September 20 2005
Backstage
Theatre of the Clouds
Portland
Oregon
Thursday 16 March 2006
Dear The Internet
RE: If you're bored why don't you talk to me?
I am bored. Fuck I'm bored.
I'm sitting in a dressing room to the side of an arena that hosts basketball games when it isn't being a venue. Next to me is Matt Mead, who is tech-ing for us on this tour, and next to him is Dave, who is drumming. They are discussing their meals, which were delivered earlier by the Caterers in a small wheeled oven. They are bored. Fuck they're bored.
They are also boring.
Matt feels that his meal (an eggplant ratatouille with garlic mash and steamed vegetables) was overloaded with mash, and that despite his best efforts, there remains an unenviable amount of mash that he must consume unaccompanied. Dave, on the other hand, has stewarded his meal with characteristic expertise, leaving himself with bitesize morsels of all the constituent parts of his meal (steak in a red wine reduction with mash and vegetables) to enjoy in concert. This will be the coup de grace of a meal he has enjoyed with great enthusiasm. An enjoyment, if he is to be believed, that can barely be contained.
I had the chicken. It was slightly pink inside. On the way home from our last trip to New York, I was taken suddenly ill. Which is a euphemism for "I spent the last two hours of the flight vomiting ravioli into the tiny aeroplane bathroom sink, observing with bitter irony the little sign that said 'As a courtesy to other passengers, may we suggest that you wash out the basin after use' as I poked the last bits of undigested pasta through the - frankly overwhelmed - plug hole grille before the next wave of nausea hit me.
When we landed at Heathrow I couldn't face getting a taxi with the others so I took the Heathrow Express. On the way down the escalator I ejected a small quantity of foul-smelling greenish bile into the airsick bag I had farsightedly brought with me, with a hacking, juddering half-sob that echoed around the tiled atrium of the station.
Over the course of the journey the sick in the airsick bag gradually sick-logged the greased paper and seeped into the pocket of my coat."
Since then I have been highly wary of any kind of food that might have the same effect on me.
My brother Matt comes into the dressing room. He has just had a massage, because the occasional masseur is one of the perks of a tour on the scale of David Gray's, along with the Catering. [We're opening the show for David Gray for three weeks in the USA. That's what we're doing here.]
He says the masseuse commented that he had 'unusually strong lats', and 'did he work out a lot?'. He explained that he didn't work out a lot, but that we have been having a competition over the last few days to see who can hold the Plank position for the longest.
The Plank is, I believe, a Pilates position where you lie on your front, supporting yourself on your forearms and toes with your arse in the air. You have to hold it for as long as possible. It's been going for a few days. Dave's leading so far with a mighty 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Although there is some concern that his posture was not rigorously enforced. Perhaps we'll see the truth later, when his excellent dinner has gone down a bit.
We're bored.
Fuck we're bored.
MORAL DISCLAIMER: I don't mean to suggest that anyone's to blame for the boredom, or that we're below our station opening shows, or that we're not grateful for the opportunity to do it. We could easily be filling our days with Cultural Excursions and Stimulating Vistas.
But we aren't, because we're too fucking bored.
Thankyou for your attention,
Ever thine,
Ben K Hales, BA (incomplete)
