ficklish

Dateline: Tucson, Arizona. Friday, July 28, 2006. It's morning and I am sitting in a coffee house surrounded by Green Party folk. Lots of women covered in hair, and men that have unabomber issues. It's raining outside and the man on the talk box says there is a flash flood warning. The CDC has put out a "JUNTA VIRUS" warning. It seems that rain drives out the rats and they give you the microwaveable version of AIDS. You get Junta and you die in days. Horribly and painfully.

Prior to this moment, I have dreamed, or hypothesized, about this week of work for over a month. I could just sense that there was something different about this particular week that was going to be a test of my strength. Not unlike the trip to Japan without clothes or the Illness in Europe, I could feel a "trip up" brewing long before I got here. It could be the money issue that started if off, it's a little low for me, but I knew that this week was more of an audition week and not an income week. That, and I had to take time off from my money making job to come down here. This is 800 bucks that I won't have to spend in China.

It could be the locale that is freaking me out. It is, after all, Arizona in late July. The last few times I have been to Arizona in the summer it was at night and even that was too much heat for me to bear. This is a full four days in death heat.

I don't know how, or what, started it, but there is a strange anxiety about this whole experience.

I am NOT a warm weather fan. I don't mind the heat but, when possible, I would rather avoid it. Back home at the Perch, the average daily high is 83. Four days of this summer have seen tempos over 90 and I almost died in those four blistering deadly days. Of course, at the Perch there is no humidity and it isn't a dry heat either. It's a perfectly balanced moisture/air content and the sun just lightly heats it up to make it good for the skin, soft to the touch, easy on the lungs and just a tiny slice of weather perfection. The Gods perfected weather in the Puget sound. Like a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Here in Tucson, the average daily temperature is 108. That's just the average. That means there are days here that see even higher temps. The air is dry, dry, dry and your skin is zapped of moisture the second you step off the plane. It's like those Skecksees creatures in the Dark Crystal sucking the life out of the Geflings. You can actually watch people shrink. It never rains here... Until this week. Now the humidity is so strong that all the dried up prunes walking around here are floating away. People that are used to having smooth straight hair are experiencing the worst day of their hair-baring lives. There are a lot of hats on today.

As the trip approached, I could see that things were already a mess. Even before I got on the plane, things started to fall apart. The owner/booker was hard to reach via email or by phone, to confirm details the details of the week with, and that caused some friction to develop before I even packed for the trip. That's never a good sign. Usually, it takes a good two minutes of face-to-face time before the owner/bookers and I can sense that this isn't working. I am just not a "bar" crowd or "entertainment" crowd type of guy. I think I give off that vibe and I'm doomed. This didn't make my wait any easier for me. I'm not making any money on this trip anyway, and I lost money taking time off work to come here. Add in the fact that I might get fired before I even leave for the gig.... Violent thoughts started to fill my mind.

Of course, violence melts in the high dessert heat, so I was hoping that I would get here and just cool off. I checked the Tucson weather twice a day for six weeks. Not once in that time did the temperature drop below 110. Not once. I was pretty sure I would get there and be so preoccupied with staying cool that I wouldn't even notice my financial woes.

The night before the flight I packed for a weekend in an oven. Some extremely light stage clothes, and off stage clothes that were next to nude. I was ready.

I tried to reach the club for a ride from the airport as I was told to do on my contract. When I finally got a hold of the owner/booker, I was informed that no one was coming to get me. Things are even testier than I thought. Even the most common of the comedy curtsies - picking up the talent from the airport - was being denied. AND, no reimbursement for the cab. Instead of letting myself get huffy about it, I just tried to accept the situation and move on. "It takes all kinds" doesn't it?

The plane arrives in Tucson, and as the plane taxis to the terminal the stewardess announces that the local temp is.... 71!!!! Yes, that's right 71. Seventy-one. Seven tens and a one. A "C" average. Yes. COOOOOOOOOOOLLLLL and normal for a human. Tolerable. Doable. Awesome.

I walked off the plane smiling, laughing and really looking forward to the weekend. One of my biggest anxieties about the week had been washed away in a freak set of thunderstorms out of Mexico and I was in for a full four day weekend of cooooooooool. Then I remembered that I was on my own for a ride in the coooooooool, rainy town of Tucson. No problem. I have been to foreign countries and had to figure stuff out on my own before, so I am not too worried about Tucson. How bad can it be? At least they speak Engli...

There are mountains here, another good sign. True, their slopes lack the deep green luster of my volcanoes back home, but these jagged peaks are just as beautiful in their own way. They are chocolate brown and with the rain sliding down them, they are even a darker brown. They look like a hot fudge sundae made with chocolate ice cream. They surround Tucson on three sides and stretch across the horizon for just a little ways in either direction, but what they lack in width, the make up for in height.

The desert is flat in every direction. Without any gradual build up that is so common in other mountain ranges - huge, jagged mountain crawl out of the ground and sit defiantly against the sky. Visible heat waves emanating from the desert floor distort the lower half of the mountains so you can't see where the mountains and the desert meet. There are clouds that collar the summits but rising above the clouds are the snow covered peaks, their jagged surfaces, cutting through the clouds into the pale blue sky. They are a sight to behold. Especially the sight of snow in a desert. I'm sure more than one soul has died of thirst within sight of the millions of gallons of fresh water that is just an outstretched hand away. The torture...

I took a walk around my "accommodations" (that's a nice way of saying it), and took in the sights of Tucson on foot. The town is mostly dead in the side of town surrounding the "accommodations" but what there is to see is outstanding. There are plants, flowers and all other sorts of flora here that I have never seen before. There is a flower that grows everywhere around here that is Dreamsicle orange with Plum red highlights. I wish I had the vocabulary to do the flower justice, but perhaps a photo would be better. It's incredible and if I thought it would survive in cooler temperatures of my world, I would steal a few and take them home.

The rest of the town is your typical college/military town. There are millions of blondes, hippies, military personnel and Mexicans all milling around together in a heat tempered harmony. Everyone looks too worn out to get uppidity with each other. In fact, it was one of the most peaceful and laid back bus rides I have ever been on. Ever. Maybe it's the aura of bus rides that calms us, I don't know, but the goth chick sitting across from me didn't judge the blonde girl sitting in front of her or vice versa. It was shocking.

Tucson is also a town of odd little "keep out" signs... glowing scorpions... Tarantulas... Coyotes... six types of poisonous snakes... killer bees... stinging ants... rats... a mysterious animal called the culacabra(???) and, of course, catus. It's not a place to where you want to spend too much time on the bare ground without a medical degree. Not a lot of picnics in this part of the country. My only question is... What the fuck is a culacabra?

According to the "Welcome to Tucson" flyer it's a never before photographed animal with razor sharp teeth, a very, very, very nasty attitude toward anything not culacabra and it's known to be the cause of many of the mysterious "shredding" deaths of animals and humans in the area. It's a mythological animal not unlike the minotaur, but the people here believe every word of the stories that are told about it. They even speak about it in hushed tones as if the beast has supernatural hearing and likes to carry a grudge. It's very real to these people which means, it has to be very real to you. Any sort of disbelief on your part and you will get stared at. They look at you like you are a blasphemous soul who will bring death and destruction upon the village. They look at you like you need to be tied to a pole outside of town with a sign hanging off of you that says, "He said it! Not us! Take him!"

I was worried about all the critters and the heat before I got here, and none of them turned out to be as bad as I thought they would be. I spent all my time worrying about how bad this place was going to be and it turned out to be exactly the opposite. All that worry, I didn't even bother to find out about the landscape of the town, which ultimately, is this town's saving grace. Of course...

I finally met the owner and that was the exactly how I thought it would be. It the coldest thing in town. He just isn't going to like me for whatever reason but I will reserve judgment until the end of the week. However, so far things are looking a little sour. This may be my only trip here so it's probably a good idea to get out and see it all, just in case. The invasion of Tucson may be a one time thing - that would be my early assessment, anyway.

Everything about this town said, "Stay away!", but it turned out to be a pretty pleasant place. I think the lesson I need to learn is that I am just not entertainment material and that I need to travel the world for other reasons. Perhaps I would be better off traveling around, writing and riding and not trying to please people that have money on the mind. Perhaps death by culacabra would be a better death than a life in the entertainment industry.