“I’m low on gas, I’m trying,
I really am, but I have
ground my patience to the ground.
Now I’m yelling,
Now I’m the asshole.”

This is a mash up of the lyric to the Man’s Body song “Bed of Nails (Trying)” and a great piece that our violin player Kaitlin Wolfberg wrote about a difficult day called “Low On Gas.” She let me read her journal entry about an average day gone horribly wrong. We can all relate to this. She was just supposed to take her boyfriend’s car in for a simple repair, but instead it became a test of will, and a seemingly thankless task. I’m sure she got thanks for completing it eventually, but it was supposed to be no biggie. In her account, the appointment list was missing his name, they kept referring her to one person, then that person wondered why she was referred to them. A maddening day, given a specific direction and action to take only to be scolded by the next person about that action. Eventually it gets her into frustration land, and then she gets a bit testy. Alas! We have all been there.

Here’s an excerpt from Kaitlin’s brilliant “Low On Gas”:

I say, "I'm parked over there."

She says, "That's not our lot."

"The man told me to park over there."

"What man?" with so much attitude.

I realize in a flash he doesn't work for them and he lied to me.
I snap at her, "I don't know, some fucking dude."

Shit.

I'm an asshole.

“Low On Gas” inspired me to write the lyric to “Bed of Nails.” We all have our stories like this; mine are too many. One December evening, we were waiting on the corner of Roscoe and Van Nuys Boulevard for the 560 for two hours in 36 degrees with a 40 mph wind. Brrrr, I feel frozen again just thinking about this day in 1987. People in their warm cars buzzed right by. Gimme Shelter!

Another one was in my courier days. I had driven two hours from Ventura in brutal traffic trying to deliver a package in downtown LA near the end of the day. I thought I had the 10 minutes allotted to deliver the documents and get back to my truck. I knew I would be in a tow-away zone at 4pm but when I came back at 3:56 it was being towed, and my dog was still in the truck. These were the days before cell phones, and with nobody listening to me, I tried to make my case to the tow truck driver, but they weren’t listening to me, either. I managed to distract them enough to grab my dog. I had no money for even a phone booth call, so Buffy, my girlfriend’s dog at the time who I was watching while she was in Florida, was stuck and unable to get home. I remembered that my uncle could be at his club, the LA Athletic Club. I ran into the building with the dog, and hit the elevator with security chasing me. I went to the floor my uncle had taken me to before and found the squash coordinator, Robert. Luckily, he waved off security who were chasing me. I called a friend who rescued me. It took me hours to get a pizza and make it back home. Relieved that I had the dog too. And at that moment, who really gives a fugh? Right?

And maybe in comparison to a lot of people in this world, and the times we are in, this is low level suffering, but while you are the one going through it, it seems like a ring of hell. This is when the world seems like it is aligned against you, and in that moment, it seems an eternity. If this kind of stuff keeps happening, you almost feel cursed. I hope we are not, because 2020 seemed like one long bad day after another. One of the jobs of Man’s Body beyond trying to promote love and peace is to tell the story of how to turn a difficult situation where we were near a vituperative tirade or attack on anyone near us, into a fun song to play, especially in a live show. So this is really a song to be sung to get all that frustration out of your head and body. It has been cathartic to write it, record it, and then perform it with the band.

Greg Franco, Los Angeles 1/11/21