First stop...

Orlando, Florida!
So... I was sitting in a hotel room in Orlando, contemplating the mysteries of life after watching a plane take off from the Tampa Airport less than a minute after our flight passed over....the FAA calls that a ´close call´.... I call it a reason not to fly....(laughs) Other than that, the flight was cool....had to make a stop in New Orleans....we picked up the kookiest old ladies in the world....they cured me of my fear of flying.... the cute girl across the aisle from me and I shared a few knowing glances and laughs the whole way to Orlando....

Anyway.....
I jumped in an overpriced cab and headed to the hotel.... struck up a conversation with the cabby to drown out the shit tunes he was playing... Sinatra´s worst or some crap like that..... I know I heard BJ Thomas in there, too..... I told him what I was doing in Orlando....he told me he had some of the band in his cab the day before.....gave me fair warning that they were a cool bunch of people, nutty as loons.... GREAT.... MY kind of people! I KNEW I was at home.
So..... we sat at the hotel for a couple of days.... The thing I tried to do the whole time was get the fire department called to the hotel...... Let me explain. I had to learn how to use the Avolite Pearl controller, so I had an Intellabeam and a Dataflash in my room with me......extension cords and mic cables all over the place......when I met my roommate for the tour, Vuca, he freaked.....he was wondering what he had been stuck with, with cables and lights all over the place.......(laugh). So anyway, I had this Intellabeam in my room, on, and strobing at 12 flashes per second,, gobo open, and color wheel moving between red and orange and yellow, and a Dataflash or two (fancy strobes) going with a red and a yellow gel in them, both pointed at the window, with the shades drawn......the hotel was on a busy freeway, so you would have thought that SOMEONE would have seen a "fire" and called........no such luck. Oh well.....it's almost as much fun as playing "Stack"..... To play Stack, someone yells "STACK!", then you pile everything in front of the door...... beds......TV's......furniture......women...... everything....Then, set the room on fire.... the last one out has to buy lunch........

The Orlando gig was cancelled due to the Spanish Customs agent´s desire to detain all Gusgus´stuff (I´m guessing to see what they can steal). When they FINALLY released it, it arrived a day late....some idiot forgot to ship it.... I was thinking about a dirty little parable that consists of two monkeys and a football at this time....(laugh)
So...we packed up the equipment, met the bus driver, whom we eventually came to know as Dickie Fut, and headed for Tampa.....

Featured Gusgus member of this day.....

Since he was the first member I met, it's Mark O'Shea., the road manager.....

Of course the crew are members of the organization...without us, it's just another boring band...And, Gusgus would have fallen apart in America without Marko.....

Marko has a better job than the rest of us....when he's not with Gusgus, or being the stage manager of The Agora in Cleveland, he's Nine Inch Nail's road manager...SO....the dude's been around he block a few times..... He's the only member with more touring experience than I have, seeing as to how everyone else was still wet behind the ears... We sat in the little cafe attached to the hotel in Orlando, which looked like a 1950's nightmare, complete with jukeboxes at every table, and ate lunch...apparently, the Gusgus organization wasn't very organized....he was surprised as hell when I showed up, and relieved, since he had no idea who was going to do the lighting...he introduced me to all the people in the band, and as we got going, we eventually relied on each other to be the only ones who got stuff done every night, since band guys and sound guys are lazy as hell..... Marko's main job is to play the "Ian" role (remember....the Spinal Tap manager.....) He made sure we were taken care of...chased us down when we were needed....got the money, etc.....REALLY glamorous life....He eventually started to burn out, so I took over a little...Like, when I started to be the 'bad guy' when Marko needed stuff done, i.e., telling the hotel people in Los Angeles when they asked me how long we would be there that if they pissed Marko off again, we would be moving out....funny how their attitudes changed when they thought they were going to lose 11 rooms at $85 each.... Marko has a younger brother who those of you who watch the CBS soap opera Guiding Light may have seen....George, his brother, has a bit part as the maitre'd at some restaurant the characters frequent... we did lunch in New York at George's day job, a bar....

So, anyway, when the tour was over, Marko made sure they paid me.........so it took 3 weeks...... I got my money......(laughs) Marko's probably out managing Jane's Addiction right now....look for him either there, or with Nine Inch Nails......