Warm and weary greetings, my friends.
And here we are in Fredericton, NB. The show in Saint John surpassed our expectations. We played with a very popular band called Slowcoaster, to our great advantage as we made enough money from the door to get to Sydney and now back to Fredericton. There were quite a few people in Saint John, and we got to play for an hour. We performed very well. It was loud and melodic and exciting and we scared some hippies. The club asked us for a cd to put into their juke box, so I guess they didn’t hate us.
From Saint John we went to Halifax. I really liked Halifax, even though I was only there for about 4 hours. A very happening city, vibrant night life and lots of people out having fun. We got to play in a neat club that was right across the street from a lineup of people waiting to go and hear somebody else’s band. Lovely. Then it was on to Sydney, on Cape Breton. Pretty much the farthest east you can go on the mainland of Canada. We played in a little lounge that lacked a.) a stage b.) customers c.) food. They did put a poster up, though. And, the one person that did wander in to listen was a promoter who was sufficiently impressed to buy a cd, give us some contact info for the Maritimes, and suggested we play the Halifax Pop Explosion festival and he would line up some extra shows in the area for us to make it worth our while. Right.
Tonight we rock Fredericton. We have walked past the club already, and there are strong indications that this club often hosts live bands, a good sign. Also, they have put a poster up. And we have a $200 guarantee for this show, which means we may be able to make it to Toronto, our next show and only 1100km away. Oh yes. That’s right. 1100km.
There has been many days of sleeping in the van. We are tired. We are disheartened. We have played a string of shows for empty rooms and no money. It’s just like playing in Vancouver, except that it was a longer drive to the gig. Nobody knows who we are, and the clubs don’t do any promotion because they’ve never heard of us, so nobody comes to the shows. And afterward, the club people (and the 2 or 3 people that wander in off the street) say wow, you guys were really good, too bad nobody came out tonight, please come back and play again and we’ll make sure the word gets out. Sure. We’ll just work and slave for another 6 months to save up enough money to drive 6000 km and come out here again to play for an empty room and sleep in the van afterward. I’m not bitter, I know I’m very lucky to do doing this blah blah blah…just tired. Lord, I’m tired. Now it feels like tired is our new normal. A constant haze of tired that even a vat of coffee can’t banish completely. May I never have a baby. I hear those little suckers make you tired for years at a time. I’m getting better at functioning while tired, but I’m not enjoying the functioning. And it would make a difference if we had a good show worked in betwixt all the empty ones, instead of one empty one after another.
I do hate people who complain about the rock and roll life. I’m sure there’s a lot of very noble aspects to our magical adventure, but I’m too tired to think of any right now.
On the plus side, we have sold cd’s at every single show that we’ve played. What else… we haven’t run out of pot, that’s a definite plus. Um…we did laundry last night, that was pretty exciting.
cd’s sold: 41
bowls smoked: not enough
sighs of hopelessness and futility: at least 3 just while I was typing this email

Oh well. At least I don’t work in retail anymore. Although I would be making more money right now if I did. Soon we will all be back home, working to pay off this mighty quest and yearning to go out and do it again.
I think I’m going to track down some more coffee and count my blessings. Fredericton is very pretty after all, and I am supposed to be on vacation. Perhaps I can go to one of those free hotels and do some free sightseeing activites and then perhaps on to a free restaurant to have a nice free lunch. Thank the goddess for free Internet access at the free public library in Fredericton.