http://www.danielsonmovie.com/assets/clips/DFMpreview.mov 

we’re in memphis today.

memphis has roots. birth place of the blues. it is home to barbecue, music and a friend of ours, gary burnett, who grew up here, a part of the memphis scene. now i must admit that this story i’m about to relate comes to you secondhand. gary told me. now i tell you. so don’t go all oprah-a-la-james-frey-a-million-little-pieces on me if these incidents astound to the point of disbelief. as far as i know what follows is truth, this is memphis – anything can happen in the city of the king.

gary, as i said, grew up here. he’s a guitar player. a great guitar player. we met him in nashville. he was, in fact, playing guitar. he talks with this songlike cadence – it is memphis rolling off the tongue; a drawl, slow and muddy like the mississippi, full of dirt and red clay, with all the grit of humanity drained into it. you don’t notice the time when he talks. and he has stories. memphis stories. stories of music and the dirt of memphis.

one night a very young gary and a friend of his are sitting around. they feel brave and in control of everything. the whole world – they’re running it. gary’s friend says, “gary, elivis needs to hear that song.” his friend is referring to the song that gary had just played for him. so full of youth and bravery they head to graceland. this is early elvis, when the estate’s back yard turned to pasture with nothing but barbed wire separating the king from the rest of us and in the moonlight gary and his friend slipped through as fluid and quiet as the muddy river along the memphis banks. they walked up to and through the unlocked back door of graceland and headed straight to the iniquitous the jungle room, plopped down, made themselves at home, and waited. for elvis. to come home. to hear gary’s song.

a butler or grounds keeper or person of employment who obviously belonged in elvis’s house, upon hearing noise, entered the jungle room to find gary and his brave friend relaxing languidly, remarkably listless and indifferent to his presence.

“excuse me,” he asked, “but what may i inquire are you doing here in the jungle room?”

“we’re waiting on elvis. i’m supposed to give him this song,” responded gary.

“yeah, he wants to hear it. needs to, if you know what i mean,” added the brave friend.

the person of estate employment calmly picked up the phone and called the cops.

hands behind their backs, cuffed, outside, in the front drive of graceland, hovering against police cars, thighs holding their weight as they are pressed against the sides of cold fenders, straining their necks to peer at the headlights entering the drive, still impassionedly pleading their case, insisting that they were here at the king’s request, that he wanted, no needed – elvis had said – to hear this song. they see the limo. truth coming up the drive. the back window slides down. the cop, the one in charge, walks over to it, leans in. speaks words into the black void of the back seat. the cops thumb points back over his shoulder to the two brave boys straining with their hands behind their backs pressed against cold cars with lights flashing, grinning over their shoulders toward the limo. a head leans out, piercing the black with it’s unmistakable hair and smirk. he looks at them. looks at the cop. the unmistakeable head shakes slowly and unmistakeably back and forth. the window is up. the limo is gone. they are in the back seat headed downtown.

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.

so we had three days off in chicago. i really like that city.

things i did there:

watched the olympics
drank tea from a tea shop
bought ghirardelli chocolate squares (milk chocolate with caramel filling)
bought two books
became frozen
rode in a taxi to the wrong place
got lectured by a taxi driver concerning my knowledge of destination before embarkation
ate the ghirardelli chocolate squares (milk chocolate with caramel filling)
won the division play-off game on psp madden football
ate the exact same meal 6 times (a filet with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables from a restaurant called THE GRILL.)
wondered aloud if it was ordinary to eat the same meal 6 times in 3 days

we played music last night at ball state. afterwards we went bowling with the third day guys. a highly competitive game erupted between crowder band and the day of three. we lost. however, make no mistake, we will not lose again. we were simply weak mentally. so i burned the chariots of fire sound track and gave it to the guys. as i placed it delicately in their tender hands i said, “listen intently and never lose again.”

there is a dvd circulating here on the tour that you might find of interest. this is it:

“take a funny and often moving trip into the strange and humorous world of he song-poem industry. in this little known subculture, “ordinary” people send in their heartfelt, but often bizarre, poems to companies that – for a fee- turn them into full-fledged musical productions. advertising in the back of magazines these companies lure the would-be songwriters with promises of fortune and fame.”

featuring not-so-famous songs like:
non-violent taekwondo troopers
i am a ginseng digger
richard nixon
jimmy carter says yes!
annie oakley
chicken insurrection

first off, i’m embarrassed by the current listening that i have, of my own will, informed you of. but here, on xanga, this space, this sacred space, this is where we bare our souls to one another in hopes of unconditional acceptance. we tell each other the truth as opposed to those myspace phonies. and so here i am, telling you that it is in fact michaeal buble that is throbbing through my wife’s sony vaio speakers this second. it is perfectly fitting though as i’m here to inform you of a contest that is circulating amongst the good people on the “wherever you are” tour that’s whole existence rests upon the participant’s willingness to provoke/incite/aggravate embarrassment upon him or her self. here’s how it works. there are a number of phrases that must be exerted into conversation with a brand new acquaintance, a person whom you have just made introduction of yourself. and i must mention that this must transpire in the presence of another person or persons who can and will attest to the execution of the soon to be stated phrases so they can be reckoned while recounted in an equally re-embarrassing retelling. each phrase is worth a specified number of points. and as is the case with most competitively tallied events the person with the most points wins. here are the self-embarrassment inflicting phrases and their relative points.

are you bobby? – 1 pt (to a complete stranger)

can’t wait to see these guys, right? – 1 pt (must be hyped)

i like cute little names like that. – 1 pt

you are in the right place. – 1 pt

i totally object to that. – 1 pt

and that’s why i enjoy being a metro sexual. – 2 pts

jimmy carter says yes. – 2 pts

i totally object to that. – 2 pts (subject to context with regard to risk in execution)

a hero kills people. – 2 pts

annie oakley is my historical honey. – 3 pts

the stanley maneuver. – 3 pts

who? the mortician or the vice president? – 3 pts

do you think plants can talk to you? – 3 pts

right now michael buble is climatically ending one of his numbers. perfect timing michael. perfect.

and then there’s this. it was earlier pointed out to me that our new tour manager matt (who is a really large man apparently [see pic below] that or bwack is tiny.  **hmm. bwack is not tiny. therefore matt must be large.**) and our very own drummer bwack have new matching suitcases. embarrassing. simply embarrassing.

and that, ladies and gentlemen, brings a certain 2 pt, nine word phrase to mind.

so here we are. the third day tour. wherever you are. that’s the title of the tour – wherever you are. pretty clever. cause see it’s the name of their new recording and it’s also the tour name that sort of insinuates that no matter where you are there also will be the tour. of course that wasn’t the intent of the record’s theme. no it was more like, stuff happens that isn’t that great and it’s just a part of life and in the middle of whatever that thing is that’s not going so great, god is there. presence is promised. magnificent. and then it also works pretty well for a tour name. so anyway, i’ll try to keep you up to date with what’s going on. right now we’re in ohio. so if you are in ohio, we are there. wherever you are. except it’s sold out. so if you’re not already going to be there then we’re not really there. sorry. should have planned better. like been born in ohio and then gotten tickets ahead of time. except you should know that it’s freakin cold here. if you are in a sunny place, stay there. do not come here. we’ll come there. wherever you are. it’s so cold! i have no winter coat only light weight jackets. i’m told that layering is where it’s at. so i have two of them on. and a t shirt. but it’s 13 degrees out there. so i’m in the bus. hogan is sitting next to me playing some dumb game on his psp. he has a scarf on. it makes me chuckle to see him in a scarf. here, look at him playing his dumb game with his scarf on.

see. it is enough to make one chuckle. but he is warm and am scarfless. look at the furrow of his brow. he is really working that head of his. “hogan!” “hogan!” he won’t even look up. oh well. so far it seems the tour is going just as planned. so wherever you are we’ll see you soon and in the mean time just stay tuned and i’ll let you know how it’s going.

so i’m doing just great. i have been resting. i feel rested. it’s the day after christmas and i still feel quite festive. lots of cheer to spread. it seems like something i should sprinkle. me sprinkling cheer. can you feel it? here, sprinkle sprinkle. you feel better now i know it. what a great festively cheerful word – ‘sprinkle’. it sounds exactly like what it is doesn’t it? very onomatopoeic. ‘sprinkle’ and you can just picture my arm extended, my fingers dancing against my thumb, cheer falling, glitter like, in shiny little dots from their tips. here, i’m going to do it again…sprinkle, sprinkle. have some cheer. sounds very full of lightheartedness and merriment, brightly colored and exhibiting a carefree spirit. that is exactly how i feel. so here’s hoping your christmas was fantastic and if it lacked any cheer, you can have some of mine. [says this, arm extended, fingers dancing against his thumb, stupid grin on his face.]

it really is just perfect. it’s the most beautiful cemetery i’ve ever been in. i realize it sounds like a juxtaposition to use “beautiful” and “cemetery” so closely but it’s immediately serene; peaceful. just what you’d hope. completely cinematic. the grave itself was a pile of flowers. i had expected to see dirt. that red texas-clay-dirt that i’ve seen covering every other newly covered grave i’ve stood beside. early morning, kids laughing and a mound of flowers. i’m certain the mound of dirt was somewhere under the flowers, but driving up to it it just looked like a 3 foot high pile of flowers, perfectly mirroring the rectangular shape of the hole he is in. i’ve never seen flowers piled 3 feet high in the shape of a rectangle. there were potted flowers that outlined the perimeter of the rectangle and they were all leaned over and inward, none of them sitting up properly, resting against the mound as it rose from the grass. it was so strange, absolutely foreign to look at. the slightest bit unnerving. these flowers leaning against flowers. it gave the appearance that as he went into the ground his beauty had drug all this on top of him. as if you’d spread a cloth over a table that had a rectangular hole cut in it and then placed something with weight over the hole and let go. it would drop past the surface of the table pulling the table cloth through the hole with it as it sank. this is what had happened here over night. the weight of his passing pulled at our surface, and the flowers filled the hole and piled up to keep the world from caving in on itself. it was the weight. i had felt the weight. there were six of us surrounding him, carrying him down the steps, slidding him into the car and it was all impossibly heavy. the flowers didn’t have a choice in the matter. this is where they had to be, they had been pulled by the force of his departure and wanted to be near him and saved us all in the course of their aspired proximity to him. it was beauty summoning beauty and falling, laying on itself until the hole was clogged. grace is a bunch of flowers falling over each other to be near a beauty that is too terrific a weight to keep on the surface for very long. we will miss kyle but we might be ok. for now there is grace enough to keep breathing.

it was a great day off.

here is what i procured while participating in the commerce of the greater south:

while shopping for a jacket i was accosted by two people in tuxedoes. they asked if i’d like to try a complimentary beverage. i never turn down free stuff. it was an energy drink. i took it from them, drank it and soon thereafter felt very energetic:

this is the jacket i found and purchased. that looks nice dave:

this was also necessarily procured:

today we are in columbia south carolina. the folks here have been extremely thoughtful in their food preparations and presentations. all i have done, all day long, is eat. they painted pumpkins for each band. a picture of our pumpkin is located on our site. or will be later. i know jason took a picture for posting at some point. jason (or solley, as he is referred to in house) is responsible for the posting of the pictures on our site. but seriously the food was out of hand. there was this chicken chili that was ridiculous. like a drug. and they had deep fried oreos for a treat as well. no lie. an oreo, dipped in batter, and deep fried. just like the state fair or something. you could literally feel your arteries clogging. it was sooooooo good! at some point though solley comes up to me and says, “hey have you seen this? it’s a bag full of dr pepper flavored pop rocks.” you know, that candy that pops in your mouth? i hate it. scares me to death. some scientist, with way too much time and evil intent, developed this process of using high pressure to capture carbon dioxide in hard candy. completely unnatural. i’m sure you well know the myths and legends that developed around these candies, the most spectacular being that if you mixed them with a carbonated beverage it would cause your stomach to explode. you may remember this as the cause of death for “mikey” the life cereal commercial kid who died of a lethal combination of pop rocks and coca cola. of course “they” will tell you this is untruth. urban legend. never trust “them”. pop rocks are bad. bad i say! not exciting at all. so anyway, jason shows me these dr pepper flavored rocks in hopes that i’ll bite:

“no way!!” i say. i mean if mixing them after the fact is bad, this is like double bad. doubly mixed. they’re mixed before they’re mixed. “insane,” i say! “insane!!!”then i get to thinking about some tests we could run. “hey. pour that pack out. then let’s add something to it and see what happens in an open environment.” think of this. dr pepper poured on top of dr pepper pop rocks. this could lead to something heroic. something that we speak of for years. there was no dr pepper. only diet dr pepper. it will have to do:

we poured a small amount on the top of the pile:

then suddenly something extraordinary happened! it popped and spit and turned to some undeterminable mess of muck in a matter of seconds!!!:

this was not good. i thought of mikey and the close calls i’d had as a child. i wondered why, why do we toy and taunt death so? what causes us to wander so close to the edge? does this make us feel more alive? really? i checked to see if it had eaten through the plate. it hadn’t. then jason grabbed the other bag of dr pepper pop rocks! “don’t” i screamed! “don’t!” it was too late:

“hey. let me see that. it sounds like it’s really popping pretty good. does it really taste like dr pepper?” “sorta,” he said, kind of muffled while the popping got louder as i leaned in:

then i went back to eating. smoked salmon, potatoes, green beans, and pork tenderloin – my favorite:

then i got mike d hooked on a game that i have played off and on all day. it is called ‘find it’. it is a cylinder filled with dense plastic pieces with the following objects interspersed:

penny, balloon, baseball, block, butterfly, candy cane, car, eraser, top hat, marble, pom pom, rubber band, pony bead, wiggle eye, safety pin, alphabet dice, smiley face, flag, fish, star, eff, ring, and a snowflake.

you are supposed to find the listed items by shaking and turning and throwing the cylinder about. within a few minutes i had found everything but the penny. hours later, literally hours later, i still had not found the penny. mike d is brilliant and i thought, if anyone can find the penny he can find the penny:

he couldn’t find the penny. i don’t think there is a penny. we would have found it by now. shane and shane are playing on stage right now and we drilled a hole in the ‘find it’ cylinder and dumped all the dense plastic beads out. we didn’t believe that there was a penny. there is a penny. a bright, shiny 2004 penny. who knew?

wow. last night in jackson was really great. the coolest space we have been in so far. i love old churches.

apparently there were two guys waiting outside our bus for a really long time after the show. they were hoping to spot me. i had been in the back of the bus (in me and toni’s room) reading (i like to do this to ‘wind down’) when i heard the bus food had arrived. it was whataburger. someone mentioned the guys waiting outside and troy our lighting guy pipes up, “do you want me to go all skynard on em?” he said this while chuckling. (troy tours with skynard most of the time apparently) “what would you say,” i asked. “umm…it’s rather secular david.” even more chuckling. i thought this was hilarious and choked on my whataburger. then i went outside to meet these two fabulous people. i’m glad they waited around. it made the night even more pleasant.

this is troy:

he is currently shooting a stop motion movie with g.i. joes.

today we have the day off. this is not so exciting. it should be, but i prefer to be “working” if we’re out and about. it seems wasteful to be far from home and not playing. we drove from jackson to atlanta and have parked near the lenox mall. we will now kill an entire day participating in the commerce of the deep georgian south. i’ll let you know what i procure.

tonight we drive from atlanta to columbia south carolina. go game cocks. it’s been sold out for quite a while so it should be rather exciting. the bus rolls at midnight.