nothing outside the fines. Makes you wonder if some other "deal" wasn't worked out with John 'n mom. Paying all that cash probably sucked, but all in all, not too shabby, man. Credit must go to John though, for never mentioning same, Eric or James to the police. Shit, after all, it was his idea.

All of these incidents took place many years ago and some aspects still remain (understandably) hazy. I just think it's a miracle we weren't busted during our travels. At any rate, we may have acted like complete fucks but at least I wasn't one of those well-oiled sunburned asswipes riding a glorified dildo being dragged behind a boat. Nitrous tanks should be standard issue at resorts like Hilton Head, to help make every stupid action and inane moment seem like a sublime epiphany.

*Jacques Cousteau's son Jean-Michele did have a marine institute on Hilton Head for around six years.
**Uriah Heep is a band in the tradition of Deep Purple and other 70's bands that epitomize the excess of that era but were more laid back and drunk than most. Brilliant stuff.

Burn in Hell
posted by El Bastardo at 10:55 PM

Okay, so I've been away for awhile--here's a long one:

I saw Steve Fuckin' Earle & the Dukes Tuesday night at the Brown Theatre, which kicked tons of ass! Oddly enough, I saw my old friend Brandon there, who I'd also ran into at the Concrete Blonde show two weeks before (it was kinda unusual due to the fact that I'm lucky if I see Brandon once every year). Unfortunately, the show wasn't general admission, so I couldn't really hang out with him during the show. It turned out that I arrived just in time to miss the opening act, Garrison Starr, but since I'd never really heard of her, I wasn't worried (even less upon hearing mixed reviews of her performance). I was there to see Steve.

The Brown reminds me of the Palace, only smaller--which generally is good and bad. Good, cuz you can sit on yer arse, & bad, because you'll generally pay more for tickets. Such a setting is further affected by the type of act you'll see. I'd never been to the Brown, but had been to the Palace twice--the first time for Ted Nugent, & in '94 for Johnny Cash. Needless to say, while the setting was great for seeing the Man in Black, it didn't quite work for the Motor City Madman. I figured it could go either way for Steve. I noted that although my seat wasn't very close to the stage, their weren't an excessive number of rows either. On top of that, I had a clear line of sight to center stage, which suited me just fine.

Steve came out somewhere around 8:30. Louisville would be his last show of the Jerusalem tour in America, & all were expecting Steve would make this one hell of a finale. The band opened with Jerusalem's "Amerika v 6.0 (The Best that we can Do)." One thing I noticed was how much younger Steve looked than in some of the most recent photographs and video I'd seen--the thick, bushy beard was gone, & he appeared to have lost a lost of weight. The band included Will Rigby on drums, Eric "Roscoe" Amble on guitar, and Kelly Looney on bass. On certain songs, the band would be joined by Steve's son, Justin, on keyboards or guitar and his brother Patrick on auxillary percussion (including a huge trash can on "Conspiracy Theory"). Ocassionally the band would be joined by opening act Garrison Starr to accompany Steve on vocals. The band was tighter than a fish's asshole, and everyone on stage really seemed to be having a great time. Though the theatre seating didn't dampen the experience as it did the Nuge show, I still think Earle would be better enjoyed in a general admission setting (I heard the show with the Del McCoury Band at Headliners during The Mountain tour was incredible).

The next number was "What's a Simple man to Do?" (also from the new album). There's always at least one idiot in the audience, and Louisville's decided to make himself known right as the second song ended, shouting "COPPERHEAD ROAD" at the top of his lungs. Steve looked into the audience, obviously puzzled someone would request this so early in the show, & retorted with, "You really don't think I'm not gonna sing that one, now do ya?" Of course, the Idiot didn't catch the sarcasm, & would continue to shout his white trash battlecry of "COPPERHEAD ROAD" between songs, until Steve actually played it, a little less than halfway through the set (I was actually surprised to hear his signature tune so early). I was rather surprised that said Idiot didn't leave immediately afterward (I could see him to my right, a few rows behind me), as that seemed to be the only song he came to hear.

Shortly into the show, Steve mentioned how some people had accused him of being unpatriotic, saying that it really didn't bother him too much because he was sure their definition of patriotism was different than his, to which the crowd responded with loud applause, hoots, and shouts. Throughout the show, Steve & Roscoe kept trading out guitars for different songs. Steve played the mandolin for several songs, and once even played the banjo. Sometimes he'd play the harmonica as well. While all this is going on, my bladder is starting to swell to mammoth porportions (it was a good thing I decided to forego any beer drinking). When Steve began "The Rain came Down," I decided to hit the head. I quickly changed my mind when I saw the massive line (though the Brown is rather upscale, it seems they skimped on the bathroom facilities) & decided to hold it.

Highlights of the show included "Ashes to Ashes," "Conspiracy Theory," "Taneytown," "Copperhead Road," "Billy Austin," "Hurtin' Me, Hurtin' You," "John Walker's Blues," "Jerusalem," "Transcendental Blues," and the closing number, "The Unrepentant" (possibly my favorite Steve Earle song). I was rather disappointed that he didn't do anything from The Mountain (my favorite Earle album), other than "Harlan Man" (which was pretty much expected, this being this is Kentucky), but he really didn't have a fiddle player anyway.

After he ended the set, the crowd jumped to its feet and applauded thunderously while he left the stage (his guitar left leaning against the amp, droning out the last note of "The Unrepentant"). Soon Steve and company reappeared for an encore. They started off with "Goodbye," which he mentioned hadn't been played the entire tour but that he needed to because he was in Louisville (it turns out the subject of the song, his fifth wife, was from Louisville), followed by "Hardcore Troubadour." Steve then grabbed the mandolin & spoke a bit about this being the last leg of the Jerusalem tour, then mentioned a few more dates he'd be doing solo, "and then," he said, "I'm goin' to fuckin' Ireland." A guy came out weilding a tin whistle (Dan Gillis--who I understand drove up from Nashville), & the band launched into a rousing version of "The Galway Girl." The applause was even greater after this, as Steve & company left the stage once more.

I was just about to walk out & release my swollen bladder when the band returned for a second encore! Steve began with "Christmas in Washington," starting the song with a long intro about the need for heroes (like Joan Baez, Illinois governer George Ryan, Daniel Patrick Monyihan, et al) while some bloated, bespectacled, annoying cow behind me kept yelling "SPEAK THE TRUTH!" while several of her fellow audience members told her to shut up so we could hear what the fuck he was saying. Steve moved up to the edge of the stage during the last part of the song & had the audience join in, with mixed results, as many of us weren't too familiar with the lyrics, but it was a good feeling nonetheless. I was ready to go piss when he was done, but Steve still had more up his sleeve. The band continued with "Time Has Come Today." By now, my bladder muscles are being tested to their limit. I didn't expect them to follow with another song! This time it was another cover--"Get Together," with Garrison & Roscoe on one mic & Steve & Justin on the other. They finally grant my strained bladder mercy by ending with a final cover of "What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding?" The maximum I expect from anyone is a three-song encore--usually the artist will give you one or two songs. I was therefore quite stunned to get a total of seven songs in two encores! See if Toby Keith or any of those other so-called "country" "artists" will do that shit!

After the show, I took one of the most relieving pisses I've had in a looooong time. Then, I went to buy a shirt. Unfortunately, I was told that they'd run out of concessions at the last show! Fuck. So I headed out to my truck. I happened to be parked behind the place, not far from the tour bus, so I grabbed my camera to see if I could catch Steve & perhaps get a picture with him. I ran into a guy, also from Indiana, named John, who's there with his son. He told me Steve usually comes out to meet the fans, & also about the last time he saw Steve in Indianapolis, where there was a fight. Seems some rightwing, Bush-loving rednecks got pissed at Steve & jumped up on stage & tried to swing on him. John told me the roadies were there in a heartbeat, & Steve's brother even got in some shots. Well, after what seems like forever, Steve appeared & took a few moments to talk to everyone, & was more than happy to have his picture taken with me--I'll probably post it when I get it developed.

Okay, for those who care (& even those who don't), here's the setlist (special thanks to Tony Buechler on the Exit 0 newsgroup):

America vs. 6.0
What's A Simple Man To Do ?
Ashes To Ashes (w/Justin on guitar, Steve on old style mic and harmonica)
Conspiracy Theory (w/Garrison Starr on vocals)
My Old Friend The Blues
Someday
Taneytown (w/Eric doing the harmony vocal)
The Rain Came Down
Harlan Man
Train A Comin'
Copperhead Road
Guitar Town
I Remember You (w/Garrison)
Billy Austin
The Truth
Some Dreams (w/intro about his love of baseball and how he will end up at
spring training as an old man)
Hurtin' Me, Hurtin' You
Go Amanda
John Walker's Blues
Jerusalem
Transcendental Blues
N.Y.C.
The Unrepentant

Encore 1
Goodbye
Hardcore Troubadour
Galway Girl (w/Dan Gillis on penny whistle)

Encore 2
Christmas in Washington
Time Has Come Today
Get Together (cover)(talked about how he has played this song since he was a
kid)
What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding? (cover)

In other news, I took a look at my grandpa's banjo (he doesn't play), which I didn't know jack about until today. It belonged to his father (who did play), & it's at least 60 years old. It doesn't have any strings, & I was told the keys tend to slip, but it's really cool because it seems to be the first major family heirloom that isn't a firearm or knife. Not only that, but it's good to learn that one of my direct ancestors seems to have had some musical ability (my family stressed literacy, but were pretty indifferent to the arts). I'm gonna get it stringed up & see if it needs any repairs--Grandpa really seems like he wants it to wind up with someone who can appreciate it. Hell, I might even learn to play it!

Those of you who don't like Steve Earle can

Burn in Hell

posted by El Bastardo at 8:23 PM