September 8 - Travel Day, London to Amsterdam

Ah, the romance of touring.  Four hours of sleep per night, an entire day upright in a van, rummaging rest stops in a phlegmatic daze, waiting for someone in order to continue on, pretending a sleeping bag is your girlfriend, not knowing where you’ll spend the night, wrong turns, waiting in lengthy lines to change currency, daytime back aches from sleeping on floors, ferry clerks insisting you are freight, the piercing stench of fresh manure, the same Body Count song on stereo, scheduling a shower.

Constant contact and close proximity have aligned The Bitter Tears' menstrual cycles, and this morning we all got cramps.  Driving across rush hour London is a drag, especially when wearing last night’s face paint, Monday’s contact lenses, and Sunday’s socks.

On the ferry to France we rid ourselves of sterling through prison-quality Cornish pasties.  I took the wheel in Calais and we left behind the royal mindfuck of driving in the UK.

The plan was to pick up our gear for the second half of the tour near Amsterdam and play a show in The Hague.  The show fell through and with our late start on the day, schedules would not align to pick up the equipment that night.  Luckily I know scores of lots of many people in The Amsterdam.

Driving in Amsterdam is particularly confusing (or as described to my girlfriend: fucking crazy).  Bicycles are king (!), yeah but so are streetcars.  The lanes are narrow and cobbled and look like sidewalks.  Everyone is on drugs or horny or American.  At 21:30 with only a bowl of oatmeal and half a sandwich in my belly, I drove us along the moonlit canals, uncontrolled intersections, and automobile-prohibited rail tracks of this beautiful city.

Boom Chicago is a comedy club located in the Leidseplein.  Many friends, including my girlfriend, have been employed by Boom.  We walked in just as the show was letting out, a good sign.  The plan was to see if anyone I knew was there, see if they wanted to hang out, and see if they wanted to put up six unshowered musicians for the night.  I talked to one of the cast members whom I did not know, and he informed me that the three people I knew were either out of town or moved back to Chicago.  I explained to him that I do comedy in Chicago at the Annoyance and he didn’t want to care about this.  It turns out he was uninterested in talking to a hungry, incoherent stranger with 24 hours of face paint in his hair.  So John and I went upstairs to see a framed poster of my girlfriend on the wall and we left.

Rod Ben Zeev saved our night.  Out of the blue he arrived, my old roommate, riding a cruiser and wearing a large smile.  Rod and I have performed improv on the public transit in Chicago and at the cultural center with a group of elderly women.  We also both worked briefly at the Scientology UFO known as Trader Joe’s.  He is one of the most gracious men I have ever known and, along with his Greek stand-up friend Lambros, gave us a tour of the town.

Upon our request he took us to a café where we enjoyed clichés of various quality.  We laughed at how clichéd we were and laughed a little more.  Then Rod and Lambros strolled us down the narrowest of alleyways to the red light district,  where they keep the clichés in lingerie behind windows for all the Dutch-bags.  After that they took us by the Queen’s Tit and a Febo, where you can purchase fried garbages behind glass.  While in Amsterdam John purchased ice cream and coffee.

Rod and his lovely Lieselotte put us up in two fabulous apartments.  We left behind what remained of our clichés and slept well for four hours.  If you ever find yourself in a fabulous apartment in Holland, turn on the TV.  You’re likely to see Rod Ben Zeev.

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