Tips and hints from the alien

My friend Christopher sent me this great email with some of his tips for keeping sane on the road. In keeping with the mission of this blog, I'm reprinting the pertinent parts here. Thanks, Christopher!

Hoi, the man!

So, I got yer voice mail, any questions you may have shoot and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

One thing: Travel LIGHT. Seriously. Pack, then subtract everything you can, then take out one stupid, heavy item you think you need but could upon reflection do without, or would not get used nearly so much as it would get lugged about. One guy I knew from AFT dragged free weights around because he wanted to stay in shape, do pushups! He wound up only lifting them when he had to get them out of the way of the set pieces.

Some other thoughts come to mind:

I would also say read voraciously but you would do that anyway. Is your roomie situation two per room? That's the first thing you want to do is figure out who you want to room with if it's not pre-determined. You may want to ask who likes to watch teevee and who doesn't, but I would usually just excuse myself and go to a coffee shop or diner, or wherever and read because I can't read with the teevee on. When on tour I made sure to explain what I was doing so as not to seem snooty or a loner weirdo (which admittedly I am but why appear that way on a tour?) so I could read my Bukowski or Burroughs or whatever without commercials tearing through my tickertape attention-span.

Living in hotel rooms for a while can drain your batteries, treat yourself to a good healthy meal when you can. If you have the opportunity, find grocery stores and get a Coleman cooler and a couple of cold packs. The cast for the last tour I did was down with the idea and it made for much cheaper and healthier eating while on the road. (Keep an eye on dairy products.) When eating as a group in restaurants see if you can get a separate check. If anyone asks why (no one on my last tour did) you can save the receipts and use it as a tax write-off (truth) but also it saves that mysterious extra $5 one winds up spending on checks for big tables and avoids doing math.

Odds are, (because these are actors) there's going to be one not so conscientious person on board, but, I would be surprised however if there isn't at least one person who isn't long term friend potential. However, everyone will NOT keep in touch afterwards once the tour is over nothing personal, just the way new york bustles people about once they get back, but I've found usually one person per tour that's a keeper. Tempers may flare due to fatigue, I made a point to be more neutral than Switzerland which worked out very well.

Keep a journal, traveling will do amazing things for your poetry. You also have an I-Pod, a luxury I didn't have on either tour. Hell, long road trips between stops will be a breeze. Take lots of pictures, the few I have from the AFT tour I look on fondly now, got some amazing shots of northern Cali, too. Send us pix as updates.

I don't know where you're heading but, once you get your itinerary you can plan rendezvous with family/friends that are scattered about hopefully. I am quite frankly more than a bit jealous because tours are fun. You get to basically have a sort of working vacation (some manual labor, but no office bullshit) while getting paid to perform and it's a great break from the city and all its rigors. Call home a lot of course, it helped keep me grounded when I did so, reminding me that there are those waiting on your return.

Because we are :)

Good advice, here. Thanks again. I'm now definitely going to take a camera, and the book thing was a no brainer (though, at the pace I read, I may need to carry a library with me!).