(Inside the World of a Rock Roadie Page 3 of 6)
Upon arriving at the arena in Ottawa, one of Celine's assistants strode up to me, a deadly serious expression on her face. She was holding a small shirtless frog.
"These frogs are naked!" she said tersely. "What happened to their shirts?"
I told her about the customs incident.
She studied the toy for a moment, examining it from all angles, then looked me in the eye: "Maybe you can find them some tiny pants. Because we can't sell naked frogs. Celine won't have it."
Trying to find a decent margarita in Ottawa is difficult. Trying to find 9,000 pairs of tiny frog pants, on a snowy Sunday evening, is enough to burst a vein in your head.
On a typical rock tour, there are four to six shows a week. When a roadie does get a day off, it's rarely in a desirable city like New York or Miami. Instead, a break usually comes in a place like Rapid City, South Dakota, or Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Each production crew has its own day-off ritual. The Cowboy Junkies crew, for example, liked to do drugs and visit the zoo. We watched the penguins on acid in San Francisco, the monkeys on Valium in the Bronx, and the llamas in Denver after smoking something called a "Boulder Salad"--a colorful blend of Northern California sensimilla, Indian hashish, and a mild southwestern peyote. They Might Be Giants' crew liked to get stoned and race go-carts at Malibu Grand Prix parks across the country. This was fun until, after smoking some wicked Thai stick, I drove my car off the track, across a miniature golf course, and nearly plowed into a children's birthday party.
At the halfway point of the Elvis Costello tour, we had a much-deserved day off in Knoxville, which is located in the Smoky Mountains in central Tennessee. It's a place where, just outside the city limits, hillbillies roam free like jackals on the Serengeti. Squinty, our wild-eyed lighting director, invited me on an expedition to purchase some authentic homemade moonshine. We rented a car and drove into the backwoods, past several abandoned fireworks stands and a burned-out Shoney's, to a small clearing with a dilapidated house at the center. A friendly man in cut-off overalls greeted us, then told his wife Luanne to "fetch us the hooch." Luanne returned with a large ceramic jug, for which we paid $35.
Two nights later, the crew broke out the moonshine and had a party on the bus. The liquor burned my throat, and at first I wondered if the hillbillies hadn't sold us low-octane gasoline or industrial strength paint thinner. The pain subsided after six or seven shots, and that's when things got foggy. I woke up the next morning in the back lounge --apparently after passing out--with my shirt caked in what I hoped was my own vomit. As I staggered out to the front lounge, the entire crew pointed and laughed. Turning to look in the mirror, I saw the words " I choose cock " written on my forehead in black permanent marker. I was mortified, and for a moment I considered catching the next plane home. Then, to my surprise, their laughter turned into applause, congratulatory hoots and high-fives. My reckless inebriation and projectile vomiting had somehow earned the crew's respect, and this juvenile prank was their way of saying, "Welcome to the club." That was the moment I became one of them.