12/24/07
Matthew Dear (New York)
It wouldn’t be fitting if I wasn’t writing this from the road, so I am. Touring is rough, but some of us are designed for it. Or more truthfully, some of us have adapted ourselves for it. It was harder in the beginning, when my body wasn’t adjusted to long flights, hotel-restaurant food and sleeping wherever I could, but now it’s become almost streamlined, almost comforting. It’s my safe place. [One time] there was a crazed child on a transatlantic flight screaming in a foreign language. Kicking the seats and probably foaming at the mouth. I swear I heard him repeating the name Beelzebub over and over. I think he was possessed, but the flight attendants don’t carry anything for exorcisms…
The better times are the ones with close friends. The long drives in the middle of the night, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. These times usually spawn talks of life, love and deeper things you normally don’t share. A droning dark road beneath you, and nothing but blackness off in the distance has a hypnotic effect, almost a truth serum of sorts. These are the good times. I’ve been thrown headfirst into a world I didn’t grow up expecting. I’m on my way to Munich, Bratislava, Stockholm and Barcelona on this “short” leg of my tour. I was just a suburban boy from south Texas, but now I’m a globetrotting musician. My flight is boarding now, and it’s time for me to go…
