p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"emuIntroduction: Pointed Ears, Shapely Abs/u/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Tranquil/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"i/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"zer: /span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"A /span/span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"tranquilizer/span/span/span/span/span/span span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"refers to a drug which is designed for the treatment of anxiety, fear, tension, agitation, and disturbances of the mind, specifically to reduce states of anxiety and tension./span/span/span/span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"That's the textbook definition./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"My definition is: A tranquilizer is the best known substance for slowing down the chaos of an elf enough to reach the order of a human. /span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Most of this story is to be ghost written by an old friend of mine from high school (if the publishing company has compiled this to /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"any of his /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"other stories, you already know who I'm talking about), /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"but the framework /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"of this/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;" is largely my own. My name is Absalom Etheridge, bass player and 1 of /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"3 primary songwriters for my band, "Dirty Fellowship". I came /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"up /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"with /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"name long ago as we were 1 of the first (possibly THE first) band on the planet to have both human and elven members (our liner notes can even be given to you in the ancient elven scripture upon request, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"at no additional charge/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"). We had to work 10 times as hard as the other bands in the Toronto area /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"just to get noticed/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;". The Human clubs wouldn't let us play because 3 of the 5 band members are elves. The Elven Taverns wouldn't let us play because 2 of us were humans. So we played /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"at people's /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"parties instead. Human, Elven, mixed, it didn't matter. It didn't even matter that 2 of our band members moved from Italy to Canada just to be less persecuted for being a mixed /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"species/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;" couple. The point of our music is to break the walls down between race and class, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"and /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the fans get that, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"but /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"no one else does. Let's break down the cast of characters in all of this, shall we:/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Fabia Ammuri: Elven, Female, Keyboard Player. She writes the melodies not played by any of the other instruments. Most commonly, the intro, middle or end sections of the songs are all hers (but not all 3 at once). Every now and again, she'll write something that the rest of us can't add anything to (or don't want to) so we'll let her have these interludes at random points in the album (1-2 per album, usually)/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Cesario Malvestiti: Human, Male, Singer. He writes the lyrics (when I don't) and some of the melodies and textures not covered by his wife. He was supposed to replace Luciana Pavarotti upon her death in practically every opera that they had a name for in Europe. Then the scandal of Cesario marrying Fabia was made public by the media, and they fled here in asylum. The entire European Union considers them Persona Non Grata (well, the politicians and royalty do, we still tour there now and again now that we have a staff watching our backs). Still, Switzerland has still banned our music for life. Anyone listening to it gets fined for "Cultural Subversion" and if we are caught on Swiss soil, we're all extradited to prison in the Alps (they call it the "Swiss Gulag"). Well, all of the surrounding countries have us play bigger shows just so the Swiss who like us can come over and see us live, thanks for the cash./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Joseph Pauletich: Human, Male, Band Accountant. He's the one who's supposed to be reining us in regarding our expenses, but I can usually convince him that the decadence of our live show (while a hit to our short term finances) serves our long-term notoriety better. We've lasted longer than all of our contemporaries (in fact, given that most rock bands have remained unmixed and in fact try to keep everything as exclusively human or elf as possible which...OK, go ahead and ignore half of the fanbase, we go for everybody) so he really has no reason to gripe. Just keep our money working for us and take your 10% when the entire band agrees with me that you're only deserving of 5. I will give Joe P. Credit where credit is due though: He's the only fiscal conservative that is socially liberal enough to take on a mixed band. And he was the main guy on our team who supported our desire to travel to Asia (and not just because it's a virtually untapped market)./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Rudy "RudeDog" Castro: Human, Male, Head of Security. Rudy is sort of a conundrum, even by the band's standards. He is constantly at odds with himself, as guarding a band with elves in it goes against his moral constitution as he's a conservative Texan (and proud of it). But we pay him better than other bands that are human-only or elf-only (something not even Joe P. Objects to, as a dead band or dead band member takes away his best client). Also, he is very loyal to the bodyguard code: Keeping the client alive is the sole priority. Friends, Family, even God and Country are secondary, at best./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"David Kay: Elf, Male, Lead Roadie. His job is getting our gear setup, tested and mixed perfectly. We actually have about 20 or 30 people on our team altogether but he's 1 of only 3 that are allowed to speak to us directly (RudeDog and Joe P. Being the other 2, obviously). It's not that way out of ego, but rather out of paranoia. We have had many people (humans and elves alike) try to sabotage this band in the past. Example #1: We had an elven catering company try to poison our food with cyanide (as that only harms humans, not elves). Example #2: Our last lighting tech (a human) rigged a light to fall during our show in Paris that would've killed Fabia (as I said earlier, an elf) had it not been for Rudy seeing it and tackling her to the ground, away from the light. It hit him in the right leg, we paid for his surgery and rehab out of pocket (Joe P. Objected as no one on our team is unionized, but once we explained that it was a work-related injury that saved a life, he wrote the cheques personally) which delayed our coming here, but did give us enough time to write new music. So, Joe P., Rudy and David watch the others very closely now. Also, any and all issues go to them, then to us. We think it's more efficient that way./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Kelly Ann: Elf, Female, Drummer. My best friend in the band (other than my wife, of course) and most common partner in crime in regards to our bad behaviour. Due to how much more energy elves have compared to humans, she was a natural choice to be the band's percussionist. Simply put, there are just some drum parts in our songs that likely can't be played by humans (unless THEY took a stimulant like cocaine or methamphetamine, both of which are fatal almost instantly to most elves. So we tend to stay away from "uppers" as elves generally die too quick to get high, even coffee...that said, it IS starting to get recognized as a method of suicide for some of our fellow elves)./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"I'm going to pause this book right now to appeal to those who want to kill themselves (and Aaron, don't edit out this part): Human or Elf, there is always a way out that does not involve ending your own life. It doesn't end your pain, but distributes and amplifies it to all of those around you (and if they don't care about you, they get to laugh at you for the rest of their lives). So, please talk to someone you trust, and if you are in a major crisis, text your local crisis team. If there is one thing that keeps everyone in this band going, it's the fans who come to us and say we've helped in some way. So please, let us help you help yourselves./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Back to the book now, Kelly has actually been in the band the longest (other than me) so that does lead to band meetings ending in her taking one side, while I take the other and the rest of the band aligns with who they think is right. There's not even a set pattern as to who tends to agree with who (even my wife will disagree with me just as often as she agrees with me). /span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Jenn Etheridge: Human, Female, Guitarist. My wife, my best friend, the mother of my children (who thankfully are all attending a private school that not only accepts, but embraces half-human, half-elf students). Oddly, she was the last person to join the band. I didn't even know that she was taking guitar lessons until she showed up to the audition. I purposely didn't even give my opinion, and I didn't have to. She got the rest of the band to applaud almost instantly, I was just stunned. Afterwards, I asked her who she got lessons from, she answered that it was some elf in Texas who dyes his beard red and nicknamed himself after the pot he smoked. We tried hiring him too, but he wouldn't come without his older brother, a drummer. We respected him for being loyal to his family, so we told him to make his own band. He called it Pantelva, and they've toured with us numerous times. Anyways, Jenn is the one rock in my life, I wouldn't blame her if she left me because of my bad decisions./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"As I've said before, I have an addiction to tranquilizers. It began as soon as we started touring outside of Canada. The rush of us being the first "mixed band" to tour foreign countries kept me (and to a lesser degree, Kelly and Fabia) awake for days, even a week or 2 at a time. I was desperate for anything to slow me down, as it was beginning to affect my playing and songwriting. I don't really remember who gave me my first tranq, but it doesn't matter. I felt better than I had felt in years when I woke up, and my writing and playing improved dramatically. But after 2-3 years of medicinal use, I had developed a tolerance to the tranqs, so I (like the genius I am) doubled my daily dose, then tripled. At the time of these diary entries, I was up to at least 4 a day with alcohol (and that was during the band's days off, on days of actual gigs, it was even worse than that). Fabia was (and always will be, I think) only an occasional user (and by that I mean, 1 a week, tops). Kelly is addicted but even she can keep it to 2 pills a day, and never when she's had alcohol./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"I suppose I like the dark sleep more than the others./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emuThe /u/ememuday/u/ememus/u/ememu from hell/u/em/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"September 30/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I'm happy we got a private plane big enough to fit all of us, our team, and our equipment. Well, not quite private, we rented a Boeing 777-300 from Air Canada (and given how long we need it, I think we put them in the black for the 4/span/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" quarter of 2017 /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"all /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by ourselves). I woke up from the black sleep an hour ago (Kelly looks like she's still out /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"from the tranq she had/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", Fab never took one, fucking pussy). With the whole first class section to ourselves, we all have room to spread out. Fabia and Cesario are writing out their own opera based on their trip to some strange group of islands a few months ago. If anyone else had told me what went down, I'd ask them what drugs /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"THEY/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" were on. But when David K., Joe P. And the RudeDog got tapped /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by Fab and Cesario/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to provide additional info (as they were there themselves), Jen, Kelly and I dropped the matter. Kind of cool to know that a version of a kid I knew since I was about 16 ended up taking over the entire multiverse, even if he didn't let me in on the fight. Jen and Kelly I get, as he doesn't know Kelly very well, and he knows Jen even less, but me? I would've been the first guy there. Kelly's sleeping (as I've said before) and the non-band members are either in business class or coach. Jen usually busts my balls about the amount of tranq that I take, but she actually took one with me when we all left Vancouver about 11 hours ago. She knows I don't fly very well, so I guess she's letting me off with a free pass today. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Next stop Tokyo./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Fabia /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Ammuri:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Truth be told, If Cesario and I weren't given the band's blessing to write the opera, we would've left the band before the tour rehearsals /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"had even started/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". The dark sleep refers to the sleep that humans and elves tend to get when they've taken tranquilizers. It's well documented that the sleep that one tends to get when on tranq tends to be dream-free /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(like some people claim when they're in a coma)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". This is when I knew that Abs had a problem. The sober Abs would've forbade ANY outside projects by any of us, as he's a control freak. This version of Abs? Too complacent to be the real one, if you catch my drift. But Cesario and I saw so many versions of ourselves and others /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"in that weird version of Philadelphia/span/span span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"that/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" may or may not /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"have /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"die/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"d/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" that to not work through the grief via writing the opera would've probably seen us go completely insane./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 1/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"st/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Tokyo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"To keep the mob of fans and customs to a minimum, we timed the flight so that we landed after midnight. We went through VIP baggage claim, the coffee was nice (All of us elves had decaf). It was a bitch to wake Kelly up while we were landing, RudeDog basically had to slap her across the face a few times, but we got her up. We're going to be here a few days, as our first 3 shows of the tour are in Japan. I understand the intentions: Joe P. Wants to save money and minimize our chances of us partying too much in our downtime. Little does he know that I've already got in touch with the Yakuza here, the best tranq dealers in the world./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Kelly Ann:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Alright, I'll own this one. I took 2 tranquilizers when I left the hotel in Vancouver and a fan hooked me up at Vancouver's airport with 1 more. I basically had about 20 hours of the dark sleep in one go (which I think is more than anyone in the band apart from Abs). I didn't want to go to Asia, as there are parts of it that still kill elves or humans (depending on area) by firing squad, then they send your family a bill./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Joseph Pauletich/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;": Well, it's a waste of fuel and money to fly to each city individually (though I admit, we didn't have much choice most of the time /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"on this tour/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"). Japan's rail system is a good decade or 2 ahead of every other country in the world (including the recently sovereign nation of what was my native New York). /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"And I'm not as thrifty as the band says I am. I just want to hold each individual in the band accountable for what they spend. Too many bands I've worked for have gone from millionaires to broke in less than 3 years after they make it big, and I don't want it to happen to these guys./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 2/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"nd/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Tokyo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"9:00am – Up early for /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"soundcheck/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", and because the Yakuza were late last night showing up with my tranq. By the time they showed up and I paid them for my supply, there was no point in me taking any as I would be out until at least an hour after rehearsal ended. Ordered bacon and eggs with homefries (I'm actually quite fond /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"of human cooking, thanks largely to Jen). Better stop writing now, or I'll be late./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"11:45pm – The show tonight was great, but a bit stiff. That's OK though, it's our first live show in a bit so we're not as relaxed as we will be by the end of the tour. We were actually off the stage by 10:30 (Japan has a strict curfew in place, off the stage and out of the venue by midnight and if Joe P. Says the fine is big enough to put us in the red even with a sellout crowd, we don't break curfew no matter how good the show is) and done with autograph signings 20 minutes later. The local police were standing by to hand us the fines, but when they saw we behaved, actually gave us a secure escort back to the hotel. As first nights in a new country go, this was good. The fans are too...polite and restrained here. Probably a local law or something keeps them from starting a circle pit. I also noticed humans on the left of the venue and elves on the right./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Cesario Malvestiti:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" We were completely blindsided by that /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"segregation/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". Parts of the team knew but didn't tell us. We had no idea that Japan still segregated its audience in public gatherings until we got here. We're in one of the few hotels in the entire country that has desegregated its' bathrooms (If they had been segregated, we would've at least been sort of prepared for tonight). The band decided at soundcheck to let this one incident slide, as preparing a tour is never easy. But if other little things slip through the cracks, the band is going to be restructuring the office./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 3/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"rd/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Yokohama, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I popped half a tranq after breakfast /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(and chased it with a vodka and orange juice)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", apparently it wasn't hard to wake me up. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"But helping get the gear offloaded in time to have a half decent soundcheck was very taxing. I think everyone noticed that I was dragging my feet due to how tired I still was. Maybe I should've taken the whole tranq and been out until showtime./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"David Kay: /span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I never object to the bands I work for helping me offload the gear (it actually helps move things along more smoothly), but I like to do the sound tests with all of the microphones myself. Every venue is different, so setting everything up in the exact same manner for every show is counterproductive. Abs was slurring his speech for about 2 hours after he woke up. Would it really have killed him to stay awake for the bus ride (that wasn't even an hour long)? Then again, at least he didn't object to where I set up the mics./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"11:30am – Better show tonight than last night. Gotta pop a tranq to get to sleep, I think Kelly does too./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 4/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – En route to Sapporo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I love my wife very much, but I think she hid all my tranq /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"that I bought from the Yakuza/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". Now I've gotta sit here and pretend to enjoy socializing with the rest of the band as we fly to Sapporo (which is in the same region as where they make Mr. Sparkle on the Simpsons). The only reason we're flying instead of driving by bus is because half the band wants a couple of hours to tour the Sapporo Beer Gardens before soundcheck. A shame really, as I really wanted to see the Japanese countryside. This place is amazing as it can literally /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"go from the most ultra-industrialized nation on the planet to the most rural, even quaint, in less than a kilometre. Shame we have to leave tomorrow morning./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Jenn Etheridge:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Yeah I hid his fuckin' pills, and I'm proud of it too. I'm amazed that I only had to hide 1 bottle as he keeps dozens of them stashed around the house /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"back home in Canada/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". I live in constant fear of one of our kids finding 1 of his bottles, popping a couple of pills, and going into a dark sleep that they won't wake up from. No one really knows how tranquilizer works on mixed species people, especially children. Next step: Rally as much of the band and crew together to stage an intervention /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by the end of the tour/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"8:30 pm – Show cancelled due to a riot breaking out in the lineup to get into the venue (The Sapporo Dome, if any reader cares). To the credit of local police and venue security, they responded so quickly that no one was killed (I wish I could say the same about past shows, but 1 thing I am not, is a liar, especially to the fans). What started the whole thing was an offhanded comment (in Japanese) that translates to English as "Fuck, I wish that the lines were split for humans and elves like in other parts of Asia. Who cares that this is a mixed species band?" Someone overheard and took offen/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"c/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"e (as we've been informed, it was a human being offended by the ignorance of another human. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"So, this wasn't even an elf taking offence to /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"a human making an/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" elven slur) and threw a punch and a riot began seconds later. (Editor's note: No charges were filed against the band for this incident, tickets were refunded to all who were found not to be involved in the riot, and those who were /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"found to be involved /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"forfeited their money which was paid to the victims. The worst injury was a broken nose)./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I'm going to pause the narrative for the moment, and make this perfectly clear /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(again)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;": We came to Japan to help break the barriers down, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"not to have more put up out of fear. To the victims of this incident, I am deeply sorry. We really hope to come back to Japan./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 5/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – En route to Seoul, South Korea/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"6:00am – The only silver lining today is that we were all up early /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"enough/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to get on the plane to fly to South Korea. Whenever, well, anyone in Canada thinks of South Korea, we all go back to those fateful days in the 1988 Summer Olympics. Canada has never really cared as to who they send, regardless of gender or species. I wish that other countries could say the same, or failing that, not be so jealous of another country choosing to send someone of another species that you elect to give them steroids to cheat. The United States of America gave a 100 metre human runner named Carl Lewis steroids so that he could run it faster than our elven star, Ben Johnson. There was already enough of a protest (especially from the former Soviet Union) to segregate all of the events by species, THEN by gender. Then a human cheats to win a track and field /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"event/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" (actually, there were about 65 or 70 cheaters in all /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"during this Olympics/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". No, I won't list them here), temporarily robbing Canada of a gold medal. It was found out not even 2 days /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"later/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", and Carl Lewis was disqualified immediately (banned for 2 years, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"as I recall). We have /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"only 1/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" show here /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(in Seoul)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"unlike/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Japan. No curfew in this country, so I'll be hitting the tranq a little later while we're here. This country is a little more socially liberal in general, to a point where it's been against the law to segregate concert venues or bars by species since before any of us have been alive./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Rudy "RudeDog" Castro:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" This was the first time (but not the last), that I had to punch Abs in the face to wake his sorry ass up from the "black sleep". Sometimes I get tempted to give up on that boy, but I remind myself that if he dies on my watch, I'm liable. Plus, I can't leave Jen to raise those kids by herself. The crews of a band work best when everyone views everyone else as a family, and I treat those kids as my own when I'm around them, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"regardless of what species they are/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"12:30 am – OK, I slept through ONE lousy soundcheck. Last time we played our own continent, Kelly was up to 15 times /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"in the "dark sleep"/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to my 4. Anyways, great show tonight. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We always play better when we don't have to worry about getting the fuck off the stage by a certain time. My chin still hurts from the RudeDog punching it (I even had to raid my wife's makeup supply to cover up the bruising, thankfully the crowd was too far away from the stage to notice the swelling). This show went so smoothly (after Rudy woke me up) it almost made up from the riot in Japan, almost. God, I hope everyone there is OK now. OK, time to pop a tranq and wake up in another c/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ountr/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"y, that is our routine when on the road. I can't sleep without /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"them/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 7/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;" 2017 – En route to Beijing, China/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"10:15am – Everyone is still mad at me over the whole soundcheck thing, fuck the band, and fuck the fucking crew, too. If I drop dead right now, Fabia and Cesario couldn't write a whole album fast enough to meet the demands of the record label, and the entire band would cease to exist inside of 6 months./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Fabia Ammuri:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Sorry, but I have to disagree with Absalom on this one. Cesario and I had enough material left over from the opera we wrote to make the next dirty fellowship album with some reworkings. Then we would just announce a farewell world tour with or without Abs' involvement, break up 2-3 years later with our dignity intact (as we only owe one more album on our current recording contract) and live off the royalties for the rest of our lives./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Cesario Malvestiti:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Fabia is right, we actually wrote 29 songs for the opera, with only 13 making the cut. 12 of the remaining 16 could make the next album (at most, as she and I wrote songs that are a bit longer than the traditional human or elven rock radio hit). /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We could save the last songs as b-sides for the singles or as bonus tracks for future live and greatest hits compilations (tacky, I know). Point being: Abs is half right about being the leader of the band, at best./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"7:00 pm – No show tonight, but we have an afternoon show tomorrow. I've never really enjoyed shows in the daytime, unless they're huge festivals. Then again, we're doing rehearsals and interviews starting in about an hour or so. That way, once we're finished we can just pack up and get back on the plane. I'm actually looking forward to trying actual Chinese food, as I'm sure what we eat back home has been "normalized"./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Jenn Etheridge:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" We all got sick from the food (we think they overly spiced the meat in order to hide how expired the food is). The elves got sicker than the humans, and the only anti-nauseant we could find at the local chemist (China has no pharmacies) was Gravol, a HUMAN anti-nauseant medication. Abs, Fabia, David and Kelly needed 4 pills for every 1 that I, Rudy, Joseph and Cesario needed. The humans were fine the next morning, more or less. But the elves were all drowsy, and for once, we couldn't blame /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"it on/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" the tranquilizers./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Joseph Pauletich: /span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I was on the phone to the label 10 minutes after I started getting sick, as I was the last of us to start throwing up. They agreed to provide everyone with legal counsel to take action against the restaurant (which I'm sure we would be on the hook for eventually, but this was needed /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"to such an extent where not even I argued the expense/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"). They settled with us out of court under terms and an amount that is not to be revealed ever in any capacity. I will go as far as to say, if the band ever did break up, they'd still be set for life, if they got off of the tranquilizers./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 9/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Shanghai, China/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"7:00am – Sorry I didn't write in you yesterday. We all woke up still feeling a bit off from the food poisoning, and I still don't know how any of us made it through the show, as Shanghai Stadium's venues have not upgraded their air conditioning systems since they opened about 20 years ago. They've had 3 major renovations, and keeping the visitors cool is just not a priority. Even Joe P., the most fiscally conservative person I know, agreed that letting spectators get too hot is counter-productive to the bottom line. I can only imagine how much worse it is during soccer games. I do know that we each lost 5 pounds that day./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Kelly Ann:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" I later found out that I actually lost 7 or 8 pounds that day. Drummers work harder than any other musician because the only time we're not using all of our limbs is if the band schedules a solo for one of the other instruments. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We've tried to persuade Jen to do a solo spot in our tours, but she always declines. Which is a shame, as she is more talented than she thinks and there's a decided lack of female guitar shredders here, human or elf. Anyway, if there's a human rights tribunal about concert venues, I'll testify against this one. To the credit of the people of Shanghai, they were very polite and respectful to each other, regardless of species. Better than I can say for some parts of Canada, actually./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"9:/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"30am – We just got on the plane to head to Hong Kong. I'm kind of nervous about playing here, as this is part of the British Commonwealth, just like our native Canada. From what we've been told by a certain friend of ours (who likes to look at different realities, and did before he effectively became the one in charge of all realities), Hong Kong deciding whether or not to remain with the United Kingdom or rejoin China is a pivotal moment in a lot of different worlds. And that's just in the worlds where Hong Kong joined the United Kingdom in 1898, a different time, or at all. This whole infinite worlds concept fascinates me too, but I digress. One upside to the HK being part of the UK is that the primary language is English, although there are a lot of Cantonese speakers here too. It will be interesting to see firsthand how many /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"at the show/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" speak each one. Will more than half the crowd not even bother to sing along because they don't know the words? I understand if they don't, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"but it makes it no less sad. It's one of many ways that we feel that we've as a band who are trying to unite everyone. Maybe one day we'll put out a compilation E.P. or even a full-length album where some of our songs have been put into other languages. Anyways, we have a couple of hours in the air, time to pop a tranq./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"David Kay:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" This was the easiest day that I had on this tour, as the crates we used to move everything to the venue once we got off the plane had everything written in English and in big letters. The only difficulty was waking /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"up/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Abs and Kelly in time for soundcheck (as per frickin' usual). If this was an issue with opiates (and if they were humans), I'd just give them an adrenaline shot (OK, half of one to each of them). But giving an elf half an adrenaline shot (or even just a quarter of one, which would be 5 ml for those of you on the /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"metric system like most of the band and crew are) is basically pushing their bodies too far in the opposite direction, and given how much tranq they've consumed over the last few years (especially Abs), they'd probably die from the seizure. I've figured out a middle ground from doing nothing to what has been as the "RudeDog method" (the act of punching someone /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"a/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"wake as described earlier in this sordid tale). I basically for/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ce/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" them to swallow an espresso, sometimes a double if the situation calls for it. It seems to have worked (a double for Abs, a regular espresso for Kelly, as she is nowhere near as deep into addiction as Abs is) as they're playing almost as well during the soundcheck as they've been playing most of the actual shows. I would normally get a bonus for this, but Joe P. Is ever the cheapskate./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"1/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"1:30pm – Show's over, crew's already packing up our shit. It was a great show, and they sang along with every song. I'm happy that the band's trepidations were for no reason. Just got on the plane 10 minutes /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ago/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". It's a long flight to Tel Aviv, guess I gotta pop some extra tranq as the flight is so fucking /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"boring/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 16/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – In hospital/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY""span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Welcome back to life, you overdosed on tranq and the dark sleep almost became permanent 6 times in 3 days for you."/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"That was the first thing I heard after I popped the tranq back in Hong Kong, and it had to be translated by Joe P. As I don't speak a word of Yiddish. I didn't think one sentence could sober me up that much, much less from a complete stranger./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Rudy:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" It was touch and go for a while with him. We didn't notice something was seriously wrong until Jen had smelled that he had shit his seat. She couldn't wake him up, and my trademark punch to the face wasn't doing anything either. He had been asleep so deeply, his body didn't even wake him up to go to the bathroom, I have NEVER heard of someone that addicted. The worst part about this was: There are no decent hospitals ANYWHERE in central Asia, so there was no point in us making an emergency landing, and we were well past the halfway point in the flight /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"so turning around and going back to Hong Kong was not an option /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"either/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". David decided to risk it and gave him an adrenaline shot (a full one) every 12 hours.../span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"...That only kept his pulse going. It wasn't even enough to wake him up. We all took it in turns to watch over Abs every 6 hours. Kelly even went cold turkey so that she could be awake long enough for her shift. I'm not the biggest fan of elves, but after this show (which has been postponed for another few days), I'm out unless Abs and Kelly go to rehab./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emuEpilogue: The days to come/u/em/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Tel Aviv was a fine show (our best on the tour), but I ended it by apologizing to the fans and the band, then promised that I was on my way to rehab, and I went through with it. I'm 60 days sober. Another 30 and I'll reconvene with the rest of the band to record 2 new songs. We're putting out a greatest hits album and 2 new singles will keep us making money for a few months while we on go on break from each other. I did my rehab here in Canada, and I've never felt so awake, holding Jen and our children again. I don't know what expanding this into a full book will entail, but if I can get sober, there's no excuse for you not to./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Tranquil/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"i/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"zer: /span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"A /span/span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"tranquilizer/span/span/span/span/span/span span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="font-weight: normal;"refers to a drug which is designed for the treatment of anxiety, fear, tension, agitation, and disturbances of the mind, specifically to reduce states of anxiety and tension./span/span/span/span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"That's the textbook definition./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"My definition is: A tranquilizer is the best known substance for slowing down the chaos of an elf enough to reach the order of a human. /span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Most of this story is to be ghost written by an old friend of mine from high school (if the publishing company has compiled this to /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"any of his /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"other stories, you already know who I'm talking about), /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"but the framework /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"of this/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;" is largely my own. My name is Absalom Etheridge, bass player and 1 of /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"3 primary songwriters for my band, "Dirty Fellowship". I came /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"up /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"with /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"name long ago as we were 1 of the first (possibly THE first) band on the planet to have both human and elven members (our liner notes can even be given to you in the ancient elven scripture upon request, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"at no additional charge/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"). We had to work 10 times as hard as the other bands in the Toronto area /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"just to get noticed/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;". The Human clubs wouldn't let us play because 3 of the 5 band members are elves. The Elven Taverns wouldn't let us play because 2 of us were humans. So we played /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"at people's /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"parties instead. Human, Elven, mixed, it didn't matter. It didn't even matter that 2 of our band members moved from Italy to Canada just to be less persecuted for being a mixed /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"species/spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;" couple. The point of our music is to break the walls down between race and class, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"and /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"the fans get that, /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"but /spanspan style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"no one else does. Let's break down the cast of characters in all of this, shall we:/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Fabia Ammuri: Elven, Female, Keyboard Player. She writes the melodies not played by any of the other instruments. Most commonly, the intro, middle or end sections of the songs are all hers (but not all 3 at once). Every now and again, she'll write something that the rest of us can't add anything to (or don't want to) so we'll let her have these interludes at random points in the album (1-2 per album, usually)/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Cesario Malvestiti: Human, Male, Singer. He writes the lyrics (when I don't) and some of the melodies and textures not covered by his wife. He was supposed to replace Luciana Pavarotti upon her death in practically every opera that they had a name for in Europe. Then the scandal of Cesario marrying Fabia was made public by the media, and they fled here in asylum. The entire European Union considers them Persona Non Grata (well, the politicians and royalty do, we still tour there now and again now that we have a staff watching our backs). Still, Switzerland has still banned our music for life. Anyone listening to it gets fined for "Cultural Subversion" and if we are caught on Swiss soil, we're all extradited to prison in the Alps (they call it the "Swiss Gulag"). Well, all of the surrounding countries have us play bigger shows just so the Swiss who like us can come over and see us live, thanks for the cash./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Joseph Pauletich: Human, Male, Band Accountant. He's the one who's supposed to be reining us in regarding our expenses, but I can usually convince him that the decadence of our live show (while a hit to our short term finances) serves our long-term notoriety better. We've lasted longer than all of our contemporaries (in fact, given that most rock bands have remained unmixed and in fact try to keep everything as exclusively human or elf as possible which...OK, go ahead and ignore half of the fanbase, we go for everybody) so he really has no reason to gripe. Just keep our money working for us and take your 10% when the entire band agrees with me that you're only deserving of 5. I will give Joe P. Credit where credit is due though: He's the only fiscal conservative that is socially liberal enough to take on a mixed band. And he was the main guy on our team who supported our desire to travel to Asia (and not just because it's a virtually untapped market)./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Rudy "RudeDog" Castro: Human, Male, Head of Security. Rudy is sort of a conundrum, even by the band's standards. He is constantly at odds with himself, as guarding a band with elves in it goes against his moral constitution as he's a conservative Texan (and proud of it). But we pay him better than other bands that are human-only or elf-only (something not even Joe P. Objects to, as a dead band or dead band member takes away his best client). Also, he is very loyal to the bodyguard code: Keeping the client alive is the sole priority. Friends, Family, even God and Country are secondary, at best./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"David Kay: Elf, Male, Lead Roadie. His job is getting our gear setup, tested and mixed perfectly. We actually have about 20 or 30 people on our team altogether but he's 1 of only 3 that are allowed to speak to us directly (RudeDog and Joe P. Being the other 2, obviously). It's not that way out of ego, but rather out of paranoia. We have had many people (humans and elves alike) try to sabotage this band in the past. Example #1: We had an elven catering company try to poison our food with cyanide (as that only harms humans, not elves). Example #2: Our last lighting tech (a human) rigged a light to fall during our show in Paris that would've killed Fabia (as I said earlier, an elf) had it not been for Rudy seeing it and tackling her to the ground, away from the light. It hit him in the right leg, we paid for his surgery and rehab out of pocket (Joe P. Objected as no one on our team is unionized, but once we explained that it was a work-related injury that saved a life, he wrote the cheques personally) which delayed our coming here, but did give us enough time to write new music. So, Joe P., Rudy and David watch the others very closely now. Also, any and all issues go to them, then to us. We think it's more efficient that way./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Kelly Ann: Elf, Female, Drummer. My best friend in the band (other than my wife, of course) and most common partner in crime in regards to our bad behaviour. Due to how much more energy elves have compared to humans, she was a natural choice to be the band's percussionist. Simply put, there are just some drum parts in our songs that likely can't be played by humans (unless THEY took a stimulant like cocaine or methamphetamine, both of which are fatal almost instantly to most elves. So we tend to stay away from "uppers" as elves generally die too quick to get high, even coffee...that said, it IS starting to get recognized as a method of suicide for some of our fellow elves)./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"I'm going to pause this book right now to appeal to those who want to kill themselves (and Aaron, don't edit out this part): Human or Elf, there is always a way out that does not involve ending your own life. It doesn't end your pain, but distributes and amplifies it to all of those around you (and if they don't care about you, they get to laugh at you for the rest of their lives). So, please talk to someone you trust, and if you are in a major crisis, text your local crisis team. If there is one thing that keeps everyone in this band going, it's the fans who come to us and say we've helped in some way. So please, let us help you help yourselves./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Back to the book now, Kelly has actually been in the band the longest (other than me) so that does lead to band meetings ending in her taking one side, while I take the other and the rest of the band aligns with who they think is right. There's not even a set pattern as to who tends to agree with who (even my wife will disagree with me just as often as she agrees with me). /span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Jenn Etheridge: Human, Female, Guitarist. My wife, my best friend, the mother of my children (who thankfully are all attending a private school that not only accepts, but embraces half-human, half-elf students). Oddly, she was the last person to join the band. I didn't even know that she was taking guitar lessons until she showed up to the audition. I purposely didn't even give my opinion, and I didn't have to. She got the rest of the band to applaud almost instantly, I was just stunned. Afterwards, I asked her who she got lessons from, she answered that it was some elf in Texas who dyes his beard red and nicknamed himself after the pot he smoked. We tried hiring him too, but he wouldn't come without his older brother, a drummer. We respected him for being loyal to his family, so we told him to make his own band. He called it Pantelva, and they've toured with us numerous times. Anyways, Jenn is the one rock in my life, I wouldn't blame her if she left me because of my bad decisions./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"As I've said before, I have an addiction to tranquilizers. It began as soon as we started touring outside of Canada. The rush of us being the first "mixed band" to tour foreign countries kept me (and to a lesser degree, Kelly and Fabia) awake for days, even a week or 2 at a time. I was desperate for anything to slow me down, as it was beginning to affect my playing and songwriting. I don't really remember who gave me my first tranq, but it doesn't matter. I felt better than I had felt in years when I woke up, and my writing and playing improved dramatically. But after 2-3 years of medicinal use, I had developed a tolerance to the tranqs, so I (like the genius I am) doubled my daily dose, then tripled. At the time of these diary entries, I was up to at least 4 a day with alcohol (and that was during the band's days off, on days of actual gigs, it was even worse than that). Fabia was (and always will be, I think) only an occasional user (and by that I mean, 1 a week, tops). Kelly is addicted but even she can keep it to 2 pills a day, and never when she's had alcohol./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"I suppose I like the dark sleep more than the others./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emuThe /u/ememuday/u/ememus/u/ememu from hell/u/em/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"September 30/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I'm happy we got a private plane big enough to fit all of us, our team, and our equipment. Well, not quite private, we rented a Boeing 777-300 from Air Canada (and given how long we need it, I think we put them in the black for the 4/span/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" quarter of 2017 /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"all /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by ourselves). I woke up from the black sleep an hour ago (Kelly looks like she's still out /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"from the tranq she had/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", Fab never took one, fucking pussy). With the whole first class section to ourselves, we all have room to spread out. Fabia and Cesario are writing out their own opera based on their trip to some strange group of islands a few months ago. If anyone else had told me what went down, I'd ask them what drugs /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"THEY/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" were on. But when David K., Joe P. And the RudeDog got tapped /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by Fab and Cesario/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to provide additional info (as they were there themselves), Jen, Kelly and I dropped the matter. Kind of cool to know that a version of a kid I knew since I was about 16 ended up taking over the entire multiverse, even if he didn't let me in on the fight. Jen and Kelly I get, as he doesn't know Kelly very well, and he knows Jen even less, but me? I would've been the first guy there. Kelly's sleeping (as I've said before) and the non-band members are either in business class or coach. Jen usually busts my balls about the amount of tranq that I take, but she actually took one with me when we all left Vancouver about 11 hours ago. She knows I don't fly very well, so I guess she's letting me off with a free pass today. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Next stop Tokyo./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Fabia /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Ammuri:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Truth be told, If Cesario and I weren't given the band's blessing to write the opera, we would've left the band before the tour rehearsals /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"had even started/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". The dark sleep refers to the sleep that humans and elves tend to get when they've taken tranquilizers. It's well documented that the sleep that one tends to get when on tranq tends to be dream-free /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(like some people claim when they're in a coma)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". This is when I knew that Abs had a problem. The sober Abs would've forbade ANY outside projects by any of us, as he's a control freak. This version of Abs? Too complacent to be the real one, if you catch my drift. But Cesario and I saw so many versions of ourselves and others /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"in that weird version of Philadelphia/span/span span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"that/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" may or may not /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"have /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"die/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"d/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" that to not work through the grief via writing the opera would've probably seen us go completely insane./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 1/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"st/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Tokyo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"To keep the mob of fans and customs to a minimum, we timed the flight so that we landed after midnight. We went through VIP baggage claim, the coffee was nice (All of us elves had decaf). It was a bitch to wake Kelly up while we were landing, RudeDog basically had to slap her across the face a few times, but we got her up. We're going to be here a few days, as our first 3 shows of the tour are in Japan. I understand the intentions: Joe P. Wants to save money and minimize our chances of us partying too much in our downtime. Little does he know that I've already got in touch with the Yakuza here, the best tranq dealers in the world./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Kelly Ann:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Alright, I'll own this one. I took 2 tranquilizers when I left the hotel in Vancouver and a fan hooked me up at Vancouver's airport with 1 more. I basically had about 20 hours of the dark sleep in one go (which I think is more than anyone in the band apart from Abs). I didn't want to go to Asia, as there are parts of it that still kill elves or humans (depending on area) by firing squad, then they send your family a bill./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Joseph Pauletich/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;": Well, it's a waste of fuel and money to fly to each city individually (though I admit, we didn't have much choice most of the time /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"on this tour/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"). Japan's rail system is a good decade or 2 ahead of every other country in the world (including the recently sovereign nation of what was my native New York). /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"And I'm not as thrifty as the band says I am. I just want to hold each individual in the band accountable for what they spend. Too many bands I've worked for have gone from millionaires to broke in less than 3 years after they make it big, and I don't want it to happen to these guys./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 2/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"nd/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Tokyo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"9:00am – Up early for /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"soundcheck/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", and because the Yakuza were late last night showing up with my tranq. By the time they showed up and I paid them for my supply, there was no point in me taking any as I would be out until at least an hour after rehearsal ended. Ordered bacon and eggs with homefries (I'm actually quite fond /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"of human cooking, thanks largely to Jen). Better stop writing now, or I'll be late./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"11:45pm – The show tonight was great, but a bit stiff. That's OK though, it's our first live show in a bit so we're not as relaxed as we will be by the end of the tour. We were actually off the stage by 10:30 (Japan has a strict curfew in place, off the stage and out of the venue by midnight and if Joe P. Says the fine is big enough to put us in the red even with a sellout crowd, we don't break curfew no matter how good the show is) and done with autograph signings 20 minutes later. The local police were standing by to hand us the fines, but when they saw we behaved, actually gave us a secure escort back to the hotel. As first nights in a new country go, this was good. The fans are too...polite and restrained here. Probably a local law or something keeps them from starting a circle pit. I also noticed humans on the left of the venue and elves on the right./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Cesario Malvestiti:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" We were completely blindsided by that /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"segregation/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". Parts of the team knew but didn't tell us. We had no idea that Japan still segregated its audience in public gatherings until we got here. We're in one of the few hotels in the entire country that has desegregated its' bathrooms (If they had been segregated, we would've at least been sort of prepared for tonight). The band decided at soundcheck to let this one incident slide, as preparing a tour is never easy. But if other little things slip through the cracks, the band is going to be restructuring the office./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 3/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"rd/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Yokohama, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I popped half a tranq after breakfast /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(and chased it with a vodka and orange juice)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", apparently it wasn't hard to wake me up. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"But helping get the gear offloaded in time to have a half decent soundcheck was very taxing. I think everyone noticed that I was dragging my feet due to how tired I still was. Maybe I should've taken the whole tranq and been out until showtime./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"David Kay: /span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I never object to the bands I work for helping me offload the gear (it actually helps move things along more smoothly), but I like to do the sound tests with all of the microphones myself. Every venue is different, so setting everything up in the exact same manner for every show is counterproductive. Abs was slurring his speech for about 2 hours after he woke up. Would it really have killed him to stay awake for the bus ride (that wasn't even an hour long)? Then again, at least he didn't object to where I set up the mics./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"11:30am – Better show tonight than last night. Gotta pop a tranq to get to sleep, I think Kelly does too./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 4/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – En route to Sapporo, Japan/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I love my wife very much, but I think she hid all my tranq /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"that I bought from the Yakuza/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". Now I've gotta sit here and pretend to enjoy socializing with the rest of the band as we fly to Sapporo (which is in the same region as where they make Mr. Sparkle on the Simpsons). The only reason we're flying instead of driving by bus is because half the band wants a couple of hours to tour the Sapporo Beer Gardens before soundcheck. A shame really, as I really wanted to see the Japanese countryside. This place is amazing as it can literally /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"go from the most ultra-industrialized nation on the planet to the most rural, even quaint, in less than a kilometre. Shame we have to leave tomorrow morning./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Jenn Etheridge:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Yeah I hid his fuckin' pills, and I'm proud of it too. I'm amazed that I only had to hide 1 bottle as he keeps dozens of them stashed around the house /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"back home in Canada/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". I live in constant fear of one of our kids finding 1 of his bottles, popping a couple of pills, and going into a dark sleep that they won't wake up from. No one really knows how tranquilizer works on mixed species people, especially children. Next step: Rally as much of the band and crew together to stage an intervention /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"by the end of the tour/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"8:30 pm – Show cancelled due to a riot breaking out in the lineup to get into the venue (The Sapporo Dome, if any reader cares). To the credit of local police and venue security, they responded so quickly that no one was killed (I wish I could say the same about past shows, but 1 thing I am not, is a liar, especially to the fans). What started the whole thing was an offhanded comment (in Japanese) that translates to English as "Fuck, I wish that the lines were split for humans and elves like in other parts of Asia. Who cares that this is a mixed species band?" Someone overheard and took offen/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"c/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"e (as we've been informed, it was a human being offended by the ignorance of another human. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"So, this wasn't even an elf taking offence to /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"a human making an/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" elven slur) and threw a punch and a riot began seconds later. (Editor's note: No charges were filed against the band for this incident, tickets were refunded to all who were found not to be involved in the riot, and those who were /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"found to be involved /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"forfeited their money which was paid to the victims. The worst injury was a broken nose)./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I'm going to pause the narrative for the moment, and make this perfectly clear /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(again)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;": We came to Japan to help break the barriers down, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"not to have more put up out of fear. To the victims of this incident, I am deeply sorry. We really hope to come back to Japan./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 5/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – En route to Seoul, South Korea/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"6:00am – The only silver lining today is that we were all up early /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"enough/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to get on the plane to fly to South Korea. Whenever, well, anyone in Canada thinks of South Korea, we all go back to those fateful days in the 1988 Summer Olympics. Canada has never really cared as to who they send, regardless of gender or species. I wish that other countries could say the same, or failing that, not be so jealous of another country choosing to send someone of another species that you elect to give them steroids to cheat. The United States of America gave a 100 metre human runner named Carl Lewis steroids so that he could run it faster than our elven star, Ben Johnson. There was already enough of a protest (especially from the former Soviet Union) to segregate all of the events by species, THEN by gender. Then a human cheats to win a track and field /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"event/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" (actually, there were about 65 or 70 cheaters in all /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"during this Olympics/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". No, I won't list them here), temporarily robbing Canada of a gold medal. It was found out not even 2 days /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"later/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", and Carl Lewis was disqualified immediately (banned for 2 years, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"as I recall). We have /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"only 1/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" show here /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(in Seoul)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"unlike/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Japan. No curfew in this country, so I'll be hitting the tranq a little later while we're here. This country is a little more socially liberal in general, to a point where it's been against the law to segregate concert venues or bars by species since before any of us have been alive./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Rudy "RudeDog" Castro:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" This was the first time (but not the last), that I had to punch Abs in the face to wake his sorry ass up from the "black sleep". Sometimes I get tempted to give up on that boy, but I remind myself that if he dies on my watch, I'm liable. Plus, I can't leave Jen to raise those kids by herself. The crews of a band work best when everyone views everyone else as a family, and I treat those kids as my own when I'm around them, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"regardless of what species they are/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"12:30 am – OK, I slept through ONE lousy soundcheck. Last time we played our own continent, Kelly was up to 15 times /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"in the "dark sleep"/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" to my 4. Anyways, great show tonight. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We always play better when we don't have to worry about getting the fuck off the stage by a certain time. My chin still hurts from the RudeDog punching it (I even had to raid my wife's makeup supply to cover up the bruising, thankfully the crowd was too far away from the stage to notice the swelling). This show went so smoothly (after Rudy woke me up) it almost made up from the riot in Japan, almost. God, I hope everyone there is OK now. OK, time to pop a tranq and wake up in another c/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ountr/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"y, that is our routine when on the road. I can't sleep without /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"them/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"O/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ctober 7/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;" 2017 – En route to Beijing, China/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"10:15am – Everyone is still mad at me over the whole soundcheck thing, fuck the band, and fuck the fucking crew, too. If I drop dead right now, Fabia and Cesario couldn't write a whole album fast enough to meet the demands of the record label, and the entire band would cease to exist inside of 6 months./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Fabia Ammuri:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Sorry, but I have to disagree with Absalom on this one. Cesario and I had enough material left over from the opera we wrote to make the next dirty fellowship album with some reworkings. Then we would just announce a farewell world tour with or without Abs' involvement, break up 2-3 years later with our dignity intact (as we only owe one more album on our current recording contract) and live off the royalties for the rest of our lives./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Cesario Malvestiti:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Fabia is right, we actually wrote 29 songs for the opera, with only 13 making the cut. 12 of the remaining 16 could make the next album (at most, as she and I wrote songs that are a bit longer than the traditional human or elven rock radio hit). /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We could save the last songs as b-sides for the singles or as bonus tracks for future live and greatest hits compilations (tacky, I know). Point being: Abs is half right about being the leader of the band, at best./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"7:00 pm – No show tonight, but we have an afternoon show tomorrow. I've never really enjoyed shows in the daytime, unless they're huge festivals. Then again, we're doing rehearsals and interviews starting in about an hour or so. That way, once we're finished we can just pack up and get back on the plane. I'm actually looking forward to trying actual Chinese food, as I'm sure what we eat back home has been "normalized"./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Jenn Etheridge:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" We all got sick from the food (we think they overly spiced the meat in order to hide how expired the food is). The elves got sicker than the humans, and the only anti-nauseant we could find at the local chemist (China has no pharmacies) was Gravol, a HUMAN anti-nauseant medication. Abs, Fabia, David and Kelly needed 4 pills for every 1 that I, Rudy, Joseph and Cesario needed. The humans were fine the next morning, more or less. But the elves were all drowsy, and for once, we couldn't blame /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"it on/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" the tranquilizers./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Joseph Pauletich: /span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"I was on the phone to the label 10 minutes after I started getting sick, as I was the last of us to start throwing up. They agreed to provide everyone with legal counsel to take action against the restaurant (which I'm sure we would be on the hook for eventually, but this was needed /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"to such an extent where not even I argued the expense/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"). They settled with us out of court under terms and an amount that is not to be revealed ever in any capacity. I will go as far as to say, if the band ever did break up, they'd still be set for life, if they got off of the tranquilizers./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 9/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – Shanghai, China/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"7:00am – Sorry I didn't write in you yesterday. We all woke up still feeling a bit off from the food poisoning, and I still don't know how any of us made it through the show, as Shanghai Stadium's venues have not upgraded their air conditioning systems since they opened about 20 years ago. They've had 3 major renovations, and keeping the visitors cool is just not a priority. Even Joe P., the most fiscally conservative person I know, agreed that letting spectators get too hot is counter-productive to the bottom line. I can only imagine how much worse it is during soccer games. I do know that we each lost 5 pounds that day./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Kelly Ann:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" I later found out that I actually lost 7 or 8 pounds that day. Drummers work harder than any other musician because the only time we're not using all of our limbs is if the band schedules a solo for one of the other instruments. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"We've tried to persuade Jen to do a solo spot in our tours, but she always declines. Which is a shame, as she is more talented than she thinks and there's a decided lack of female guitar shredders here, human or elf. Anyway, if there's a human rights tribunal about concert venues, I'll testify against this one. To the credit of the people of Shanghai, they were very polite and respectful to each other, regardless of species. Better than I can say for some parts of Canada, actually./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"9:/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"30am – We just got on the plane to head to Hong Kong. I'm kind of nervous about playing here, as this is part of the British Commonwealth, just like our native Canada. From what we've been told by a certain friend of ours (who likes to look at different realities, and did before he effectively became the one in charge of all realities), Hong Kong deciding whether or not to remain with the United Kingdom or rejoin China is a pivotal moment in a lot of different worlds. And that's just in the worlds where Hong Kong joined the United Kingdom in 1898, a different time, or at all. This whole infinite worlds concept fascinates me too, but I digress. One upside to the HK being part of the UK is that the primary language is English, although there are a lot of Cantonese speakers here too. It will be interesting to see firsthand how many /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"at the show/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" speak each one. Will more than half the crowd not even bother to sing along because they don't know the words? I understand if they don't, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"but it makes it no less sad. It's one of many ways that we feel that we've as a band who are trying to unite everyone. Maybe one day we'll put out a compilation E.P. or even a full-length album where some of our songs have been put into other languages. Anyways, we have a couple of hours in the air, time to pop a tranq./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"David Kay:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" This was the easiest day that I had on this tour, as the crates we used to move everything to the venue once we got off the plane had everything written in English and in big letters. The only difficulty was waking /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"up/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" Abs and Kelly in time for soundcheck (as per frickin' usual). If this was an issue with opiates (and if they were humans), I'd just give them an adrenaline shot (OK, half of one to each of them). But giving an elf half an adrenaline shot (or even just a quarter of one, which would be 5 ml for those of you on the /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"metric system like most of the band and crew are) is basically pushing their bodies too far in the opposite direction, and given how much tranq they've consumed over the last few years (especially Abs), they'd probably die from the seizure. I've figured out a middle ground from doing nothing to what has been as the "RudeDog method" (the act of punching someone /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"a/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"wake as described earlier in this sordid tale). I basically for/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ce/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" them to swallow an espresso, sometimes a double if the situation calls for it. It seems to have worked (a double for Abs, a regular espresso for Kelly, as she is nowhere near as deep into addiction as Abs is) as they're playing almost as well during the soundcheck as they've been playing most of the actual shows. I would normally get a bonus for this, but Joe P. Is ever the cheapskate./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"1/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"1:30pm – Show's over, crew's already packing up our shit. It was a great show, and they sang along with every song. I'm happy that the band's trepidations were for no reason. Just got on the plane 10 minutes /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"ago/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". It's a long flight to Tel Aviv, guess I gotta pop some extra tranq as the flight is so fucking /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"boring/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"uspan style="font-style: normal;"October 16/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"th/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;", 2017 – In hospital/span/u/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY""span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Welcome back to life, you overdosed on tranq and the dark sleep almost became permanent 6 times in 3 days for you."/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"That was the first thing I heard after I popped the tranq back in Hong Kong, and it had to be translated by Joe P. As I don't speak a word of Yiddish. I didn't think one sentence could sober me up that much, much less from a complete stranger./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Rudy:/span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" It was touch and go for a while with him. We didn't notice something was seriously wrong until Jen had smelled that he had shit his seat. She couldn't wake him up, and my trademark punch to the face wasn't doing anything either. He had been asleep so deeply, his body didn't even wake him up to go to the bathroom, I have NEVER heard of someone that addicted. The worst part about this was: There are no decent hospitals ANYWHERE in central Asia, so there was no point in us making an emergency landing, and we were well past the halfway point in the flight /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"so turning around and going back to Hong Kong was not an option /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"either/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". David decided to risk it and gave him an adrenaline shot (a full one) every 12 hours.../span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"...That only kept his pulse going. It wasn't even enough to wake him up. We all took it in turns to watch over Abs every 6 hours. Kelly even went cold turkey so that she could be awake long enough for her shift. I'm not the biggest fan of elves, but after this show (which has been postponed for another few days), I'm out unless Abs and Kelly go to rehab./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"emuEpilogue: The days to come/u/em/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="JUSTIFY"span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"Tel Aviv was a fine show (our best on the tour), but I ended it by apologizing to the fans and the band, then promised that I was on my way to rehab, and I went through with it. I'm 60 days sober. Another 30 and I'll reconvene with the rest of the band to record 2 new songs. We're putting out a greatest hits album and 2 new singles will keep us making money for a few months while we on go on break from each other. I did my rehab here in Canada, and I've never felt so awake, holding Jen and our children again. I don't know what expanding this into a full book will entail, but if I can get sober, there's no excuse for you not to./span/p