June 18th
Clipside of the Pinkeye Flight
(Day 2)

This plane is huge.
HUGE.

It is possible? Something this massive to take flight and carry this many people with all of their 50 lbs. bags (or up to 75 lbs. for a small fee)? A screen flickers and an extremely pixilated version of the earth appears. There is a long crescentshaped line starting from Seattle, WA arching upward and finally crashing to a stop on what is labeled London. A flash again and several numbers are being displayed now: Time: 10 hrs. Distance: 4783m. Arrival time: 4:05 pm.

I am not keen on flying. One of my only fears for the tour was not if we would be able to get enough money, or crashing the van while driving on the opposite site, not even fearing some strange situation similar to Hostel where we are kidnapped and sold to murderers—all that is fine—but a 10 hour flight across the ocean. Whew, chills.

I eventually get to a point during flight where I accept the fact that the plane will go down and there is nothing that I can do about it; and, eventually, I give in to the possibility of death. Once I do that I can relax for the rest of the flight.

This flight starts off a little oddly. Of course I check all the little knobs (Final Destination style) and look over the safety manual 10 times, but then there is a disturbance. My main man Julius is asked to switch spots with this mega hotties’ boyfriend and he is sent away (we are all sitting separate on the plane). As I watch him walk away I see a man from the airline asking a passenger to get his things and get off the plane. They discuss it long enough to have everyone on the plane looking but the man FINALLY gets up and leaves. He was actually sitting right next to Adam and I get the full heads up later on. Basically the guy was pissed (pissed as in WASTED) and he was telling people to “fuck off” and such. OH and a side note—Adam was lucky enough to sit next to the man that looks like Soup, who happened to be caring a metal suitcase that was handcuffed to his arm!!!! They never spoke one word to each other. I will work on getting some photos online for you all to see. Maybe it will be a better reference??

Anyway…the leviathan creaks and waves as it takes flight. The screen in front switches to Airobics—and I’m still pretty nervous and not very amused by the clever title. The video is four woman, one whom reminds me very much of this wonderful girl Nikki I once worked with in my fast food days, sitting in massive airplane chairs doing various chair workout moves to keep you alert. No one does any of the moves—but god damn did I laugh my ass off! It worked!

Fortunately, the movie selection was INCREDIBLE! I spent more time trying to decide what to watch than I did actually viewing! I ended up winding down to a few romantic comedies. Total rock star, huh? Northwest Airlines is amazing because they bring massive food portions and drinks NONSTOP! I am talking every few minutes they were bringing us lasagna or cheese. They really kicked ass at keeping everyone happy.

Less than 10 hours later—without a second of shuteye—we arrive at Heathrow Airport, which is said to be the worst airport in the world! Half dead we crawl off the plane and make our way towards customs. The moment of truth, or I guess in our case, LIES! We stop at the bathroom and go over our stories again: So what happens if they ask us where we are staying? What about all of the DJR shirts? What about this, that, etc. I slap on the tired face and begin to rub my eyes as I approach the counter. Are you thinking this will help make me look less suspicious? Turns out it is a fucking BREEZE to get through! Hahahaha—we all laugh and jump up and down while exiting the airport. First task down. Now where do we pick up our van?

A shuttle drives us for about 15 to 20 minutes and I begin to realize that I have no clue what the road signs are! I quickly start looking out the side windows and see a red circle with a number in it, a colored in blue circle with a red “X”—what the hell are those squiggly white lines on the road? I start to panic. I have not slept in over 24 hours; this is probably the WORST time to learn how to drive in another country!

When we get to Alamo I wait in line for a little while with Dakota, still trying to memorize all of the signs I had just seen and trying to figure out what they could possibly mean. The lady calls me up to the counter and takes down my information. As she is looking through the list on her computer she asks me nonchalantly if I am in a band. Just as the smile forms on my face, my stomach turns and I quickly answer. “Noooo…I just look like I am.” With the most innocent smile I can produce on no sleep. Whew! We got away with another lie—you see for some odd reason they do not allow bands to rent their vehicles—but this woman was a tricky one! This is the most I have lied since I was seven!

It took us probably 20 minutes just to find the brand new Plymouth Grand Voyager in the parking lot of cars. It is PERFECT! We could not have asked for a better-sized vehicle! And it is diesel, which is kick ass. With all of our suitcases piled in the back, I sit in the drivers seat breathing deeply. Trying to focus and relax. WOW I am nervous—something that rarely happens. This is really it. We are off. I have to just turn the key, put it in drive and step on the gas. By the way I was so glad it was not a standard. I would have shit myself. I realize everyone is kind of staring at me. Waiting. I give up on calming myself down and decide it is now or never. I instantly go in the wrong direction and try to get out the exit! A few minutes later the GPS is talking to me in a beautiful female British accent telling me which way to go downtown (later that night I read a little article saying to NEVER try driving in downtown London during rush hour when you are just beginning to drive. It makes me feel semi accomplished.) Downtown London is INSANE!!!!!!!!!! The oldest buildings I have ever seen. All made of brick, sporting ancient statues and gargoyles. There are people everywhere. The ratio of girls to guys MUST be 20 to 1. And they are ALL beautiful. Any straight man or gay female would be in heaven here.

Back to the driving. I could never describe it to you. Cars everywhere, and everything is opposite—not wrong—just opposite. Motorcycles and bicycles drive in-between every car. And there is no way that I have found yet to distinguish which way you should be heading. I can’t tell if a road is one-way or two-way. We almost get in one slight accident by going the wrong way down a road. But all in all we actually make it to the hotel that we will be staying in tonight. Funny thing is that we booked a night in a hotel, but the website we went through was actually selling us a night in a hostel—which would be fine but we only reserved two beds. You can do that math: two beds, five people. So we discuss who will sleep in the van after trying to get the people to let us all in. Ashley ends up snagging up a couple of extra beds and we all crash in the strangely decorated Generator Hostel. Neon lights, families and foreign people galore. The beds are gross and the elevator (wait, “lift”) holds only myself and a small puppy. The room next to us is full of stuff—like the people actually live there. They even have video games! Crazy!

Still no sleep. Eventually we turn off the lights and begin to ask questions—stuff like, if you had to eat poop or vomit, what would you do? Or if you had to sleep with one animal what animal would it be? I strap on Ashley’s bra and scare the crap out of Julius while he is sleeping and Dakota flirts with the idea of pooping in the sink and telling the office that the toilet won’t flush! Laughter rings out of our doorway later than it should. Pretty much the only way to end a day like this. Tomorrow is our first show overseas. I can’t wait to begin playing and forget about the initial hard parts of the tour.

Sleep well
-Joshua of Dirt Jake Replicas

Links:
Dirt Jake ReplicasSpace

Photos kindly provided from the DJR’s space