I'm Still Here

Yes it's true. I have not vanished from the face of the planet (does the planet have a face?) and the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated (I'm just a little bit dead).

In all honesty, I have just been really busy: Miley gigs, recording sessions, bingo night at the Eagles' Club... You know how it is. And the sloppy, cyanide-filled icing on the cake is I recently acquired a cold. I realize that I got a bit of a reputation as Mr. Sick Face last year (while sloshing in the petrie dish we call a "tour bus"), but this year, I haven't gotten sick since the end of said tour in February. So let's look at it like "celebrating eight months sober...from viruses."

But I assure you, the tap has not dried up (okay that sounds a little gross segueing from virus talk). New blog entries coming your way shortly. Find something to hold on to. We'll pull through this together.

Fair To Middling, IMO

The show at Genghis went well enough. A bunch of folks from the tour showed up, including Jaco, Candice and Gabi. We had a great time, and my voice held up fairly well, despite the fact that I was totally stuffed up and feeling pretty icky.

However...I just spoke with my cousin, who is a doctor. He says he thinks from my symptoms that I might have walking pneumonia. This is not as surprising as I wish it was, as Kay has this, and Jason from Mileyworld had to leave the tour because of walking pneumonia.

I'm going to see a doctor this week. Keep your fingers crossed.

When Life Gives You Lemons...Don't Drink The Water!!!

Oh boy. First hotel glasses, now this.

Will There Be Liftoff?

Tomorrow night is my Genghis Cohen gig. But so far, I have no voice. My doctor put me on antibiotics, and I definitely feel like I'm getting better. No voice yet, though.

Will I be able to sing tomorrow? I've got a bunch of people coming, and I don't want to disappoint them. This is stressful.

I guess I'll chug tea all day and night.

Falling Down

Well, as you all know, I got sick again near the end of the tour. In continuing the perfect symmetry with the beginning of the tour, this sick has blown into a full-fledged sinus infection, just like it did before.

I've been getting increasingly sick this week, and it all came to a head last night when I woke around 3am and had to go the bathroom, and I blacked out. But it happened very slowly so I was able to put myself on the floor before I fell on the floor. No Kay Hanley incident here.

Anyway, after completely losing my voice, I was getting nervous that I wasn't going to be able to sing at my show this Friday, so I called my doctor and got some antibiotics prescribed. Hopefully, we'll get this thing knocked out in the next two days. I already feel quite a bit better.

The moral of the story: sometimes, drugs are awesome.

9:45 pm

Oops. In all the hustle and bustle of the show, I forgot to write an entry right before the show. But I will make it up to you, as I took copious amounts of pics and video during the show.

It was an energetic, exciting show. I tried my best to forget about my achy, tired body.

And there were pranks. They DID put up our picture on the screen, during the end of Nobody's Perfect and Miley cracked up. They also handed out Steve Martin heads on sticks and the first three rows put them over their faces.

And now we're all exhausted, sweaty and happy. Everybody's hugging everybody else and saying goodbyes. It's pretty depressing, but a lot of us are hoping to get together in LA.

For now though, we party.

7:12 pm

The masseuse said if I get worked on while I'm sick, it will make everything worse. Forget that. I'll just dose up on Advil.

7:02 pm

Feeling really achy right now. Awaiting a masseuse. That will make everything better.

We have a really cool, vibey massage room tonight. Candlelight, waterfalls...the only thing ruining it is the giant TV blaring Hannah Montana.

12:09 pm

Waking up. I couldn't sleep again, partially cause I was thinking about all the stuff on the bus I have to pack, and partially because I couldn't breathe. I took a decongestant and some Melatonin (medicate!) and eventually fell into sleep some time after 7am.

Now I'm just barely awake, and somehow my muscle aches are even worse.

Oh well. Lots going on today. The world won't stop for my flu! Now I just have to convince my body to roll out of bed.

In the King's Thrall

Tonight's show in Jacksonville was a hard one. We were all very tired and I was having trouble just standing up. I've gotten extremely sick (but of course!) and I'm currently in the throes of King Fluvius!

Many of you have been asking if I'll continue blogging after the tour ends. Most definitely! I'll still be here, doing my thing. I hope you'll stay with me.

It's 4:30AM, and we've just arrived in Miami. The sun is rising, so that means it's time to get some shut eye.

But first, here's a quick pic of that sweet plaque (click on pic to enlarge):

Flu-rida

My shiny new flu has kicked it into high gear. And why not, cause we've just arrived in Florida. As you may remember, I was very sick last time we were in Florida, and this feels like the exact same flu. Muscle aches, terrible sore throat, etc. Not a good time. But Candice's barbecue for cast and crew is tonight, so I've gotta pull it together in a few hours.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So that was that. Aly and AJ are gone. Everlife has joined us. We were definitely saddened to say goodbye to A&A's band. They were very nice guys and we were just getting to know them. Notice I only mention the band. It's not that A&A were mean, they just barely said one word to any of us. Whatever.

Everlife all seem to be genuine, sweet and kind people. We're looking forward to our tiny sliver of time with them.

We played Austin last night and Lafayette tonight. Now we're in New Orleans. And it's Mardi Gras! But we've all gotten sick again, so we won't be going out.

Yes, it's true. Stacy is still getting better, but Kay came down with a nasty flu within the last day or so, and now Jaco and I are feeling extremely blecchy.

But it's actually kind of great. Poetic. We were sick at the beginning, we're sick at the end. Oh, how I DO like symmetry.

Why You Should Never Drink Out of Hotel Glasses

I used to make my little Airborne cocktail every morning in my hotel room, in one of the cute little hotel glasses. At the beginning of the tour. Before I was enlightened. Before someone emailed me this video. I highly recommend you watch this if you travel at all. (To turn off the music, go to the bottom of this page and pause the player.)



Suddenly it doesn't seem so strange that I've been sick so long.

I'm Not A Real Doctor But They Call Me Doctor Worm

So I saw a doctor in Lexington. It was less of a diagnosis and more of a guesstimation. He glanced up my nose and mumbled, "Allergies. You have allergies."

I've had allergies all my life and they've never made me cough up a gizzard like this.

He prescribed some antihistamine nasal spray called Astilin (catchy!) and an antibiotic. Seemed pretty standard for him. In fact, he had a little cough of his own and was taking Astilin himself. He also prescribed it to Kay. Cure-all, anyone?

But whatever, I'll try anything once. Well, okay that's not true at all. There are a lot of things I won't try: squid, cocaine, ritual blood sacrifices... Astilin, however, is fine.

And surprise of surprises, it's been helping. I sprayed an unpleasant spritz into my nostrils once last night and once this morning and I think the clouds are clearing in SinusLand. I'm still coughing like a seasoned smoker with a deathwish, though. I'll let you know in a few days.

Kay warned me against taking the antibiotic, cause I've already taken two courses of antibiotics since I've been on this tour and I don't know, my head would probably explode if I took another.

Best to be safe with these things.

Last night we stayed at The Cincinnatian. It was really cool, but in creepy way. The lobby was all decked out for the holidays with soul-less little animatronic people welcoming us. In the room, somebody left me a cookie...just sort of sitting out:


There was also Christmas music playing. How charming, right? Except the volume was so low that I didn't notice it at first and then I thought I was hearing a choir inside my brain cells. It took me a few minutes to discover where it was coming from. Clock radio.

I thought this was sweet though:


And I really liked the giant window:

Pinned Under The Weather

Chicago was lovely. And cold.

My first order of business was to get some heavy outerwear. Just the walk to H&M in my old thin coat was excruciating. The heavily-bundled walk back was cake, though.

I saw my dear friend Kurt, from high school. We talked politics and he enlightened me on even more horrible things our government is doing, and how I should vote for Ron Paul.

And we were off to Indianapolis. And I got sick...some more. Which made that show very challenging. As in, "I hope I can stay on my feet for this next song" challenging.

As King of the Land of Obvious, I'd like to remind you that I did not intend on spending this entire tour sick. I'd like to think I was getting better, other than the Cough That Never Dies.

But now I've adopted this brand new cold/flu "friend." Possibly happened during that H&M walk. I'm trying to drink lots of liquids and sleep and spend this day off in Columbus getting healthy. The whole Jonas Brothers backing band is sick too. Solidarity!

To add injury to insult, I sliced my finger in a big way, which has been fun to slam all over the keyboards. Luckily, Kay lent me some stylish Band-Aids:

James and John Part Two

So it turns out, the other night after my little run-in with John C. Reilly, Jaime ended up hanging out with him in his hotel room along with band members Mike Viola, formerly of the Candy Butchers (of whom I'm also a big fan) and Inara George (who we just interviewed for the Samantha Murphy Show in August). Small world. Apparently, they're touring as a band, promoting the Judd Apatow-produced movie "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" (which I saw back in July - funny stuff).

Why do I always miss the good parties? Oh right, cause I go to bed early.

Don't Eat The Lobster

The Little Rockers were pretty rowdy. We had a great show, despite the hardships.

The hardships being: Stacy (drummer/musical director) and Charlie (road manager) both enjoyed some chow at yesterday evening's aforementioned Benihana experience. And then they proceeded to throw up all night. It was the lobster. They both looked like ghosts this morning and were sick all day.

Stacy had to keep a giant trash bag by his drumset during the show, just in case. And I only saw Charlie once, which is very unusual, cause he gives us our show calls ("twenty minutes," "five minutes," etc). Hopefully he was napping somewhere.

Also, I'm still sick. It just never ends. I occasionally go to sing and let out a hearty cough instead...which I try to play off as a laugh.

But at least I don't have food poisoning.

The Tensile Strength Of A Good Attitude

I think I've reached my limit. As I mentioned earlier, my flu has progressed to a strong cold, which in my opinion, is a definite upgrade. I'm not a fan of congestion, but I can definitely handle it. I've had worse.

Well, tonight, like every other night, we were all sleeping soundly in our bunks on the bus. We were driving through Florida, up to Nashville, and we went through some severe pressure changes. When I woke up...

Yup. We're back to that. Sinus infection. But now both ears won't open.

I thought I just had to be careful on planes. Stay awake during takeoff and landing. Yawn. Chew gum. I learned my lesson. But apparently, I'm just supposed to never sleep. Anywhere. Ever. Okay, fine. I'm taking notes.

I'm not happy about this, though. I can barely hear a thing, and I need these ears! But let's not misplace our anger. I'm upset at you, altitude!

Like A Gazelle With Post Nasal Drip

Okay. It was rough. My nose didn't stop running all night, so I put a Kleenex box backstage behind the drum platform and every time there was a bit of a gap between songs, I booked it back there, bent down (so as not to be seen) and blew my nose heartily. Quite graceful.

Barry Gibb was backstage with us, which totally blew my mind. It took every fiber of my being to keep from busting into "How Deep Is Your Love."

J.Lo didn't show. Nor did Marc Antony. But guess who did?

No, really. Guess! Okay, you'll never guess.

Vanilla Ice.

...For real.

Still Sick In Sunrise

I've moved past the fever and chills. Today is Stomach Disaster Day. At least I'm moving forward. I feel so sick I could fall down, but I've got to ignore it because we've got a show to do! My main concern is that my nose will run while I'm on stage and I won't have any Kleenexes. Or that I'll cough a lot. Not really so rock n' roll is it?

And here (in Sunrise, Florida) tonight, we're expecting JLo, Marc Antony and Barry Gibb in the audience. So I'd better not fall down.