burn upon re-entry

its fantastically romantic to feel like you can't live without the one you love, but if you're a yoko and you park your heart at that space station you're bound for misery and heartache and wet pillows and who wants that not me. when the van pulls away and rides out of site, i park my heart in a waiting zone. the valet takes it to an undisclosed yet safe location. its in an emotional bermuda triangle. i learn survival tactics and i go about my biz and i do what i do and i do it well. and fairly quickly, if i let it, desperateness dissolves and i am whole. but this freedom of autonomy can dangerously threaten to eclipse the duet that is josh and stef, and therefore his re-entry into clark street has to be handled very carefully.

re-entry has always been a huge challenge in space travel. NASA does all this preparation, training, calculating, building, maintenance, waiting, and finally the nauts go on the mission to study the weight of an egg-sized moon rock and when its over: mission accomplished? nope. they still have to get home. they still have to have to worry about re-entry.

according to the modern classic authority on all things spacey Apollo 13 (the movie), the little shuttle pod thing has to return into the atmosphere at precisely the right speed, right angle, and at the right velocity. it's heat shield has to be intact, its cooling system working, its oxygen tanks at appropriate levels. if all these things are working, then and only then can they can re-enter the earth's atmosphere and drop into one of the oceans so they can be hooked up to a chopper and flown to the nearest hyatt regency or whatever.

that's how delicate it is when my man comes in off the road. how is he gonna re-enter here? is his heat shield functional or is intense emotion of the homestead atmosphere gonna burn him out? does he have sufficient oxygen to get through or are we suffocating him? how's my mood? his state of mind? my vibe? are we gonna be able to interface at this galactic level?

we both know its weird so we let it be weird. we're face to face. he's no longer a figment of my ear, brain, and dreams... he's sitting in the yellow chair taking up actual space and oxygen and food wanting to know what movie we're going to watch later. its trippy lemme tell ya. i feel like swatting him to see if he'll yelp. then i'll know if he's real or if i'm making him up. mostly i just stare at him and listen to the debrief. i love the debrief. i want to know it all. every little thing. so he talks and talks until he gets hungry. then i mildly panic.

the thing is i sort of forgot how to make food. its funny that that's the big deal. that rut is hard to shake as yokos know only too well. so i get a little ornery after a tour: "what, now i have to cook? what am i even going to make?" mostly we just make a big salad together. i'm not even going to mention cleaning. that skill dies a sweet death every time josh walks out the door. so pretty much i'm lazy and messy when he's gone and his return only serves to illuminate those little weaknesses. ah well. time to shape up.

i asked josh what's the hardest thing about being off tour. it's that every day out there has a definite purpose, a goal, a summit to prepare for and everything you do is in anticipation of this high-adrenaline event. he plays the show and achieves the goal and one more city gets rocked. its like every day he has his own little mount everest.

then he comes home and is man enough to know there are some other peeps he has to rock and he brings presents and love and after a day and a half we all wonder how we lived without him for so long. he knows just where he belongs and we all grin and sigh and flutter around the leader of this pack. daddy's home and he's mine and i am so totally without shame and without regret... just another yoko.

ode to the van

no band can exist without a van. the van is the hive, the coop, command central. it is the control tower, headquarters, nerve center. it is the crib.

a few days ago judge judy was on one of the tvs at the club where i work out. i took one look at the defendant and i thought "he's in a band". he was just a short guy with a plaid shirt wearing a beard, but maybe yokos can always tell i dont know. he had that look in his eye. he was the defendant and boy if he and the plaintiff weren't arguing about a band van.

thats just perfect. triple ha!

one guy lent his van to another guy so he could take it on tour with his band but the van needed a new alternator and windshield before it was tour ready so the dude gave the guy $600 to get the stuff fixed but the other guy didnt fix it all the way then the guy took it on tour and got a bunch of tickets and now the dude wants money for the tickets but the guy already gave him money to kind of rent the van from him but they're bros so it should have all gone down kosher but it didnt because man, there's nothing easy about the van.

the van's proudest characteristic is that it is huge. it takes up practically our whole driveway and we have a weirdly long driveway. it sits there bombasting like a monolithic t-rex waiting for whom it may devour. it marinates there pondering its own inherent value, bellowing its worth for all to see and hear.

the thing is, the van carries the rock and it wont let you forget it. it knows that you are a band, and you need a van, so its gonna do everything it possibly can to make sure you appreciate it and treat it right. its a relationship. the van will carry the band, but the band must pay the van. there are no freebies. in one visit to the shop the van might demand without blushing new brakes, an alternator, new air-conditioning, and a tune-up. and the amount of times it has been loaded in and loaded out with gear would shock your grandmother. i dont help with that. rarely will i carry an amp unless i absolutely have to. what am i a roadie?

man but we've had some good times in there.

recently we drove the van to Sparta, IL to take our kids to see willie. it was prob their only chance to see him since... well i'm not talking about that. we stopped at Funks Grove for maple syrup on the way down. we had put a futon mattress in the back of the van and each kid got a seat to themselves and we camped at a rest stop after the show. that's one they'll never forget. see? its good for something.

hold on a minute, if i'm even just talking about the van i need to stop and get gas.

there's a mysterious quality about the inside of a band van. what happens in there when we're not around? what do they talk about do they talk about us? who's at the wheel and what are they listening to? what are they seeing where are they going what are they eating and wearing and saying? what are they saying? what are they saying? what are they saying saying saying? these are questions you should never ask but if you do they wont get answered anyway. its not for you its for them and thats just fine they're just a bunch of boys and you're just another yoko.