In 1971, Frank Zappa wrote a surrealist movie about the tedium of the touring life of musicians called 200 Motels. It starred Frank, Zero Mostel, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr and it was gloriously absurd. I remembered the film today on day six of our 2023 Tour of the Americas and, on this one, we motored from Duluth, Minnesota, to Mackinaw City, Michigan, a journey of some eight and one half hours by car. Imagine you’re locked in a Motel 6 with a 28-year-old insurance salesman crazed to make his bonus for the quarter droning on about whole versus term life when he’s suddenly overpowered by the last 40 minutes of a typical Broadway musical which is then interrupted by an entire Mike Pence stump speech. It’s that level of criminal boredom. My butt muscles will never recover and then I managed to make things worse.
© 2024 John Oliver
Substack is the home for great culture