Thursday, September 22, 2005
Fluffgirl Hurricane
I’m on the king sized bed in my hotel room in Tallahassee, Florida at almost 3 in the morning and about to get my first night’s sleep in three days. The past two nights I’ve worked overnight on the lingerie floor at Saks Fifth Avenue, installing décor around goats for their new cashmere line. Then before sunup this morning Peaches drove me to the Newark Airport just in time for my flight to Jackson, Mississippi where the Fluffgirls came whisk me off to Waffle House where our waitress is spending her 40th Birthday.
The air is hot and sticky and filled with love bugs mating in mid-air then dying into the windshield. We stop for gas at the Com-Pac Mart deep in the middle of Mississippi where a case of High Life is ten bucks and the impulse buy items around the register are shotgun shells and bullets. I make friends with a country boy drinking beer out of the cooler in his truck who has never seen anything like the multi-coloured fire haired gals piling out of our tour truck – Angela from Dallas who has bright Ronald McDolnald red hair and a nose ring, The Indra from San Francisco with her platinum blonde mane, and Cecillia from Vancouver with wild orange hair shining in the southern sun.
We’re back in the truck barreling down back woods highways towards Mobile – where our show cancelled after Hurricane Katrina flooded the town – we drive across a long cement bridge that was completely underwater a week ago and past a seaside motel that was two floors deep underwater.
It’s tight cramped quarters with five of us in an S.U.V. but with gas prices so high we had to downsize from the big tour van. Squeezed in the back seat I track down our tour manager from Bros. Grim who happens to be in Crestview, FL. As sweet summer rain pours down – we take over Bobby Black’s hotel room with Wal-Mart roasted chickens in our arms and copious cans of beer.
The television is showing Hurricane Rita threatening the Gulf Coast of Texas. Highway miles melt off all of us as we’re ripping into our chickens with bare hands as Bobby tells us about getting salmonella from eating raw chicken livers in a stunt at the nightclub and his buddy Jeff shows off his stump where he ran his hand through the table saw.
We’d all love to stay and have some more beer – but the hotel is full of Hurricane refugees so it’s back in the truck for a couple more hours and after a couple more beers and a little late night road nap – I’m deposited in my hotel room all to myself.
Tomorrow is my first show with these gals at the Beta Bar and more than anything – as excited as I am to see them perform for the first time – I’m thrilled to see a big bed and no alarm clock, no dishes in the sink, no doggie to be walked, no last minute commitments. I feel as at home on the road as anywhere in the world.
The air is hot and sticky and filled with love bugs mating in mid-air then dying into the windshield. We stop for gas at the Com-Pac Mart deep in the middle of Mississippi where a case of High Life is ten bucks and the impulse buy items around the register are shotgun shells and bullets. I make friends with a country boy drinking beer out of the cooler in his truck who has never seen anything like the multi-coloured fire haired gals piling out of our tour truck – Angela from Dallas who has bright Ronald McDolnald red hair and a nose ring, The Indra from San Francisco with her platinum blonde mane, and Cecillia from Vancouver with wild orange hair shining in the southern sun.
We’re back in the truck barreling down back woods highways towards Mobile – where our show cancelled after Hurricane Katrina flooded the town – we drive across a long cement bridge that was completely underwater a week ago and past a seaside motel that was two floors deep underwater.
It’s tight cramped quarters with five of us in an S.U.V. but with gas prices so high we had to downsize from the big tour van. Squeezed in the back seat I track down our tour manager from Bros. Grim who happens to be in Crestview, FL. As sweet summer rain pours down – we take over Bobby Black’s hotel room with Wal-Mart roasted chickens in our arms and copious cans of beer.
The television is showing Hurricane Rita threatening the Gulf Coast of Texas. Highway miles melt off all of us as we’re ripping into our chickens with bare hands as Bobby tells us about getting salmonella from eating raw chicken livers in a stunt at the nightclub and his buddy Jeff shows off his stump where he ran his hand through the table saw.
We’d all love to stay and have some more beer – but the hotel is full of Hurricane refugees so it’s back in the truck for a couple more hours and after a couple more beers and a little late night road nap – I’m deposited in my hotel room all to myself.
Tomorrow is my first show with these gals at the Beta Bar and more than anything – as excited as I am to see them perform for the first time – I’m thrilled to see a big bed and no alarm clock, no dishes in the sink, no doggie to be walked, no last minute commitments. I feel as at home on the road as anywhere in the world.
