Life is an adventure...

It's been an interesting couple of days...
Last night (an off night) I found myself staying at a Microtel in Augusta, GA. The propaganda booklet in the room mentioned "Helga's Lounge" - a bar with 100 different beers, 30 of them on tap. I needed to eat, anyway, so I went.
Walking into Helga's was interesting. It smelled like someone had deep fried a lit cigarette. The jukebox was switching songs from Toby Keith's 'Whiskey Girl' to something by Slipknot. Nascar paraphernalia, animal heads, and townies abounded. The wait staff were all hot young women in tight black shirts.
I asked for a beer list and a menu. She pointed at the wall over the bar and said, "There's the menu." There were many different colored pieces of copy paper taped to the wall along the top of the bar, each with a different menu item and price on it. Everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to King Crab to the "Alligator Basket." I pussed out and ordered the cheeseburger.
For the beer list, she pointed to the cooler. She said, "What beer do you want? We got it." Silly young person. Of course they had no Oskar Blues, New Belgium, 3 Floyds, or Bells. I quickly grew tired of playing 'stump the hottie' and settled on a Xingu. Not bad for a nascar bar.
The cheeseburger came, all 1/2 pound of it, served on Texas toast with nearly a pound of fries. It beat me. I couldn't eat the whole thing. But it was good.
I went back to the hotel and washed myself of the smell and the grease.
Today, I also find myself in a cool place to eat because of my hotel. This time, however, it is because my hotel (The Colony Inn in Columbus, GA) sucks.Stale cigarette smell. Cigarette burns on the lip of the tub. Spilled paint in the tub (not matching the color of paint on the walls or ceiling, nor the color of the tub. Shaky toilet that you have to hold the handle down to flush. A remote you have to pay a $10 deposit for at the desk, but that comes with no working batteries. And no wifi.
So I called my trusty wife and had her find me some wifi hotspots in the area. She came through like a pro.
I'm sitting in the Cannon Brewpub in Columbus, GA, across the street from the venue I'm playing at tonight, eating a calzone and drinking an Ironclad Stout (a very adequate beer.)
Life is an adventure, my friends. Life is an adventure.

Driven To Write

Like the title says, I'm driven to write--sort of. See, I'm always coming up with all sorts of great ideas when I'm driving. Story arcs, characters, comedy bits, songs, game concepts... When I'm driving, I usually find myself wanting to stop somewhere and write.
Which is hardly surprising, seeing as how driving consumes a considerable bit of my time these days. When I'm three hours in to a seven hour drive, I often feel desperate to stop, to write, to stretch, to do ANYTHING but drive.
And then I get to the hotel and I have oh, so many things to keep me busy... I have to check in, to unload my luggage, get settled into the room, use the bathroom, call my wife, set up my computer. And then I can write, right?
No. Usually I have to find the venue, check in early about the sound (I'm a guitar act. Sound is VERY important to me. Crappy sound can all but kill my show.) Then I'm hungry, and have been eating fast food all day. My wife insists (and rightfully so) that I should eat real food as much as possible. So I find a sit down restaraunt and order something other than a burger. And then I have to get back to the hotel and get ready for the show, then back to the venue and perform.
And then I can go back to my room and write, right?
Alas, no. Then it's merch sales and shmoozing, getting paid by the manager, and the load out, and calling my wife again to let her know how the show went. Then (if I've been drinking at all) I need to make sure I've waited a suitable amount of time before I drive back to the hotel, and by the time I do...

...I'm too tired to write. Often I'm too tired to sleep, too. So it's HBO or Showtime and movies I never wanted to see in the theatre until 3 or 4 am (I can't tell you how many times I've seen Madea's Family Reunion...) And then I sleep.
Whether I sleep late or not, I'm invariable not interested in writing when I wake up. I have to get around, sometimes in order to start the process all over again (including the driving.)
I'm driven to write, but when I have the drive, I never seem to have the time.