Message de cette chère VV :
BUS FOUND, DRIVER REMAINS MISSING. HAVE YOU SEEN BRIAN BERKENKEMPER?
The nationwide search for our tour bus is off. The bus was found on the night of October 5th in Los Angeles, parked behind the Best Western on Franklin Avenue. A woman by the name of Adriane spotted the bus and stuck around for hours until the police came. She was accompanied by our wonderful friend Lalo Medina who kept me up to date, minute by minute, as 10 armed police and a police helicopter arrived on the scene and entered the bus.
Brian, the driver was not on the bus. All of our worldly possessions, and Brian's possessions were still on the bus. His suitcase was strewn between two bunks. His jacket was still on the drivers seat. The keys to the bus were inside. All the new clothes he bought in Santa Barbara the day before he went missing, were there. Everything but his phone and wallet remained.
Brian had left the generator to the bus running and it had run out of gas. It appears that he had stepped out, intending to come back to the bus, but never did.
Bizarrely, the bus should have never been at the Best Western. Brian checked out on the morning of the 25th September, before our drive to Santa Barbara. The night of the 25th we all stayed at a Westin hotel near LAX before our morning flight to Austin Texas. Friday the 26th, Brian was to
begin his drive to Texas to meet us. Rumors that he got new tires put on the bus Friday the 26th, have now been confirmed untrue. Rumors that he had prior drug or criminal convictions, are also untrue.
Saturday, Andy, our lighting guy, spoke to Brian on the phone and asked him how far along he had driven. Brian responded, "I don't know. I'm asleep. I'll call you when I wake up". A few hours later his phone
was turned off, and never turned back on.
Sunday morning he should have arrived in Austin Texas, but he did not. The hotel manager at the Best Western remembered him, because he stayed there earlier in the tour when we were playing the Greek Theatre. The hotel manager said Brian was in a bad mood on the 22nd and had kicked the air conditioner unit out of the wall in his hotel room. He was probably in a bad mood because he got shit-faced trashed in San Francisco the night before and was 8 hours late getting us to LA... We were furious with him. But hey, the guy did like a drink... and to stay awake for LONG periods of time. That's all I'm saying.
Brian Berkenkemper is still missing. This is his photograph. He's heavier in this photograph than he is currently. Brian doesn't have this many chins, and he is always wearing a cotton beanie cap. Brian is 41.
If you live in LA especially, please keep an eye out. Brian is from and lives in Nashville, so all of you residing in Nashville, keep your eyes open too. He's now been missing for over two weeks.
I want to send a massive thank you to Adriane for alerting us to the bus and to www.crewspace.com who carried a post for us about the missing bus. The police and the FBI, were uh, pretty fucking useless in finding this thing. And thank you to Lalo Medina who's the coolest dude alive, for packing up everything on the bus and shipping it all to new york, in an immaculate and wonderful way, and for texting me throughout the whole mess and keeping it real, like an episode of Cops... We are very very thankful to have our stuff back. And I'd like to thank all the people who sent us clothes, Kemal Harris for hooking us up when we had none, and to Longchamp for giving us luggage so we could fly. And i'd like to thank our wonderful crew, Teresa Murray, Nick Bataran and Andy Cimerman for keeping it cool the whole damn time, and working hard to solve this wild mystery.
And i'd like to thank the Raconteurs and all their genius crew for making this tour the best tour we've ever done, and for taking care of us, and very cooly keeping our minds from spinning out. We had such a fucking good time that it's hard to describe. My face still hurts from laughing, my body's bruised from falling over in fits of joy, my hands are raw from high-fives, i've lost my voice, i've got a fever, and my life is changed, for the good, and for the better...
We've all walked away from it, truly and totally inspired.
I will leave you with a bit of Brian's poetry/ song lyrics that Teresa found this week written on the back of a receipt he had given her.
Shame, shame, shame
when i
took a
chance on
a "spontaineiuus"
act to
get a slow
burn
from sun
rays
it's a shame
shame shame
when a president
not a politician
got spent
but what the
fucking hell
i don't vote
anyway
love, x a
p.s. if you've seen our mystery man, or know him, please write to us. thekills@thekills.tv
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