It Begins Again…
After missing my flight for the first West Coast swing, I didn’t want to fuck around for the flight down to Atlanta. I made sure to check in online and showed up at the airport two hours early. Everything was smooth sailing right up to the customs agent.
“And what is your business in the US?”
“I’ll be traveling on a tour bus for five weeks.”
“And do you have a visa for this trip?”
“Yes sir. All the paperwork is in this folder right here.” I opened it up and slid it over. He glanced at it before gesturing to the back room.
“Let’s head back here. I’ll have to take a closer look in a few minutes.”
I followed him through the door and took a seat in a dimly lit room filled with chairs lining three walls. Almost every chair contained a person bearing expressions ranging from agony to boiling rage. To my right a Jamaican lady consoled her anxious son. To my left a Korean woman sobbed into her palms. I waited forty minutes before walking up to one of the custom agents behind the desk in the next room. “Hi, I have a flight in about an hour that I can’t miss. I’m wondering how long this will take.”
“We’ll call you when it’s your turn,” the basset hound faced old hag barked over her glasses.
I sat back down and counted the minutes until my flight. At thirty minutes until departure I started to worry. At twenty minutes I was pacing around the room. At ten minutes I was clinching my fists and repeatedly approached the staff. At nine minutes I was contemplating murder. I knew I was fucked. I’d missed my flight. All I could do was sit back and see how this all played out. I felt like puking as I pictured myself going back home to bed without ever getting to start the tour.
An hour later after I’d all but fallen asleep exhausted with frustration, the same custom officer who sent me to the dungeon called me to the counter. He looked over the papers, cracked a few jokes, and said everything looked good. What the fuck? In three minutes he was able to determine that everything was cool, but I had to miss my flight and waste three hours of my life in a waiting room that rivaled that of an impound lot for misery.
Another great start for Griffin. They put me on the next flight. I texted Jeff and told him I’d be in Atlanta three hours later than planned.
Ways NOT to start off a tour:
1) Make Jeff Waldman angry (angrier, I should say).
I always wonder how people work in jobs where their basic job description is to ruin other people’s day. Jobs like parking enforcement, subway ticket checker, or custom agent. I understand that “somebody needs to do it” and that without these jobs our borders, streets and parking lots would be giant clusterfucks. But I can’t imagine going home for the day and thinking “I ruined fifty people’s day today. I can’t wait to get back tomorrow and write more tickets.” What’s worse is that a lot of the personalities employed at these jobs seem to enjoy fucking people around. As if they were bullied as a kid and have a permanent chip on their shoulder, desperate to wield the hollow power bestowed upon them by the social contract — faceless, expendable minions of the status quo. Everybody hates them for doing their job, which makes them bigger pricks, spiraling into a vicious circle until they end up divorcing their fat wives at fifty years old and become vicious, self-loathing alcoholics drinking themselves into an early grave.
I have automatic disdain for people in these professions. I see them on the street and want to spit in their face. I realize that’s an over-generalization and not all of them suck as people, but that’s the point. These jobs don’t need to be shitty. Part of the problems stems from bureaucratic sticklers that take rules and guidelines to heart. When subjective judgment might aid a situation, they steadfastly abide to the prescribed formula even if it makes all parties worse off. Like the time I saw two transit cops give a twenty-something immigrant who could hardly speak a word of English a $150 fine for not having a valid fare. The guy was bawling hysterically and saying “I pay this. Then no food for one month.”
“Well you should have thought about that when you didn’t buy a ticket.” The one cop smirked probably with half an erection. Nobody with a heart would have given a ticket to that kid. Yet Officer Bitter At Life can only get through his day by making somebody feel worse off than him.
My flight to Atlanta had a connection in Denver. As I boarded the plane, a huge storm swept overhead delaying us another 45 minutes. I finally landed in Atlanta four hours after I was supposed to be there. Thankfully upon landing, a text message from Waldman informed me that Jaimee, the lone, brave female on our tour, was also flying in late, and would be there 15 minutes after me. And she actually missed her flight. I took comfort knowing she’d be in slightly more trouble than me. I found Jaimee and we spent the twenty minute cab ride discussing how much shit we were in.
When we showed up to the hotel and met with Jeff and Corman it turned out we weren’t in that much trouble after all. Jeff explained that he takes great pleasure in firing people — a skill he excels at — and that both of us were welcome to test his abilities if we so desired. We shook our heads no before he briefed us on the tour. My job description once again included driving a van, except this time it was a big ass 15 passenger van that would follow the tour bus from stop to stop. Before I had time to bitch or complain about that, Jeff filled me in on the dozen or so stops for supplies and equipment I’d have to make the next day before the show. I cringed as I jotted down notes.
Jace, the youngest on tour and another lowly gopher, was also in the room. His sneaky jew eyes cased my pockets for gold. “Nice to meet you,” I said as I shook his hand. Neither of us were aware just how many hours we would spend together on our journey through hell. I checked to make sure my watch was still on my wrist.
During my stop over in Denver, I had texted Charlie that Customs took my bum virginity to which he replied, “rape is harsh. Sorry man.” I was caught off guard by his compassion. After the meeting with Jeff was over, Charlie came up to me. “Sup dude, thanks a lot for being late today. I had to drive the van in your place. It was a bitch. I hit a few curbs.”
Poor Charlie had to drive the van around Atlanta for 20 miles. I mean, it’s not like I had to spend the next 5 WEEKS DRIVING IT TWELVE AND A HALF THOUSAND MILES ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.
good shit, wish it was longer. keep them coming frequently if you can.
Griffin: Longer? I always hear I’m too long winded. I believe Tucker put it “dude, it takes you 2,000 words to say 200 words worth of material.”
In any case, thanks for reading. I’ll keep the updates coming.
You keep writing, and I’ll keep reading. Great stuff.
Griffin: Thanks man. Appreciated.
How come you haven’t written about all the times you dry-humped phallic objects?
Griffin: I saved the “A” comedic material until the tour’s halfway point.
I want to make out with this blog.
Great to see that you’re updating this. How did you manage to remember all of these details during such a clusterfuck of a tour? Impressive.
Griffin: I jotted down notes throughout to help the memory. Plus Charlie wrote in his diary every night. I broke the lock on it and made copies.
You’re back! Yay! Can’t wait for more posts.
It was fun meeting you briefly at the final premiere stop in SF. I was the guy that looked like Jesus. You seemed like you had about a million things on your mind, which I’m sure was the case. So, I won’t be surprised if you don’t remember me at all. But, like I said, I’m loving your blog so far and the “You’re lucky I have a positive attitude!” is the funniest thing I’ve read on Tucker’s tour blog. It was made all the funnier for me because I already had a sense of who you are from this blog and I could totally see you saying that. Hilarious.
I know you must’ve gone through (and put up with) a whole lot of crap on this tour. Can’t wait to read all about it.
Griffin: Thanks, man. If Jesus is reading my stuff, now I have no choice but to keep at it. It was good to meet you in SF. Since it was the last night of tour, we were all absolutely exhausted and I probably didn’t make for the best conversationalist. Being Canadian, you can rest 100% assured I took a lot of crap but hopefully my POSITIVE ATTITUDE comes through in my posts as well.
Great writing. I’ve been following the tour. Love to hear the experiences of being part of ‘crew’. Having been a roadie for a year, it brings me back. How was it traveling w/ actresses? I found them to be high maintenance. Keep the stories coming!!!
Griffin: Thanks Jennifer. The actresses only joined us for a couple of stops, and from what I could tell they were relatively low maintenance, but I was busy doing other things most of the time. I think with anything Hollywood there is always an underlying current of egos at play, but considering some of the horror stories I’ve heard, the cast and producers associated with Beer in Hell were pretty easy going. Plus we all drank a lot of booze, which always helps the atmosphere.
I wonder what Jesus would say about this story?
Griffin:
Probably “awesome!”
We, your slobbering fans, want to hear more about how the movie is making everyone involved millionaires!
Seriously though, some sort of discussion of what you guys are thinking while watching the box office numbers would definitely be the interesting part of this whole shebang.
Griffin:
Obviously, as a grunt on tour, the movie’s box office performance doesn’t directly impact me like it might those financially invested in it. I want it to do well, and like everyone involved, am disappointed in how it has done so far. But there are lessons to be learned, and the story still isn’t fully written yet. I’m sure Tucker will have a lot to say on the matter once it has all played out and he’s had some time to gain perspective on the events.
As for me, I can say that even if I knew the movie wouldn’t make a cent, I would still do the tour over again in a heartbeat.
I’m sure Tucker will have a lot to say on the matter once it has all played out and he’s had some time to gain perspective on the events.
But after everything that Tucker had said about how revolutionary the marketing was going to be, and how well the movie was going to do don’t you feel just a little let down that the emperor turned out to be wearing nothing? I mean, he told you guys a hell of a lot of lies along the way. Aren’t you just a little pissed?
Griffin: I’m not pissed at all. He didn’t tell me any lies or promise me anything personally that he didn’t follow through on. He obviously made some public predictions that didn’t come true, but they don’t impact my life. I asked him if I could be on the tour. I joined because I believed in the product, and wanted the experience. Having seen the movie beforehand, I understood what I was getting into. Tucker was actually more generous with pay than the initial offer I excepted — an offer he gave me even after I said I’d do it for free.
Like I said, I can’t defend Tucker’s comments or predictions because I’m not him. I still believe the traditional Hollywood system is due for a shake-up. If it wasn’t Beer in Hell, it’ll be something else. Considering I have more perspective on what happened behind the scenes than an outsider, I do know there were a lot of miscues and mistakes beyond Tucker’s control which hurt the movie. Tucker spent a huge amount of energy everyday trying to get convince people not to screw things up. Beyond that, he’s admitted a few times that him and Nils made some key errors along the way.
The movie’s story isn’t written yet. As a niche-based, R-Rated comedy that never reached full expansion it hasn’t done bad. Traditionally, these types of movies do much better on DVD. Tucker’s website and book were not overnight sensations. They’re slow to build but have a ton of endurance.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the whole process was a learning experience. When everything is said and done (including DVD release), some serious lessons will be learned. These aren’t the lessons you can learn from sitting back. The only way to learn them is to go out and try, and sometimes to go out and fail. As long as mistakes aren’t repeated, the next result is assuredly better.
Hey, Canadian! Maybe if you spent less time ogling over all ten of your readers, and more time writing stories, you’d have a seventh post up by now. That last response was a whole post on its own… well, not one of your posts. Not enough words.
And I don’t want to hear a bunch of excuses about having 6 weeks of missed work to catch up on. You should’ve thought of that before you made time to respond to each fan individually. I don’t wanna hear it!
Griffin: The only ogling happening around here involves my biceps and a mirror, buddy. But yeah, I’ll get a post up as soon as I finish staring… at… these… biceps… so… powerful……
We really need to plan a day downtown, yelling at the parking cops while throwing peanut shells at them. Mind you, we should make a point of leaving our street visas at home.
Griffin: When “peanut shells” escalates to “empty beer bottles”, you’re paying bail money.
Sad man, you guys are so untalented. Your collective game is mutually reinforced self-delusion.
Griffin: I never claimed to be talented. And self-delusion is a must when one’s job title is “van driver” for six weeks.