Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: Lessons from the Road

Greetings from Pontiac, Michigan. It’s points to hand right here, by the complete and total economic meltdown.

They’re filming a movie in Pontiac right now – the remake of “Red Dawn”. This time, it’s the Chinese that take over, and (spoiler alert!) I WATCHED THEM BLOW UP A CAR TODAY. THEY TOTALLY BLEW UP A CAR.

The tour has gotten better, no thanks to me – the kindness of fans and friends has made all the difference. I’m still really tired, but not as bad as I was last week. It got so bad that the performances began to suffer. Cardinal Rule: be tough, but don’t get so tired that you start to suck. (Sorry, New York.)

I don’t really have any life lessons this week, other than to let you know that I hit 26 states plus D.C., Ontario, and Quebec in September, and I think that as a general rule, you should not try to see more than half of America in one month. It’s a really big country, and you won’t have time to stop at the Sod Museum (Nebraska), Touchdown Jesus (Ohio) or the continent’s biggest fake-snow ski slope (Virginia). In fact, I looked at my oil change tag today and it said that I was due for an oil change on December 19th or 881 MILES AGO.

In fact, any life lessons that I have learned this month probably don’t apply to you, unless you are a trucker. That said, I have a job to do here at WSR, so applicable or not, here are the things I’ve learned from my surroundings in September.

• Pad Thai is not road food. The rice, while stickier than Uncle Ben’s, is still not sticky enough to stay on the fork while you take a left.

• Jeans only. I tried dress pants this time, and literally 12 days into the tour, I have no less than three seam-pops. They’re not even emo-tight. Just regular old (breakable) dress pants.

• If you’re getting sick, swallow a clove of garlic, 3x a day. I don’t know why it works, but it totally does.

• If your travel-mate is getting sick, stop swallowing the garlic.

• Dead skunk sort of smells like garlic.

• 1 mic, 1 violin bow, 1 pair of sunglasses, one pick-holder, and a harmonica later, you should really know how to dummy-check by now. (Mic and harmonica recovered.)

• There is a science to parallel parking. Literal math. I learned it on this trip.

• Even if you are FROM the U.S., you will have a harder time getting back into the country than leaving it.

• A pillow to sit on while you drive is worth its weight in whatever currency is required.

• Worst combination burp ever: garlic, monster energy drink, coffee. I dare you to top it. Dare you.

• Always budget for toll roads.

• (For people who grew up in Texas) only try to hold your breath going through the Chesapeake tunnel if you are not driving.

Seriously, that is a wealth of information that you will probably never use. I’m driving home tonight after the show (Pontiac to Nashville) and I get to see my wife and kid for a little over a week. That’s maybe the most heartfelt lesson here – no matter how much you’ve been away from your wife before, it’s different when you leave your kid for the first time. That’s been maybe the hardest part of all this.

See you guys next week, from the comforts of my own home.

-Levi

Related posts

1. Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: On Tour
2. Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: A Brief Introduction to my Madness
3. Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: Stretching Your Personal Skills for Professional Gain
4. Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: From a Starbucks in Portland
5. Diary of a Wage Slave Rebel: The Truth About Working For Yourself