Orlando

The interesting tid bit about Florida is that the artists get fined and or arrested for swearing on stage. This might not be such a big deal for say Jimmy Buffett, but asking punk rockers not to swear is like asking a religious fanatic not to pray.

There were signs up on all the stages reminding everyone what the acceptable terms were. For example fuck had to be fornicate. Bitch was Jeffrey Starr (an inside joke), Cunt:Vagina and so on. I got more chuckles out of listening to the banter between songs as the performers either complied, or spoke passive aggressively with their own terms. Bad Religion did a sing/repeat game with the audience using words like Schmega, gerbles etc. The audience loved it, not sure about homeland security though.

At the party last night, the DJ asked ?are the cops fucking gone yet?? Can we speak our fucking minds? It was funny.

There were two memorable events for me yesterday. Getting to be press in the pit for the Bad Religion and 30h3 performances and the party last night. In the pit, I was so close that Nat spit and it landed in my camera. Yuck! His guitarist kicked a beach ball which missed my face by inches and there were several times when I wonder if one of them was going to end up in my lap.

The rule is that you can only stay in the pit shooting for the first 3 songs, then they corral you back out. Its really great though to be right on the stage. Security keeps a close eye on the press to make sure we are out of harms way from the crowd surfers. So the views both of stage and of the crowd are pretty amazing.

Then at the party last night West Bound Train performed live and I actually danced a few songs with a very nice black man who does technical lightening. He had to leave early though to catch a plane back to LA where he works. I have his card though. It was nice to move some!

As you know, I love to dance but Jim isn?t really a big fan. At one point I realized that the dancing crowd was made up of ALL boys dancing. I thought I had died and gone to heaven---a room full of men that LIKE TO DANCE! WOW!

Sean from 30h3 is one crazy dancer. If he wasn?t a rock star he would be the laughing stock of the room, a combo of ADD on steroids and total geeky nerd. But you have to give him 1000 percent credit for energy and enthusiasm. He was literally dancing circles around everyone. Once a performer, always a performer. In fact there were a few competitions too---the various mucicians sporting their best moves for each other. Even Kevin Lyman spent a great deal of his time on the dance floor. I really hoped that he would ask me to dance, but he was clearly enjoying dancing with all his close friends.

There were a few kids at the party and even during the circle pit, they were out there joining in. Kinda made me mad that in comparison Alec and Liz were too shy or stiff or whatever to join in the fun, yet these little kids were having a blast out there. At one point, Kevin picked up one of the kids and threw him up on his scoulders out of harms way. It was a telling moment. Kevin is a punk rocker to the max yet has a strong gentle protective side as well. A lot of these men here do.

So the party was pretty fun. At about midnight the girls wanted to leave and I didn?t feel like I should stay without them so we all headed back to the trailer where it didn?t take long to fall asleep. The plan was to sleep until the 2 am bus call then head out with the group. When 2 came around I tried to wake the girls up but they didn?t budge, so I rolled back over myself. The next thing I know, I wake up to silence and emptiness. Everyone was gone and it was 5 am. Oh shit! We tore down the trailer in record time and hit the road just as a security guard was heading our direction likely to tell us we had to leave.

Today:

Unforunately today has probably been our worst yet. We used Lu Lu for directions to Miami rather than the written directions-misktake number one because she completely died on us and we had no idea where we were. That coupled with thunder/lightening and pounding rain, frayed nerves (for some reason I was falling asleep at the wheel again despite 6 hrs of sleep) and bad attitudes and we were not at our best, and perhaps maybe a new record for worst. I did my share of verbally abusing Alec and Liz and they reminded me that everything that ?s wrong with them is all my fault. Good times in the van. What should have taken 4 hrs took 7 and by the time we arrived at the venue in Miami no one was speaking and I was pretty sure that this was day last for us!

The usual frustrations (breathing treatments ignored) (girls constant fighting between each other) have followed us along just like the trailer. Today I was on my last nerve and completely fed up with the usual crap. CF is so FUCKED UP FLORIDA. Take that Home Land Security (which by the way I took a photo of the SUV awhile ago). Oh well?I blame CF for just about all of our pathologies. Maybe the CF mutation is lateral to a shitty temper gene since we seem all three to have that pathology as well.