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The J.W.Warren U.S. East Coast People,
Places, and Dirty Things Tour Saturday, September 18, 2004 to Sunday, September 26, 2004 ~ Boston, MA, New York City, NY, and Portland, ME ______________________________________________________________________ |
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Please, mother mercy, take me from
this place and the long winded curses I keep hearing in my head… |
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| My first order of business in Boston was to raid the Mass Cann rally down on the Common. By the time Laura and I arrived, things were dispersing. Those who were left were young and too stupid or stoned to care about standing in mud up their knees. The decent-sized crowd was huddled under a few tents, improvising on the bongos and counting down the seconds until the clock struck 4:20. We made our way through the concession stands and hacky sackers, managing to avoid the mud, political flyers, and mangy dogs tied to tent posts, and met up with a few of Laura’s friends. |
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I was immediately roped into what I soon came to
discover was common conversation along the east coast: Bush’s detriment to
the American way of life and the
Noise board. Being Canadian, I didn’t have an opinion on either,
so I half listened and made mental notes of how the rest of my week was
going to go. Of course, I knew that once Nikki got a hold of me,
anything I had planned was going right out the window. |
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If Laura was the yin of my journey, Nikki was the yang – a 24-hour-a-day pressure drop of reckless abandon and juvenile fun. Like Laura, Nikki was waving the flag in favor of my decision to head east, but only so that she could have a playmate, someone new to corrupt and tear shit up with. Nikki spent many a night preceding my trip warning me of the high voltage minefield I was going to step on to when I rolled into her neck of the woods. So it was with a sense of newfound anticipation that I made my way to the Abbey Lounge on my first night in town to meet up with Nikki and catch her in her element. I was standing outside the bar enjoying |
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one of my rum and wine flavored Old Port
Colts and a Bud Light I managed to smuggle out of the bar. Nikki came walking up. She had no idea what I
looked like, so I wanted to have some fun with it. “Nikki Core!” I
shouted. “I’m your biggest fan!” She shot me a quick glance and a sour
scowl. “Oh, hey,” she said, turning away. And that’s how I first met Nikki
in person. She later explained to me that she’s not the most cordial of
people before a show and when she was dumping a beer on my head only an
hour later, I took her word for it.
The train ride was long and I almost didn’t make it. The partying I did the night before with Rod and Nikki made the four-hour trip seem like eight. I was shaking, numb, and it felt like someone had split my head in two with an axe. I spent the entire train ride locked in the fetal position, cursing the other passengers for noticing my misery. I arrived at Penn Station just after 4:00 PM and immediately found a hotel, checked myself in, and went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later, showered, got dressed, and went out for dinner. I was feeling a bit better, but not much. I managed to get half of my food down. I knew that if I was going to survive the night, I had to get a few select items: a bottle of Advil, my Old Port Colts, a pack of gum, and some rolls of film. I went back to my hotel room and hung out, hoping to do some last minute recovering before I took off for the party.
My one night in New York City flew by in a flurry of kisses, colourful skin, flashes, and stiff drinks. My train was leaving the next morning at 8:30 so when 4:00 am rolled around I decided it was time to find Joanna, thank her for the wonderful time, and make my way back to my hotel. |
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“Oh, thank you for coming,” she said, giving me a hug. “No problem. I had a great time.” “What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked. “My train leaves in, like, four and a half hours,” I said. “Oh no. Is there any way you can leave later?” |
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“I could,” I said, curiously. “Why?” “Well, we have a photo shoot tomorrow and we need
some guys.” |
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The shoot was for a book being published by
Burning Angel. I ended up posing with two different girls, cradling one
girl on and around a pool table and playing human target for another girl
with a gun. I sat around the rest of the day soaking in the naked bodies
and free drinks, and watching Rancid front man-turned-photographer, Tim
Armstrong, work his magic behind the lens. Myself, Joanna, and a couple
other Burning Angels went out for dinner post shoot and then I made my way
back to Penn Station, boarded the train, and smiled all the way back to
Boston.
I lived like a king for eight days. Now, the days roll by and my tour becomes nothing but memory. I am slowly beginning to understand the importance of my journey and what it has meant to my ever-changing character. And while I’ve shared stories of hard times and pretty women, they’re really nothing more than sleazy fodder, which I dangle out there in order for you to understand that behind the bad ass boogie of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll lies a beating heart. And that heart belongs to a group of people who helped me understand that there are beautiful things in this world and that you never really know yourself until you push things to the limit and open yourself up to be raped and loved, strung out and reigned in. I can’t concede to certainty yet, but I feel as though I’m one step closer to accepting what may come. Flight 3158 leaving Boston. So I blow out the candle, and I put you to bed… To all the people who showed me the time of my
life: Laura (I miss your couch), Nikki (my favorite girl in the world),
Joanna (grace and beauty suit you well), Sleaze, Matt, Rod, V, Ness, Mike
Trash, Trevor, KariNations, Rockcity Crimewave, The Drags, The Erotics,
Fast Actin’ Fuses, Scarrie and Patty from The Glorious Stuntcocks, Rebecca
from Sugabomb, Mitch, Tim Armstrong, Bob, Tony and Dick at Manitoba’s, and
the Burning Angels Brooklyn, Presley, Barbie, Ali, Anouck, and Aurora.
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| Jeff and Erotics mainman, Mike Trash. Jeff and a briefly sedate Nikki Core. | |
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-Jeff Warren |
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There was a priest in the terminal in Buffalo. I
don’t normally pay attention to such things, but airport terminals offer
very little in the way of worthwhile visual stimuli and all you’re left to
do while you wait to board your plane is explore all facets of your shaky
sense of weirdo voyeurism, hoping that it’ll massage the aching cramps in
the middle of your mind. So, there he was, just a few seats over, and I
couldn’t help but notice that he was reading a book called The Art of
Spiritual Direction: Giving and Receiving Spiritual Guidance. I found this
quite amusing. The intense nature at which he immersed himself in the book
implied to me one of two things; that, as a man of the cloth, he was
uncertain about his role, perhaps even questioning it, or that, quite
simply, you’re never too old, or too experienced, to learn new things. If
he had lifted his eyes from his book for just a moment he might have seen,
a few seats down from him, an equally uncertain man, questioning and ready
to experience new things. Flight 3044 departing for Boston.
I landed in
Boston just after 3:00 PM on Saturday.
We had to fight our way through gray cloud and wet winds to get there,
some leftover tropical weather that had made its way North to, as I
strangely suspected, throw some sort of pathetic phallacy on the
situation. Laura, my hostess for the week, met me on the ground. I’d only
known her through low-resolution pictures and late night Internet chat
sessions but it was at her urging that I made the decision to embark on my
journey. Laura and I had befriended one another a year or two earlier
during my days with
For the most part, my time in Boston was divided
between the tranquility of Laura’s company and the chaos of Nikki’s. Laura
and I ate late breakfasts, walked along Revere beach, smoked weed, and
buried ourselves in the kind of complex conversation that comes from too
much thinking and a fervent desire to make sense of everything. Being with
Nikki, however, was like running with the bulls, an exhilarating rush
where you were spending all your energy on keeping one step ahead of
certain death. It was alcohol, cocaine, rock shows, loose tongues, weird
company, and reckless driving. It was on these burning motorcades with
Nikki that I had the opportunity to meet Rod, a crazy Brazilian who spends
as much time in the fast lane as Nikki. For a few nights in Boston, we
were an inseparable trio, taking our freak show to all the low places and
all the ugly faces. I think now that if I had have spent any more time
with either of those two, they would have packed me in a box and shipped
me home to my grieving mother. We managed to keep that one step, however,
but there were times we came extremely close to being trampled, and
there’s not a feeling like it anywhere.
Then there was New York City. I knew that if I
were going to make the most out of my journey, I would have to fully
explore every opportunity within proper distance to delve into the most
surreal and delicious scenarios I could wrestle up. That’s when
I’m not sure if it was the boredom of the hotel
room or my anticipation for the party, but I arrived at the bar a little
early. After many minutes of drinking alone, I began to worry that I was
at the wrong place. A few people had wandered in, but they didn’t look
like the kind of people you’d see at a Burning Angel party. I must have
been sending out a vibe because another lonely drinker pulled up a stool
and we both determined that we were at the right place, just fashionably,
or stupidly, early. Then the Angels started rolling in, half dressed, like
a gang of live wire fire-eaters, sexually charged and unstoppable, and
before long the place was packed and the party was on. I’ve thought about
how I could properly describe the events that unfolded, but there’s
nothing I can say that will capture the raunch n’ roll of that evening
that my camera didn’t already capture.
I woke up at 8:00 am, threw on my jeans, and ran
the block and a half to Penn Station to exchange my early train time for
one later that evening. I was to be at Manitoba’s for noon for the shoot.
I wasn’t exactly sure of all the details, what my role was going to be, or
how long things were going to take, but I was happy just to be a part of
the festivities. Like the night before, I let anticipation get the better
of me and arrived at the bar early. Since it was a Friday afternoon, the
bar was closed to the general public but open for the shoot, so I wandered
in. Manitoba’s is a cultural dive, old black and white rock photos and
certain filthy paraphernalia covering the walls. It’s the kind of place
where alcoholics and washed up rock stars go to drink, fight, and fuck –
the perfect place for a Burning Angel photo shoot, naturally. 
The rest of my journey was spent catching up with
old friends. I had dinner with Sleaze at
