Rollins - A Mad Dash

Table of Contents

Thanks: Carol, Heidi, Road Manager Ward,
Mitch Bury of Adams Mass.

Back Cover Photo: Barry Broman

For Ginger, always.

JOE COLE 04.10.61 - 12.19.91

01-01-08 LA CA: 2307 hrs. I am leaving town in about ten days. I have been here for a couple of days now and cant wait to get going. Today was a waste. I worked on radio and other stuff until about 0300 hrs. and then fell out. I was hoping to get up early and get things done before I had to go to the station and do the radio show. I ended up sleeping all day. Now and then I would wake up and try to get going but I stayed down. I guess I needed it. I am familiar with this kind of sleep, something in me just tells me to keep sleeping. Finally, Engineer Xs phone call woke me up around 1630 hrs. I have to get on a good sleep schedule this week to be effective at the office. Also, I need to get my head around the upcoming shows. If I think about them too much now, Ill get too wired to sleep.

01-02-08 LA CA: 0425 hrs. Got up at 0314 hrs. I am done with sleep for now. I will head to the office soon and get things going there. I hate waking up depressed but it happens more and more as I get older. Things will be better when I am back on tour and onstage every night. Its the duty to the show that keeps me on my feet. Its something to serve and something to try and improve every night. When I am not on the road doing shows or working on something goal oriented, I feel useless. Its a problem. I will use this week as preparation for the shows coming up and beat myself into shape so by the time I hit stage in Sweden I will be good to go. I know that none of this stuff matters to anyone but me. If this is what it takes to do good shows, then so be it.

2001 hrs. Glad to be back at the house. I worked all day at the office and got a lot done but didnt want to be there or deal with things. I did phone press and Heidi and I filled a lot of orders and after that was all done, I took the mail to the post office and then came back here. I had a fantastic headache so I laid down and slept for a couple of hours. I shouldnt be doing stuff like that but at least I feel a little more even now. If I work out, Ill feel better. I have to get my head together.

2333 hrs. Done with workout and everything else I can get done tonight. I got a couple of letters from a soldier who doesnt like me because I am against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He said I am dead to him. Its sad when these guys buy into the bullshit. I just hope he doesnt end up dead to his family.

Earlier today I got a letter from a woman who has been writing me for over a decade now. She never puts a return address on anything she sends. She lives somewhere in Germany. She has sent me everything from Chistmas cards to short stories she has written that has the two of us as main characters. We are always in love. The letters always start with, Henry, I love you! Over the years, I dont know how many letters she has sent me. At one point she actually came here and camped out near the office. Carol met her at the door but luckily I was out of town. She sent 500 Euros to me last week. We kept it here in case she ever makes her return address known, we can send it back. In the letter she said that the money was for the hotel room I would need since I was coming to visit her. Of course, theres no address or any way to contact her. I guess shes insane. I came across one of her letters today, very sad. She sent stencils of tattoos she had just put on her body. The tattoos are of my name in block letters. She put them on both arms and legs. I imagine shell send photos of them at some point. As far as I know, she has never come to any of my shows. I dont know what her deal is. I get the idea she lives at home, perhaps too unstable to live on her own.

01-04-08 LA CA: 2228 hrs. I kept moving tonight and stayed awake. Lately, I have been falling into a couple hour evening power nap that leaves me slow and inefficient. So tonight I started packing, that always gets me revved up, I like the ritual of it. I have a closet that is devoted to the pack. I have years worth of accumulated adaptors, chargers, whatever else. Getting the pack going allows me to start focusing on the work that is to come. Soon it will be a show a night like it was a few weeks ago. It will take me a night to get back into that mode but Ill get there. I will get in it and stay in it. There are shows every month for the next five months. There is no choice but to totally commit to them and what it takes to deliver. It will take a few shows to get back to the hardness I had by the last week of shows on the first leg of the tour last year. I have not been off the road all that long so it will come back fast. I am flying out to the first show a couple of days early so I can be alone and get my head around all I have to do this year.

I drove down to the grocery store tonight and saw a full grown coyote on Hollywood Blvd., he looked really confused. I dont think he had been hit by a car or anything but it kept wandering off the sidewalk and into the street and back again, barely getting out of the way of oncoming cars, like he didnt understand what they were. I have never seen a coyote that close to a main street before. Where I live, they come to the quieter streets when they are really hungry, perhaps its the garbage cans or peoples pets that attracts them. I think it would be great to see them all over Los Angeles. It would be awesome to see coyotes attacking parking police with a bunch of people standing by applauding. Death by coyote, could be cool. I remember once I was walking with Joe Cole and he saw a woman writing up a parking ticket for a car and he started going off on her, telling her that her job was wrong. It was great. She came on with some line about how he had to be quiet and he said that he was within his rights and he kept yelling, it was really intense. She just stood there and took it. I dont know what set him off like that. I guess he didnt like parking cops.

A woman wrote me tonight asking about Joe and how I deal with the fact that hes dead. She told me that she had suffered a miscarriage and even though it was years ago she cant get over it. She had a breakdown and had to give custody of her two children to her ex-husband. Its sad that shes in that much pain. I think it would be scary to love something that much. I dont know how parents let their kids out of their sight.

Rain is battering the roof and Friday night is almost over. I will finish the pack tomorrow so I dont have to think about it any more. I am out of here on 01-10. This week was hard with getting back here, the screwed up sleep and the depression but I got through it. If you sit still and let the world climb all over you, it will break you. It will humiliate you and make you timid. I dont live in harmony with life. I live in spite of it. I live in opposition to it. I live to break it. I dont want to be in love. I dont want to breed. I dont want to settle down. I want to wear down the parts until they break and then dump it. Earlier tonight I was looking at the bookshelves next to my bed and all the books on them that I have not touched for so many months because I have been reading up on these fucking cowards in the White House. Just looking at them made me feel like I had gone from black and white to color. I pulled down one of my volumes of Francis Bacon prints and looked at them for a few minutes. His paintings of people are how I see them. He is my favorite artist. Theres a lot of good books on those shelves: Fitzgerald, Jarry, Breton, Lem, Gide, Proust, Cendrars, Gogol, Houellebecq. I have it in my head that by reading fiction or looking at my art books, I am giving the fuckers a minute to breathe. I think I am going to read from some of those books this weekend. Fuck it.