First, a little background information is needed. My first show was during the previous year's holiday run. I saw the shows on the 30th and 31st that year, experienced the tour lifestyle for the first time, and wanted more.

My buddy Gomer Smile and I had a hotel room at the Pennsylvania for the 30th. I couldn't believe the scene in the lobby. Cats were hacking, incense was burning, drugs were being sold and friends were being made. Even the bellboys had big grins on their faces.

We made a few new friends after the show that night and invited them up to our room to smoke and crash cause they had nowhere to stay. We felt that we had a duty to cram as many kids into our room as we could to save them from the cold. I know that those of you who were there remember how cold it was that December.

So, after that wonderful night of kind strains, dank ale and sleeping with my head under a chair and my legs under the television stand, (there were like six kids crashing in a room for one), we checked out and got our minds melted ringing in 1999. I'm sure that the acid helped with the mind meting, but that's a different pholktale.

Now to the rest of the story.

Gomer Smile, my buddy from the December shows, another friend of mine named Lord Larry Ward, my girlfriend Joy (now my ex), and I all piled into Larry's neon, the grape ape, on the sixth of July to head to Charlotte.  

Charlotte was a fun show. I particularly remember Derek Trucks playing slide guitar for the Possum encore. Virgina Beach would be a different story, however.

It wasn't that it was no fun, it was more like foreshadowing in the novels of our lives.

We had a good time in the lot, partying down, eating our goo balls and meeting as many new and old friends as we could. Then, when it was just about time to go into the show, somebody suggested that it might be safer to burn a few bowls in the lot real quick so that we didn't need to bring any pot into the show. We agreed and piled back into the grape ape. Mistake one.

Halfway through the second bowl, we were startled by someone knocking on Larry's window. It looked like a head. I thought he wanted to burn. Then he flashed his badge and took off his bandana and safari-type hat, revealing his bald head that combined with the veins bulging in his forehead, making him look like a horrible caricature of Sgt. Slaughter. I wanted to puke in his hat and put it back on top of his bald ass head.

As it turned out he wasn't that bad. He quickly wrote us citations and let us go into the show. We only missed Julius and Fee, which were my only of both, so my stats need an asterisk.

Merriweather and Camden went off without a hitch, and after a few days at home (which is right outside of Philly), it was time to head to PNC.

This was my leg of the tour to drive, so we packed up my white escort-which was dubbed the Phriedly Phisherman in wax pencil on the back window, complete with a smiling fisherman sitting on a dock. Mistake two.

The first night at PNC was great. PYITE-> Ghost, Theme, YEM, Meatstick, Melt-> Kung, and Brian and Robert were great. A great show.

After the show Joy went back to her house, which was close by, with her friends... and Larry, Gomer and I went to find a place to crash. We drove about two miles to Cheesequake (CHEESEQUAKE!) State Park but found it was full.

The car in front of us said that they knew of a campground nearby, so we followed them. After an hour or so, with our eyelids heavily drooping and us thinking that they were lost, we decided not to follow them anymore.

We decided to get a room and pulled into the first fleabag motel that we saw. The sixty-five dollars that they wanted seemed a bit steep, so we decided to rough it in the parking lot. We spread out our blankets and, after smoking a bowl, went to sleep under the stars. Some cats that had a room that night were checking out as we were waking up and offered us all a soda, so we smoked a bowl with them and went our separate ways.

With a whole afternoon to kill, we decided to go see Eyes Wide Shut which was a big hit that summer.

We found a theater in a strip mall with a grocery store and a beer store just a short walk away. After the movie, which was awful!, we drove to the other side of the strip mall and parked right between the beer and grocery stores to stock up on supplies for the night's show.

Gomer went to get some beer and Larry went to get some food: bread, cheese, chicken, tortillas and salsa, all a kid needs. I stayed at the car to get the cooler ready for the new provisions.

As Gomer was coming back with our Yuengling, a bike cop was riding by. He spied us suspiciously and rode on. Gomer and I then started to fill up the beer cooler.  A minute or so later, Larry came back with the food and we started to stock the food cooler, as we were all getting more and more excited for the show.

Then the bike cop came by again accompanied by one of his cronies. This time they came over to ID us for the beer. I was driving and was twenty-one at the time. Gomer was twenty-two but Larry was only twenty, however none of the beer was open so we weren't breaking any laws.

But the cops said that because there were two cases and only Gomer and I of legal age that they could assume that Larry was gonna drink them also, and that that was grounds for suspicion. Then they started playing bullshit cop games because they were jealous that we were being free and living the American Dream while they were probably being drowned by it.

First, they asked if they could take a look in the car but that they wouldn't open our bags cause they didn't have a warrant. We let them (mistake three), knowing that all of our shit was securely tucked away in Gomer's backpack.

However, I forgot about the rolling papers in the glovebox. When they found those, the shit hit the fan and our bags were wide open.

Within minutes we were in the back of a squad car; writhing in pain cause of the tightness of our cuffs, watching a dog tear apart my car. They found everything-an eighth of nuggets, an eighth of shrooms and a handful of pharmies.

We spent the first set of the show in a holding cell waiting to be processed. The whole ordeal took like eight hours. The whole time the cops said nothing about when we would be released. Finally at around nine-thirty they let us go. We would have to be back there, in court at nine a.m. the following Monday, nine hours after the final set at Oswego, a full eleven hours from the courtroom.

The three of us hauled ass back to the car, running about two hours from the station back to the strip mall where my car was still parked. We sped to the venue, arriving during setbreak.

Since I was supposed to meet Joy at the fountain before the show, I missed her. I waited at the fountain until the second set started but I never saw her. We were all bummed.

Gomer spent the show lying face down on a blanket, contemplating his future as a criminal justice major. The kindness of my fellow heads was a little annoying that night as countless people came over and said, "is your buddy ok?" All we could say was, "yea, he's fine," since we really didn't feel like telling our story.

After Tom Marshall came out to sing the Born to Run encore it was time to head to Oswego, without Joy.

I spent the first afternoon at the message board hoping to see something from her and putting up messages for her to meet at the entrance to the Green. By the time the music started, I still hadn't found her. After the music was over for the night I wandered around, my head still a little tweaked from the sugar cubes that I ate, looking for Joy.

Finally at ten a.m., my eyes fighting to stay open and my legs dragging more with each step, I gave up my search and went to sleep in our empty tent. My friends had slept outside of the car, reclined on inflatable lazy boys. I hadn't slept in two and a half days, having driven through the night getting to oswego.

Three or four hours later, I hear someone coming into the tent. I'm still in a sleeping state when I feel a kiss land on my lips, I open my eyes and it's Joy! My buddies had found her while I was sleeping.

We walked to her campsite, her saying how she thought that I purposely hadn't met her at the fountain, and me telling her of our adventures of the last three days. Then, after making love and taking a shower, (Thanks to the kind head who let us use his shower-in-a-bag), we went to go see the second night's show, knowing that we'd have to leave after the second set.

So, once again my stats are scarred with an asterisk. I missed my only Icculus and added another sixteen hours to that summer's driving, having to go from Oswego, back to Holmdel, then out to Burgettstown for the last show of my first action-packed experience of being on tour with Phish.

- rah bee