Scene Report
Here's the real original Blogs of War, coming to you pretty much live from a Carlsbad Motel 6.
We've always been a Motel 6 band. There are Super 8 bands. There are Red Roof Inn bands. There are La Quinta bands (they're the special ones with non-maxed-out credit cards or day jobs.) Who knows how these traditions get started? When you're on the road, predictability is more important than quality. That's one reason why McDonalds is so wildly successful. When you know in advance where you're going to stay, how you're going to get there, and what you're going to eat on the way, well, there are three big things you don't have to worry about anymore. Predictability is freedom.
The practical reason we stick to Motel 6 is because they're nationwide and their book is extremely well-organized with good directions. But the real reason is: we're a Motel 6 band, so that's what we do.
I've probably stayed in around 600 Motel 6 rooms in my Motel 6 career. You know the bedspreads? They're kind of blue-ish with red, purple and turquoise squares? I think they're trying to achieve a stained glass effect, but it's not the traditional stained glass of a cathedral. No lambs, halos, guys with beards. It's an abstract stained glass, like you find in a hippie church built in the 60s. You also see this kind of interior decorating at places like Denny's, for some reason. I blame Vatican II.
Anyway, about these bedspreads: they are just about the ugliest thing ever created. But, because of my extensive experience with them, I get a warm, safe, contented feeling when I look at one. I can't help it. It's not what it is, it's what it represents. It's the flag of the frazzled, wrecked, marginally-viable would-be entertainer who has, for one more day, managed to avoid disaster sufficiently to make it to 4 am. So it has a kind of hideous beauty.
When you see one in the wrong context it can really throw you for a loop. They often turn up in "amateur" porn videos, for obvious reasons. Or so I've heard. That adds an extra creepy feel (no pun intended) to the presentation, like it was taped in your house when you weren't there. Or so I've heard from other people in bands who stay in Motel 6s a lot and who know about such things. Who can fathom the mysteries of the human nesting impulse and the effects of extra-ordinary household objects on the human libido? Not me.
One time I saw one being sold in a thrift shop. It was 50 cents. I was going to get it, but even I realized that would be too weird. That way lies madness. It's good to try to keep your home life and your motel life as separate as possible.
The show was good. I had a massive right eye headache during the set. Maybe that lent some verisimilitude to the songs about suffering and human frailty, in that I probably winced rather convincingly at certain key lines.
Posted by Dr. Frank at December 15, 2002 09:43 AM | TrackBack