June 21, 23, 24 - 2002 - Lisbon
June 21, 2002 SFO to Heathrow
Mid-flight to Heathrow from SFO, then from Heathrow to Lisbon, to begin a solo tour of Portugal to promote a lyric book and an AC/DC covers album. My health is good and I got plenty of sleep this week, despite all the stress from coordinating this tour. The first week of the tour is to promote the AC/DC covers album; rescheduled because I'd cancelled last September's tour, due to September 11. San Francisco was overcast when I left.
June 23, 2002, Ibis Hotel, Lisbon
Got into the airport around 7 p.m. and was happy to see Monique waiting for me. We went to the British airways ticket counter to deal with a luggage problem, then we went outside, where she left me at the curb while she dashed off to get the van. It was good to be out of the airplane, the sun felt warm on my face and the seaside air was so refreshing, especially after the last sixteen hours of stale, dead, airplane air.
Monique helped me get checked into the hotel. Then we drove up into the hills, through the old, narrow brick streets of Lisbon; tiny European cars zipping through the streets like it was The Indianapolis 500. After international flights, the common things happening on earth, always seem surreal to me; the pace of motor vehicles in Europe always seems especially precarious - the wheels just inches from the sidewalks - something I've never gotten used to in all of my European travel.
We went to a restaurant that was high up on a hill, and sat in the patio area, with a view that overlooks a bridge that looks just like the Golden Gate. We ate seafood, barbeque, olives, and got caught up. I'd not seen Monique since the summer of 2001; she would be my tour manager and for the next week, getting me around, taking me to concerts and bookstores.
We talked about her job and what she'd been doing. She told me about a new boyfriend, and I told her about a new girlfriend. Then we talked about friends in common: the guys in my band, her friends Amalie and Natalia, who the rest of my band and I spent time with the last time we played Portugal.
Afterwards, we went out and saw a band from Belgium called Deus, pronounced "Deeosh" in Portuguese. Deus was a band I was vaguely familiar with. I may have seen them in the past somewhere. Last night, they played a five-thousand capacity venue called The Coliseum and I’d say it was more than half full. As they played their very well-rehearsed set, I sat amazed as the audience went wild at the intro of every song. When Deus broke into a European-rap-type song, I watched three women break into a frantic dance. Deus hadn't hit the radar in the USA, hardly at all, was my guess. Wait. I just remembered. I saw them at Slim's in San Francisco. There were maybe fifty people there.
After the concert, we met up with Monique's new boyfriend and did the usual European nighttime routine; the never-ending barhopping. I was getting exhausted, but tried to not show it, as to not be rude. We left the last bar we were in and walked through the narrow streets, back to the car. Then we drove through the bumpy roads, back to the hotel.
I took notice of how much Lisbon resembled New Orleans. There’s a spookiness. One street reminded me of Canal Street, one of St. Charles, one of Pirate's Alley, except Lisbon has hills. We dropped Monique's boyfriend off (he wanted to meet some friends at another bar) and she brought me back to the hotel, dropped me off, and I waved goodbye.
Ibis Hotel, June 24, 2002, 2:00 a.m.
A lonely European night, where I lay awake, alert as a battlefield soldier, in this thin-sheeted, Kleenex box-sized hotel bed, while the rest of the world sleeps. I heard a lot stories about how to avoid jetlag and none of them worked. One guy suggested I drink my own urine, but I never tried it.
I got in from the concert last night, fell asleep until 5 o’clock this afternoon, and called Monique about a half hour after I woke up. She and her friend Natalia came by to pick me up, and then we went and picked up Amelia.
We drove up the ocean highway, from Lisbon to Sintra; the town where my band stayed last time we were here. Looking at the scenery, I remembered my last trip to Lisbon. Our tour ended here and we stuck around for a few days. It seemed as if I’d been up and down this highway a hundred times; a scenic, seaside drive, two ancient prisons along the way and some stunning old houses with vines growing all over them.
We went to a restaurant on the beach and had paella. I was puzzled when the waiter came over and set a colorful, thermos-sized can of Lipton iced tea on the table. It struck me as odd, a drink that large, in Europe. After five minutes, when I noticed that no one had reached for it, I asked them why it was there.
'It’s for napkins,' Monique said.
'Oh,' I said, noticing a napkin sticking out of the side. They laughed. It was a napkin dispenser. Everything in Portugal is an advertisement. Pretty much like most places. The wind blew things off of the table, so we went inside. I was getting tired and we were running out of things to talk about.
We dropped Natalia off at her place. Then Amelia, Monique and I drove around Lisbon, sightseeing at night. Monique was very social; she liked showing me around, but it wasn't necessary. I attempted to go to yet another bar with them, overlooking a view, but it was so cold and uncomfortable that I asked them to drop me off. I needed to decompress.