Show Journal 1999-08-09
Day 3 – At the crack of dawn we got up and headed down to the Ford dealer and the van and were greeted by the biggest cock sucking redneck jerk off I’ve ever met. In a nutshell the guy refused to fix our van. Period. We were very polite and we very kindly explained that we were stranded. He flat out refused to help us. He said he might be able to get to it in 6 days. There was one car in the garage and he said it had been there a whole week. Knowing that he was our only hope, we remained polite and tried to make him feel like he was helping us. He still refused. He wouldn’t even tell us where else to go to get it looked at. What an ass. I thought this kind of backwoods mentality didn’t exist in real life. I can’t believe Ford tolerates that kind of shit. While Dave was arguing with captain redneck, Jim and I realized that the van had easily cooled down overnight and sure enough it started right up. How long it would run, we didn’t know but rather than sit around Philip we decided to make a run for Pierre. We knew that even if we only made it 40 miles we could at least get it towed to Pierre where they surely have more than one car dealer in town. For some reason, the van ran great and we made it all the way to Onida, SD (an hour past Pierre). We decided to stop there to have lunch (ok, an MRE) and let the van cool down some more. Here we are in this tiny town (Pop. 750) sitting in a park eating lunch, we look around and realize we are not even 100 yards from a small auto repair shop. We go in, explain the situation and all the mechanics immediately drop what they are doing and come help us. They diagnose the problem almost immediately and start fixing it for us. One guy even skipped his lunch break to get us on the road sooner. It’s amazing you can go from the biggest lowlife pile of shit, to the nicest people so quickly. So that’s how we got out fuel pump fixed … dumb luck. The good news was we were fixed, the bad news was that it cost $500. Still though, driving without the fear of a breakdown is very nice. Things started to pick up from here, we could now use the air conditioner again, we saw some tumbleweed, and we even sold a cd in a gas station to a clerk. We also found the ever elusive Sport Shake in a gas station. At some point during the drive we all began impersonating the voice and likeness of the world’s tallest woman. I know it sounds weird, but it’s terribly amusing. We saw a restaurant called the Space Alien cafe, where we stopped to take part in some hot wings. We arrived to Bismarck to a coffee shop that typically books acoustic bands. I still wonder if they really knew what they were getting into. Some kid named Mitch showed us around town and took us to the music stores. A local band called Duck Dodger opened for us. They played on our equipment and were pretty cool. The show went well, Jim did really good (since it was his first show with us) and we made enough for gas money. That night we stayed with Sam who gave us pizza and let us stay in his basement. Well, actually it was his parent’s house and they were very nice … they bought stuff and made up pizza (thanks for the shirts Greg!).
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