Caravan of Pain by Scott Alderman

Author:Scott Alderman [Coker, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scott Alderman

Chapter Six

Puya, We Hardly Knew Ya

Sometimes when I would pitch the idea for Tattoo the Earth, I would tell people that my vision of it was so real that I could close my eyes, stand in it, and describe it in detail. I could see it clearly, right from the first moment I had the idea: all the sights, sounds, and smells of it all the way down to my bones. Now I was actually standing smack in the middle of our inaugural show, and while it looked, sounded, and smelled like I’d imagined, it felt nothing like I thought it would. However it went—and there were no guarantees we would get through it in one piece financially or physically—I did feel a sublime sense of accomplishment. I had gone from being one of a million bullshitters hustling some fantastical idea to someone who had seen it through and made it happen. Sixteen thousand people bought a ticket to see our first show. I was looking at them; they were bumping up against me as I wandered about. Under a blistering sunny sky in the middle of a horse track in Oregon, I was standing in the middle of Tattoo the Earth.

But other than this sense of accomplishment, a feeling that I knew from experience was fleeting, I felt nothing but exhaustion and resentment. We were dinged and edgy, hemorrhaging money, with the future of the thing we’d built in constant doubt. Everything had been a struggle, and it never felt like we were ever actually “there.” Even then, at our first date, I was still expecting something catastrophic to derail us. I tried to clear my mind of what had been lost getting there and all the minefields we still had to navigate. Nevertheless, I tried to enjoy the moment. Everywhere I turned, though, there were constant reminders of how fucked up everything had gotten, starting with the main stage.

Booth had taken the logo that I’d drawn in my basement—and that was still a trip to see adorning all the swag—and designed a gothic, heavy metal version with red swatches and sharp edges to hang over the stage. I’d approved the designs when he showed them to me, and I thought it was cool that we’d have this imposing logo dominate the stage. But Booth got the measurements wrong, and what was supposed to tower over the stage actually looked like a postage stamp at the top of a legal-sized envelope; you could barely see it from the back of the field. Booth also messed up the two giant scrims with Maori heads that covered the speaker side-fills. The design, which, again, made sense on paper, was actually fine gray print on a black background, and you could barely see it. There were a few times during the day, when the sun hit it just right, that you could sort of see it, but mostly it looked like two black scrims with illegible, faint gray sketching on them. I forgave Booth, for all of it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.