touring as a tourist

It’s hard work. Not for me, but it is hard. Planes trains and automobiles. The white hot electricity that sets the oxygen in the room on fire. The vacuum of quiet in a hotel room.

Touring as a tourist. What do you do with yourself during a sound check? I don’t want to spoil the show for myself. Find a snack, drink a Modelo, stare at the ceiling. Write. Obviously that. Always that.

I am touring as a tourist. I’ll come see you all myself next year. For the new book. Got to figure out what I am going to do for you all. Read poetry I guess… but I always find poetry readings to be so fucking self righteous and overly serious. It’s all a bit too “turtleneck’s and snapping applause” for me. Maybe I’ll do stand up instead, throw some poems in.

Last tour was a great time. I liked seeing you all. Connecting with the people who actually connected with the book. Online support is quite often thinly masked disinterest. When you are staring at me, and we are talking about the thing that brought us into that room. That feels like connection.

The lost art of actually being there, not a bystander, but a participant, that is meaningful. I can’t wait to see you all there.

-A