San Diego Serenade

The first bad omen came outside Phoenix, when our van was suddenly engulfed in a dense cloud of grey smoke. Joe drove out of it and around a tractor trailer that was shooting flames out of both exhaust pipes. During the show that night, one of George's amps began making an odd clicking sound as the tubes gave off sparks and acrid-smelling smoke.

Two days later, the morning of the street scene festival in San Diego, we stopped into a guitar shop to replace the fried amplifier. I was using the toilet when George called me a few minutes later: "Hey I was moving the van a little bit so I could get my guitar out and now it won't turn off." I told him to let it run a few minutes. By the time I got outside it was making a horrid squealing sound and giving off smoke. The engine wasn't running but the starter wouldn't turn off. DJ ran for a fire extinguisher and we watched helplessly as the engine burned itself out. Thankfully, the Street Scene festival is a model of efficiency. They sent a van for us and our equipment. We had our old blue paddy wagon towed to a repair shop, and emptied all of our possessions out of it, sure that it had finally given up the ghost.

We played the festival that day and everything came off without a hitch, other than "accidentally" leaving DJ behind when we left. The kind folks at the festival put us up in a swanky hotel where we could figure out the next step. I got ahold of the repair shop, and he said we just needed to replace the starter and he'd have it for us first thing Monday. So we resigned ourselves to canceling that night's Tucson show, and spent a relaxing day by the pool and at the movies (Talladega Nights y'all). The Doubletree Hotel in San Diego: not such a bad place to get stranded.

The van wasn't ready Monday morning and we had to check out by noon, so we tramped down to the lobby of this very classy hotel, and filled it with our junk: dirty laundry, sleeping bags, band merch, not to mention guitars, amps and drums. After a couple hours we got the call that the van was ready and the shop was sending over one of their mechanics to give me a ride to the shop. So the guy pulls up in a pick-up truck and I hop right in, but he kills the engine and says he wants to grab a smoke. So I sit and mentally calculate the drive time from San Diego to Austin. He finally gets back in, turns the key and... nothing. His battery's dead. "FUCK!" I go and tell the poor bellhop who has been dealing with all our bags and crap for the last two hours and tell him we need a jump. He gets some cables and they pull over one of the hotel shuttles and get the truck started. As soon as we pull out on the Interstate, headed back to the shop, the whole truck starts bucking like a pissed-off donkey. So we pull over to the side of the highway and call the shop. They send out yet another tow truck to pick us up. At last I get back to the shop and pick up the van, which still reeks of smoke but is otherwise good as new. We leave San Diego at about 4:00 pm Monday afternoon: just enough time to get to Austin for our Tuesday night show if we drive straight through the night.

The van lives. Long live the van!