Alex writes in from Brazil...
��� ����� �� �-Tour Diary We ate dinner at this really great little restaurant that looked and felt like it had been there for a few hundred years. I felt like being daring that night and ordering one of the native specialties cause come on, I ate a poor little chicken�s heart the night before. So I had shrimp in coconut sauce served inside of a pumpkin. I got to tell you, it was weird to eat out of a pumpkin, I mean, maybe I�m just not a pumpkin kind of guy�but it was good though. Not one meal passed anywhere on this whole tour that we didn�t get asked for our autographs by the waiters and waitresses and cooks and just about everyone eating there. It was exciting, but sometimes you just want to eat your pumpkin in peace right? So the gig that night went great as well and we just kept having more and more fun each night. I�m pretty sure that that was the night the scrolls began to start making there way onstage and in our dressing rooms. Remember me talking about the scrolls last time we were in Brazil? Hundreds of pages stuck together with �I love the Calling�, �I love Alex�, �I love Aaron� hand written over and over and over again. It�s madness, but when I see how much time these fans put into those things, it just amazes me how lucky we are. That night we got one with �I love you� written in ever language in the world�I gave up reading it after I had unrolled it from one end of our dressing room to the next ten times. After the show we had to rush back to the hotel since we had yet another early 7 AM flight, which means we have to leave the hotel by 5AM and it was 2AM then, so�I debated whether or not I should sleep at all since we had a day off the next day once we got to Fortaleza. Oh hay, I figured out why my TV didn�t work, you�ve got to plug it in and connect the cable box and put batteries in the remote�.how silly of me to forget. I ended up sleeping in my clothes that night for like an hour while Beverly Hills 90210 in Portuguese enter my sleeping brain and gave me nightmares about Kelly cheating on David and that was weird that they were even dating cause they were brother and sister, but not like really. Anyway, we all woke up cranky and headed out. I couldn�t believe there were fans waiting at the airport for us to leave at 6AM, but they were there. It�s hard to stand there and check in your luggage sometimes you know? That flight was only 30 minutes long.�but wait�..what�s this I see at the end of our gate?�uh�..no��it couldn�t be�..A f*ckin� FOKKER!!!! NO!!!! Luckily not a �PropFokker�, but a Fokker nonetheless (for those of you that have no frikkin clue what I�m talking about, refer back to tour diary #32745682, the first Europe tour). Surprisingly, it was the smoothest flight of the whole tour, so I guess that mother Fokker�s OK after all. We arrived at the airport at like 7:30 in the morning and I just couldn�t comprehend what 7:30 in the morning felt like, since I had been sleeping in till noon everyday since last year. And in my comatose, lack of sleep, flying everyday, show every night state of mind, I realized that it was really more like 3:30AM in LA which is when I would probably be getting to sleep anyway, but no, that reasoning didn�t help my headache. I had a feeling we were about o walk into one of those lion�s dens and we only had our one security guy, �Victor�, with us. Victor was a nice guy, but he was only 18 years old and you can�t really make one of those human wall dealies with one guy�unless he�s really flexible�uh, anyway, that day we chose to just walk through the fans, out the front of the airport, you know, to give Justin his first taste of a mad airport dash�bad idea� After doing more live TV interviews and on air live radio interviews AT THE BAGGAGE CLAIM�.What are these people doing at the baggage claim anyways? Well, we did the �Justin needs a Brazilian wife� add campaign again and slowly made our way to the glass sliding doors that led into the airport, while signing for the cleaning ladies of the nearby bathroom�you know, for her kids and allJ The doors slid open and it all went pretty quickly really�Kaveh did a running slip and slide on the floor towards the fans in a moment of excitement�I was running through the sea of fans while Victor and Sacha did their best to protect me�but I was being choked cause they were ripping my Clash T shirt from the back neck part and I could hear it tearing while others were grabbing my hair and I was just trying not to fall over�.I couldn�t really see any of the other guys, but I was just assuming they went towards the other van since we always had two�I finally made my way to the van and literally dove in along with our promoter and I think Justin, but I don� remember. What I do remember is in the midst of the chaos, Victor was trying to get the van�s door closed, but all the fans hands were reaching in and pulling at the door and slamming there fists against the windows. It�s all fun and games until someone gets hurt�and that was the moment when the door got slammed and locked completely closed on all of our bodyguard, Victor�s fingers. He jumped in the van screaming, �They f*cking broke my fingers!�, while holding his left hand, fingers all crushed and bent up in a very unnatural way that made my stomach turn every time I looked at them on the way to the emergency room which is where we were headed�that is if the security driver could find it� Well he just couldn�t find it, so they dropped us off first at the hotel and we were greeted by a bunch of fans at our hotel lobby. The other van rolled up with the rest of the band and the crew. Our guitar tech was walking shakily and clutching his head. It turned out in their mad dash to their van, he slammed his head on the roof of the car while jumping in and got a concussion�.His nickname before was �Wobbly� and I never really understood it�.until then. By that time I was dizzy myself from lack of sleep, achy from all the shows, throat dry form all the flying and singing, and most of all HUNGRY�.I realized I hadn�t eaten anything since that frikkin pumpkin early the night before. We all just wanted to go to the hotel�s breakfast buffet and get our eat on. So that�s what we did. I just wanted cereal�ok, check, only corn flakes, put them on the plate, and maybe some pancakes? No, but they�ve got some weird sort of French toast, ok that too, fruit? Not looking so hot. Eggs? Looking a little extra watery�hmmmm. The corn flakes were chewy and stale and it was a sad thing. The French toast was like a hard solid piece of cinnamon charcoal and made me gag�.the eggs would have been fine if I could have brought myself to drink them since they were pretty much liquid. Ok, whatever, I�ll live, just get me a coffee. Ah, yes, coffee�I�ll just open the sugar tin here on the table and�NO! Bugs crawling in the sugar! How about that tin�.NO! It�s wrong, WRONG! OK, a little milk then�I�ll just pour it in the coffee like so and�OH GOD NO! Thick chunky rancid milk! OK, black coffee it is with a side of a whole lot of nothing. �Hey can I have your autograph?� Picture?� yes..yes�And then Aaron excitedly pointed out across the room. . .the omelet maker station! So Aaron and I ran over to the omelet maker and he grudgingly took our orders as if we were putting him out. He made a little snort after I asked for just cheese in mine and then it happened. He heated up the little pan and took a big spoon full of this white powdery stuff that looked like Styrofoam pieces. Within 10 seconds that powder turned into a brilliant white circular foam paddy I guess emulating an omelet likeness and the cook threw in a slice of Kraft cheese, folded it up and handed it to me. He looked at Aaron but for some odd reason, Aaron didn�t want to order his own. While I was walking back to the table I was trying to think of what this stuff was. Was it like dried instant egg whites? No, I felt it. It felt like the rubber on the bottom of my shoe. Was it Styrofoam? I sat down and took a bite�. tasteless�..Hmmmm�like biting into a deflated balloon with the texture of well, Styrofoam. I spit it out and cursed, �DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL!� I passed my bizarre omelet around and everyone took their time to stop and appreciate its weirdness. Some took a bite and immediately spit it out like me, some ripped a piece off and bounced it off the wall, and others just laughed at the omelet�.you silly, silly omelet. Was this a joke? A sick, sick, joke? �Sacha�, I said, �It�s time to go to Pizza Hut�. Pizza at 10:30 in the morning isn�t my first choice, but once I bit into that greasy slice of pepperoni pie I just felt good. We had the rest of the day off and I was really worn out by that time and finally not hungry any more, so we went back to the hotel and slept a while. Later on, Sacha arranged for us all to go to the sand dunes by the beach an hour�s drive away. The rest of the day was so much fun and would end up being our only real day off. We drove out to this extremely small town with dirt roads and pretty much nothing else but the beach and miles of huge sand dunes. We had two little sand buggy racer cars, so the band and I jumped in one and the crew in the other. They had one seat up front next to the driver and three more where I was, which was sitting on top of the trunk of the car holding onto the roll cage in front of us. Our driver had a beat up stereo in his buggy and he put on some Eminem really loud for the whole ride. I thought we�d just be cruising for a while, maybe I�d pull out the camera and film for some of the time�but no, this was about to be a serious ride. We were probably driving through the dunes at 50 to 60 mph as the sand flew into my face, stinging my skin and making me squint my eyes so much that I could only see, well, nothing. I had to spit my gum out after a few seconds cause it started getting crunchy. We went up the first tall peak like climbing the beginning stage of a rollercoaster and then it was all down hill from there. We banked hard right at an angle that felt like we would surely tip over any second�.�Kaveh!�, I said, who was sitting on the opposite side of the car as Justin and I, �Lean left! Lean left!�. Because of the guys height and the fact that he almost weighs twice my weight, I was worried about tipping over. We shot straight down getting airborne at times holding on to the roll bar for dear life. �AAAAAAAAAAH!!� Up, down, Up, down, eat the sand, close the eyes, �Can I have an autograph, for my wife?� �NO! Just drive fool!!!� We finally pulled up and stopped at the peak of a very wide, steep sandy hill that ended in a lake at the bottom. And that�s when the guy asked us if we wanted go snow boarding�on the sand that is� They had these snowboards that slide across the sand with little straps for your feet and all these people were really flying down that hill just like they would on snow�it was weird to see that. No chair lift of course, so there was a lot of walking to be done if you wanted to play. Kaveh went first doing a few face plants on the way down and everyone soon got the hang of it. I just watched and filmed. On the last run, our sound guy, Ronnie, and Aaron�s girlfriend, just kept flying down the hill at the bottom and both went crashing right into the lake in all their clothes. Then it was time to get back in the death mobiles and head to the next stop. After some more free falls and scary moments, we arrived at a huge lake with a restaurant by the water and chairs and tables on the sand. We were going to hang out there for a while and get lunch, but I noticed they had wave runners there for rent and I couldn�t pass that up, even though I was fully dressed, rock and roll bracelets and belt and even the channel sunglasses. Justin and I jumped on one first and I was really careful not to get anything wet. Look, I�ve been on wave runners many times and I�ve never fallen off�. We started out, Justin sitting behind me, flying across the water. All was good. Oh, look over there, a passing ship, lets jump over the waves that the ship leaves behind! Yah! That will be fun! The first few bumps were cool and then WAM! We hit down hard and I banked left�we spun out as the waves carried us up and down while we turned until�stop. Justin told me later at that very moment he was thinking, �Man, Alex, you�re a good driver to control that problem nicely and bring us to a safe stop��but alas, that�s when we tipped over upside down into the water, head first. I�m not a fan of swimming. I�m not a fan of swimming with all my clothes on. I�m not a fan of being suddenly plunged head first in a dirty lake. I struggled to turn the wave runner back over and climb on. Justin followed and we made it back up, but the wave runner was dead. I saw the guy who worked there in the distance start making his way out to help us, so I waved him over and that�s when we tipped upside down again. Man, that sucks even more than the first time. While we were wading in the water waiting for the guy, I saw a wave runner going by at like 2 mph blowing clouds of smoke and the back of it was completely underwater while the front was raised high in the air�I wiped my wet and angry channel sunglasses, that managed to stay on somehow, and saw that Kaveh was riding that wave runner with Sacha on the back. Those are two really big guys�about 500 lbs between them and needless to say their wave runner was just not interested in carrying them any farther. So theirs died right next to ours. The guy finally got over and fixed it all and we road back in. By that time it was starting to get dark and cold and my soaking wet clothes squished as I got off the cursed wave runner back onto the beach� �We take picture? Yes. OK, you sign for me�and my uncle? PLEASE MY UNCLE!� So I did. Those should be some funny pictures. Our food arrived at the tables and we ate linner or dunch or whatever you want to call it. By then it was completely dark and I couldn�t really see the steak that I was eating, but it sure did taste funny. We all started feeling things jumping and biting at our feet, but couldn�t see what. So after we ate, it was time to go. As we rode back to the hotel in our bumpy ass no shock car on the dirt roads, I realized that even though I was soaking wet, I had a lot of fun�.but my stomach hurt and my feet were itchy� � Hey are your guys� feet itchy too?� We all woke up the next day with little bites all over our feet and legs. Nice. We went out to eat that morning, since no one was interested in breakfast at the hotel for some reason;) We ate at this Italian restaurant, since all the breakfast places were closed at 1 in the afternoon (hey, sleep in when you can). The food was really good and I was starting to feel alive again. We had an hour or two to spare back at the hotel, so Sacha and I got our Ping Pong on by the pool, or as the Brazilians call it, �Pingy Pongy�. The room with the games in it was surrounded by glass windows, like a fish tank. So all of the fans were around it watching us play and banging on the walls. It made Sacha nervous, so I finally beat someone at Pingy Pongy! Yay! I have yet to ever beat Aaron though�it probably wasn�t a good idea to have gotten him a ping-pong table for his birthday. Now I�m really going to get rocked. |