March 31, part 1

I got up and met Exene and Raven in the lobby. I felt rested but I also still felt slightly bugged by the night before and I knew the day was going to be a difficult one. I just had that feeling in my bones.

We got on the road and Exene went looking for a place for us to eat at. I say ‘us’ but the truth is, she only consulted with Raven over what they felt like eating. I appeared to be an eating afterthought.

Whatever. I’ll eat toast. Anytime. Anywhere.

They settled on a Macaroni Grill and no sooner had we walked in, got seated and my asscheek had hit the seat, Exene had this to tell me (pardon for the paraphrase from memory):

“Kevin, you’re going to get a call from your manager, who will tell you that I will be leaving the tour and going back for L.A. after the Memphis show. So, do what you have to do but I’m going home after Memphis. I can’t do this anymore.”

I was stunned, to say the least. But I can’t say that I was super surprised. I looked at Raven who looked resigned and seemed to be focusing on the silverware in front of her. She later told me that that was the first she knew about Exene’s plans to cancel. I started to feel myself fill up with dread and utter anger and jumped up before I could even really say anything.

All I could think to do was call Margie my booker. There were so many things crashing around inside my head that I am surprised I was even able to have a coherent conversation with her as I explained what had just happened. My hands were shaky and I was nauseous as fuck. Luckily she was there when I called and I filled her in on what Exene had just told me. She too was stunned and at a loss for words. The seriousness and weight of this situation was rapidly hitting me.

I talked with her for a good 15 minutes, going over whatever option i/we feasibly had and then walked back into the restaurant and sat back down at our table. Exene and Raven were discussing the type of good food they would like to eat at the house they were staying at in Chattanooga later that night, and about a spa Raven would take Exene to once they got to Memphis. It was really light and breezy and casual and there I was, sitting across from them, basically fucked to shit, wanting to shove a rusty nail into my nutsack.

I honestly thought I was a part of some David Lynch film.



Now, here’s the thing, and I really do find myself wrestling with this a great deal. I do realize that, because of her struggle with MS, Exene has many more things to deal with than many of us do and I feel great empathy and concern for what she has to go through on a daily basis. Add do that, the ever-cruel process of aging and natural life-induced deterioration, tough-as-nails touring schedules and a health care system that does not seem terribly interested in those of us who have chosen (??) to eke out a living by making music and art, and i bristle at the mere thought of these corporate and politician fuckbags who get paid more than teachers, police and firefighters and real workers and who have every perk none to man thrown at them, be it pension, health insurance or whatever, and are compelled to fuck up the planet and still gain more and more wealth and perks.

I know that during the week and a half I traveled with Exene, there were maybe 1 or 2 days where she actually felt good and stronger, well rested and more clear-headed.

I can’t even fathom myself being on a roadtrip like this, if I was dealing with the same affliction.

That said, she could have been kinder to me about things. She didn’t have to be so rude, dismissive and inconsiderate. As state before, I’m a tough kid. I can hack a lot of pain, discomfort and bullshit. But no, I will never believe that Exene’s behavior towards me was justified and acceptable.  For the most, I do still buy into the whole ‘punks should help each other out when they can’ spiel and if you can’t reach out, lend a hand in some way, at least be decent and respectful towards them, at least until they prove themselves unworthy of said decency and respect. Exene reeks of someone who has lived in a world of personal assistants and handlers for a long, long time.

Other than my mom when I was a baby, and my wife on occasion, I have never had assistants. I have never had handlers.

But I would never think to act like a jaded diva towards anyone, particularly fellow musicians and artists who have walked much of the same walk in rock and roll life. That she never seemed to view me worthy enough of the most basic consideration and respect is fucked up and appalling to me. I deserve better and I refuse to accept being treated like a pissboy.

From a so-called punk rock legend or otherwise.

Since the tour ended, Exene has sent out a press release about canceling the rest of our tour and in it she claims that she apologized to me. That never happened. I am still alarmed by how cold, detached and matter of fact she was when she made her announcement to me. Gutted, really.



I did not know what to do next. I was really in a bad spot because I had myself and all my shit (guitar, clothes, merch) living temporarily out of Exene’s car and nowhere in the edict she had just handed down to me was there any remote indication that she would be human enough to keep me aboard for the next few days.

Instead, she seemingly was already off onto the next phase of her near-future and I was stuck there trying to figure out how to survive this latest bit of life fuckedupness. I got the feeling that she would have much preferred to have texted me the news, dumped my shit off at gas station somewhere and went about her business. I suppose I should feel lucky that she didn’t.

This is my trainwreck, in-FUCKING-deed!

They ate. I didn’t. I didn’t even have coffee. When they were done, I sheepishly crawled into the back seat of her car and off we drove to Chattanooga. I had less than 2 hours to try and figure out what I was going to do. I was on the internet on my iPhone, asking the world for any possible transportation and lodging help, looking up car rental costs, bus and train fares, anything I could think of. Exene and Raven had a place to go hang out and relax before the show and since I was not invited to do the same, I decided that the best thing for me to do was to temporarily base myself somewhere with a roof (it was raining pretty good) and Internet access and plot out my next few moves. I asked Exene if she could drop me off at JJ’s Bohemia, the club we were playing at that night since there was a Starbucks nearby. At least I’d have a place to hang out in and stay warm for a few hours.

I was dropped off in front of the club, a good 4-5 hours before it opened. Feeling like a discarded piece of cow dung, I asked Exene if I could at least leave my stuff in her car until I figured it out and she agreed to that. I looked through the window of the closed venue and felt slightly hopeless. A tattooed guy standing out front of the tattoo shop next door, smoking a cigarette was looking at me (suspiciously, or so i thought). For some reason, I felt the need to explain.

“I’m playing here tonight”  I said.

“I know who you are. Welcome to Chattanooga”  he smiled.

I gotta say. That was a big, bright spot for me at that moment. And it probably doesn’t sound much like one but I was just happy to have one person, familiar and friendly, be a part of my current universe.

I started chatting with him about tattoos and told him of my interest in becoming a tattooer when I grew up.  He invited me to come by the shop later for a look and visit. He pointed me to the Starbucks a few blocks away where, after nearly 2 hours of panic-stricken text messages, e-mails, Facebook posts and phone calls, I decided I would catch a cab out to Lovett Field (Chattanooga’s tiny airport) and grab a cheap rental car for the next few days.



I was still pretty cash-strapped. I had sent money home to Al for our AmEx bill (the one last credit card I have in my name) so I didn’t have a whole lot of cash on me and pretty much none in my bank account. I had put quite a bit of charges on the card and wasn’t even sure if there’d be enough on it to rent a car.

And then there was the small matter of what I was going to do after the Memphis gig. We still had 10 shows or so booked and I badly wanted to still do them. With Exene bailing on the tour, I asked Margie to look into the possibility of me keeping my part of the tour going. It would be hard since Exene and I were booked as a package deal. Many of the bookers expressed interest in having me come play but since it would now just be little ol’ me, the ticket price would need to go down and that would mean a smaller guarantee for me.

That’s what eventually killed any chance of me finishing that tour. I couldn’t make the numbers match up or work. I’d need to rent a car and drop it off in Sacramento when I was done but as I soon discovered, one-way rentals are INSANELY expensive. It would have been a minimum of $1700 to do a one-way. I couldn’t afford that.  I thought of taking a train or bus and looking into maybe getting people to pick me up and take me back to whatever venue or station I’d need to go to but again, I wasn’t having much luck with offers of transportation and places to stay and who could blame anybody for not?

Shit is tough for everybody. Why the fuck am I so special and/or deserve to have people, complete strangers, go out of their way, take time out of their busy schedules, sacrifice precious alone and/or family time, just to make sure some broken-down old punker like me has a roof over his head and some wheels to get to and fro? This was what kept running through my head as I desperately tried to conjure up help. None of it was making sense or looking terribly good and I came within an inch of just saying “fuck it all” and going home, with whatever mode of transportation could get me there.

But something very strong and enormous inside (stupidity? desperation?) couldn’t let me do that. And I’m deadly serious about this. No matter what, I wouldn’t have been able to afford an immediate flight home at that moment so it was either going to be me lingering in Chattanooga somewhere for a week or more or it was going to be a 3 and a half day hell ride on a Greyhound.

I started thinking of ways I could still stay on the road. Not the Arkansas to Texas to New Mexico to Arizona to California run that had been previously routed and completely booked but instead, something less lengthy and on a much smaller scale. I knew Margie wouldn’t be able to throw anything legit-wise together in such a short amount of time, so I decided to appeal to my sizable Facebook brethren and sistren and asked anybody, basically between Memphis, Tennessee to Denver, Colorado, to help come up with short-notice gig ideas for ol’ Kev Seconds. I listed a rough timeline, based on Memphis and the confirmation I had gotten from Ed at the Blue Lamp in Sacramento and Eric at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz that they still wanted me to play their respective gigs.

The big desperate and short-notice gig search was on.

to be continued…….