Don't you let that deal go down...

It didn't take long today for me to figure out that this show was turning into my own personal version of the Bataan death march. I have gone over my assorted aches and pains on this blog countless times ad nauseam; ankle, wrist, knee, heel, I get to add a couple new maladies to the list today. Today ranks up there with one of my toughest show days ever.

I guess I had my first inkling of how things were turning when I approached a familiar face I had seen sitting in the fancy black mercedes in the parking lot. When he entered my booth, I told him that I had seen him around on the circuit and I got a nasty snarl, asking me if I was a cop or something? I let him know that he could hit the road and he cordially wished me the same.

Anybody who has ever sat at a blackjack table knows that you can neither win or lose forever. I tried to tell myself that many years ago after losing 21 big hands in a row in Vegas, which included eight consecutive dealer black jacks. People ask, "Why didn't you get up from the table?" Those people are not gamblers my friends. A gambler knows that in the darkest disaster we are only one hand away from riding out the storm, with Lady Luck perched on our shoulder. But the other truth is that some times you just can't catch a card. Fickle fate conspires to thwart us amid dark lines of spiteful in-congruency.

My cold or flu or whatever it is just beat the shit out of me today. People no more wanted to enter the foreboding booth with the black cloud in the corner than they would have welcomed a new venereal disease. I couldn't stop hacking and coughing all day while I heard the ching ching of my neighbors' cash registers pouring salt into my wound. My temporal headache has been pounding all day like a randy jackhammer.

This is not the ideal time for me to get my teeth kicked in, it has been a successful month but I have leveraged like a mofo and my ass is dangling perilously close to the fire. Once again.

I see no purpose in giving you a complete blow by blow. There are two days left. I am running a fever and may have a bit of strep. I guess that it is conceivable that things could turn around somehow. I have to remember the Norman Mailer quote about minor defeats not necessarily turning into large transcendental collapses. But I feel like Casey Jones heading over the cliff. I want to get through the weekend without a total collapse. But maybe this is the trip my ticket gets punched?

I ended up throwing up in my hands several times near closing time at 6 o'clock, the tangelo I had eaten this morning presented neatly back in my cupped palms for inspection. Had made continual trips to the head for paper towels to catch the mucus that has now completely inundated my asthmatic lungs. Oh yeah, I forgot my asthma medication too.

I got out to my car and saw that a flock of pterodactyl sized geese had peppered it with ass grenades. I drove in the dark night to a gasoline station car wash, paid the high fee for gas only to find out that the car wash was broken. Went to Pollo Loco for chicken soup and had a woman screaming at her fat daughter behind me, normally I could tune it out but I just scrammed. Avoid unnecessary confrontation. You are having a bad trip. It will end one day. I promise. This could have been the day I went all Michael Douglas in Falling down.

I almost got hit leaving the parking lot and took the wrong turn and went north on the freeway to some dark street in Isla Vista. I stopped at a CVS to buy Nyquil and Sambucol and a mexican guy buying tequila took pity on me and let me scan his rewards card. I am obviously at the end of my rope.

I made it to the hotel got the key to the new room, and breathlessly confessed to stealing breakfast. I got to the new room and used the commode, which was broken of course, my tragic contribution listing like a beached italian cruise ship. I managed to jury rig the thing finally and empty the poor life boat and then proceeded to jump in the bath tub, which I found had a leak and covered the floor in an inch of water somehow. I could have changed rooms again but instead will take all of the cold medication I can muster, grind my teeth and grab my gideon's bible for an old fashioned winner take all lucha libre with jehovah or maybe one of his saintly minions.

At some point, not having yarrow sticks, I found an online i ching site and got the hexagram about the wanderer with all of his possessions being holed up in a hotel and the importance of keeping my nose clean. 56 to 50 with the second line changing. So I guess next up is the cauldron, or the frying pan. Goody. Can't wait to see what happens next...I'll be the guy hiding underneath the covers.