It's not like I hate my girlfriend, or anything like that.
She doesn't feel that way, but "it will all be alright," I tell her, "sometimes I just have to get away."

My whole life has been like this - either being uprooted by some unforeseen warp in the space-time continuum, or just getting sick and tired of my surroundings and checking out some sights. This time it was a little of column A and so forth, and if you know physics or even algebra, you know between A and B is A1, A2 ad infinitum. It can be abysmal, and lately I feel that way.

I think I need a change of scenery. Some time away from Miami, not to mention the Miami Courthouse.
I've decided to head north to either visit friends in Cleveland, or New York City. My girlfriend is going to the Hell City Tattoo Convention in Ohio and I can come back home with her. If I make it to NYC, I have friends working the convention and they can give me a ride to Ohio.

Little did I know I would go in circles and get to neither.

I started my trip by asking some acquaintances in Forced to Live if I could tag along with them through their Florida dates, they said they needed the company, and the help. I worked for my space in the van by acting as roadie. To make a couple extra bucks I bring along some
Timescape Zero CDs and sell them for $3 to $5 each - sometimes less, just to gain a fan or friend over a dollar in the pocket.
I also brought a stack of stickers, teaser 'zines & promos.

Tampa, Gainesville, Pensacola, Tallahassee and Jacksonville. I-75, I-10. The drives were fun, except for Enrico having a lot of gas. He's not used to eating away from home, as he's the youngest of this group at 17. I'm sure it doesn't help his stomach that all the wildlife we've spotted so far has been roadkill. All three constantly rag on me, "All you eat is white bread, white boy."

The shows along the way were different. As usual with small bands starting out, the places were little warehouses or super-small clubs scattered throughout Florida, all with very little action. The shows were actually really good, and I got to see some cool bands along the way (Evil Existence, Farewell to Fashion, The Color of Violence and other killer hardcore, post-core and screamo bands), but other than being at a good hardcore show, nothing else really happened. After performing, most of the local bands would go home. The crowds of 20 to 40 would seem to leave soon after the night's last note was played. No one gave us a place to crash. The gas money ($10 - $15) would be collected and we were on our way.

-- The Color of Violence --

We slept in the van a lot - except in Pensacola where Scott of End of the Line Cafe (formerly known as VanGogh's Coffee Haus where 32forty played a pretty cool show last year) put us up for a night. And we did spend their one day off at Osceola National Forest, and checking out little towns in the park's area, like Watertown and Olustee.

To pass the quieter moments I read Raw Deal by Ken Smith. My copy is signed. He signed it like the other hundred copies I've seen, "Sometimes life just sucks." The book is a great read, but anyone who tries to peddle one-liners like that as "wisdom" is risking having a knowledgeable rhetorician challenge those statements. Life ebbs and flows. So what else is new? A Bohemian sentiment, with a twist of Nihilism. Both circles - whose only real contribution is subtracting elements of light from art - stole their ideas from the Renaissance, which was wholly inspired by pre-Christian Gnostic (or Pagan) philosophy - and on to Mystery Schools 4000 years ago. You see, that's information.
His sentiment aside, the actual book is real life pulp fiction, but a quick read.

FtL had Orlando and Melbourne to go, but I split at the most northern-point of this roadtrip, Jacksonville.
Too bad, because in Orlando I have a pending bowling challenge from fanzine mogul Craig Impact.

In a truck stop on the 295 Circle around Jacksonville, I got a ride going to Hunstville, Alabama from an underwear salesman.

How to get an interstate ride: Go to 24 hour eateries, highway gas stations, or truck stops. Check for out-of-state plates if necessary.
Strike up conversation - social outcasts can use their thumbs and see how far that takes them.
Always offer to drive some of the way. If you can afford it, offer to pitch in for gas. It's often much cheaper than a bus.
Many of these people are as hard up for gas as you are for a ride, and most don't mind the company.
Do not attempt if you have a "fresh-meat look" because you'll wind up in a sicko's trunk, so act like you got a pair.

My ride's name was Tatum and he was sober when I met him at a Waffle House on Monday, midnoon - but was tipsy by the time we got in his car at 2pm. He drank as he rode up I-75 and would lean over to say stuff as if it were a secret. Aside from that, he was polite and his driving was amazing for someone in the state he was in.
Not sloshed, but not crisp either.

On Tuesday morning I took some shuttlebus-thing from Hunstville, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee for cheap - $8.
I have an old penpal / friend there, Kiowa. She's rad, and so far the shortest girl I've ever know . 4'6" of terror.
She showed me the sights and the nightlife.
I remind her about the last time I was up in the area, and left her info at home. I get a punch in the gut. Real cute.
She says sorry by taking me to a record store where I picked up the Charles Manson bootleg, The Way of the Wolf.

-- The Way of the Wolf cover --

A lot of people got ripped off when they ordered the Pale Horse pressing.
Here are two downloads from that release: "Eternal Wind" and "In Your Music Mind".
I wish I had more money, as there were other rare and sought-after vinyl, but I have to be careful.
One of my usual record buying sprees and I'm headed back home quick.

The weekend came up and after a few days of being in a foggy haze, SpongeBob cartoons and no shows I particularly cared about coming up, I decided to see if I could get a ride to North Carolina - Raleigh in particular.
I would get a ride three days later, but the "friends of a friend" could only give me a ride as far as Asheville, North Carolina. No problem. Or so I thought, as for almost the entire six hour trip I had to listen to ska.
Not good ska mind you, like Desmond Dekker or 60's Jamaican dub, but corny pop-ska.
My lips are sealed, as I need this ride - a free ride.

When I crossed the state line, I felt as if I had crossed from one plane of existence to another. I actually looked back.
I felt something was coming, but I think I may have just made it all a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Seriously though, wherever I go - violence follows, and I think there's a black cloud following me now.
I soon lose the feeling, as during the last hour we listen to talk radio and I laugh at what "god" means to some people. I'm listening to a woman talk about how she used to "pray to God for bigger breasts". So that's what her "God Almighty" was to her -
Granter of Huge Boobs, Provider of Titties.

As I said my good-byes, I realized I never cared enough to write down or remember their names. Rob and Lisa, I think. Shame on me.
If they didn't give me this ride, I could have been stuck in Tennessee for the fuck knows how long.
Oh well, I'll get over it, so will they. Thanks though.

Eric the Engineer picked me up (I pay for gas) in Ashville, and I arrived in Raleigh to immediately celebrate Walpurgis Night. 666 motherfucker!
He reminded me that the None Dare Call It Treason demo needed a looking over to see if I liked what I heard, but I soon ran off to visit my sister in Ft. Bragg - a military camp, of all places.

Her household is amazing, and I don't know how she does it. Being my complete opposite, my sister believes the world is somehow better off with more people - or she just wants to drown us all in her offspring. Five so far, the sixth is on the way.
But I can't help it, it feels good to come over and be swamped with kids yelling "Uncle Adi", so I spend my next few days there.
I need a break to live amongst kin and blood, though I've never particularly felt very close to my sister.

And it was all well and good for about four days. When I can't take the sound of kids yelling anymore, or my sister constantly asking "Why are you doing all of this again?" Can't it be any clearer? A quasi-paranoid attempt to distance myself from the alienation of mass herdism and
mechanization of workaday existence. Good enough? I mean, I'd rather be crossing the River Jordan, hiding in Kashmir or climbing the walls of Petra. But I'm here in the US, and even in a country where 80% of land is flat, there are things to see and new people to meet.
So I ran off again.

Against Eric's advice I took a ride to Des Moines, Iowa with Namel, a supposed player by the street name "Gimme". He later told me it was self-applied, and is because he "wants it all". He's going to DM because he got a killer deal on a 100 pounds of mushrooms. I'm not down with it, but he gives me $200 - in case he needs back-up and I'm to be the handler. I know I'm getting paid to physically pick up two 50 lb bags of illegal psilocybe mushrooms and watch this freak's back, but I just saw it as a ride to a city I have never seen before... and money I needed.

Much of his talk reminds me of the pimps back on South Beach and I remember how in front of the Deuce Bar one shot another in the dick, and how they never came back around after that. It's low being shot in the dick. It's lower being a guy who shot another guy's jewels.
I know their game; both played pussy, both get fucked.

When we arrive at a house turned fungus hut, Gimme decides to go inside and do it all himself, because "these hippies may week out on me."
He later walks out with one bag, and two rotten-looking women carrying the other bag who are tagging along for the ride back home. At a Discount Auto Parts we part ways. 200 bucks to sit shotgun and nothing creepy went down. Maybe I was wrong about a black cloud hovering.
I have to get a bite to eat, a place to sleep and find out what day it is. I eat a huge salad at a place called Good Eats and pass out at a cheap motel called Solid Shuteye in Coralville, near Iowa City. Everything here explains itself.

I spend two days and nights at the motel, walking the town and smoking what little pot I have left.
I'm wondering why I always to go "up north" and never coming prepared. I'm cold.

In my room I'm trying to finish my copy of We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourvitch about the massacres in Rwanda. I have to laugh at the fact that hardly a soul knows about the worldly genocides going on every few years. All over Africa, Iraq, Bangladesh, Java, Russia, Bosnia - millions die. But selfishly, my mind wanders to think of how I'm 1000 miles from my girl. I think of that silly one-liner, "No matter where you go, there you are." I paused and realized, "It's time to head home."

With my last $50 I buy a Greyhound ticket to Raleigh to finish up some music business and then work my way down to the Deep South. I got a 10 Stopper for $39. That's a cheap ticket with over 10 stops - a ride which would normally take four hours will now take over 12.
No weirdoes on this ride but me.

Eric picks me up in Greensboro at 11am and we drive to his studio, Due Sound. He works at MB Recording Studio in South Beach, Florida, and is opening a place in Raleigh, North Carolina. He's using the None Dare Call It Treason demo to try out his new knobs and his newfound knob-twisting skills. After something like 10 hours in the studio it wreaks of men, beer breath and cheap cigarettes.
It wasn't the odor that forced me to leave, but the fact I had little or no control of any knob-twirling. I'm a control freak who was getting nothing.
1am and I decided to walk down the street to visit a friend who works at a tattoo shop nearby. The black cloud I felt earlier finally pulls up.

He picked me out of a street full of people who are all out to do the night in. Me? I'm just walking to see a friend.
I hear his southern accent before he even opens his mouth, "Hey buddy, can I get a light."
I don't smoke cigarettes, but strangely I had matches on me, so I handed them over.
"What is there to do in this town?"
"You got me," I replied.
He repeats his question, as I notice he isn't lighting anything.
I ask him, "Are you going to light that?" and I point to his cigarette.
He places the cigarette behind his ear and leans in to almost whisper, "Don't worry man. I'm cool. Where's the action?"
"I said I don't know. Uh.. those are matches anyhow, you can keep them," and I try to walk away.
He throws the pack of matches at the back of my head and yells, "Fuck you!"
I laughed as I walked away and said, "Yeah, whatever fag."
Maybe it was the guilt I felt for my choice of hurtful words, the bad feeling I had from the beginning, or the look on peoples faces walking towards me, but something told me to turn around. There he was, coming at me in midair with his right hand cocked back.

Now is my time to brag, as I do everything I can as well as I can, but as a living-machine I give priority to physical and mental maintenance.
When I was 18 I won Southern Divisional's Golden Gloves for Featherweight Class. I have been involved in Tae Kwon Do since I was 11, and received my Black Belt when I was 17. I have also lightly studied Judo, Jiu Jitsu and Shoot Fighting.

Worst of all... I admit I'm a brute, and I love violence.

In this instance there wasn't even time for me to come up with a powerful soundtrack in my head, as it lasted but a second.

I leaned back to avoid the punch, while giving him a totally instinctual left uppercut.
As I back up to await a serious fight, he falls to the ground lifeless - as if I had killed him.
He's lying there on the ground and I picture myself in some Carolina prison doing time for murder. He moans and I see he's breathing.
Now all of this happened in less than five seconds, so while I physically reacted I have yet to react emotionally.

As I begin to walk away I finally start to react and ... I AM SO ANGRY!
I turn around, as the guy is beginning to pick himself back up. I grab him by the hair.
He probably doesn't know his name right now, but I'm pissed and hell is to be paid. From here on it's primal.
"WHY!?" I yell and ask, as I kick him in the ribs, "What did I do to you to make you fuck with me?"
"Why?" No answer. Kick. "Why?" No answer. Kick.

I think the cops are coming. I make a run for it down the street, as a group of black guys in an Impala follow me screaming, "You could be in my crew any day, dog!" I hold my fingers to my lips as if to say, "Shhh." They dig and speed off.
I get to Abraxas Art to lay low until they closed, and the shit outside dies down. David and crew want to go out for the night.
I just want to go to bed.

I get to Eric's house to find he's not home yet, and I sleep on his front porch until until 8am when he arrives pretty toasted.
"I didn't get to hear the demo," I tell him.
"Maybe we'll finish it in Miami." he barks.
Maybe? Yeah, that's my cue to head home.

Before I left I was given a disc, which I mailed back home with a letter telling my girl how much I missed her.

After chatting up a storm with what seemed like close to 100 or more patrons of an ABC Foods, I got a ride from a Mexican married couple who had recently immigrated to the U.S. It took me 8 hours to find this ride, and if I hadn't been making a strange joke to myself in Spanish when they overheard me, I'd still be back in... possibly Ft. Bragg, North Carolina annoying my sister.

They drop me off in Florence, South Carolina and I sleep on the roof of a strip mall.
The next morning I found a ride in a nearby Native American reservation from Mark "Don't jot my name down in your book", who was headed to Conway, 10 miles outside of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He was not of Native origin, but his wife is and he says he loves "the benefits".

I called my girlfriend from a lonely grocery store on the 501. She wants to meet me in Myrtle Beach. She misses me.
It's like a movie - so sugary sweet - but I melt. Driving all this way just because she misses me? She rocks.
I am so lifted I don't mind the near 10 mile walk into town, even though the batteries in my headset are dead.

She's leaving in the evening and will be there by morning. I tell her I'll walk the beach all night and hit the main strip on Ocean 73 in the a.m.
"You can't miss me," I asure her. That night was long. Sleeping on the beach is not permitted, but I didn't sleep,
as I couldn't hang around any location long.

She only had to drive up the street twice to find me walking the bridge over Deephead Swash.
We hung out all day like sick lovebirds at Myrtle Beach State Park.

I thought we should catch a show at the Lazy I, another place 32forty had played last year,
only to find they had moved elsewhere and changed the name to The Lime Light, but no show was happening tonight.
We decided to hit the strip along Ocean 73, and head home tomorrow.

The black cloud had now returned.

As we headed back towards the ocean over Fantasy Harbor, all I see are taillights. Traffic is backed up.
What the hell is going on? It turns out it's some kind of hip-hop holiday tonight.
The streets are flooded with thug types. Dreadlocks and gold teeth everywhere.
I still wonder why we even parked. Just as we had decided to walk back to the car, it all happened so fast.

My girlfriend screams and turns around to hit some guy behind her. I saw him earlier
as he was walking through the crowd, getting yelled at by woman after woman for putting his hands up their dresses.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" my beauty yells.
He sneers and looks my way, then smiles and his fists balled up. He swings and in his drunken stupor misses me.

I punch him in the jaw and he backs off, and a reel from the fact that I didn't knock him out. My ego may not be able to take this, but it all gets much worse. As I back up to prepare for a nice toe-to-toe, I get terribly sucker-punched by a friend of his I hadn't seen.
He got me good too.

-- Ouch, my eye! --

I lose my footing and grab hold of the first guy. We begin exchanging fists, while his friend and then another join in to punch and kick me from behind. As I rain blows on the guy underneath me, one kicks me in the head, slamming it against a metal railing. Blood pours everywhere.
People are screaming, running all over the place. They are afraid. The thug-type crowds are known for pulling weapons.
My cloud was dark, but not that dark. They're only pummeling me with their extremities.

During all this my girlfiend gets involved and another of this loser's friends, a male, attacks her.
This delicate 5'3", 110 lbs of sugar-n-spice took this guy on pretty well though.

The cops break it all up and arrest two of the four for aggravated battery.
"Are you okay?" "What happened?" "Are these the guys?"

The next hour was hazy until we arrived at the hospital. She cried, but I got her to laugh a little, as we waited for my head to be sewn together, and I keep repeating, "I can do this myself you know," every time a nurse walks by.
A six hour wait at Skyway General for eleven stitches across my right forehead.

-- Ouch my head! --

She cries almost the whole ride home as she drives, and her eyes get puffy. She feels it's her fault. I feel it's mine.
I can't sleep for the next 16 hours in case of concussion, and boy, do I have a headache.

She hasn't slept in 24 hours and has to drive back home. I haven't slept in 36 hours, and I have 16 more to go. When we finally get home, she passes out. With only 6 hours left to watch for "the danger signs of head trauma" (as the doctor called it) I pass out, as I watch her sleep.
Our bed never looked better.

We sleep a day away only to wake up - and still needing to rest - have to catch a flight.
The tattoo convention I was to meet her at in Ohio is on the weekend, and my friends are waiting to hear why I never made it up there.

Who would have known I made this trip for nothing...
but stitches.

A little book of music, where I can only take 30 with me...

And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes
Darkest Hour - Hidden Hands of A Sadist Nation
Cro-Mags - Age of Quarrel
The Police - Reggatta De Blanc
Racebannon - Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In
Slayer - South of Heaven
Current 93 - Thunder Perfect Mind
The Glasspack - American Exhaust
Never Presence Forever - Disturbed Visceral Nociception
Beyond the Sixth Seal - Earth and Sphere
Dead to Fall - Everything I Touch Falls to Pieces
Autechre - Amber LP
Born Against - Patriotic Battle Hymns
Converge - Jane Doe
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Isis - Oceanic
Obituary - Cause of Death
Einstürzende Neubauten - Strategies Against Architecture
Sleep - Jerusalem
At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
Mastodon - Remission
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei
Bad Brains - Rock For Light
Death In June - Nada!
King Crimson - Red
Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow
Neurosis - Souls At Zero
The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Rest In Pieces - Under My Skin

A. Souto, 2003