Hulles: Bald As Love

I'm writing this entry in the tour bus as we drive from Savannah, Georgia to Biloxi, Mississippi. It's 3:38 AM and things are pretty quiet on the bus right now; everyone has passed out from too many Mexican Windbreakers and the bus A/C is struggling mightily to clear the fetid air. Occasionally it sounds like a flock of ducks passing over head, but all in all solitude reigns and I can write this entry.

This tour, the Hulles: Bald As Love tour, is the first one where my blog is the headliner. The Hulles blog has toured before, opening for static and pink india ink, but it's lots different finally having top billing. For one thing, finally most of the groupies are heterosexual women and I don't have to forlornly sift through the spurned and disgruntled lesbians hoping to find a couple that might be convinced that fish really do need bicycles.

Another big difference is that my entourage has grown. It now consists of:

Roadies: Mike, Little Al, Melvin and Sean. Their job is to set up and take down the blogging equipment every night. They set up the wireless network and the big screen monitors on stage and make sure Lucille II, my famous and beloved laptop, is in prime working form.

Bodyguards: Geoff and Big Al. Their role is to prevent rabid fans and creditors from approaching the Hulles person. As the ranks of creditors has swollen, however, I think I may need to add a bodyguard or two. And yes, I am smart enough to pay the bodyguards in cash.

Accountant: Shifty Pete Peterson. Shifty Pete, a former master forger, writes the checks while we are on tour and makes sure there's always enough money for limes, Cuervo Gold and countless cans of Old El Paso refried beans. He is also responsible for sales of Hulles franchise items like T-shirts, baseball caps and stuffed werehamsters.

Handler: Leon. Leon's job is to accompany me when I use a public restroom. He unzips my fly for me , shakes my dick when I'm done urinating, and carefully and gently puts it back into my Hanro underwear and zips me up again. I make him wear rubber surgical gloves, of course, so my penis does not get any germs on it that don't come from pussy. I had to fire the first handler after Day 2 of the tour because he just could not seem to remember that I tuck my cock to the right in my pants, not the left. Good help is so hard to find these days.

Sound Technicians: Sean and Heather. Since I blog and don't really say anything out loud except for the occasional grunt and squeal of delight. we don't have a sound system. As a result, there is never really anything for Sean and Heather to do. I just have them along to provide them with a job since they are putatively my kids and their mothers are mean and vindictive women.

Lighting: Ravenna. Ravenna takes care of the stage lighting at concert time. She's thin as a rail, pale as a ghost and did way too many drugs in her youth. She is seldom capable of constructing or understanding a complete sentence, but she does a nice job with the lights and I can pay her by check.

Aesthetician: Jen. I find as I tour that I need the odd manicure and wax job, and Jen provides these things. Truth be told, I wasn't aware that I needed to tour with an aesthetician until I was informed of this by Jen in no uncertain terms.

Researcher: Good Sarah. Good Sarah's job is to research my blogs while we're on the road and provide me with background information on the various topics about which I choose to write. She also reads and leaves comments on the blogs I follow under my name, and she makes sure that the fawning young female fans that find their way into my hotel room are at least 18 years of age and have no concealed weapons or open running sores.

Well, that's the crew, such as it is. The Hulles: Bald As Love tour started out with morris dancers, but the damn bus was just too crowded with them (plus the jingling of the bells drove everyone crazy) so we cut them out of the act with an Uzi. I wanted to film it so we could relive the event over and over but the Hulles attorney would not permit it.

When we arrive in Biloxi we'll head straight to the arena and set up and do a network check, then we'll head for our hotel and unwind a bit before the show. Usually the caterers set up a spread of some sort for us at the arena but I'm not sure what the arrangements are here. At any rate we usually get to the arena about an hour or so ahead of time except for the technicians, who pretty much live there until the equipment is broken down at the end of the night. We hang out for about a half hour then I do a rigorous routine of hand-stretching and knuckle-cracking to make sure these million-dollar fingers are in shape for blogging. At last, Jen gives my eyebrows a final waxing and it's show time.

After the opening blog is done and the intermission is over and everyone has returned to their seats, the lights dim, the big screens are lit with the Hulles logo and Good Sarah plays some YouTube videos of Brazilian love songs just to get everyone's blood flowing. Then I walk on stage and graciously acknowledge the deafening applause; I myself then gather up all the panties laying around on the stage and toss them into the Golden Panty Box. I find this personal touch thrills the ladies, especially when I stop and theatrically sniff one before dropping it into the Box. But finally I sit down at the custom-crafted desk and begin to exercise that tremendous and mind-boggling talent that a gracious Higher Power has granted to me, the talent to blog my ass off.

As I write my blog post the words appear on the jumbo monitors, and it is most gratifying for me to hear the gasps of amazement as I craft a particularly good phrase and the [eva] gales of laughter as I write something hilariously funny, usually about Garrison Keillor or my colon. But truly, for me and in fact for all of us in my crew, the most rewarding part of every show is the thunderous applause and screaming and stamping that always comes at the end of the show, when I write

-- Hulles