Let me stand next to your fire.

Thanks Courtenay. I don’t drink tequila (it’s the devil) so I have a pretty solid memory of the wheelings and dealings that night. Whoa. I just wrote wheelings, like as in wheels, on say… an RV! I don’t know much about the RV. I know it was an atrocious recent movie with Robin Williams and that guy just ended up in rehab, so that should say it all. I also know that there were 12 to 190 people sitting in a small one along with Alan Singley and Pants Machine. We had finished our show and were trying to a) stay warm b) drink stuff c) discuss the theories of Max Plank.

Wouldn’t you know it, but just like in a slasher film, all the lights go off. Whoever’s operating the interior system of this RV restarted them up, but sho’ nuff’, they went dead again. This happened oooohhhhhhhhhhh, I dunno, about five times, before someone dashed out the door like they saw a tarantula scorpion (nearly extinct). This maneuver, as we found out ten seconds later, was to flee the fire that had begun on auxillary batteries beneath the RV sofa. I guess extra weight had pushed down on the battery coils shorting them out and every time we turned back on the RV, we were only tempting fate.

So now the fire has spread to the cushions, and we all disembark (do you “disembark” from a RV?) and either a band member, a mysterious drifter, or some phantom of the night hands me a fire extinguisher. It wasn’t one of those 50 pound proton pack behemoths that you saw in Backdraft, but rather something about the size of a RedBull. I whipped off the safety strip (‘cause who needs safety right?) and gave it a trial squirt. Pslat! We’re good to go. So I jollyjump back inside and make my way to the sofa which is gurgling smoke like every car I’ve ever driven during a first date. It takes me a good twelve seconds before all the foam or whatever is out of the extinguisher but alas, the fire is defiant. So I entrust my right leg (who I call “Lefty”) and jam it down the chargrilled holes in the sofa, attempting to stamp out the flames like a Rhinocerous (hey, who hasn’t seen “the Gods Must Be Crazy?). I think it goes out, and if on cue, my eyes and lungs throw in the towel and convince me to get the hell outta there.

So I do. And I cough like it’s my first cigarette for three minutes straight. My eyes have watered profusely and due to the smoke and good ‘ol Union, Oregon dirt, I now look like Tammy Faye Baker. I cough some more and when I see my first bit of pulpy lung come out, I decide to call it a night. That’s all I remember. At some point, I realized that watching the escapade from outside the RV was probably more entertaining than watching that Robin Williams movie. Good thing I get paid more than him. Oh wait… shit.