Time off to Crossing the Equator

Its been a while since I've written anything (mainly because I don't really have any readers, and) because my roadie has been workless since he came off his last tour. However, at this very moment he's in South America, getting ready to bust out the biggest show of his (and his bands) career so far at the Rockin' Rio festival. His band is 3rd on the bill, supporting none other than Metallica, Motorhead and Slipknot.

When he came home after his last tour, it didn't take long for the obvious symptoms of the "after tour blues" to set in. After being gone for 6 weeks, the only things that would come out of his mouth were tour-related or stories and videos of shows from the road that I "had to be there for to get." Understandable. He just spent more time with a group of guys than he has with anyone else in his life before (other than me). But the symptoms from the after tour blues can also reflect those of an addiction sometimes. Every night they're on top of the world, blowing 1,000's of kids minds for miles across the land. The electricity that flows through you after a show is powerful, and the reality of coming home and staying put for more than 24 hours and living a normal life is nothing but sobering.

He'd been off for a couple of days, that turned into weeks... that turned into months. He acquired another band in the mean time, but they're 15 minutes of fame passed a long time ago and they're simply touring still for something to do. Not really passion fulfilling, if you know what I mean.
After a couple of weeks off, you start to get kind of sad, like an unwanted feeling because you can't find any work (I'd know because I'm in the same boat, just in a different part of the business and have been "off" for a lot longer than he has). The more time that passes, the more depressed you feel, the more you feel like you've forgotten your trade and lose self-confisense. Eventually the sadness subsides and boredom sets in firmly and slowly becomes masked by anger. "Why can't I find work?! Why isn't anyone calling me for jobs?! Will you call my phone to see if there's anything wrong with it? Am I not good at what I do? I suck. Am I in the right field of work? Am I even in the right place in life?....." And then, your phone rings and you get a months worth of work booked in one day.

Its a mind game and its something you have to keep a close eye on,  or else it can swallow you up and deplete your motivation and passion. Its a difficult dance because you want to fill your time off with activities you don't get to do while you're on the road and make the time with your loved one's memorable. But if you're not making money, you're spending money, and when you're not earning it, you're sweating it (and living in LA, it haunts you). Yet again, another mind game. As the matriarch of the home, its our job to try to play referee when they can't organize their mental offense and defense.


I'd like to wrap things up by sharing the story of my roadies first time crossing the equator:

Traveling is (stressful) fun and airports are an (pain in the ass) inconvenience, but since science can't figure out how to teleport yet, we're stuck at the mercy of the TSA. I had just picked him up from LAX the day before from a short gig in Canada with Devo, when in 24 hours he had to report back to the air jungle of southern CA to head to South America on a 16 hour flight.
He got to Texas to catch his next flight to Santiago, Chile when the airline found a problem with engine leakage on the plane and canceled his flight until early the next morning. They proceeded to book the passengers "complimentary" Motels so they could waste their time sleeping for 3 hours since they close the airport down at night (I didn't know they do this!?). When everyone arrived back the next morning, the airline figured out that someone didn't do the cargo manifest correctly, so they had to take everything off the plane, re-weight it and load it back on for paperwork and delayed the flight.
Eventually he arrived safely...  but not after me giving myself an ulcer thinking that the faulty plane would crash in a 3rd world country (on my Birthday! which he couldn't be there for again).

Tip #3: Never fly with American airlines. Put it in your contract.