As you know, I’m on tour with Bon Jovi.

What do you think of that?

I’ve been in central Canada for a few days now, and I can tell you that it’s cold here.  Calgary and Edmonton were somehow warmer (despite Edmonton being further north) than Winnipeg, which is surprisingly still covered in snow for the most part.  I mean, the city is clear, but there’s old plow-piles everywhere and the trans-canada highway has snowy fields the whole way.  Crazy.  Or not.

Flew over the Rockies from Vancouver to Calgary with a cloudless sky, which was awesome.  Photos don’t really do it justice, but I still should have taken more.  Ah well.

I’ve also been home for 5 days and in Vegas for 4 since last I updated.  Maybe in NYC, too.  I forget when my last update was.  I’m still sleeping terribly and not exercising enough, I still have bad allergies after I wake up every day, and I’m still being uncreative. Not a good combo.  Let’s tackle some of those things during this leg, yeah?

This is why they call it rehearsal, I guess.  I’ve been trying and failing to bring in gear via traditional channels (Amazon, Newegg) and Overnight shipping, but something isn’t working, and I don’t know why.  I’ve been on the phone with the credit card companies, on email with the vendors, and both teams are blaming the other.  Not good.

I also tore the video line out of my confidence monitor, which is less-than exciting, to say the least.  I’m hoping that the guys that I use for these things (Videotex systems) can get through with replacements where the big guys can’t.  If nothing else, it could be because of the personal attention.  We’ll see.

I have to order plexi, too, but at this point, I’m nervous about sending it anywhere that I might not be for more than 24 hours.  I’m also not going to send it internationally, even though we’re just talking about Canada.  Today, I at least take measurements for the plexi I need.  We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, no fitness dispatches from the road yet – I’m still trying to get back into roadie shape.  I’m exhausted, and while the days are long, they’re not long. Not by the standards of a PA or someone who’s used to real days of labor.  I’m just out of “gigging shape” as the guys say.  I’ll try to get my act together tonight if it’s a shorter day today.  Also, there’s a chance that I’ll book a BRANDED shoot for Thursday evening.  The odds are slim, but I’m already thinking about my options for lighting.

Happy Wednesday!

So it’s early morning in Stuttgart and I’m not sleeping, which is dumb.

The gig in London went off, albeit with a minor hitch, and though we managed it, I do have cause to re-focus my efforts on making my kit that much better. Of course, that means spending money, but still. Better gear is better gear. There’s also two more gigs in the offing right now, so that’s a good thing.

So American Airlines changed its logo. They should have changed their ground crew, too, because during our on-time pushback from the gate at LAX yesterday morning, my plane backed into another plane.

So I was in a plane crash. Really.

Apparently, the ground crew dude was on crack or busy texting his girlfriend or something because someone failed to notice the giant airplane right next to us. A nine-year-old girl on our flight, however, didn’t miss it, and was heard to tell her parent that we were about to hit that plane. Lo and behold, she was correct.

Needless to say, this caused some consternation on the flight deck and among the crew, and eventually led to our disembarkation and a wait of a couple hours while they drummed up some other plane and probably kept some other poor schlubs on the ground so we could go. Of course, I missed my flight from Chicago to Heathrow, but the tour travel agent is like a ninja and nothing can stop her, so she made it all better.

So I’m in London. I’m at a place called Music Bank Studios. It was probably a bullet factory during WWII or something, because it’s got that weird, ambling character of old European compounds that’s both charming and infuriating. Because of the late arrival of my flight (the flight was on time, it was the change that made me late), I had to take a cab that cost >$200. Couple that with the fact that London has no idea about bypasses or highways around things, and you had me riding from Heathrow to the studio through the center of London. Absurd.

I found myself laughing out loud in the back seat, though, because we passed like every major monument in London, and those were just the ones I recognized through my bleary-eyed haze. I mean, the Natural History museum, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the Eye, the Fire Memorial the Tower of London complex, and then we crossed the Tower Bridge. It was too much. If only I hadn’t had Britain’s most taciturn cabbie, I could have been getting like the private tour of London monuments.

Anyway, now I’m here, and after the break, I’ve posted the bigger version of the picture here so you can see some details. I tried to grab a pic of the London skyline from here, but there’s nothing really to see. I have a couple things, but they all suck. I might eventually make an album here with random shots from tour, and if I do, you’ll get to see all my failed attempts at photography from this gig.

As Shang Tsung says: “It has begun!”