I began booking my band’s U.S. tour in December 2006. This 46-show tour was six weeks long, traversed 24 states and 2 Canadian provinces, and put approximately 15,000 miles on my Toyota Matrix. The first show was in Richmond, Va., on March 14, 2007. The 46th was in Brooklyn, N.Y., on April 26, 2007.

At the beginning of the tour, I resolved to determine how much money my band spent on gas, hotel rooms, and food, and exactly how much we earned at shows. Once I was on the road, these arcane calculations fell by the wayside. Instead of fetishizing arithmetic, I grew a beard and contemplated the endless battle between representation and abstraction in the realms of visual art and literature. Distracted by aesthetic concerns, I had trouble determining basic facts about my band’s tour. Did my band gain an audience? Did my band make money? Was this tour, from a financial and/or emotional prospective, worth the trouble?

After my final show in Brooklyn, I celebrated the end of tour by driving, alone, to Philadelphia. I was born in Philadelphia and my parents live there in a pleasant home featuring shower, toilet, and laundry facilities. Thinking I might make use of these facilities, I left Williamsburg at around 1 a.m. I drove the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway west over the Verrazano Bridge across Staten Island. By the time I reached the New Jersey Turnpike, the weather had worsened. A deluge of rain swamped the highway. Flash-flooding was reported by droning news reporters whose clipped Philadelphia accents haunt the City of Brotherly Love’s late-night AM radio frequencies. Roadside prophets in soaked hair shirts contemplated the lightning-streaked skies and wondered if this night—finally—would bring their precious, oft-predicted, oft-prayed for End of Days. In Atlantic City, somewhere to the southeast, a dice player rolled snake eyes.

Because I had no need for gas, I did not stop driving until I reached my parents’ home. I parked my car and, running through the rain, rushed into the house where I had been raised. It was late, after 3 a.m. Everyone in the house was asleep. On the kitchen countertop sat an apple pie in a cardboard box. My mother had left a note on the pie. “This pie is for you,” the note read.

I looked at the apple pie and contemplated it. I was glad that the apple pie was there. At that moment, I was very hungry. At that moment, I thought I would enjoy a slice of apple pie.

In the darkened kitchen, I retrieved a plate from the cabinet and a knife and fork from the silverware drawer. I placed these items on the kitchen countertop and prepared to cut a slice of apple pie. I opened the cardboard box that held the pie and looked down at the pie for the first time. When I saw the pie, my jaw dropped. Someone had beaten me to the pie. That is, an unnamed party had already eaten a slice.

I thought for a moment. This pie is for me, I thought. Yet, someone has already had a slice. Thus, I cannot have all of the pie. Still, enough pie remains for me to have my fair share.

In the darkened kitchen, I cut the pie and removed my slice. With no one to watch, and with no thought of the past or future, I ate my slice of apple pie in the dark.

Walt Whitman often took up his pen to fawn over Brooklyn’s charms. Consider the bearded bard’s observations in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”:

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

I am not as enthusiastic about Brooklyn and its “usual costumes” as Walt Whitman. Brooklyn is not “more to me…than you might suppose.” Instead, I deem Brooklyn “average,” or “adequate.” Walt Whitman has no use for these middling adjectives.

When in Brooklyn, I do visit Hana Foods. Last year, I recorded an album at a studio in gentrifying Williamsburg near this organic-ish health food store. Though I did not sleep often during this three-week recording session and certainly did not shower, I visited Hana Foods daily. There, I purchased vegetarian chicken-salad sandwiches. Like Brooklyn, these sandwiches were not great, and were not terrible. These sandwiches were adequate sandwiches.

I played the last show of my tour in Williamsburg for a worthy cause. After the show, I bumped my head on a P.A. speaker. In a daze, I wandered out of the club and into the street. Earlier in the evening, a light rain had coated Brooklyn’s streets with a glistening slime. Rubbing my head, I trudged through this slime in the direction of Hana Foods. En route, I met a man searching for Berry Street.

“Where is Berry Street?” asked this man.

“Berry?” I said. I looked around, rubbing my head. Because of my head injury, I wasn’t sure where Berry was. “Huh?”

“Berry,” the man repeated.

“Uh…I…” I continued rubbing my head. “I think Berry is one street back,” I concluded. The man disappeared into the slimy night. I should have told this man that I am not from Brooklyn and have a head injury, I thought. Alas—too late.

After another block, I stumbled into Hana Foods. I walked towards the refrigerated display where the adequate vegetarian chicken-salad sandwiches were stored. I looked down at the adequate vegetarian chicken-salad sandwiches and regarded them. Christ, I thought. These adequate vegetarian chicken-salad sandwiches are adequate as ever.

As I contemplated my adequate fate, a young man was trying to purchase rolling papers. “Do you have any rolling papers?” he asked the Hana Foods cashier.

“Don’t sell them,” said the grumpy cashier.

“No rolling papers?” pressed the youth.

“Don’t sell them!” shouted the owner. He turned his response into mantra. “Don’t sell them! Don’t sell them!” he shouted.

I thought of the young man’s failed attempt to purchase rolling papers. Hana Foods can’t be all things to all people, I thought. I stared back at the adequate sandwiches. I want an incredible sandwich, I thought. These sandwiches are merely adequate. I am sick of adequacy. I will not purchase these sandwiches anymore.

“Sir, I beg you…” I asked the promoter of my show in Amherst, Mass. “Might I run sound?” Sound guys, who doff Zildjian caps and wear shorts in inclement weather, are easily identifiable. None were present.

“The job is yours,” said the promoter. For the next half-hour, I ran around the venue, connecting XLR cables, digging through crates of broken mics, and fussing with reverb units alien to me. Then, the first band approached the stage.

“Just mic the bass,” said Birdsinourbackyard’s bass player. I had met this bass player—he was also the promoter of the show!

“But what of the drums?” I queried. “You are a bass/drums duo!”

“Trust me,” said the bass player/promoter. “Just mic the bass.”

“All right,” I consented, shaking my head. Then, Birdsinourbackyards performed, blessing the crowd with witty, grindcore-ish, post-Minutemen compositions. During the performance, I stared at the soundboard, ostensibly “running sound.” How do I turn up the bass? I wondered.

After Birdsinourbackyards completed its delightfully brutal performance, five rakes in drab attire approached the stage. These drab rakes—heavy metal enthusiasts—were the next band.

“I am the sound guy,” I informed these drab rakes. “What instruments, if any, do you wish me to mic?” Before the rakes could answer, a third party approached us.

“You are not the one true sound guy,” this party declared. “I am the one true sound guy.” Though it was raining, this interloper was wearing shorts. Thus, I believed that this interloper was, indeed, a sound guy.

“So, Mr. Sound Guy,” I said. “You have shown up late to our performance. Do you dare now run sound?”

“I usually do,” replied the one true sound guy. This man is an unrelenting negotiator, I thought.

“I propose a bargain,” I said. “You will run the sound for these drab metal enthusiasts. Then, I will run the sound for Rahim, baroque-rockers from Long Island with whom I am currently on tour.” A deal was struck!

An hour later, I was ostensibly “running sound” for Rahim. I stared at the soundboard. How do I turn up Rahim’s baroque vocal harmonies? I wondered. After the show, I hyperbolically boasted to the band of my sound guy capabilities, using profanity to “break balls.”

“You layabouts sounded like a million dollars,” I boasted. “You lazy twits never sounded so good! I pumped up your precious baroque vocal harmonies, by God. You useless dilettantes should hire me on future tours. I am a goddamn sonic genius!” Rahim stared at me blankly, nodded, and walked away. When the band left, I looked down at the soundboard. I realized I had been tweaking the wrong set of knobs during Rahim’s set. Nervously, I reached for my Zildjian cap. I realized I was not wearing one.