For the new tour, Trent Reznor has assembled a nine piece 'industrial band'. We are sitting in a giant room that looks like my shop class in grade school, assembling bizarre-looking metal objects to take on the tour. The warehouse space is in Williamsburg near the river, and rehearsals are to take place at NorthSix, a venue which Trent purchased for just this purpose.

Two older black men are working with welding torches when the phone rings. In my haste to pick it up, I knock over a large object shaped like a huge rubber band ball but made of metal. One of the black men says 'Damn, kid, you'd better slow down.' On the other end of the phone is the woman with whom I've been discussing a job offer in Chicago. She says that Trent is bad news, a lousy boss, and a closeted homosexual, would I come work for her instead?

Meanwhile, the other 'band members' are loading up a beat up extended cab van. All the seats are ripped out except the front one, in which Trent sits cuddled up next to the driver. They are tickling each other intensely. 'Hey, guys, knock it off while you're driving!' someone admonishes. Elisa, seated on the floor of the van, asks me if I'm thirsty. 'I'll jump out and get something,' I say. I roll out of the back of the van, barely avoiding a skateboarder, and land laying on a sloping lawn in front of a mansion.

It begins to rain and, as the van speeds away, Elisa yells from the van window 'Someone better talk to Mother Nature!' I wave goodbye and yell back, 'I'm trying but she won't return my calls.'