Interlude

Inclement weather predicted; the language barrier, and why we love it; a legal disclaimer.

Sunset in Bordeaux

The band is bundling up for the next leg of our tour, heading into Switzerland, Poland and Germany. I don’t know if it’s officially winter yet, but it’s pretty freakin’ cold here in Southern France. Put the soup on the stove, people of the East, we’ll see you in a few days. As for now, this post can be considered filler material for fans hungry for news about the band; an interlude, if you will. This week’s theme: linguistics.

The language barrier probably shouldn’t be looked at as something to be overcome while on tour, because its an unending source of humor and enlightenment. Inept linguists such as myself can’t be expected to appreciate all the subtleties of French, Portugese and German, so we learn to enjoy the failures of language as much as the successes. Plus, we can blab away carelessly in our crude American tongue and not offend the folks standing next to us on the subway. These are a couple of random stories about people in Groundation being misunderstood on our travels. Also, before you read any further, I need to remind you to read and agree to the terms and conditions which are to be found at the end of the post. Thanks, folks!

The Nightliner orbitting Hagwart's Discount Flophouse of Witchraft and Wizardry a.k.a. The Paragon Hotel; Birmingham, England

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Poet, novelist, philospher. And Scientologist?

Monica is the driver of the Nightliner, our huge black tour bus that sleeps seventeen people or so, also known affectionately by the name of a certain evil space station currently under trademark to George Lucas. Monica is a super pro, about as laid back and wise to the ways of the road as you can be. She’s handy with her tools and she’s multilingual, which you gotta be on tour in Europe. She’s from Germany, and yesterday at breakfast we were talking about some of the interesting and highly-precise words that exist in German, and also my unrealistic dreams for future Groundation tours.

“I hope to eventually have my own tour bus,” I said. “I’ll go everywhere with my family and my own chef, and a masseuse. Everyone else will have their own bus. What’s that German word, again? Woogiecluckcluck-”

“Wolkenkuckucksheim,” said Monica. “It literally means ‘cloud cuckoo land’, and you’re living in it.” She laughed. “You see? Germans can be funny, too!”

“I know,” I said. “I read some Goëthe. He’s hilarious, though maybe that’s not the right word for it…”

 “Did you know he was a Scientologist?”

 “Goëthe? Are you sure about that, Monica?”

 “Yeah, that’s the word, right?”

 “I think you mean he was a scientist.”

“Yeah, yeah, a scientist. What did I say?”

“You said Goëthe was a Scientologist.”

 “Ach! You better not tell anyone!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t.”

 “The German people would kill me!”

Aurore is the former press manager for Music Action, the company that runs our tours in France. She did a phenomenal job helping us launch the successful series of runs that began here five years ago. Since then, she’s moved on to cooking school, and we had the privilege to enjoy her craft while in Bordeaux. She reminded me of something which occurred on our first European tour when she tried to help our road manager Hossein when he asked her to help get him a new bed sheet.

“The bed sheet?” asked Aurore, looking rather concerned.

“Yeah,” said Hossein. “Could you tell them at the desk?”

“Uh, Okay.” Aurore went down to the hotel desk, but she came back empty-handed after five minutes. “Alright,” she said. “They said they were very sorry. Do you want to change rooms?”

“A new room? I just need a bed sheet!”

“Oh. Okay. What’s a bed sheet?”

“What did you tell them, Aurore?”

“I told them you had a lit de merde*”

 “What does that mean?” asked Hossein.

 “Never mind,” said Aurore.

 *In French, literally a ‘bed of shit’, or ‘a shitty bed’.

Due to space concerns, I’ll have to save the one about how someone mistook the word ‘synagogue’ for the word ‘snuggle’ for another time. Hoping to hear from y’all soon. “Diesel” Dave Chachere.

Important: Please read and accept the following terms and conditions before proceeding.

I understand that the above aimless vignettes, shaggy dog stories, balmy anecdotes, screeds, nonsequiturs, unflattering characterizations, questionable fact checking and grammatical accuracy, lapses of dignity, failures in self-patrolling of the author’s ego, half-intentioned or even quarter-intentioned innuendos and other missteps and immoderations are to be duly ignored as such. Rather, the author is to be recognized for his overall worth as a human being, the profound and nuanced character of his intellect and whatnot, and is not to be dismissed as some kind of shady Rick Steeves.

By this I solemnly swear: ___, I the undersigned.

Just had to do that for the lawyers! Thanks again, Ciao!