JIZZY PEARL TOUR DIARY

Entry #8

Jizzy Pearl is currently travelling all over North America on the Rock Never Stops tour, fronting Ratt as they tour with Quiet Riot, Firehouse, and headliners Cinderella. Whenver he feels compelled to do so, Jizzy will be sending us updates from the road.

8/8/05

EIGHT…

Don’t eat the fish…

I’ve never had food poisoning before this tour, I count myself lucky. Basically you eat what they give you at catering, I’ve never had a problem. But after two bites of the fish yesterday I felt a general uneasiness. Two hours later my stomach began to expand like a starving Sudanese child and the foulest sort of poisons began to churn. On stage that night I could barely move, my stomach felt like it was in a vise; it was a nightmare. After the show I laid back on the couch with my feet up like a giant whoopee cushion, my foghorn sounding every five minutes or so with a fluttering brown roar. Now I’m in Toronto having just finished a ziggurat of shit, I have exorcised the Demon. Like a Play-Dough Fun Factory I let go star shapes, I-beams and the incredibly difficult Mouseketeer Figurine. I am now pure again, pure and in the pink. Nobody is safe from E.Coli, Aspergillus or the salmonella from the salmon. Oh yeah, other than my colonic seizure the gig was great.

Toronto

It always amazes me that thousands and thousands of illegal aliens can cross our Southern border and nobody gives a fucking peep and our buses get stopped at the Canadian border and we’re treated like Al Qaeda. From my bottom bunk I was awakened at 6 AM to the sight of two black Gestapo boots and shouted commands. I opened my half-open eyes to the smiling Herr Himmler and his assorted Death’s Head division shouting “ROUS ROUS!” hustling us off the bus to a bare little room. They pepper you with questions, search your luggage, stick fingers up your ass, they have the power, all the power. None of us look our best at 6 AM I might add, especially after a long night of wine, women and song. And they’re always looking for the smart-ass, Corabi got a little snippy and they detained us another two hours. I sat there with my head down in that little room thinking, “ this is how torture works, sleep deprivation, they keep at you and at you until you’re so fucked up you’ll confess to anything, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Chicago Fire, anything. “ —So…border issues notwithstanding the Toronto gig was great. I sat on the balcony overlooking the bay with the lovely A. (who insisted I not call her the lovely ANYTHING, she reads my tour diaries religiously and thinks I’m some sort of bitch funky Sex machine…if she only knew) Anyway I sat there and drank a glass and beheld the Toronto city skyline across the shimmering Toronto Bay. Last time I was here was 1990 with AC/DC, the Skydome. It’s not the Skydome anymore, of course, it’s now the Kinko’s Dome or the Verizon Dome or something similarly stupid. I’m now back in the good old USA, Kalamazoo, Michigan. I tried to eat the morning Bratwurst but I couldn’t get its condom off so I said fuck it. Exciting, eh? The action-packed life of a touring musician. I wrestle daily with such monumental decisions as…soup or salad? White chocolate chip or regular? The Kalamazoo gig was really good, the crowd was spectacular and LOUD. My theory is general admission (no seats) = better show. The crowd gets looser when there are no seats to chain them down. I went out to the soundboard to watch Cinderella play and the arena stunk of beer and farts. Three more shows and then two days off….

Saginaw

The I.G. Farben Center, home of the three-foot sub and Zyklon B. Another arena, another town. Not much happened here, the show was good, I ate two platefuls of asparagus so my piss would smell funny, that’s about it. Small afterparty at the Dry Gulch, two pretty blondes attended, having placed their circular backstage passes on the front of their crotches they showed a bit o’ flash and fun. The smaller blonde had a T-shirt on that said “ I love Oral” the word Love substituted by a big red heart. I Heart Oral. It prompted me to go back to my suitcase and don my “Eat my Ass” T-shirt, because nothin’ says lovin’ more than a good ass eating, don’t you think?

Sterling Heights

Or Detroit, if you will. An outdoor thing, a nice amphitheater. We all decided to have the afterparty at the Firehouse bus for once, our bus was getting a good steam clean. C.J. was ever the gracious host, topping off our glasses and attending to our every need. The party is winding down, I’m afraid, nine weeks in and we’re all a little tired, the wine hath no taste, the girl hath no charm. I Heart Oral showed up again but this time was dressed up like a little Goth, all black with large Kohl painted eyes. I preferred her new Queen of the Undead thing to yesterday’s Jailbait Slut. Her friend showed up in a red plastic see-thru mini dress that left nothing to the imagination. You don’t see much of this kind of old school slut-wear on this tour, most of the ladies attending have thrown away their Spandex, their Lip Service gear and their vibrating Eggs. I must be getting older too because I prefer the non-slut look, the Mystery versus the walking STD pamphlet, the conversation versus the frenzied bus humping, the struggle to get the Nut before the bus driver starts the bus and sounds the All Clear. Fucking non-stop is a young man’s game, the eagerness to Spear all Things Female, the beer and the bravado. Now it just seems like a hassle…

Kings Island

An amusement park , an outdoor theater in Cincinnati, OH. All three openers got their sets cut to 20 minutes and that sorta sucked, for us and the fans who might have felt ripped off. But that’s how the park wanted it so we did the Playtone Galaxy of Stars.

My friend Laura drove down from Nashville and did my hair, I met her through Eric’s wife Inga. She does a great job so I thought I would give her a plug, her and all her Sartorial Kind, a shout out to all the girls who hide the Gray and keep us looking ten years younger. As I said there was an amusement park connected to the gig and several of our entourage went over to ride the rides. Personally you couldn’t pay me to go on any of those things, the bungee, the free-fall tower, the swinging pendulum thing, fuck that. As a kid I remember standing under those contraptions and collecting the change that would fall out from people’s pockets. The after show was subdued, I hung out with my friend Wallace and shot the shit. Today is a day off and I’m here in Albany, NY doing my laundry as usual. I went outside the laundromat to catch some air and a blind man walked past me crossing the street. He was dressed like a member of Lynrd Skynrd, black biker vest, Confederate hat and black mustache, his white cane swinging lightly as he tapped the concrete. Someone was playing music from an open window and the blind man started tapping his cane on the ground in time to the music and I thought that was so Rock and Roll, just a small gesture on an empty street on a Monday that made me happy to be Alive. Three more weeks of touring and then I’m HOME, my bed, my books, my new Thing, how I will love that. I must thank all of you who have sent me e-mails, you seem to like the nonsense I jot down and have promised to buy the Vegas CD as a result. There is nothing better than writing something good, a good joke, a good story, I share a small bit of Who I Am with you and it comes back to me Ten-Fold. I’ll try not to show fatigue on the rest of these diaries, because as we know every day spent not working a forklift is a Good Day, I’ve made many new friends on this tour, cast and crew, you all know who you are, the chimps and the chumps, the Birds and the boys, we sail together at Dawn for three more weeks.

www.jizzypearl.com

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