Adios, Motherfucker

by Michael Ruffino

  It was late afternoon in the hotel when I woke up, after a blues bar, a late dinner. . . . remembered I’d ordered the clam chowder. It was good, I ate it. I waited. After a while I felt fine, so we ordered clams on the half-shell. In Denver. We weren’t thinking straight. It can be a day, even two days later before you know for sure you’re not poisoned. Eighteen hours later now and Steve talking about how we were really rolling the dice last night. Not on the obviously grifting women, or the guy with the prosthetic leg full of weird, homemade-looking pills. “I just hope we didn’t blow all our good luck on a couple plates of shellfish in Denver,” he said warily. We pay him to be wary.

  OCTOBER 6 / LAWRENCE, KANSAS

  Straightaway, every promoter takes us to a strip club, or dispatches his best man available to do so. I appreciate the thought, but—again—what’s wanted is an uncomplicated drink at a reasonable price if not for free somewhere you don’t have to do anything but drink it. The idea between shows, and drives, is to relax, not fling away all your money into a hole, least of all one that’s blasting Tool, or worse, if that’s possible. Which it is, thanks to Korn, and Slipknot—no, not worse, just additionally bad. One could stay in the room and nap, watch TV, or sit quietly in the dark doing nothing at all, if one remembered it was a choice. I had that revelation here, but as it happened our free time coincided with Motörhead’s (nobody had interviews scheduled, etc.), and as we’ve learned, attending the ballet with Motörhead, that’s a Thing. This is their domain. Lemmy walks into a strip club, people trip over themselves; even the poles straighten up.

  Over the years we’ve learned that alcohol consumption onstage can’t be controlled any more than the weather, but the idea lately (another revelation) is to curb the pre-show drinking, at least in front of rooms big enough where “wasted” won’t play to the back row. Alas, last night on walkabout I met some people who were doing shots of “special tequila,” whatever that means in Kansas. By showtime I was onstage with severely compromised equilibrium, in front of a sold-out theater. My legs carried me in directions away from where I wanted to go. Watched my hand behave in ways I had not instructed it to, and would not have predicted. All the while I wondered in full sentences in my head just what the hell was going on. I was having a mind-body problem. Easy to see why philosophers have such a hard time with this one.

  OCTOBER 7 / WICHITA, KANSAS

  I made the call to the promoter in Wichita to advance the show because Steve isn’t feeling well, possibly due to Denver shellfish; maybe we have some luck left in reserve after all. He’s British, the Wichita guy. None of the usual, preemptive exasperation in his voice. We talked for a while. The shorthand of how he came to be booking bands in Wichita, Kansas, does as he said, sound like something out of Dostoevsky, but with freight cars full of drugs. He bid beyond his means for this show but says he doesn’t care, he’s desperate for some “proper” rock and roll. “All I get is this fucking rap-metal shit. It’s like some kind of unending fucking nightmare.” Need more guys like this.

  OCTOBER 8

  The crowds have been showing up earlier the past few shows, I’m sure in no small part due to Lemmy name-checking us every night without fail—word travels—and mentioning us favorably in an interview or two. After our set we often get individual critiques from the crowd, people noting certain areas of our set where they’d like to see some improvement, recommending certain adjustments, asking questions, even weighing the relevance of their own advice. Production notes, basically. After one such critique here the guy said, “Prolly not gonna buy this first album from you guys but I look forward to seeing you develop. I’ll keep an eye out. Lemmy is God. Later, dudes.”

  Read about some street kids, little huffers, in Africa somewhere, Sierra Leone or something. They collect human waste in bottles, cap the bottle with a balloon and set it in the sun to ferment, then huff the gasses collected in the balloon. I imagine the effect is similar to riding in this van. Also the clunking and the stalling continues. Every few hours we’re on the side of the road, Eugene and Steve out there staring at the engine, occasionally twiddling something that doesn’t respond as they’d hoped. Two-day hole in the schedule so there’s talk of putting the thing in the shop in Olathe, depending on what a shop in Olathe looks like.

  Things are a little strained with Nashville Pussy at the moment. I think Ruyter might be pissed-off—not faux, actually. Bickering decidedly less jokey past few days, silent treatment backstage earlier. I asked [her bandmate] Blaine [Cartwright] and he said, “Ahhh . . . I don’t know, man,” as usual. As usual, I’m not quite sure what he meant. They’re having—in record label parlance—“interpersonal” difficulty, industry-speak for problems due to drug habits or significant others. As opposed to “creative differences,” which are about money. None of my business. But I notice Lemmy’s been stepping in here and there in a sort of counseling capacity for them, very capably as far as I can tell. The thing about Lemmy, whatever else he’s known for—five women at once, Jack Daniel’s on his Weetabix, ice-cream scoops full of speed—all of which is true, or true-ish, he takes his tea at four. Yesterday we were backstage and someone brought him a new tour poster for his approval, and Lemmy’s there with his tea—not to suggest he wasn’t also banjaxed on space amphetamine, but he’s there with his tea—and he says, it’s a “bit derogatory,” and ultimately no, can’t use it, it’s too much. I didn’t see what the artwork was but you have to imagine it was pretty grim indeed. Whatever scale Lemmy Kilmister uses to define “too much”—probably the same one Zeus uses, and Thor—you can count on one hand, maybe one finger, how many heavy metal dressing rooms you’ll hear the word “derogatory” in, not as a joke, or followed by “enough.” A few days ago I’m walking, if I may call it that, through the backstage area and here comes Lemmy, draining a bottle of whiskey like it’s a fucking cherry soda, and he suggests I need to eat something. Insists, actually, so I follow him into the Motörhead dressing room where he gets me two sandwiches from their deli tray, one for later. All of this is relative, I realize. But for a guy whose blood could probably liquefy a tank, Lemmy is a mindful host.

  Didn’t make it out of town after the show, vansion fucked. We dropped it off this morning at a shop—the only shop, and not one that inspired trust. The way Cletus there was wiping his hands with his rag it was clear we weren’t making it out of Olathe easily. Waiting on a part now, from Oz, evidently. No show tonight, so it just means making up some drive time later.

  OCTOBER 9 / OLATHE, KANSAS

  Eight hours so far kicking around the strange but friendly Kansas town. Getting to know the local Applebee’s a little too well.

  OCTOBER 10

  No van part yet. I get the feeling Cletus is stringing us along. As one has to expect when one drops off one’s van at a repair shop in Kansas while wearing leather pants (Steve did the talking but we couldn’t exactly hide). The motel’s cheap enough so we rented an additional room and split up; it was getting cramped, and hideous with stink. Happy to be in the fresh room. Closed out Applebee’s and some waitresses hung around afterward. Nice Kansas girls. They asked us if we knew Limp Bizkit. We said no, not personally, but that we knew for a fact the name was something the singer thought of while looking at his penis. I think they bought it, eventually.

  OCTOBER ?

  Time has stopped. Have given up getting a straight answer regarding today’s date—I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Feels like months. We acclimated quickly, as we do, to this new life in a small town in Middle America. There’s nothing “middle” about the people. Pretty extreme as far as I’m concerned. Personable folks though, most of them. Ran into Brandon, the newsie kid, down at Applebee’s. Says his mom’s doing a bit better but now Enos (a Lab) is sick. I said I didn’t think viruses jumped species like that, but maybe he should have Haylee (shit—Kaylee?) look in on the dog because she’s in vet school, I think she said. And he goes, “Yeah but I don’t know, she’s got tryouts next week, and the parade’s on Su
nday and everything.” So negative sometimes, this kid. “Well,” I said, “it couldn’t hurt to ask.” But he’s right, she’ll probably blow him off. She’s got her reasons.

  OCTOBER ??

  There was a sign in a restaurant window about a dish job. I peeked in, just in case. Somebody was getting yelled at in there . . . my future self. The chapel-like local movie house: a sun-bleached poster for the all-star asteroid movie—one showing, weekends only. Hung around the hardware store talking with people about these dadgum newfangled so-called energy-saving lightbulbs, specifically about how much they suck, then went by Applebee’s for a quick one on my way home to the motel. Marcus (manager) was stapling up a bunch of posters for a metal show: Voivod. Which is a noise-metal band or something. I said, “That’s seems weird, man. Why is Voivod playing a show at Applebee’s?”

  Marcus got frustrated with me. “Dude! Why do you keep calling this place Applebee’s? It’s a rock club—you played here.”

  “Well, excuse me, it looks like an Applebee’s, dude.”

  I swear, this town sometimes. I just don’t know what.

  OCTOBER 11

  Back on the interstate, the vansion riding smooth, the new Honky Toast record at volume, ice and beer in the cooler—seven bells and all is well . . .

  Nashville Pussy has cut out for Europe; we’ll catch up with Motörhead in Minneapolis, if Cletus has done his job.

  OCTOBER 12 / MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

  Parts of Canada are less Canadian than Minnesota. The club is Prince’s, last seen in Purple Rain. Did interviews all afternoon.

  Music writer: “So let me get this straight. You guys actually want me to believe that your record was recorded twenty-five years ago, when you were, let’s see—one.

  Matt: “We were wise beyond our year.”

  Rolling Stone did us all right, majority of press has been positive (too positive?) . . . Nebula, ex-Fu Manchu guys, were playing downstairs. They’re good; a little nebulous. Discussed with Matt, again: the unresolvable fact that demographically speaking, on paper, it would maybe seem that we ought to be playing downstairs, not necessarily with stoner rockers, but . . . Here a wastoid gearhead hopped into the dressing room door frame, raised his arms, and screamed “Rock and fuckin’ roll, motherfuckers!” then hopped away. A conversation we’ve had before, resolved in the usual way.

  We were obliged to switch instruments and play “Purple Rain,” Eug singing the lead and playing guitar. It went over well, in a sense.

  OCTOBER 13 / MILWAUKEE

  In yet another instance of life imitating The Twilight Zone, we repeat Milwaukee. Stayed at the hotel I found myself in last time we were here, and it all came back to me: how I had no idea how I’d gotten there.

  OCTOBER 14 / MADISON, WISCONSIN

  The Loudest Band in the World is fairly quiet before nightfall. The darkened venue pre-soundcheck is library-quiet, just electronic blips of Lemmy at his poker machine, and lately, farts from [Motörhead guitarist] Phil Campbell’s fart machine, a handheld device that makes different fart sounds depending which button you press. Phil has all but replaced common English words and phrases with fart sounds. I saw him using it to communicate with one of the local techs earlier. I’m pretty sure the diarrhea fart sound means “I don’t care.”

  Goes without saying that the Motörhead road crew is as practiced as they come. Unflappable, unfazed by any procedural glitch—been there, done that, ’nother day at the office, mate . . . But there is a panic button, as we discovered a few hours ago. Motörhead’s rider clearly states that a case of Maker’s Mark is to be delivered to their bus, on arrival. This has to be done before they’ll put boots on the ground. Period, full stop. It’s a subsistence-level request, non-negotiable. We know now, anything offsides with the bourbon and the Motörhead crew goes to DEFCON 1. You’d think the crew was Secret Service and the president had just been shot. Hustling boots, furiously jangling keys, walkies squelching and distorting agitated codewords—in my memory I hear a crescendoing air raid siren. We were kicking around in an alley, this mad activity and yelling and running finally subsiding, and Phil came by and said (chewing gum, always), “Not playing here.”

  “No show tonight?” Steve asked.

  “No, there’s a show. Movin’ it to a place not run by [articulating] mental fucking midgets.” He handed Steve a piece of paper with the address of the new venue. “Cheers, gents.”

  “Thanks,” said Steve. “By the way, what was all the commotion? We saw about ten guys run through here. Looked pretty fucking tense.”

  “Fucking promoter got cheeky with the rider,” Phil said, incredulous. (Delivered only half a case, Jim Beam, and late.) As Phil sauntered off Steve called after him. “Hey, Phil. You happen to know if there’s gonna be a soundcheck?” Without turning around Phil held up his machine; the diarrhea fart.

  OCTOBER 15 / 70, MISSOURI

  Poison apple hibernation. Just woke and the van is enveloped in a strange mist in a mountain pass. Hard to tell what time of day. No music, just the rubbery pulse of the wipers—a vital sign. Steve driving, silent, bent into the wheel. Deep in his road groove. In the back Eug and Matt dead to the world, rigor setting in.

  “Where are we?”

  Steve didn’t say anything.

  “Steve.”

  Nothing.

  Lenny reached us in the motel. “I just got a phone call from the hotel in Milwaukee. Know anything about anything maybe happening in the room, damage-wise?”

  “I might have scribbled in the Bible,” I said, then remembered, “In a different room. A few months ago.”

  “Yeah. Matty there?” I said he was indisposed.

  “Ask him something for me,” Lenny said.

  I listened, then yelled to Matt. “Lenny wants to know if somebody shit on the bed in Milwaukee, at the hotel.” Matt stepped out of the bathroom brushing his teeth, shrugged how the fuck should I know, and went back into the bathroom.

  “He says maybe. Was that all?”

  “You’re asking what. ‘Was the room perfectly fine except someone took a dump on the bed?’ The answer is no.”

  If anybody on our team has ever deliberately trashed a rental accommodation, it’s news to me. Traveling like this you’re deeply grateful to sleep lying down and stationary, sanely watch a late-night with whoever. Most of the time you’re protective of that. But not all the time.

  “I mean, funny and all—kinda. The label’s had a long-standing business relationship with Ramada, know what I’m saying? This isn’t good. You guys kinda maybe fucked us here. A little bit. But thanks for waiting to go animal till after I left.”

  “Left? You were in Milwaukee?”

  “Yeah I was in fuckin’ Milwaukee, man. The chicken shack—remember?”

  “Chicken what?” There’s a lot going on these days, easy to miss a file or two in the mental inbox.

  Some of us had gone out for a drink after the show, some apocalyptic strip club Lemmy knew about. Remarkably dicey place. According to the Bluster guys, an emo-ish band Lenny just signed, locals, the place is notorious. High-risk, for white people, particularly. Maybe so, but the rules are the same anywhere: Don’t be a dick. (Eugene tells the story of my “coming to” in a bar out of bounds, in Harlem, the sole white man standing on the bar in a suddenly silent barroom, and delivering some tension-breaker that kept me not only alive but in drinks til dawn. He heard it second hand, and I heard it from him, so whatever I said is well lost to the ages, but I imagine I defaulted to that cardinal rule—somehow. Not foolproof, of course.)

  Whatever the actual risk-level at the place, crackheads a go-go, the sound system sounded like budget kickers salvaged from a car fire, just one blown-out, sub-bass, thud after another—808, 909, whatever it took—and the floor work going on was borderline, on all possible borders. Most of the dancers were plus-size, with most casual contact could easily crush a man to death, unless he was one of the eight-foot hulks covered in bullet wounds tending bar or posted around the
room like homicidal mo’ai. Even Lemmy wasn’t exactly grooving on the place. But, as Matt observed, Lemmy does seem to approach drinking at strip clubs with “steely resolve.” Matt bought Lemmy a bourbon, and a round for us. There was no ice for the drinks, the place didn’t keep ice.

  At some point there was a commotion involving one of the dancers and someone in our party (possibly Lenny, who may only have been trying to resolve whatever the issue was), during which fracas an older black gentleman approached and asked would anyone like to buy some cocaine for ten dollars. Ten dollars? For cocaine? Matt, knowing a bargain when he heard one, gave the man ten dollars, and the man left. For good. It happens. Doesn’t mean you have to put up with it.

  Some time later, after he was nice and primed, Matt, accompanied or maybe pursued by Lenny, well in the bag himself and with a terrified emo band in tow, went off into the ghetto, seeking satisfaction. The emo band was having no luck deterring anybody from stumbling drunk through murder town.

  “We’ll be fine,” Lenny assured them. “Strength in numbers.”

  “You guys are gonna get us killed.”

  “Listen. Milwaukee’s social problems aren’t my concern, man. I’m artists and repertoire. These are my artists, this is their repertoire. Seriously, it’ll be fine.” A couple of the emo guys turned back.

  Not far from the strip club was, as Lenny described it later, “this crazy fried chicken takeout, just stickin’ up outta the middle of this fucking wasteland. It was all bulletproof glass, like a cross between an aquarium and a bank.” (All entertainment executives describe anything unfamiliar as a hybrid of two familiar things. Hootie meets G. G. Allin. Sophie’s Choice meets Weekend at Bernie’s. Etcetera.) Matt corroborates: “Kinda talismanic, and swarming with crackheads.”