February 26, 2006

• it’s getting hot in here

  buses are unique environments. try, if you will spoil me the favor, to recall the early 90’s when there was much chatter concerning the bio dome thing?

  

  our collective fervor and fascination grew to feverish pitch and even spawned a film, circa 1996,

  

  staring pauly shore

  

  (sheer raw talent that man had. i’m astounded he is without a career here a mere decade later) and the fabulous kylie minogue

  

  (appearing as dr. petra von kant. here in the states, she was, at this point in the mid 90s, known almost entirely for her responsibility in bringing ever popular and catchy “locomotion” to the public conscious for a second time.) and this film furnished biting insight into the true complexities of so contained an environment. bus living is sort of like that. from the outside it sounds kind of fun and cool until the distinct reality of shared communal space is experienced. on the average bus, or entertainment coach, there are approximately 250 sq ft of living quarters. considering that the average 1 bedroom apartment is 300 sq ft, 250 is an impossibly petite amount of square footage for 7 people to subsist within.

  it seems the largest difficultly lies in climate control. climate control is, in all probability, not the first thing that came to mind for you, but think about it. the bio dome. ecosystems hanging on a thin precipice between too cold or too hot for survival. it is a delicate balance. consider pauly shore’s career. this is also the true for the entertainment coach.

  there are in fact 4 ecosystems on a bus. the driver’s locale, the front lounge, the bunk area, and the back room. the driver’s area is fairly self explanatory. the front lounge is a common area much like the living room; there is television and space for seating and viewing and the exchange of discourse. the kitchen is also found in the common area. food is consumed here. there is a door separating the front lounge from the bunk area. the bunks are like cocoons. each a separate domicile with its own unique habitat. there is another door separating the bunk area from the back room. the back room is where my wife and i reside. [refer to previous post wednesday, october 26th 2005 for pictorial illustration]

  now where things can become either quite complicated or logical and unadorned is in the placement of heating/air conditioning units. to the untrained eye you may suspect that there would simply be 1 heat/air unit to control the atmosphere of the bus in its entirety. however, this would be disastrous. after one trip on an entertainment coach it becomes perfectly clear that each separate environment needs, no – demands, its very own separate atmospheric controling element. so it would seem logically clear to me, one who does not build entertainment coaches for a living, that there should be one unit for the driver, one unit for the front lounge, one unit for the bunk area and one unit for the back room. apparently the builders of buses rarely embark on journeys of entertainment or this would be glaringly apparent to them as well.

  i awoke this morning to find this printed out and taped to the bunk area door.

  

  there is now rumor circulating that this will uncoincidently be the song we take the stage to for the remainder of the tour.

  • 5:12 pm
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