10/5/10 • AUSTIN, TX

We had a monumental drive across the state of rot: Texas. The moment you cross the border from New Mexico, everything feels violent and bleak. In the town of Fort Stockton, Freddy went to the post office and mailed a Former Ghosts LP that is all about his former love to his former love. He said it was for closure. I mailed a bag of rubber snakes and rubber frogs to my current love. This is not for closure, I hope, but we’ll see.

After the show Freddy took a thick black marker and colored his hands and neck totally black. Again, lots of drinking preceded this. It looked very very scary. He tried to get into a strip club, but they wouldn’t let him in. They said I couldn’t get in either because I let him do this to himself. It seemed reasonable even at the time. I keep wondering how responsible I need to be. I drive carefully and that feels like enough for now.

At a late-hours gas station/liquor store a sex worker kept holding Freddy’s hand and telling him she liked how he looked. It was an amazingly beautiful contrast to see her long red nails clasped across his totally black hand. Freddy went in and bought the woman a six pack of Red Stripe. For a moment you could see that she thought that he was trying to pay her for sex with it. But he was so gone I don’t think he even realized she was a lady of the night.

Once in Sweden I paid a sex worker fifty euros to give me a hug, out of curiosity. I think she hated it. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, but I can understand now, based on her reaction, how she might think that I was.

After the show tonight Freddy was crying. Crass as this sounds, he still needs to get fucked right away! Maybe he will drink less.

10/8/09 • MOBILE, AL

The heated moon has risen, and it has shined down upon the naked behind of MR. F., entwined between the naked thighs of MS. SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS!

Finally, finally, finally, thanks be to Pan the god of debauchery, Freddy has gotten fucked — and most archetypally: a band-oriented one night stand! The one thing on Earth and the moon that he needed more than air or food or stability or an award! YUMMY MEANINGLESS BUT CRUCIAL SORT OF GOOD AND FUN FUCKING!

We played for literally five people, drove to Waffle House (fuck you!), then drove to a motel. There was a party in the room next door and Freddy went. He came back half an hour later to ask me for the keys to the car. He told me it was “time.” I looked out the window after fifteen minutes, and in classic 1970s style, the car was bouncing up and down.

When we got to the show we talked outside about just driving away. It’s hard to play songs that mean something to you when you’re playing to one bartender who wishes you were dead. But those five people showed up just as we were about to float away. Oh, Mobile… if they hadn’t come, we wouldn’t have gone to the party motel. Freddy wouldn’t have done the deed that might set him on his way to freedom from eternal negative obsession with his ex.

Also today, a man yelled at the woman behind the counter of the gas station, “I want pork skins and beer! What do you mean you don’t understand what I’m saying?!” From his car was blasting “99 Luftballons” by Nena.

10/8/09 • ATLANTA, GA

I have been trying to get Freddy to take the virginity of my friend who, at twenty-four, has yet to power-up to the status of “bonked.” She reportedly just walked by Planned Parenthood and said, “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a pregnancy scare.” Amazing. But now that Freddy has had sex again, he’s tired of me bringing it up. He has fulfilled his duty to his body and heart and now seems empty of lust — too empty to help a girl out.

In lieu of his becoming a man that one woman would remember forever and forever, we went to the Claremont. It’s a breast-showing bar that’s also part of a halfway house, so the ladies who dance look like the lives they lead: difficult.

That night the show was a bummer. Atlanta used to be a town I liked to go to. I had friends there who have since become too cool to hang out with me, so now when I go I just feel like a loser. That lead to drinking at the Claremont, surrealistic drinking with a person who came to the show. A man on PCP cornered me in the kitchen while I was trying to count my money and said I shouldn’t be in there and that he could kill me anytime he wanted. He was very muscular.

I told him I would leave the kitchen and that he didn’t need to murder me. He said okay. Then he put an Alice in Chains song on the jukebox and started to sing along… while he walked up to the stage and punched a naked dancer incredibly hard. The four bouncers jumped on top of him and threw him bodily out the door. The dancer was doubled over on the stage and her friends came and helped her off.

Later the punching dude came back inside and no one said anything. Word was he used to work there. That didn’t seem like enough of a reason to let him off the hook. I became nervous but we were still drinking.

Later a dancer came over who was known as “the Fifty-Foot Fake Out.” She had a very nice body but had a horrible burn on her face. The person from the show bought Freddy a lap dance and it seemed normal. Then suddenly he threw up on her.

She said, “Give me $50,” in a gravelly voice. He did and then the bouncers made us leave. We drove away to try to get to Durham, where I live, before it got light out.

If it was light then we would feel awful. If it was still dark then things would make some sort of sense.

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