Promo Tour Day 10

Thursday, September 13th, 2007 CORPUS CHRISTI


Today finds us waking up to a new day in Corpus Christi, Texas. It’s also the first day of Ramadan and Sayeed (the scholar) is Muslim. Ramadan is the month long religious holiday followed by Muslims the world over. They give up food and the basics like sex, during the daylight hours to show Allah their dedication, devotion, and will-power. Since Sayeed has decided to follow Ramadan while on tour (which is difficult), in solidarity, I have decided to follow it with him. Even though I am not Muslim (I can not give up pre-marital sex, and refuse to be a hypocritical believer), I usually follow Ramadan each year—except last year, somehow I missed it until it was half over, and chose to follow it with Sayeed. Me and him against the world…

I have a wicked bad cold, and feel like shit today, but we press on. We posted up at gas stations along the freeway (shout out to Stripes) selling CDs to patrons gassing up their vehicles, at least until the gas station workers call the cops and we are chased off the premises.

Around 4 pm we head over to the Padre Staples Mall to the FYE for our in-store. It’s close to 100 degrees out today, and the mall is fucking empty. The Mall is in the process of renovating, so there’s no tile on the floors and the ceilings are all ripped out, making the Mall appear to be terribly ghetto. We’re pretty careful where we park today because out window is in a weakened state.

Last night while at the club (I stayed back in the hotel fighting this cold), someone tried to pry the back passenger window out of the truck, shattering it completely. Only, the truck is wrapped so the strong plastic wrap held the shattered window in place, just allowing it to bow slightly.

Our next stop tonight is McAllen, so Reese spent the morning calling salvage yards in McAllen, Brownsville, and Pharr so we could cop a new back passenger window when we arrive tonight, or first thing tomorrow morning if we arrive too late. Hooray for Google, as it really helped us in locating this new window ($100).

The guys ate a lil sumpthin’ at the food court in the Mall, except Sayeed and me. We will eat when the sun goes down tonight. If I get hungry enough, I will check out the NOI website for an official sunset time….

This cold is kicking my ass. The NyQuil is making me feel worse today, so I stopped and grabbed DayQuil at one of the gas stations before they called the cops on us. By the way, we dropped to number 8 on the Billboard Rap Singles sales chart this week…damn. Morale is low this morning.

RIP to Tupac who lost the battle of his life 11 years ago today. This is the first anniversary of your death where I didn’t take the day off. Somehow I think you’d like that I was grinding with the guys… I miss you, homie!

Sunset is at 7:37 pm today in Corpus Christi!!! Sayeed and I are hungry as hell….

Every time TMI comes to Corpus, some asshole tries to break into the truck, and breaks a window. [Hey, Rocket Scientist! Invest a couple hundred bucks in a Slim Jim from Snap-On Tools and pretend to be a pro, OK? I hate a stupid criminal.] Well, tonight is no different. The guys went to a strip club tonight to, uh, promote (if you believe that, wanna buy a bridge?) and instead of valet parking, they parked the wrapped trucks on the side of the club. Some idiot tried to break into the truck (there was nothing to steal, but this didn’t stop the crackhead) by prying the back passenger window.

This shattered the glass, but it stayed in place because of the wrap (it’s like a giant sheet of contact paper or really thick tape over the truck). So when we woke up on Thursday we had to either tape up the window or spend the time in Corpus to have the window replaced. This caused a huge drama in the camp because there was some discussion as to whom should pay for the $130 window replacement--everyone pitch in together, or should the person who didn’t want to pay $5 for Valet absorb the cost since it was his decision to park on the side of the building?

I hate drama and you could cut the tension with a knife. The thought of these guys driving around the country for the next 3 weeks like powder kegs ready to explode was unattractive to me. So I paid for the window. Happily! Hell, I pay more for a pair of shoes or a good dinner, so why not!? Well, this pissed off the owner of the label that I gave the money to have the window fixed, which caused more drama, but at least it wasn’t drama in the truck driving around the country. I can handle the fire…

By the way, the owner wouldn’t let me pay for the window… he made Reese give me my money back. OK, dinner’s on me tonight!!!!!! LOL

--wendy