Not Homeward

Road Trip

2009-08-19T22:33:00.001-07:00

Before I forget it, I wanted to offer up one scene from the drive so far.

My aunt and me driving through St. Louis.

Her: Wow, the Arch is beautiful.
Me: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Her: But it's silver. Why do they call it the Golden Arch?
Me: Uhhh....they don't. You're thinking of McDonald's.
Her: Oh.

And also, to keep the musical pelota rolling, one more great guest appearance.

It's another one starring Eddie Vedder.

Reasons it rules:
- no ridiculousness, he just comes out (at the beginning of the song) and sings the hell out of it
- no asinine new lyrics
- Tom Petty looks like Penny Marshall

Pics From Perhew

2009-08-19T22:22:00.001-07:00

I am in Sheridan, WY. Tomorrow we go to Cody, WY. My aunt and I are driving from NC to CA.

These are pictures from Peru that Wynn took. I took some, and I'll put them up when I haven't been driving for 29 hours in the last 2.5 days. Or something like that.

Hector and me gettin' loco.

The Field General, surveying his troops.

Another sign that the U.S. is improving in soccer. I AM THE WALL. (Even though he's far away in the background, my soccer strength is so mighty that Daniel still feels the need to grab onto his pelotas.)

Stories And Performances

2009-08-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

The other night, I think I found too many musical pairings that I love. I don't know if I'll ever have time to post them all.

And YES, in hindsight, clearly Axl's jacket should've received mention in the last post. I think four people emailed me to tell me about my mistake. I was shocked that four people had actually read it.

Let's keep the good times rolling........

Bono again. This time, with The Edge. And with Pearl Jam.

Why this is awesome:
- they named their collaboration "UJam"

- Bono strictly follows one of the Rules Of Duet Greatness. At least one performer must enter stage mid-song, regardless of how long the song has been going on (not very long), or how impactful it is (not very). I wish this wasn't a rule. You're not going to top "Ladies and gentlemen -- MR. ELTON JOHN!" And you're certainly not going to top Axl Rose's entrance at Wembley, so you may as well get to the stage when the song starts.

- the two ingenius prophets love reading-from-my-notebook style poetry so much during their OWN concerts, that when they play together, it's one big poetical douche-off. Did the song really need new words? Were Bono and Eddie Vedder sitting in adjacent stalls before the show thinking them up? Isn't the song about poverty already?? They should've called the pairing "UDouche." Or "DoucheJam."

And on top of all that......it still totally kicks ass.

This post was originally going to be more stories from South America. Including an anecdote about an Argentinian woman at a club telling me she didn't like American men because "most of them are like him" and then pointing to an intoxicated gringo at the other end of the balcony. Who was my travel companion. Wynn. Who will now be upset that I wrote this. But he knows I love him. The next story will hopefully involve something equally embarrassing occurring to me.

Hilarious Musical Collaborations

2009-08-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

I like them. I like finding them, and I like discussing them. Usually I can't tell if my love is ironic or not.

You could probably have a whole mega-section solely devoted to Axl Rose, but this is my favorite so far -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzZXXCDakjY

Reasons why this performance rules:
- when this originally aired (in the early 90s??) I was watching this with my father, who is an enormous Rolling Stones fan. I was captivated. His only response was, "Why did they bring out this jackass?"
- it's an awesome Rolling Stones song that gets very little attention;
- Axl and Mick engage in a tense battle of who can do their worst go-to stage moves (Mick's spirit fingers on steroids and Axl's ridiculous sway);
- the ABSURDLY unnecessary inclusion of Izzy onstage instead of Slash;
- Keith Richards singing the first stanza as if he's never heard the song before;
- and finally, the two performers are billionaires singing a song that's meant to be a reversely-ironic discussion of the common man.

And no, despite it's awesomeness, it's still not as good as this.

The only person who may rival Axl in the ridiculous collaborations department is Bono. But what would happen if somehow, the cosmos aligned and they joined forces? What if the two Kings of Silly Collab collided? Would the world explode?? What? One exists? Seriously?

Wait A Darn Second

2009-08-15T20:16:00.001-07:00

Soon, I will post more pics/brilliant analysis from my past two weeks in South America, but I wanted to step aside for some much brighter brilliance.

Has anyone else seen this? Why is this not the most popular sight on the internet?

Buenos Aires

2009-08-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

I should´ve bought a watch in Buenos Aires. I was probably aware of what time it was around 10% of the time. I think BA is very similar to New York City. Wynn has lived in NYC for years, and is naturally contrarian, so he disagrees somewhat. I don´t think my body was ready for five straight days of arriving home after the sun rose.

Wynn and I were both given counterfeit money at different times. I was informed that mine was "muy muy falso" and part of the ink had even appeared to bleed all over the rest of the bill. And the watermark that is supposed to be a drawing of a politican looked like a drawing from an uncoordinated 4th grader.

We ate a steak restaurant and I ordered "steak wrapped in bacon." The steak was one of the biggest pieces of meat I´ve ever seen, and the bacon was a veritable sheet, wrapped around the giant piece of steak. Wynn got a giant piece of steak wrapped around a large piece of ham, with cheese and peppers in the middle. We were unaware that the side dishes were plentiful. We took part in a two-for-one special on bottles of wine, but you had to take one of them to go. The rest of the night and morning was spent handing the bottle to employees at clubs and seeing how funny it was that two shabbily dressed gringos were toting around wine. We left it at a club and forgot about it. I think that was the club where a group of girls wanted to practice their English, which mainly consisted of the phrase "I love you." As I type this, I realize that it was not anywhere near as cool as it sounds.

With our gracious hosts in Buenos Aires, we ended up watching Free Willy one night with their son. We debated about whether or not "Will You Be There" was at the end of this movie, or the sequel. Thank goodness it was this one. That song has definitely become the most beloved song of this trip, if not my life.

Last night back in Lima, looking for a place to hang out late after dinner, we were directed to a club near our hostel. We were told it was one of the only places in Lima that was open at this hour. We were not told, however, that the place was mostly populated by Peruvian prostitutes. We sat at the bar with some of Wynn´s friends who happened to be in town from a trek to Macchu Picchu. The whole thing was pretty weird, until Wynn talked the DJ into playing...... "Will You Be There." The prostitutes cleared the floor and Wynn and our friends showed them all that South Americans aren´t the only people obsessed with 80s/90s power ballads.

P.S.

2009-08-06T12:43:00.001-07:00

When he turned off Big Stan, he put on Happy Feet.

Good Movies In Peru

2009-08-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

While I was strolling the streets of Lima this afternoon, I came upon a nice-looking electronics store. I went inside to see how much an HD television costs in Peru.

I found a gigantic HD screen in a full home theater setup in the middle of the store. I thought I recognized the crowd on the screen as a concert film I had recently seen, but couldn´t place. Then, as dozens of children came walking on stage wearing Indian/Middle Eastern-ish garb, I knew what it was. Sitting there watching Will You Be There live from Bucharest was amazing not only because it´s amazing, but because over the past couple weeks, it had been viewed in my apartment probably nine times. By many different groups of people, from my skeptical roommate, to me by myself, to a group of about 12 people who crammed into my apartment after the party on the eve of Sam and Sahar´s wedding. And before that, Sam and I had discussed all its merits at his bachelor party. Which are many.

Needless to say, I pumped up the volume as much as was reasonable, and nodded my head alongside the middle-aged Peruvian woman and her daughter. That song kills every time. Although it killed me much more than it killed them.

My traveling buddy over the last few days, Eric, departed today. It got me thinking about how if I was in a random city in the US, even by myself, I would´ve talked to Eric upon meeting him and probably had a decent five minute chat with him. Yet meeting him in Huacachina, Peru, makes it completely reasonable for us to say, ¨"Hey let´s spend the next week traveling around South America together, sleeping in hotels, sharing taxis, eating meals together, and taking walks on the beach." In the US, we probably would´ve felt weird sharing a cab.

During the bus ride to Lima yesterday, the excitable bus attendant had the unenviable (or maybe enviable) job of picking which DVDs to show. He picked Transporter 3 which was less than awesome. Although it was fun to exclaim things in Spanish like ¨"No es posible!!" when Jason Statham drives his car off a bridge into a moving train, then gets out and starts shooting bad guys.

But I was beginning to think the attendant had made a misstep when he started to show Big Stan, one of the latest Rob Schneider comedic vehicles. That I had never heard of. "I wonder how the parents on this bus feel" was the only thing I could think of when the first scene involved Rob Schneider trying to sell a condo to an elderly woman by convincing her that "The area is bad, but that means that there are many black men there, who will all want to give you their big black ---" The Peruvian parents made it past that, and all the way to the 15-minute mark when Rob Schneider convinced his wife to use a dildo on him to prepare him for life in prison. That got an immediate trip to the back from a nice Peruvian man who was not pleased with the attendant´s taste in cinema.

Viva Peru

2009-08-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

I am in Lake Huacachina, Peru. I wish I had time on the computer to upload pictures, because it´s a tiny little village that surrounds a lagoon, with giant sand dunes all around. The main activity in Huacachina is to take a snowboard and ¨sandboard¨ down the dunes. I am still cleaning sand out of my ears, nose, and other places less mentionable.

I ran into a guy at the hostel here who graduated from UVA a couple years after I did. He is in the internet cafe with me right now and just got upset because the stock that he owns in his former employer has gone down. That seems to be a theme here, as almost all of the Americans I´ve met in Peru have been recently laid off from their jobs. Or have quit.

I spent four days in Lunahuana at the orphanage where Wynn works. The kids were awesome. Much of the time spent with them consisted of me trying to figure out how exactly they were making fun of me. One of the best experiences was washing my clothes by hand. I thought I was performing admirably, until three of the girls volunteered to help me as they laughed. Wynn translated for me: "Poor Ricardo, he doesn´t even know how to wash his clothes." When they asked me how I washed my clothes at home, I sputtered out some combination of "Not like this" and "I don´t." That was probably one of the least embarrassing statements I made in Spanish while visiting there.

We played an expectedly fun and rousing game of soccer one afternoon. I was lucky enough to be the goalie for most of it, and tried to get the kids to teach me fun things to yell at the opponents. The kids respected the dorky, pale, mosquito-bitten gringo shouting "I AM THE WALL!!!" as the ball zip passed me into the goal. Those guys were not messing around, but I managed to make a couple saves.

And now I think I must go. I don´t think I have any Peruvian coins left, and the signs here (and the grumpy Peruvian man) have repeatedly mentioned that payment must be in coins. Which makes sense, except for the fact that there is only one ATM in the town and it spits out bills in denominations of 20, 50, and 100. And people always ask for small bills. And the ATM is not working currently. If no one ever hears from me again, I am in Lake Huacachina, Peru, and I am trying to work off a debt of 16 American cents.

More Quality Encounters

2009-07-26T19:43:00.001-07:00

As I was in the Wal-Mart of Sanford, NC, this evening, an elderly woman saw me looking in the candy aisle.

"Honey, all that candy will make you sweet." HUH?? I blurted. "Honey, all that candy will make you sweet." Wow, I had heard her correctly. A conservative estimate of her age was 75.

"Uh, it's actually not for me....but I'm sweet enough anyway." Holy crap, I just kind of flirted with a woman who probably lives in a retirement home.

However, she was only about 25 years older than my last lovely encounter with a woman, which was the day before while driving from Charlottesville to Sanford. I was pumping gas when one of the station employees saw my California license plate.

"Hey baby! You must be lost! You've had a long drive."
"Yeah, it was pretty far," I said, not wanting to explain the logistics of my living situation.
"Baby, do you even know where you are?"
"YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY" would've been infinitely cooler than my response, which was "Uhhhhh....near Danville?"
"Baby, you're in Tight Squeeze."

I think the only scenario where "Baby, you're in Tight Squeeze" would be less sexy is in the candy aisle at Wal-Mart (with a septuagenarian).

I was buying the candy for the kids in the orphanage in Peru where Wynn works. I'll be flying there Tuesday, and I needed to make sure this gringo was packed with sweets.

FYI, if you're flying to Peru and your mother is terrified, don't tell her about the picture in the guidebook that shows a man on the street selling fake "TAXI" signs and insurance certificates to people who want to swindle tourists.

Joe C

2009-07-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

At karaoke a few weeks ago, someone asked me who Joe Cocker was, and why he was cool. I tried to show him a Joe Cocker impersonation.

All I should have said was, "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnjWLVyMps"

Just Gentlemen Down By The River

2009-07-01T11:26:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was our friend Sam's bachelor party weekend. It involved eating and drinking in nice establishments all around the District of Columbia. It also involved driving out to a high-tech driving range in northern VA where we had purchased an all-you-can-eat and all-balls-you-can-hit package. It was exciting for the first 7 minutes until one member of our group suffered a severe knee injury. Then it was really exciting.

It's a sad moment in life when you realize that you're of the age where you will go to the driving range with friends, and one of them could potentially sustain a very bad knee injury and have to go to the hospital.

It's also somewhat sad when you realize that a group of 10 hungover guys at a driving range is THE WORST group to be amongst when you suffer a bad-to-severe lower body injury. I think Mark would've received more sympathy from Federal prisoners.

"Mark, how's your leg?"
"Well, as you can see, the swelling is --"
"Oh my shot? Cool!"

Mark was a trooper. But the injury caused him to miss out on karaoke that night. The highlights of that outing included everything the Bachelor sang (he can sing) and our friend Danny Lee performing "Purple Rain" by Prince. I don't think anyone has "done" karaoke until they've seen an overweight Asian man sing the hell out of an '80s Prince super-ballad. Without even looking at the words.

During the weekend we also discussed various muggings and crimes in DC that have been experienced by our friends living there. They keep trying to convince me that DC is unsafe. I believe it, but I guess it's hard for that to sink in based on my most recent encounter with the homeless people of Charlottesville. Last week, I was jogging along the river when two guys stopped smoking what they were smoking to ask me which one of them had a better body. "Excuse me?" I yelped while removing my headphones and continuing to jog in place. Ready to make a hasty exit.

"I'm sayin' man, which one of us ya know, has a better body? Looks better? Who you think works out more??"

Both men were shirtless, overweight, and smoking what appeared to be crack. Not the kind of body contest I usually want to judge.

"Uhh.....he's got some bigger --" Do I say "guns" ? Do I actually deem one the winner??? "Uhh....he looks like he maybe works out a bit more." I pointed to the one on the left, the one who had been quiet until this time, when he pumped his fist in celebration. As I turned around and tried to make a quick getaway, the other guy wasn't done. "But wait....I mean, I work out too."

"Yeah," I said. "It's close."

The winner wasn't done either. "You have a blessed day, man!!!"

I ran the rest of my loop and thought for a while about whether or not to take a different route home. I wasn't necessarily afraid of anything except the awkwardness of having to talk to homeless men about their muscle tone. Screw it, I thought. I have nothing to fear.

When I came back to the spot, the loser of the Mr. Strongman contest was there by himself. "Yo!!!" he said. "Hey man," I replied. Then, possibly feeling my oats a bit too strongly, I added, "Where'd your friend go? Is he out pumping iron? You need to catch up." The guy just kind of grunted. And then said something indiscernible. Since my joke was so timely and funny and couldn't have been thought of as anything besides hilarious, I'll take his indifference as a sign of his inability to hear me, or that he was too high to comprehend the comedic gold I had laid at his feet. But I scampered off quickly.

The next day, jogging on the same trail, I ended up passing the same spot around the same time of day. This time, I found myself trying to navigate through a pack of about five 25-35 year old women who were all out on a run together. I looked over, and saw the (now fully clothed) body contest champion with two other friends whom I didn't recognize. I waved. He waved back and yelled, "Hey man!!!" The entire group of ladies wheeled around, shocked that I apparently was close friends with this fellow. I almost said, "He totally has a great body too," but decided to keep jogging silently.

Awakening A Slumbering Giant

2009-05-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I figured it was about time to post something new. You can't keep the fans waiting (too long). Eventually they get furious.

This also coincides with the first significant amount of shows I've played in a couple months. I played four shows with a super cool singer-songwriter named Krista Detor. I met her and her husband/guitarist/producer/homey Dave Weber at the beginning of this year in Chicago when we were on the road with Brian Vander Ark.

She's from Indiana, she's great, she's very nice, and she asked me to play drums with her.

This little run was in West Virginia, Maryland, and Alabama. Fun times all over the east/southeast. Of course we met some splendid people along the way. Including one half of the 1995 Freestyle Frisbee World Championship team. When Gary told me this prime tidbit, of course I had to ask him approximately 5 million questions. Obviously number one was, "What are the chicks like at frisbee competitions?" Not really.

Speaking of Gary and chicks, all of Gary's friends were shocked to hear that I lived in Charlottesville and had never been contra dancing. (There was almost a riot when I told them that I had never even heard of it.) So for an extended period of time after our show, they showed me the moves. It's like square dancing on crack. NUMEROUS people at the show travel around the country, taking part in enormous contra dancers. With hundreds of other contra dancers.

In addition to world champion frisbee'ers and nationally-traveling contra dancers, I learned that Krista and Dave had some quality stories to tell as well. Krista's dad spent years in a federal prison for counterfeiting $72 million. "We were rich for about five minutes, then he was gone," she joked. Dave, for his part, was a traveling "catcher on the flying trapese." He is one of the guys that hangs by the back of his knees from the swinging trapese and catches the people jumping. Holy crap. To keep playing in this band, I'm going to have to pick up some impressive hobbies.

Another Bed

2009-01-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

After playing in Chicago on Monday, Dylan and I woke up at 6 am on Tuesday to make the drive to Charlottesville, VA. I think it took us about 15 hours, including a long stretch of driving 40 miles per hour on the highway through terrible sleet and snow. Dylan made us stop in Louisville, KY, at a place called "Why Louisville" which is self-described as a "fan club for Louisville." Or something like that. Basically, they had a lot of Louisville inside jokes and hipster shirts. And basically, the two girls who worked there were lame hipsters who didn't respond to our witty driving-delirium-induced string of jokes.

Throughout the entire month, I was once again sleeping on floors/futons, sometimes at the homes of people I had never met. So I couldn't wait to return to my huge comfy bed in my parents' house in Sanford for a decent night's sleep. It was surprising when I woke up at 4am shivering because the heating didn't work. I tried to find blankets, but for some reason my blanket had disappeared. So much for the comforts of home. I had spent a better night on a futon in Chicago where it was 0 degrees outside, and where inside, Dylan was waking me up every 20 minutes to stop my snoring.

I got to see Bloomington, Indiana for the first time in my life. As well as Toledo, Ohio. Both seemed like more fun than I would've guessed. Toledo was snowy, cold, and windy, but still seemed surprisingly cool. Same with Louisville. Despite hipster nerds. The men at Jimmy John's were agreeable. Which also reminds me -- why would they open a Jimmy John's in Charlottesville, ONE BLOCK from Little John's? Little John's is the best sandwich establishment in the United States. So they open a chain sub shop with the same last name right down the street. That doesn't make sense to me.

A few things learned this month
- Part of the problem with writing a wildly popular internet blog (cough cough) is that you are worried to write about people who may end up reading the blog.

- I don't really know who Kathleen Madigan is, but the XM comedy stations played her so much that I don't even want to Google her to find out. She is either sleeping with someone at XM programming or has a great publicist.

- When sitting next to a close male friend in a theater, it is always funny to nudge him when there is onscreen nudity. It gets funnier throughout the movie.

- "Role Models" received a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which has got to be the highest rating for a movie that has been described as "a mound of dog turd flavoured with honey...just like dog turd with honey on it, the mess is unappetising."

- If you don't know a guy's name, but you later refer to him as "Garth" and your friend immediately knows to whom you're referring because that guy looks exactly like Garth from "Wayne's World," then "Garth" is probably awesome.

More!

2009-01-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

The sound man where we play in Atlanta is a very very sweet guy. It's been fun to chat with him when we've been in town, especially because for years he ran sound for a band called Jellyfish, who spent a lot of time on tour with the Black Crowes.

But this time we talked about more serious things, because our friend has had a very tough year. He started by telling me of his recent heart attack. Then came the enormous medical bills. Then it was a messy divorce.

Then his daughter called him one day and told him that his ex-wife was currently dating one of his close friends, who lives in another part of the country. "Can you believe that?" he asked me. "You know what the worst part is? They met on eHarmony. They just filled out profiles and got matched up." We couldn't help but laugh about that. "Actually," he continued, "he's also the drummer for the Temptations." We couldn't help but laugh about that too. Attempting to use my ninja-like conversational skills to lighten the mood, I asked him which part was worse -- that it was his friend, or that it was the drummer for the Temptations. Thank God he laughed about that too.

Finally, I asked him to tell me something good that had happened lately. He spoke of his beautiful grandson Sammy. And showed me pictures of Sammy with Cookie Monster. Then he told me about terrible back problems he had suffered through until a few months ago. The pain had been so bad that he could hardly walk. He visited numerous doctors, acupuncturists, and anyone else who he could afford and who would listen. Finally he was about to have an extremely expensive surgery. Until he was hobbling out of the club one night and someone yelled at him from the balcony to come back inside. He said the pain was so bad, he almost didn't do it. But he said what the hell, and went back up the steps.

Someone inside introduced him to a drunken yoga therapist. The woman told him that she could probably help him, and she showed him a few intense stretches he could do. He said thanks, and hobbled back out of the club.

He said that after one and a half weeks, his pain was completely gone. After a long bout with terrible back pain, he was about to undergo an expensive surgery, and this inebriated yoga teacher had cured him in one week.

I asked him what he did to thank her. He said that he never saw her again. He didn't get her name or number or anything.

"Well, time to find her on eHarmony."

Only The Finest

2009-01-04T09:51:00.001-08:00

Last night was the second show of our new tour. In Hartsville, SC. The previous night we played once again in our living room in Sanford, NC. Once again, it was fantastically fun. We played "You Shook Me All Night Long" during "soundcheck" in Sanford, so I was requesting it for my own band by the time we started the second set, when everyone had had enough to drink. I thought it went over well, and wanted Dylan to play his mandolin solo while walking up the stairs onto our loft/balcony that overlooks the living room. No dice.

Someone made a joke about us playing a bigger venue, like the Magic Dome in Orlando. I don't know if that's a real place, but I doubt the person realized we'd be traveling to South Carolina the next day to play at a bar called The Midnight Rooster.

Kristy ended up vomiting all day yesterday, so Dylan and I played the show in Hartsville by ourselves. We played for almost two hours, but since I know about six of Dylan's songs, the evening included a bunch of covers, and Dylan telling me what his songs sound like, right before starting them.

Dylan's roommate is a guy named Rocky (who I can't stop calling Bucky), who collects comics, laughs a lot, has painted his drum set four times since he bought it, refuses to obtain music or movies in any type of illegal fashion, and has a book in his bathroom called "What Your Poo Says About You."

The Most Popular 5th Grader Ever

2008-12-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

We played our last show of the tour in Traverse City, MI on 11/22. Brian made fun of me because I pronounced it "tra-VERSE," like any reasonable person would. It's actually pronounced "TRA-vers." Shame on me. If you ever want to win money on a bet for how to pronounce the name of a town, bet on Regina, Saskatchewan. Your opponent will undoubtedly say "Ra-JEE-na," like any reasonable person would. You will say, "No, actually it rhymes with 'vagina.'" Then you will pocket your winnings and be on your merry way.

Chicago seems like a swell place and served to be another stop on the "Seeing Friends Who I Haven't Seen In A Long Time Who Are Indeed Still Awesome" tour. High fives all around.

After driving back to the folks' home in Sanford, NC, I've had some time to sleep, eat, and do weird things like pay bills and keep up with my fantasy football team.

It's also given me time to clean out my room.

I got a little misty-eyed when I found a banner that my 5th grade class had made for me in Mare Island, CA. ("In" Mare Island? "On" Mare Island? Goodness.) I left elementary school there in the middle of the year when my family had to move back to northern Virginia. It was a 4th/5th/6th grade combination class, so I had been with the same kids and teacher for a year and a half. The kids (and presumably Mrs. Goldwyn) had made a large banner that said, "Adios Ricardo! Buena Suerte From Room 1." I have no idea why it was written in Spanish. All the students had signed it.

There were some real gems on there -- "Have Fun In WASHINGTO". "Have Fun A Washington!" and my favorite, "Gee I guess I'll miss you (NOT...)"

The last one came from my still-close-friend Matt Williams. Who, coincidentally, I will be spending this weekend with as we go see the Army/Navy football game in Philadelphia. I think I will have to ask him why he made the curious choice of an ellipsis to end the barb.

Then I looked in the corner of the banner and saw three small letters. At first, I thought the letters were a crossover from another piece of art that had been made on the neighboring sheets of printer paper. Then I looked closer.

Someone had written, "Die" on my going away banner in 5th grade. Just "Die". No name-calling, exclamation point, or even an ellipsis.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and was curious to know who had done such a thing. After some gritty investigative work, I discovered the perpetrator to be none other than Mike Labougan. Or Laboogan. He and Jeff Jaro were the only two kids to sign the poster with green ink, and Jeff Jaro was probably the nicest kid in the class. Another damning piece of evidence, albeit anecdotal, was a time in school when Mike had dropped his chewing gum on the playground, picked it up again and put it back into his mouth, encrusted with all kinds of disgusting dirt and pebbles. Mike laughed and said, "Mmmmmm. Rocks and minerals."

Since Mike was completely insane, was a pretty good friend of mine, and ate shit-covered chewing gum, I won't take the "Die" too seriously. But maybe my hindsight upon my 5th grade popularity is warped.

After I write this, I will travel to Facebook on a search for Mike Laboogan. I wonder where he is, and if he still eats disgusting things off the ground. Hopefully I will find him on Facebook. I will try to befriend him. He won't remember me, probably because I didn't do disgustingly memorable things. I certainly won't write "Die" on his wall.

96 Grams Of Awesome

2008-11-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

I think we've played in Little Rock, Arkansas at the Whitewater Tavern probably four times in the past year. It's got everything one could ever want in a bar: really cheap booze, really good food, really absurd decorations (a real canoe hanging from the ceiling, a poster-sized photo of a naked man playing an accordian), really wacky regular patrons (overheard: "A corndog! None of those fuckers got me in 'Nam, but I come home and almost die on a corndog!! A corndog!!!), and free wireless internet.

The bar is managed by an extremely nice guy named Matt, who lets us sleep at his house whenever we are in town. His roommates include "Sweet" Jane (a bartender at Whitewater), and Michael.

Michael and I were in a coffee shop on Tuesday when he revealed that he had to be at work at 9am the next morning for a meeting with his bosses at U.S. Pizza, a restaurant in town.

"I'm kind of worried. I really don't know if they're going to fire me or promote me."

Why would they fire you?

"Well, a couple reasons. They told me to take off the Obama button I was wearing, and I told them 'That's fucking ridiculous,' and it happened to be in front of a customer. Then I made a little sign."

A sign? What?

"Well, there's this big flat screen TV in our dining room, and there's a camera in the restaurant's arcade. So the TV just shows the arcade, so parents in the dining room can watch their kids while the kids are playing in the arcade."

Ok.

"And it's total bullshit because the house dressing that we serve has 96 grams of fat in a 6-ounce serving. So everyone thinks they're being healthy, when they're really just getting heart disease."

Ok.

"So I made a sign that just had the facts. 'Our house dressing has 96 grams of fat in a 6-ounce serving.' And I hung it up in the arcade so that the TV in the dining room showed the sign all day."

The next morning, in the pouring rain, I drove Michael to his meeting. They handed Michael a write-up of his offenses ("Michael was wearing a button that a guest found offensive. Michael said 'FUCK' in front of guest") and fired him. They asked him why he made the sign. He told them that "people have a right to be informed." They then asked him to put his signature on the paper. Michael responded, "Well, I will sign this, but can I please record the fact that what I actually said was 'This is fucking ridiculous.' ? We live in a postmodern society where the truth is important."

All of this lifted Michael to heroic status among me and all of our friends in Little Rock. But the best part by far was that Michael spent the rest of the day making jokes about his new unemployed status. "Hey Michael, do you want to go get lunch with us?" I just got fired, and you want to talk about lunch??? Really?? Lunch?? I've just been fired. ......."Hey Michael, did you listen to that Arcade Fire album?" I've just been fired from my job and you want to talk about the Arcade Fire?? Really?? I can't discuss music right now. ........."Michael, have you thought about trying to collect unemployment pay?" Seriously?? A man gets fired today, and you want to ask him whether or not he's going to collect unemployment? You dick, have some god-damned sympathy.

Michael rules. The only question I have is what made him think that the meeting could possibly have been about him getting promoted, but I guess I can ask him in January when we go back to Little Rock.

Tex Message

2008-11-07T21:58:00.000-08:00

"Tex Message." Oh man, that's golden. I think the inspiration was a girl near me who just said "I totally include a smiley face in all my text messages."

Tonight we played at a coffee house near Dallas called The White Rhino. All I could think about was our video tech project in high school where Andrew Kilpatrick, Conor, and Peter made a fake commercial for heroin called "White Tiger."

The only two guys at the show tonight who were not in high school were Harley Davidson employees. One of them had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle TODAY. "Dear God, are you alright? Why are you even out of the house?" "Well," he said, "my helmet worked. I only had a mild concussion.....I think....I was unconscious for a while, so I'm not sure. It happens." Instant new hero. He even put money into our tip jar.

Last night's show was in College Station, TX. Quite a wide array of characters made it out to that one, too. Including a man who now spends much of his days organizing free meals for all the patrons of the bar. He just buys a bunch of food, and makes it outside on the porch, and gives it to people at the bar. Kristy and Casey thought that was a wondrous idea until I pointed out that maybe there were better candidates for free hot meals than the drunken patrons of the Revolution Bar and Cafe. The man was pretty cool though....wearing socks (but no shoes) and jeans with a GIGANTIC hole in the ass.

I ended up spending most of the night (after our show) speaking with Rudy, a big Mexican guy living in College Station who loves Sonic Youth, Pavement, and loads of other bands that my friends in college adored, but that I couldn't stand. "Listen man, you need to buy Daydream Nation and get into it," he told me. "Study it. It's amazing. Then, a couple years later, get this other album they released called -- "
"Wait a second," I interrupted. "It's going to take me two years to grasp this album??"
"Yeah man, it's really intense. It's some insane shit."
"But TWO YEARS??? If I've been listening to it for, let's say 14 months, and I still am not into it, you think I need to invest another 10 months of my life trying to grasp this Sonic Youth album?"
"Well....yeah man, I guess you may not dig it."

The D-est Of The Big D's

2008-11-02T13:15:00.000-08:00

Casey just said to me, "Last time we were in Dallas, I figured it would be the only time I was ever there in my life. Now we're here, and it's a week later." Casey always exaggerates though, it was about three weeks ago, I think. I don't even know.

We're back at the Opening Bell in downtown Dallas. We played this afternoon outside in a park. Well, kind of a park, more like an intersection in a nice neighborhood called Highland Park. People were jogging/rollerblading/strolling by. It was hard not to laugh at some people, including an older gentleman walking his dog while wearing a shirt that said "FBI: Female Body Investigator."

Our best friend from yesterday was Barry, a fine man we met at a bar in Jackson, MI. He relayed to Casey and me an amazing story about how he recently found out that he has a five-year old daughter. Five years ago, he was dating a woman, and they broke up. He "thought she may be pregnant," but wasn't totally sure. He started dating another woman. That woman passed away. Right after she passed away, he found his ex-girlfriend (the possibly pregnant one) on Myspace. She wrote him a message on Myspace that said she needed to talk to him. When he called her, she said that she had had his child five years ago, and that she'd been writing him letters for the last five years. "I guess the girlfriend that just died had been hiding the letters."

He is now happily together with the mother of his child.

Barry is awesome. He was drinking Sparks energy drink and smoking cigarettes non-stop. He was the sanest crazy man at the bar that I could ever imagine. As Casey and I drove off, Casey asked me if I heard Barry say that he used to play bass in a Doors cover band. Casey giggled, then added, "Which is totally awesome because the Doors didn't have a bassist."

In The 3-est of D's

2008-10-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

One of the first CD's I ever purchased was U2's Achtung Baby. It may have been number two, behind Bryan Adams's Waking Up The Neighbours. I still think it's one of the best albums ever made. (Achtung Baby, that is. Definitely not WUPTN....which is still fairly awesome anyway.) Soon after, I bought Zooropa, which is less good, but anything that contains "Lemon" can't be that bad. We used to put that song on in high school video technology class every single day.

I hadn't obtained another note of U2's music until last year, when I made the incredibly ridiculous late-night (VERY late-night) purchase of the entire U2 catalog on iTunes. I distinctly remember laying in bed the next morning (or afternoon) and thinking, "No....please no.....please say that was a dream," until I turned on my computer and, Yep! I had downloaded 478 songs by U2.

Anyway, I ended up loving almost all of it. And yesterday I went to see the U2 3D movie for the second time. Sitting in the theater by myself, I reveled in the fact that seeing an IMAX movie by myself at 5:30pm on a Wednesday is the kind of experience that desk jobs were meant to destroy.

The second time through U2 3D I didn't cry nearly as much as the first time, which doesn't make too much sense, because there's not a better situation for crying than sitting by yourself wearing 3D glasses in an empty theater on a weekday. Well, I guess doing that on a weekend would be more perfect. But still, I should've cried more.

I'm still waiting to get pics back from the last jaunt of touring. This was taken by friends of mine in Atlanta, who I met this past summer in Cinque Terre, Italy. In this past month, our band has stayed with two groups of people that I met in Italy this summer. Totally rad.

The picture is from Eddie's Attic, a super cool listening room in Atlanta. Last time we played there in March, Eddie let me drink Stella Artois out of the giant Budman beer mug. This time I didn't have to beg as much for the mug, but made the wise decision of filling it with Diet Coke instead of beer. I think the show benefited in consequence.

Kristy still owes me many pictures from the spring trip to Eddie's and ones from this past trip. If I ever get those from her, they will make a fine blog entry.

Another Month Without Beds

2008-10-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, that's kind of a lie. There were a few nights that included beds.

The Kristy Kruger band drove to Grand Rapids, MI on 9/22 to meet up with our new boss, Brian Vander Ark. Brian is/was the lead singer of The Verve Pipe, a band who had a hit in the 90s with "The Freshmen".

Brian and his family are about as cool as they come. Dylan (guitar) and I slept in an Airstream trailer parked in his yard. Despite the fact that it was decked out with a flatscreen TV and other indulgences, I still felt like Randy Quaid from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. There were an embarrassingly high number of "Shitter's full" jokes made.

After days of rehearsing, our first show was in Detroit at a club that holds about 500 people. When Brian told us that it would probably sell out, I giggled. When we showed up for the show and it was packed two hours before showtime, I stopped giggling.

We played a bunch of shows with Brian, and played shows without him to fill in the gaps in the dates. NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Richmond, Charlottesville, Dallas, Birmingham, Charlotte, Augusta, Atlanta.....I think I'm leaving some out.

One of the coolest places we played was a house in North Augusta, South Carolina. Chuck and Heather are both schoolteachers that have turned their basement into an honest-to-goodness nice theater. It holds 100 people, and four times each year, Chuck invites his email list of friends/music fans over for a show. He makes t-shirts, laminated passes and all other kinds of neat stuff to commemorate the show. It's BYOB, but he sets up an enormous cooler of ice and a pile of buckets so you can keep your B cold during the show. It was quite a pleasant way to spend an evening. As his neighbor/friend told me: "Everybody's got to have a hobby, and Chuck took just about the coolest fucking hobby you could ever have."

This trek lasted about a month, and the highlight of the trip may have been meeting new spouses of my friends. That was made even more fun after having this conversation with Brian's wife.

Richard, do you have a girlfriend?

No.

Why not?

Well, currently I'm sleeping in your front yard in a trailer. Over the next month, I'll probably sleep in a bed....well, probably 6-8 nights. The highlight of any given day could honestly be when we stop at a gas station that sells corn dogs. These things don't scream, "Date me."

I see.

Because of exhaustion and the fact that Kristy takes an incredibly large amount of pictures, I didn't take many pictures this trip. This was the best:

If it hadn't been 4am, we definitely would've gone inside to see if their boasting could've been true.

Okay, A Few More

2008-08-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

Ba-doom ching!

I wonder if the camels are bored of the view by now

And More

2008-08-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Nada, me, Linda (our wonderful host)

Sunset on Nile

I Took Many Pictures In Egypt

2008-08-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Temple of Karnak. Columns were unbelievably big.

Nada at Karnak
Man who made a gun out of cardboard, Karnak

Desert Desert

2008-08-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

Oldest stone building in the world: Step pyramid of King Djoser
Palest arms in the world: Richard Hewett

Great camels of Giza

Rachel's camel bit mine

View of Garbage City from Coptic Cave Churches, Cairo

More Pictures

2008-08-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

Seriously, if loving turkey-flavored chips is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Entrance to Luxor Temple

After Samir told me to stop asking so many questions, I told him that in America we would settle this dispute with a dance-off. In slippers.

Pictures

2008-08-27T07:48:00.001-07:00

Me with our tour guide Samir. At Saqqara. Before he asked me to stop asking so many questions.

If I had known they sold turkey-flavored potato chips in Egypt, I would not have waited so long to visit.

The man driving the tractor we were riding on to Hatshepsut's Temple

Hatshepsut's Temple

Cairo Pics

2008-08-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

A typical bus in Cairo.

A typical Cairene kid working under a typical car on a typical street in Cairo.

Me and a man who showed us around a mosque in Cairo (from left to right).

A guy on the street who really wanted to be in a picture.

The Train Station In Luxor

2008-08-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

(This picture is not actually the train station in Luxor, but you get the idea.)

I think the people of Egypt could not be any nicer.

My friend Nada and I got in the good habit of telling people that we were married so as to cause fewer problems. One man at the train platform was not deterred. He asked if we had any children. When I told him no, he offered to give me his wife and four children, in exchange for Nada. "Then, very soon, we will all have children! Because **I** have no problems." I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not. And then I thought of the two German girls laughing at my sausage-eating stick, and rued the fact that my genitalia had been mocked on two continents in the last two weeks.

When a train pulled up to the platform, a group of four Egyptian women were in the car directly in front of us. This was not our train, so we stood there and watched all the commotion around us. The women in the car smiled at me and waved. I waved back. That made them giggle uncontrollably. I think it was four generations of women from one family. I had no idea what to do next. I asked Nada if blowing them a kiss would be wildly inappropriate. She said yes. The train stayed at the station for at least 20 minutes, so it took every ounce of self-restraint to not go ahead and do it. Since Nada nixed the kiss, I thought about offering them some of my vanilla wafers, but I didn't think that would be as fun. Or as illegal and deserving of the death penalty.

The kids next to me, however, did receive some vanilla wafers.

Another man offered five million camels for Nada.

Suddenly, a giant hacksaw fell out of the luggage of a man walking down the platform. He looked around for a second, then calmly wrapped it back up into his luggage (which was a sheet wrapped around his saw....and who knew what else). Nada and I discussed how this was quite interesting, since at the front gate they had airport-like security. We were waved through without a bag-check, but all of the locals (like Sawman) were being checked. How did his saw get through? If they didn't mind a gigantic hacksaw on the train, what exactly were they looking for? A cannon? Plutonium? A lightsaber?

As I am about to click on "Publish Post," I think of a phone conversation I had with my mother today which included her saying, "Many of my friends read your blog, you have no idea." If you are a friend of my mother's and are reading this, I apologize for using the word "genitalia." I promise that this is not a reflection on her parenting skills. She is worth many more camels than a woman whose son nonchalantly tosses around words like "genitalia."

Goodbye Very Much

2008-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

I arrived to Cairo at 3am on Saturday morning. The wonder has not ceased since. We are staying with Linda and Pressley Wicker, who are friends of one of our family's friends.

My friend Nada got in yesterday, and I was trying to explain to her how I feel like we are inside a giant bubble in the Wickers' apartment, and outside is a kind of magical wild chaotic zoo of amazement.

The Wickers live in a neighborhood called Maadi, which is on the Nile River, just south of the center of the city. But "the city" contains a population of 20 million people, so it's difficult to tell where it begins and ends.

Driving in Egypt is kind of a do-it-yourself adventure. There are few lines in the road, and where they exist, they are not followed. People just honk liberally, as if that absolves them of any wrongdoing. "Beep beep -- I'm coming, you better watch out," seems to be the prevailing attitude. If there is a car to the driver's left, and a car to the right, and neither is going fast enough, then the driver creates a lane in the middle, gives a couple honks, and drives through. Families crossing the road, donkeys hauling food, minibusses traveling the wrong way on the highway -- all can be hindrances.

The streets are lined with immense amounts of trash. Everywhere. Towering buildings surround the highways and streets, and as Linda says, "It looks like bombs have been dropped all over the city." But the reason for this is simple -- when Egyptian landowners build high-rises on their property, they don't have to pay city taxes on the land until the construction is FINISHED. So they figured out that if they leave the buliding unfinished, and start housing tenants anyway, they can collect rent from the tenants without paying city taxes.

My friend Greg loves having fun with new people. Especially new people who he doesn't know, and a trip to Mexico made it clear that he especially loves having fun with ones who don't speak English. Greg would not be able to contain himself in Cairo. Down every street corner I turn, at every stop light the taxi stops, people want to talk to me. People yell, "Welcome to my country!!!" People scream, "Hello!!! How are you?? What is your name??" from across the road. People invariably smile and wave whenever eye contact is made. It is remarkable. For about six city blocks, a truckdriver stayed along side our taxi last night, just so he could keep waving and giving the thumbs up to us whenever we came to a stop.

I have been offered mint tea from shopowners, cigarettes from taxi drivers, bags of bagel chips from perfume salesmen, and complete chicken/vegetable/potato dinners from store-owners whose shops I have wandered into.

Linda took me on a walk through her neighborhood yesterday. We stopped at a butcher shop with crates of ducks and chickens. Two local women were seated, haggling with the owner about how much to pay for a large duck. I told Linda I would love to see how they killed it. The woman told Linda that they were haggling over the price, but it would probably be killed soon. As chaos whirled all around us, everyone within earshot laughed at my curiosity.

The owner of the shop picked up the duck behind its wings and pretended to toss it to me, then asked me if I wanted to hold it. I said thanks, but no thanks. Finally they finished the job, laughing at my shock/horror the whole time. Thank goodness it wasn't a chicken, or I would never be able to visit Chik-Fil-A again.

Then we walked to the bakery. Piping hot loaves of bread were pouring out of the oven, so we walked past the front counter of the bakery to go watch. The men tending the oven were excited to see us, so they asked us what we'd like. I gave one of the men an Egyptian pound (about 18 American cents) and said that we'd just like to try the bread. He looked at the coin for a while, then said "Hmmm....20." Linda said, "No, no no, we just want to try the bread...20 pounds? Won't one pound get us a taste?" He said, "Hmmmm.....No. Twenty." We shook our heads again and said, "No, please we just want a sample." After paying $3 for cab rides all over the city, a loaf of bread couldn't cost a whole pound. A crowd had gathered around us at this point.

Then the man started scooping up loaves of bread and placing them on the window in front of us. Linda and I both realized we had just purchased 20 LOAVES of bread for the one Egyptian pound. We scooped up a few, handed the rest to the onlookers, then left. Everyone was waving and saying goodbye, welcoming us to their country and hoping we'd come back.

Linda went home and I wandered the streets some more. "Hello!!!!", "Welcome!!!!" and "What is your name!!!" rained down from all over.

I passed two young kids on the street who both giggled at me. "What is your name??" one said. My name is Richard, what is your name? Between bursts of laugher, one said "Mohammed." I asked the same question to his friend. "Mohammed," he replied. "Well Mohammed. Nice to meet you. And you Mohammed, nice to meet you too." I asked them what they were doing this afternoon. They said "Yes, Cairo, we live in Cairo." I said, no no -- are you all playing today? Do you have school? "No no, we love to play PlayStation," and pointed inside. We all laughed and I told them to have fun. They smiled and said, "You have fun too!!"

I told them goodbye and started to walk down the street, they waved and said "Goodbye!!!!" I walked about 10 yards and heard "Goodbye!!!!" and turned around to see them waving and smiling. I waved and yelled back, "Goodbye!!" After another ten yards, I heard the same thing, and I turned and yelled back. This happened about six times as I walked almost two blocks. Finally, they both yelled "GOODBYE VERY MUCH!!!!" and I turned around to see them waving enthusiastically, about two crowded city blocks away. I jumped up and waved, and shouted "'GOODBYE VERY MUCH!!!!!"

Viva La Polska

2008-08-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

"What do you think the turnover rate is for tour guides at the Auschwitz concentration camp?" Ben asked me.

I had just found my American drinking partners for the evening in Wroclaw, Poland.

"No, seriously -- how long do you think you could last there as a tour guide?"

Ben had known me for about 15 seconds, and what Ben didn't understand was that I would take the question very seriously. He, his friend Dan, and I discussed the question at length. Ben had just been to visit Auschwitz. "There's a Radisson like right across the street. And how could you ever say, 'I live in Auschwitz?' What the hell?" (Please click on that link, the headline is incredible.)

My main question was whether or not the Auschwitz tour guides acted like a person at any other job -- started to loosen up after a couple months and crack jokes. You know, mess around with other employees.

We settled on probably six months as the longest you could make it, but our conversation was interrupted by a bachelor party group from London. It included the groom-to-be wearing a Speedo and a cape, and a really short guy who kept laughing hysterically to himself, eyes closed. We bought them drinks. Then left for a club.

Ben is fearless. After explaining to me how he had been in Kosovo before arriving in Poland, he found the biggest group of Polish girls in the club and sat down right in the middle. I ended up talking to one who told me that her father is "Very involved in the city politics, I don't know how you say -- he's very important." She also told me much about her German boyfriend of four years. And how they live together.

Soon after, she asked me if we were going to another club after this one. She suggested that she show me "some good clubs, the best in Wroclaw." But alas, I was prepared for this little trick.

Two nights previously, in Poznan, a girl had asked to "show me the best bars in Poznan." I declined, citing the muscular, shaved-headed, Polish gentleman with his arms around her who was kissing her ear. "Him?" she said, "I don't like him." After I told her that he probably liked her and that I'd pass on the invitation, she insisted. Before I could respond, the gentleman placed his arm on the bar and yelled something in Polish. "He wants to armwrestle you," she said. "And I would like to leave," I said. She laughed and told me that she would come with me. "Uhh, I don't think that's the best idea. I appreciate the offer, but goodbye."

She again insisted. I told her that I needed to use the bathroom, to buy some time and try to figure out how to get out of this situation.

I had nothing.

She cornered me as I exited the restroom, asking if I was ready to leave. I told her that I should probably just be going -- then her male friend decided to grab my arms and place me against the wall. And shout at me, in Polish. She yelled at him, then insisted that she would still like to show me around Poznan. I waited for him to finally ease up a bit...then I sprinted up the stairs, out of the bar, and down the street as quickly as possible, screaming "No thank you!" over my back.

So back to Wroclaw.......so the mayor's daughter asks me to hang out with her, despite her live-in German boyfriend of four years. I had learned my lesson in Poznan. I said a couple of indistinguishable words in English, then ran out of the bar, as fast as I could.

The next day, outside I noticed a lot of drunk burly men wearing scarves and shirts of ridiculous colors. I had learned that in Europe, this means a soccer game is being played somewhere in town. I jumped into the nearest internet cafe and tried to find out as much as I could about the Wroclaw team. Deciphering Polish to the best of my ability, I reasoned that they were playing tonight at 8pm in a stadium about 1.5 miles from where I was. Sounded like a fine walk to me.

I found the nearest drunk burly Pole with an electric green scarf around his neck and asked him to confirm what I had learned. He said, "Yes! There is very big match tonight. VERY big. Biggest in years here. But no tickets left, tickets are all sold."

I thanked him and tried to figure out a decent place to watch the game on TV. Ah, screw it, I thought. I don't have anything better to do. I started walking down to the stadium.

Not knowing exactly where it was, I followed the smell of booze and the radiance of electric green. And the swarm of armored police vehicles.

Forty-five minutes later, I was outside the Wroclaw soccer stadium, wondering if Polish people would understand the phrase "ticket scalpers."

I heard a man on his cell phone speaking English. When he hung up, I asked if he thought there would be scalpers selling tickets. He looked puzzled. "Uh, I think you just buy your tickets here at the gate, mate." Plenty of tickets left.

He was fine with me tagging along. We waited for his two friends to arrive, then we got in line to buy tickets.

My newly acquired soccer-watching crew consisted of two British guys and an American who all had been living in Wroclaw for 4-5 years. All of them taught advanced conversational English.

A gigantic water cannon rolled by, distracting everyone's attention.

We sat in a section directly behind the goal. All three guys explained to me that their students had warned them to never, ever go to a soccer game in Wroclaw because it's really dangerous. We discussed the debate that takes place in the presence of countless policemen and a water cannon -- "Am I safe because there IS so much security around? Or am I unsafe because they NEED so much security around?"

The Wroclaw team had advanced to the top Polish league for the first time in the last seven years. This was their first game of the season. The stadium looked like the average American high school football stadium....and was not even full. They explained that the concept of "advance ticket sales" hadn't really caught on here yet, and people don't really feel safe coming to the games. They also told me that the first two weeks of the season had been postponed due to a bribery scandal involving almost every single referee in the league. And that Poland's president is a former child actor. And that Poland's former prime minister who just left office was the president's identical twin, and also a former child actor.

I turned the conversation to more jovial matters. English Matt was engaged to one of his previous students. American Matt was married to one of his previous students. "Rob, what's taking you so long? Hee hee," I joked. He didn't look pleased. "Actually mate, I'm divorced from one of my students."

I went down to the concession stand. And bought a sausage that was bigger than my arm.

Hoping that Rob had forgotten my marriage remark, I asked English Matt more about his engagement. Yes, she was a student. Yes, he had been teaching her. Yes, she was from Poland. "If you can believe it or not, she's actually from Auschwitz. Isn't that crazy?" My head almost exploded. I probably spit out a piece of gigantic sausage.

"Yeah, and it's really funny -- I would never ever want to live there. Like can you imagine living there? What the hell? But I went to meet her family a few months ago, and they were trying to convince us to move down there. I told them that there were no jobs for English speakers, but they said no no no, that wasn't true. They told me that they're always looking to hire people at the concentration camp."

I Can't Even Pronounce It

2008-08-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

My uncle and I just returned from the annual festival that takes place in Hannover around the large lake in the middle of town.

He and I were standing there, drinking a beer and discussing why it had been difficult to talk to German girls, and how they hadn't really been interested in talking much with me. The two cute German girls next to us seemed to notice.

Later, when Mark came back with potato pancakes for me and him, we didn't have any forks. I went to the booth nearby, and could only find two toothpick-like forks, but they seemed to work fine.

The girls laughed, then said something to us in German.

Me: I think they just made fun of us.
Mark: Yeah, they just told you that you had a very small stick.

And so it goes.

That wasn't even the silliest interaction of the day with a German female.

A middle-aged German woman literally yelled at me while in line for train tickets, because she was convinced there was an open ticket counter among the long row of ticket counters and that I wasn't heading for it. YELLED.

I didn't think there was one open in the direction she was pointing, but I walked down there anyway....and it was closed. She continued to yell at me. People were laughing (at her? at me? at life? I hoped at her). Finally, I just stood there, scanning for another open ticket counter, until one came open. On my way to it, I had to pass the yelling woman again. She yelled something else at me, even though it was clear to me, the train company, and every single other person in line that she had been wrong. Maybe she was yelling an apology as I walked past. Or maybe it was "Your stick is very small!!!"

It was confusing. And a little scary.

I've spent the last few days in Germany reading The Golden Compass and hanging out with my 10 year old cousin Reid. Some of that time has been spent watching a cartoon called Chowder . It is the weirdest cartoon ever. Reid gets mad because I have been singing to him "Chowder's not your boyfriend, Chowder's not your boyfriend." But he's not mad that he's not Chowder's boyfriend, he's mad because I'm getting the words to the song wrong. I have no idea what the real words are, I just know they involve "Chowder" and "boyfriend."

Speaking of fantastic songs that Reid loves, a major watershed moment in male Hewett bonding was when Reid felt comfortable enough around me to belt this one out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be6jlCuMvVQ

Tomorrow I head to Poland. To Poznan, Poland. Then on to Wroclaw, Poland.

Today, before buying my train ticket to Wroclaw, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to pronounce "Wroclaw." Matters are complicated by the slash through the "L" in the word. According to someone on Tripadvisor.com, the town is pronounced:
Vro-tz-wav - Wrocław.

There it is, the little slash in the "L". Good times.

Pearl Jam Unites The World

2008-07-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

My uncle told me that at the Hannover airport, there are numerous booths advertising all-inclusive "last-minute" travel deals. He had wanted to find out more and I had a lot of time, so I decided to pack my bag, take the tram to the airport and see where I would end up that night. After being in so many big cities, I was hoping to get to a beach. Visions of Greek islands, the Portuguese coastline, and out of control Turkish soccer fans danced through my head.

At the airport, there were probably 15 different booths advertising these travel packages. There were four star hotels in Istanbul for one week at a cost of 400 euros, flight included. All kinds of trips to the Greek islands. As my heartrate increased, I neared the counter, wondering why I was one of only three people at ANY of the booths. I had a flashback to FerryGate 2k8, and figured that maybe I had to be in an automobile ("but anyone's automobile!") in order to board the plane.

Well, the two polite German gentlemen were shocked when I put my backpack on the floor and asked if they could get me to Greece. "Today??!!!" Yes, I said, today. "You mean right now?" Yes. "This is not possible."

I asked how quickly they could get me somewhere fun. They told me that they could give me a package to Portugal.....in about a month. All the packages sell out well in advance.

They spoke solid English, so I figured I'd make the obvious "Well that's not very last minute!" joke. I guess no one had dropped that comedic atom bomb before, because they laughed, heartily. "This is true. I guess we should call it 'last month travel!!!"

I told them that since they couldn't fly me anywhere today, they should recommend somewhere for me to go on the train. Today.

We settled on Salzburg, Austria.

Ten hours later, I was departing my hostel in Salzburg in search of a good bar. I found one along the river. I also found a marvelous drinking companion, an Austrian named Christian.

Christian bears an uncanny resemblance to my good friend Derek. In appearance, mannerisms, and lovably exasperated demeanor.

Christian sells "very expensive history books. I don't know how you say it in English, but I sell history books for thousands of dollars." Antique books, like very very old books? "No, they are not old, but they are very good. So they cost thousands of dollars." I don't think he was pulling my leg, but who knows.

Then Christian and I came upon the topic which would entertain us for the rest of the evening: Pearl Jam.

I love Pearl Jam. Christian LOVES Pearl Jam. Not in the "Pearl Jam is cool, I can't believe people forget that they're still around!" kind of way, but more of the "Pearl Jam releases all of their concerts on CD and I buy every possible one" kind of way. We quickly progressed from discussing Pearl Jam albums to Pearl Jam songs to Pearl jam b-sides to Pearl Jam tours to specific Pearl Jam concerts in 2000.....we enthusiastically celebrated our Pearl Jam geekness. I think we were both shocked to find another human (in a random bar) who spoke a different language, but who vehemently agreed that No Code is an underappreciated masterpiece.

The real fireworks began when he asked me what I thought of "I Got Id" (a song that was never even released on a proper Pearl Jam album). I told him I knew it, but couldn't think of how it went. Christian immediately did one of the loudest, best Eddie Vedder impersonations since Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live. It was tremendous. He took it seriously. Very very seriously.

Then he leaned over to me - "Listen. We finish our beer here, then we leave for another bar. Which Pearl Jam song will we sing on the way?" I laughed and said sure, I was ready to go. "But which song will we sing?" I laughed again, but then realized he wasn't kidding -- I was in charge of picking a song to sing. I laughed again.

He downed his beer, we stood up, and outside he asked again which song I would pick. More nervous laughter from me. Finally, I muttered, "Uhhh, how about 'Smile'" ?

Again, without any hesitation, Christian let loose in the middle of the street -- "Don't it make you smile!! Don't it MAKE you smile!!!........I missssssss you alreadyyyyyyyy!!! I miss you alreadyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!"

Over the three days in Salzburg, I saw the Cathedral orchestra perform an evening of Mozart's music in the cathedral; an amazing classical quartet blazing through tunes in the main square; and numerous accordians and water-glass-rubbing street musicians. And not a single one of them came close to Christian's serenade.

And A Few More

2008-07-23T15:58:00.001-07:00

People frantically trying to take a picture of the Mona Lisa. I wonder if they're aware that you can just Google it.

Urinal in Amsterdam. On the street.

More Welsh!

Wales is pretty

Boat's eye view of Amsterdam

Wales

2008-07-23T15:49:00.001-07:00

I just returned from another trip to the UK to visit Alex. I met up with him at his flat in London, then we drove all over Britain and Wales.

Our trusty British steed. Alex's VW convertible

Just two dudes in Wales

Just a dude chasing sheep in Wales.

I didn't know that Wales has its own language. It has very few vowels, but many Y's, F's, and D's. "Recycling centre" is English for "Canolfan ailgylchu."

I Realized....

2008-07-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

....that there were not really any pictures from London or Berlin in that group. But we went there. And I guess I didn't take many pictures. Or many pictures that were as funny as Ann with a group of tuxedo-ed Germans.

We, however, did visit those places.

London, Paris, Berlin, Hannover

2008-07-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

For the first two weeks of July, Sanford native and fearless French interpreter Ann came to hit the highest of European highlights, including the Eiffel Tower, the Paris sewer system, and the Hannover summer festival. Only the high high highlights.

Rainbow from the Eiffel Tower

Ann at Hannover summer festival with German guys

Ann at Hannover summer festival with German beer with raspberries in it

No German festival is complete without a zany painting of Don King

Solomon

2008-07-14T02:55:00.001-07:00

Everybody who's done much traveling has a horror story about canceled flights, car breakdowns, vomiting fellow passengers, etc etc. Before last week, my best was a trans-US flight that got mangled into three days of flying, including a night in a chair in the Philadelphia airport.

Last week, a 7 hour train trip from Hannover to see my friend Alex in London turned into a 24-hour affair. Some of the details are not so exciting, but after getting rejected from overbooked trains, buying bus tickets that I ended up canceling, and contemplating a night on the benches of a Brussels train station, I finally ended up in Calais, France to catch a ferry to England. Apparently, the Calais--Dover ferry passage is one of the busiest in the world. Apparently, it's not busy enough to allow foot passengers after 10pm on Sundays.

The woman at the ticket counter told me I needed a car, and that I could just hop into someone's car to get on the last ferry of the day, which was leaving in a few minutes. I began to ask her how this makes any logistical, political, or security sense, but after the 18 hours of travel at that point, I didn't want to press my luck. No customers were in our ticket office, so I ran next door where it looked like people were buying tickets for the competing ferry line.

Here in line there was a varied group of people including an elderly couple, some people I don't remember, and Solomon. I approached Solomon and asked if he spoke English. He said sure. I told him that I was trying to get onto the ferry, but I needed a car. Which I didn't have. No, no, no, I didn't want to obtain his car, I'd just like to get in his car, pass through the gate onto the ferry, then we can go our separately merry ways. He laughed and said absolutely.

That's when I first figured he may be a murderer. He was a wee bit too into the idea of me coming along. But I tried to chalk that feeling up to fatigue-induced delirium and an overly cautious mother.

He asked me what I was doing when I got to Dover. I told him that my friend from London, Alex, was picking me up. (Haha! There's a witness!! Murder plans foiled!)

"Then you going to London?" he asked. I said yes, and he calmly said, "Well that's silly for him to pick you up. I take you to London."

For about 3 seconds I resisted, but then figured what the hell.

At that point, another haggard backpacker entered the ferry office and approached the ticket counter. I was not surprised when I heard the guy groan in heavily-accented English, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO HAVE A CAR??"

Solomon and I looked at each other, and then Solomon leaned over and said "Hey, you can get in my car."

Our newly acquired companion, Pedro, is a 20 year old Brazilian who had just finished school in Sao Paulo, and had arrived in Europe earlier that day. His first day on the continent, and he can't even get on a boat without having a car.

Solomon apologized profusely for not having more room for all of our stuff in his small sedan. As we loaded in, he let me use his cell phone to call Alex. My murder fears, slowly dissipating for the last 25 minutes, were now completely gone. Well, maybe not completely gone, but I had solace in the fact that if Solomon did drive off and kill me, Alex would help the police get a good start on him. And Pedro would be there with me in my final moments. Unless Pedro was somehow an accomplice in an elaborate scheme.....I had to tell the mother in my head (God bless her) to quiet down once again.

I have no idea what the security guard thought as we drove onto the ferry. As I handed him our passports from the passenger seat, I told him that "We are family, returning from holiday." He told us to have a nice trip.

Like most people you initially peg as murderers, Solomon is an incredibly kind, caring man. You can't be too cautious, especially in a foreign country, but I feel guilty for ever doubting Solomon. He was born in Lebanon and now sells cars in London. He was on his way from Lebanon to Miami 17 years ago, when a cute woman at customs in London told him that London was more fun than Miami, and he should try it. Never wanting to displease a cute woman, he said yes. Now married (unfortunately not to the customs agent), he likes London, but loves Lebanon, where people have more freedom and "are not being video-taped all day." His kids feel the same way. "In London they can't even walk across the street to the park because of the laws and bad people. When we are in Lebanon, they wake up at 5am because they are excited about being outside all day, playing with the other kids."

He was returning from a visit to a friend in Aachen, Germany when I met him. I chuckled and told him that I had been in Aachen about 11 hours earlier that day. "Ah! Too bad. I could give you ride from Aachen!"

Pedro explained that his family was flying into London very late that night, and Pedro was going to take the train from London to the airport to meet them there, since his parents spoke absolutely no English. Solomon insisted that he would drive Pedro to the airport after taking me to Alex's house. Solomon was now entering sainthood territory.

On the ferry, he also told me and Pedro that he always drives the best cars that he is trying to sell, so he can usually "get them up to about 150." I laughed, doing a quick kilometers to miles conversion. "But that's miles per hour," he said. I guess he saw the look on my face because he roared with laughter and said, "Uh oh, now Richard wants to find a different car. My friend Richard, I will not go this fast for you. Also, I have this Nissan, it's not so fast."

Finally on the highway after the ferry crossing, Solomon insisted that we not pay for gas. He was adament about sharing his beverages, chewing gum, and cigarettes in the car. I don't know if he got up to 150, but we pushed the limits of safety and arrived in London about 2:30 AM.

Solomon, Pedro, and I didn't exchange information as I left. We knew that we'd never see each other again and part of me didn't want to ruin the evening by asking all of us to pose for some silly photo.

The two of them waited for Alex to let me into his apartment, then they drove off.

Amsterdam And Hitchhiking Across The English Channel

2008-07-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

My best friend in Amsterdam is named Ken. He is from Osaka, checked into our hostel on the same day I did, plays the classical guitar, and speaks very very minimal English. He rules.

Ken and I ate breakfast together each morning in the hostel. While trying hard to communicate with each other at the breakfast table, I watched Ken eat sandwiches of ham/cheese/peanut butter on toast. I think he created that recipe.

On our third night in Amsterdam, Ken and I walked down the street of our Turkish neighborhood to find a place to watch Turkey play Germany in the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. While getting something to eat (some kind of Turkish sandwich I couldn't pronounce), a large man wearing a Turkish flag as a cape and another Turkish flag as a bandana suddenly appeared and told us to come watch the game next door.

The caped Turk led us into a tiny Turkish coffeehouse packed with about 40 Turkish men watching the game on a flat-screen TV.

Grown men screamed and (presumably) cursed at the television for the entire match. If Turkey had the ball anywhere near their offensive zone, they all stood up and shouted at the screen.

Turkey scored with about 8 minutes left and I honestly thought they were going to tear down the building. Men jumped up and down on tables. Men threw chairs. Men openly embraced and cried tears of joy. One old man turned around to me and Ken and did a hilarious hip-shaking dance of ecstasy. For the next few minutes, guys would come up to us, hug us, and point to the screen and shake their fists. We became enormous Turkey fans. I would've paid $10000 for the opportunity to celebrate a Turkish victory with this group of distinguished gentlemen, but Germany scored very late to win, and I felt like I had been kicked in the groin. Ken and I filed out and kept saying "Awesome." Partly because it was very awesome, and partly because that was one of the four words we could say to each other.

The rest of the time in Amsterdam was spent on a boat ride through the canals, bike rides through the city, and walking through the markets and bars.

The next few days were spent in London....after a 22-hour day of travel, that included a frantic plea to the patrons of a car ferry service in Calais, France, to let me get in their car so I could cross the channel to England. The only ferries running were car ferries, so you had to have a car. Thank goodness for Solomon, a Lebanese man returning home to England. He was kind enough to let me hop into his Nissan, so I could pass through the gate onto the ferry.

Italy Pictures 4

2008-06-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

Cinque Terre

Ah, those were John's salad days

Florentines, hide your daughters

Our front door in Cinque Terre

Italy Pictures 3 - How Could You Not Vote For Him?

2008-06-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

There was some kind of big election going on in Sicily. Roberto Calica seemed like a fine choice. My trained Italian eye sees that he is "Autonomous and Legal."

I hope Roberto realizes that his Sicilian constituents are feisty.

At Sicilian bars, I got way more attention from stray dogs than from girls.

A crappy-looking door on the street in Palermo was open and it was hot outside, so I went inside. Not a bad place to sit for a minute.

In Pompeii. What a cute lil' guy.

More Pictures of Italy

2008-06-22T15:23:00.001-07:00

St. Peter's is a little church somewhere in Italy.

Michelangelo's sculpture in St. Peter's. I wonder how many Ninja Turtles jokes are made in Italy each day. I certainly didn't contribute to that number.

Pantheon.

The view from the train as it entered the ship. Los Angeles can't even get a decent subway, yet Sicily can have trains that are carried onto the island by huge ships.

In Palermo, no street is too narrow for cars. Including streets packed with people at 3am that are about 7 feet wide.

Pictures of Italy

2008-06-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

Our best friend in Palermo. This guy is from Mali, but has lived in Palermo for a long time. When he found out I was from the U.S. (and had even lived in Los Angeles), all he wanted to talk about was "The Bloods And The Crips." His English wasn't perfect, but he knew every word to all 250 gangsta rap songs that came on in the bar. He kept asking me if I liked the Bloods or the Crips better, what I thought about Tupac, if I liked Tupac as much as Biggie, if I had spent much time in Compton, why I hadn't spent much time in Compton, etc etc. When I asked him how he knew about all of these things, he said "Becuase I listen....I listen....And I use the Internet."

Nothing to do with Itally, but I thought this picture of Reid was funny.

Venice is a tiny Italian town that was built on the water and therefore has tons of pretty canals. For some reason, tourists haven't gotten wind of its beauty, so no one is there at all. If you're reading this, book a ticket to Venice quick -- there's no way it can stay a secret for long.

When the Maestro conducted us out of his bar, we went to this cove to drink with the locals. They threw a cord out the window of the tower and hooked up their iPod to it on the rocks so we would have music. It was here that the man said, "We used to fish. Now we rent rooms."

Graham and Mike, on a bench in Cinque Terre.

Picture This: Sicily. 2008.

2008-06-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I just thought to use a Golden Girls Sicily joke. But perfect timing.

I rode an 8+ hr train to Palermo today. I sat next to a delightful Sicilian gentleman named George. He wanted to talk for all 8 hours, apparently because he loves learning languages and needed to practice his English. He was 62, but "still has the heart of a child." The heart of a child involved showing me "inventions" he had made, including a strap he bolted into his cell phone so that it will stay on his belt. He showed it to me and proclaimed "I ingenious!"

George loves dancing, but "like dancing with slim girls more; girls with big butts make me tired when we dance. I too small for girls with big butts." He loves to dance the "waltz, mamba and booooogey wooooogey." Just a solid dude.

He left our train car when it was taken over by five kids who decided to run down the aisle throwing plastic bottles, jumping on the seats, and kicking each other in the crotch. Shirking all parental shouts, they did this for the last four hours of the journey.

This is my first night in Palermo, and already it's up with my favorite places I've been. The city map I found prominently displays the three puppet theaters in the city, all of which are near my hostel. I think tomorrow may be the first Sicilian puppet triple feetch by an American. I'm giddy with excitement. If all goes well, I may have to cap off the day with a visit to the Sicilian International Marrionette and Puppet Museum. Sicilians, hide your daughters.

Palermo is tons of tiny streets, churches, bars, restaurants, and no street signs. It is incredibly beautiful in a gritty, happy way. George told me to "buy the historical DVDs on Sicily. Five or eight of them in the set -- much much much history here."

The last two days were in Sorrento, where I finally realized that hanging out with American girls is the only way to get any attention in Italy. Walking around with two girls from Tennessee, I was treated like an emperor. Our cab driver on the first night said that he would love to hang out with us, but couldn't because they "are my women." We tried very hard to tell him that these were not my women, but it wasn't until after we dropped them off that he finally cracked, and said "Okay okay, please please please call me tomorrow. I give you my number. Please. I love to spend time with you all...as long as you don't think I'm taking your women." We tried calling him five times the next day, with no luck. Gianluca, where are you??

Shake It Hip To Hip

2008-06-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

I'm not even sure if those are the right lyrics to the B-52s song. Appropriate nonetheless.

Yesterday saw a tearful goodbye with John, Graham, Casey, and Mike. In John's case, 'tearful' meant waking up as early as possible and running out of the hostel as if it was on fire. I can't imagine why he wanted to leave so quickly. It may have been the 7-inch deep puddle of murky water in our bathroom. Or the three guys who ended up in our room somehow, out of whom we scared the bejesus when Graham threw his backpack against a bunk bed at 1am the previous night. The star of our room was Dennis, a kindly Slovakian man who wanted to know if it was safe to 'drink tap water in all of the U.S. territories.'

I don't know if I ever want to leave Rome. Yesterday we toured the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel. I learned two important lessons:

1) being a guard inside the chapel is probably the coolest job in the world. You are supposed to be quiet in the chapel, and pictures are strictly forbidden. So four guys in sharp-looking suits have to enforce these rules. They get to walk around all day, SHOUTING at tourists to "STOP TAKING PICTURES IMMEDIATELY!!!" and "Miss, COVER UP YOUR ARMS!" and my favorite "People! SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I can't think of any other jobs where there would be absolutely no reason to be nice to anyone.

2) Renaissance painters drew women with fake-looking breasts because they had never seen naked women. Weird. Every woman from the 1500s in Italy had implants.

On a more somber note, someone in the hostel stole my salami from the refrigerator. Outrageous. I think they used some of my bread and cheese too. For revenge, I'm thinking about making a giant sandwich with the Nutella in the fridge.

Maestro

2008-06-07T03:38:00.000-07:00

We are staying in a convent in Spoleto, Italy. Graham, who is traveling with us, spent a couple summers here and led us to it. The convent mother is incredibly nice (and old), and Graham told me that when he was here one summer, she leaned back and slapped the hell out of one girl who was talking back to her.

We walked back to her office yesterday and Graham whispered 'Here comes the big TV.' As we rounded the corner, the huge flat-screen TV came into view. I guess that explains the large satellite dish near our room, in the courtyard of the convent.

In Cinque Terre, we spent most of our nights hanging out with the staff of The Blue Marlin bar, including the owner, whom we dubbed Maestro. At the end of each night at the bar, he would put on Pachelbel's Canon, followed by Mozart's Requeim, as loudly as possible. He would stand on a bar stool and conduct. Or play an enormous air gong.

One evening, he drove past us as we were eating at a cafe. He stopped his car, rolled down his window, waved at us, then smiled and turned up the car stereo, which was blasting Mozart's Requeim again. Followed by more air conducting.

Cinque Terre

2008-06-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

We just went on a hike through the Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy. Five beautiful old towns linked together by train, boat, and footpath. No cars anywhere. Just more wonderful Americans like the aforementioned John Moss, who just impressed the locals in the tiny internet cafe by giving me a "Wet Willy."

Old Italian people are the coolest. There is a group of old men who sit outside in the square and play some bizarre card game all evening. We can hear them shouting from our room, and it is a wonderful rising excitement. "Aaahhhh.......ahhhhh.......AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" They smoke cigars and play this bizarre game. We are too scared to try to join, because the old Italians seem to love arguing as much as cards. The owner of a gelato shop just asked me if "Why hey, you want to sample the entire store??" when I asked for a sample of more than one flavor. He ended up giving me the sample.

We spent the whole day hiking with some sorority girls from the University of Georgia who were absolutely verclemped that I worked for ABCFamily, and therefore GREEK. The only person who loves the show more (besides my friend Derek) is the other guy on the hike, the Wet Willy perpetrator. I think we discussed GREEK for about 3 hours.

It is the most serene piece of land I have ever entered, and I must spend the whole time discussing whether or not Cappie will ever be with Casey for good. At least my now popular "Trenitalia" joke went over well.

Trenitalia

2008-06-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

I cannot stop making jokes about Italy's train company -- Trenitalia. No one else seems as enthused. I think it's especially hilarious since Germany's company is 'DB'. Ah, the jokes are endless. Alright, alright, no more translation jokes.

Today is our second day in Florence. So many museums, so much time.

My favorite game to play is 'Avoid The Americans' since there seem to be millions everywhere I've gone. I figure out which neighborhoods my guidebook tells me to hang out in, then find other neighborhoods on a map and go there instead. Voila! It's much more fun to be around people who don't know what I'm saying and who will sell me a banana for 20 cents than to be around Michelle, a raving drunken UVA graduate from Maryland who we met on the street who was furious that 'NO ONE in Munich speaks English!!! NO ONE!!! It's so annoying!!! And they hate me!!!'

Venice was incredibly beautiful. Florence feels like Manhattan with famous masterpieces stuck in the middle of unbelievable churches and buildings. We are staying with a woman and her daughter who rent out five rooms in their flat to tourists. It is like staying with your grandmother, who speaks very very little English. I understand about 10 percent of what she says to me, and I imagine she understands about 15 percent of what I say to her. But she's lovely.

I have averaged about three eatings of gelato per day. I do not understand how it is so much better than normal ice cream.

Munich was like being in an MTV-planned frat party in the middle of Germany. I saw more Americans vomiting from alcohol intake than I did throughout four years of college. Weird.

Time to get home to grandma. We are off to Cinque Terre tomorrow.

More Germany

2008-05-26T13:28:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I take the 4.5 hour train from Hannover to Munich. I'll be meeting up with some of my cousin's friend's from the states. Then we're heading to Italy for a few days. They head home, and I have time in Italy. I'm not sure how long.

The Berliner Dom from below......

......and from above. Take that Ansel Adams!

The mask that you had to wear if you were convicted of telling "smutty jokes." Rothenburg.

Hannover, the view after taking a slanted elevator to the top of their municipal building. Taken today.

Running Around Germany

2008-05-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

For the 10 days my family was in town, we drove all over the country.

I think I climbed to the top of about 50 structures overlooking cities. Most of which would not have been declared safe by U.S. standards.

From the top of cathedral in Berlin.

Cathedral in Cologne

Burg Eltz castle, near the Rhine River. There is actually a family still living in it today. We were told they stay there about one day per week. Then they walked out of the house as we were about to leave.

We stayed in the building near the middle of this picture, behind the cluster of four green trees. It's in Rothenburg, a well-preserved city from the middle ages. It thrived for hundreds of years, then became incredibly poor, so it was abandoned and then re-inhabited years later. Bad for Rothenburgians from long ago, great for tourists!

I wanted to take a picture of "Snack Point Charlie" to emphasize that it's okay to ruin the significance of a historical landmark, as long as the food is delicious and the joke is funny. (Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie is the white building on the right....no, we didn't eat there.)

Assmannshausen

2008-05-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to resort to posting pictures of things that are silly because they're in a different language, but this one was too good.

After the flight from Charlotte, NC to Frankfurt, my family and I arrived at my uncle's family's house in Hannover on Friday morning, 5/16. My parents and sister stayed for 10 days. Over the next few months, I'll be staying there in between trips around Europe and northern Africa.

I insisted that we go see the local German soccer team, Hannover 96, in their final game of the season on our second day in the country. I didn't expect everyone to come, but we all went, including uber-sports fans my sister and my three cousins. None of whom care about sports at all. My reputation was at stake, so thank god the game was incredibly exciting.

The crowd was like a college football game, multiplied by 1000. The people at this end stood the entire game, chanting insane things. My sister and I debated if they were actually saying clever and rousing cheers. I tried to convince her that one complicated-sounding cheer was actually "Butts! Butts! Butts in your face!"

My cousin Reid. Enjoying his shopping.

Photo Essay: The Chickens Of Kauai

2008-05-12T12:23:00.001-07:00

I have no idea why there are thousands of chickens roaming free around Kauai. Someone told me it was because years ago, a hurricane destroyed all the chicken coops and no one has had the inclination to round them all up again, and they've spread. I didn't believe him.

Where I Jogged Every Morning In Hawaii

2008-05-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Radiohead

2008-05-11T20:50:00.001-07:00

Went to Asheville NC on Thursday to see some friends. I haven't been everywhere, but if there's another town in America with less than 80,000 people that's more fun, I'd really like to go there.

Then went to Charlotte to hang out with my friends Chris and Miranda and their kids: 3-year old Ethan and 1-year old Madeline.

In the future, anytime I ever think about having kids, I'll try to find my friends with the youngest kids. Ethan and Madeline are awesome, but I've never been around so much snot. And humans who become absolutely ecstatic over throwing things. And I had never really been woken up on consecutive days by a male without pants. Except maybe Greg in college.

We went to see Radiohead on Friday in Charlotte. Booooooooring.

I love Radiohead. At different times in my life I have been obsessed with OK Computer, The Bends, and Kid A. And I think I'm the only person in the world who really loved Amnesiac. They were number 1 on my list of bands I want to see.

They played 24 songs, and the only ones anyone seemed to give a damn about were the 5 or 6 that were released before 2004. I don't think it was coincidence that those were the only songs that contained any discernible melody. Miranda was asleep by about the 9th song (and was completely sober). Sure, Radiohead is interesting and creative and influential blah blah blah barf barf (and the lights were incredible, complete with real lightning going on behind the stage), but god damn their show was boring.

Hewaii

2008-04-27T03:10:00.000-07:00

I have a sunburn.

These are my favorite things from Hewtube:

Hewnalau Falls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDGs5NLIpS8

this makes me tap my foot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s06Z1y-c3jM

this makes me laugh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIMGPlH4XPo

and other assorted Hew puns

Hewnalau Falls

2008-04-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

This is Punalau Falls, in Maui. When I took the short hike up to this spot (about 300 yards clambering over rocks in a dry stream), I had the place all to myself. One hundred feet high, enclosed by sheer walls covered in green. It was so impressive and peaceful that I didn't want to take a picture. And I didn't have my camera. And it was out of film anyway. There's been a shortage of rain lately on Maui, so when I was there it was flowing in a strong trickle, maximizing the tranquility.

P.S. - Everywhere in Hawaii, people swim in the waterfall pools. They always talk about how that's been a dream of theres. Disgusting. The water is pretty much stagnant, it's murky, and it's gross. There are bizarre sea animals in there, like crayfish. It's like filling up your backyard with water and swimming in it, but way more nasty.

Hiking In Jurassic Park With Insane Bakers Of Bread

2008-04-20T18:02:00.001-07:00

Friday night I arrived back on Oahu from two days in Kauai and three days in Maui. (Is it wrong to say "in Maui" as opposed to "on Maui" ? I feel like "on Maui" sounds like I'm being pretentious. But, I guess it's too late anyway.)

Went hiking on the Napali Coast in northern Kauai, where they filmed parts of Jurassic Park. Also hiked in Waimea Canyon, "the Grand Canyon of the Pacific." The waterfalls, volcanoes, and other geological marvels from the two islands almost started to blend together.

But the interesting characters along the way never got old, and the hostel in Kauai was a goldmine.

Mitch was from Idaho, and had just finished a farming stint. He spends summers in Alaska, teaching skiing lessons, and the rest of the year back in Idaho, leading camping expeditions for incarcerated youth. He did the entire 25 mile hike on the Napali coast.....barefoot.

Mike was a 31-year old surfer from Iowa. On my third day at the hostel, I dropped him off to his first day of work at a new job. He wasn't wearing a shirt. It made me look back upon my employment history and try to think of the job I had where it would've been most acceptable to not wear a shirt. (Obviously substitute teaching.) He was constructing roofs. Mike had been staying in the hostel for a long time, and spent most of his days surfing and hitting on the daughters of vacationing families. I eventually asked him what he wanted to do. He looked at me blankly and said "......this."

The most talkative fellow was a 49-year old bread baker, originally from Massachussetts. He is the third bread baker I've met in as many months. I don't know what that says about me. I can't remember his name, but it's not really important.

One of the most interesting parts of traveling by yourself is that you don't have anyone else to check your opinions. If you think eating three loaves of banana bread in a span of about 15 hours is the best plan for the day, no one is there to tell you to chill out (, Fatty). No one tells you to put on sunscreen. When you see something truly amazing, part of your insecurity says "Is it really this amazing?" because no one is standing next to you going "Sweeeeet."

And when a 49-year old bread baker starts rambling on about crazy crazy shit, you don't have anyone to turn to and give a subtle yet knowing look to confirm that yes, this guy is rambling on about crazy crazy shit.

I really needed someone when Mr. Breadbaker started trying to convince me that "the whorehouses back on Oahu are absolutely fantastic." I think he saw my incredulity. "Wait...you go to whorehouses, right?"

For about 10 minutes he described the benefits of flying to Oahu and visiting short term "hotels" as opposed to actually buying things for a girlfriend. He made it sound like his patronage was a purely economical decision, since paying $200 for a visit to the brothel was "a hell of a lot cheaper than buying shit for a woman....and having to worry about her."

He also pointed out that he only had $700 to his name, and didn't live in an apartment anymore, but split time between the hostel and a hammock on the beach. At least he has enough money for hookers!

The whole scene was pretty jovial until this point, when he wanted to reiterate his point about women taking your money.

Suddenly, he was telling me a story about how he walked into his friend's place, and found that "his friend had hung himself because his girlfriend took him for about $7,000." He told me about removing the noose from the guy's neck.

He described it with the same tone that he had used to talk about the weather, baking bread, and taking acid in Portugal.

Needless to say, I didn't really know how to respond. I think I changed the subject back to the Grateful Dead. I would've given anything for someone else to have been there, someone who I could've turned to afterward and said "What the F? Did you hear that?" for about half an hour.

Respect

2008-04-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

Since writing on here how great it is to be in Hawaii without a ticket home, it's rained constantly. Nothing but rain. The rain stopped for a few minutes yesterday, so I went outside to take a walk, and it started raining within 35 seconds. I take back everything nice I've ever said about Hawaii.

Last night, I was able to drag myself away from the 1st season of LOST (open the god damned hatch already) and we went to see the John Butler Trio in Honolulu. When the idea of seeing them was mentioned, Matt, EB, and I had all said something similar to "Hmm. I've heard of them....I think I saw them at a festival one time, but I don't remember." Well, if three different people say that, chances are high that at least one of them actually saw the band and didn't like it. You should listen to the people.

I'm assuming that the "JBT" festival performances didn't include a 25-minute drum solo, like last night's. It may be boring and unmemorable to see them at a festival, but people do not forget 25 minute drum solos. Holy cow.

I remember at least FOUR times during the drum solo when I thought "wow, that was long, but thank god it's finally ---- oh hell no."

Matt got bored during said solo, so he left the crowd, found the restroom, waited in line, urinated, waited in line at the bar, got to the front of the line, was told that that bar didn't have Coke, went to the other bar on the other side of the room, waited in line, got a Coke, walked around for a bit, then came back and found us in the crowd. The drum solo was still going on.

In the history of live music, has anyone ever left a show thinking "Fantastic show....but I wish the drum solo had been longer" ? Is John Butler honestly standing on the side of the stage thinking how great it is? By the time he's listening to the 17th drum solo of the tour somewhere in middle America on a Tuesday night, is he still digging it? I guess he uses it for his restroom/7 foot bong break.

John Butler kept saying "Respect" and pounding his chest in between songs. Matt said one of the highlights for him was when a drunk girl behind him shouted "BOOYAKASHA!!" after one of them.

I lost a bet before the show, so I had to yell "FUCK THE CONTIGUOUS!!!" at some point during the show. I finally pulled it off in between songs during the encore, as we were leaving. The Hawaiians weren't as into it as I would've hoped. Although, come to think of it, maybe John Butler fans aren't familiar with the word "contiguous".

"Stranded" in Hawaii

2008-04-06T16:23:00.001-07:00

So the airline I few out on, ATA, is now bankrupt and out of business. Basically, I don't have a flight home. I used a voucher to get out here (from a cancelled flight last August), and that covered the whole ticket, except for $230. Yesterday I called my credit card company to try to get the whole thing refunded, so I can find another ticket back to Raleigh.

The guy at my credit card company told me that people had been calling really mad, because they were stranded in Hawaii (one of the few places that ATA served). We agreed that if you were going to be upset about getting stranded in Hawaii, you deserved to have worse things happen to you.

Even here in Hawaii, people get annoyed when I tell them I'm going to be out here for (at least) three more weeks.

The worst part about Hawaii is probably the cost of burritos. At the really good taco place down the street, a burrito is $7.95 (plus tax). I love burritos, but a burrito-lover needs to make a stand at some point. Maui Tacos, I'll be taking my business elsewhere! "Elsewhere" = Safeway for peanut butter and jelly.

I've finished reading Atonement. At first, I liked the movie more than the book. But by the time I finished the book, I think it had won.

I also finished Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death Of Edgar Allan Poe in about one day. Besides proposing a really fascinating conspiracy theory, the book discusses "cooping," which was a 1800's political practice where thugs would go round up innocent men on the eve of elections. The captured men would be kept over night in a "coop," where they'd be beaten, drugged, then shuttled around to vote for the same candidate in as many districts as possible. Obviously, the amazing part is that the men were so beaten and drugged that they couldn't run away, yet not so out of it as to arouse any suspicion from the numerous officials who presided at each polling place. God bless democracy.

Now I'm reading Number9Dream by David Mitchell, who's probably my favorite author. It's pretty damn weird. Cloud Atlas is probably my favorite book.

Things I've Learned

2008-04-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

Some things I learned throughout the 9+ weeks on the road through the southern and eastern United States with Kristy Kruger and Dylan Sneed:

- Chik-Fil-A and In-N-Out have similar punctuation and similar awesomeness
- Many talented artists/writers/musicians live outside of New York City and LA. The difference is that they can pay their rent
- It is hard to find a person in the South who is not nice, polite, and courteous
- People in the South are proud of where they're from and are happy where they live
- Taking two cars on a tour delays the inevitable band on band physical violence
- William Faulkner and Edgar Allan Poe were not debilitating drunks. Neither of them thought they needed to drink in order to write.
- Dylan is more patient than me
- I smell better than Dylan
- Wynn Walent snores worse than my Dad (never thought possible)
- No one likes Los Angeles. People who live there hate it. People who used to live there hated it. People who have visited it hated it. And people who haven't visited it, don't want to.
- I miss these things from Los Angeles: My friends; the Hollywood Bowl; the Greek Theatre; Dodger Stadium
- Breakfast At Tiffany's rules
- Abraham Lincoln said this: "I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."

Another Time Zone

2008-03-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm rather embarrassed to tell people that now I'm in Hawaii. Don't know if I should be or not. I'm spending the month with Matt Hime at his place in Kailua, Hawaii.

One of the major damn points of having this damn blog was to put pictures up, at which I've failed miserably. I'm trying to get a lot of tour pictures from Kristy and I'll put those up.

Hawaii is pretty darn amazing. This beach is about a mile away. Matt's girlfriend is letting me use her bicycle all month. Sporting events come on at 1pm. It's 80 degrees every day. And they serve taro pie at McDonald's.

SXSW

2008-03-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

Nine weeks of exciting madness ended at South By Southwest last weekend in Austin. I got to Austin on Monday, and decided to kick off the festival by sleeping as much as possible and watching Breakfast At Tiffany's with my sister.

I got to see a few good bands - I ran into the guys from Dead Confederate, a band from Athens GA, who we opened for in Oxford MS. After their show, we talked for a few minutes, then I asked them when they'd be playing again during the festival. The drummer laughed and said "we're actually opening for REM tonight." Not bad.

Later that day, I ended up talking to another band from Athens called The Modern Skirts. They also informed me that later this summer, they'll be opening up for REM. In Amsterdam. Intimidating.

But honestly, no one's ever really listened to REM anyway.

We had the chance to play two shows - one at an event called Love On The Lawn and the next day at the Cactus Cafe. "Love" is a boutique store in south Austin, and (unbeknownst to me) is a pretty big-time lesbian hangout. Many people were there to see Patrice Pike, an Austin artist who made it really far on some reality singing show that's not American Idol. I think it was the one where the winner got to sing for INXS.

The Cactus Cafe is famous for having all kinds of cool acoustic artists from Texas. We only had about 25 minutes, but it was a fun way to end the tour.

I wish I could say that other highlights of the festival included seeing a million douche bag hipster bands from Brooklyn and Los Angeles, but there are numerous other places to read about that, and I didn't see many of them. The true highlights for me included seeing Wynn Walent play with Matt Singer. (Full disclosure/pre-emptive apology: they are from Brooklyn, but are not douche bags.)

Matt sang one of the funnier songs I've heard - some serious-sounding song about how he wished he was a better "orator, so I could do more chicks." Or something similar. Bless him.

Every time I've seen Wynn play, it's been superb.

Just solid dudes.

Golden Bear continues to rule.

All of them were certainly more enjoyable than just about everything else I saw. I think I could present the rest of the festival in Mad-Lib form:

Hello Austin, we're from [Los Angeles/Brooklyn/Austin]. We are a mixed-gender band consisting of [2-6] members. It's pretty rad that one of our members plays a [xylophone/trombone/turntable/computer]. The reason it's pretty rad is because this member of our band is [not very good/terrible/unconscionably bad] at that instrument. But you don't really care, because it's just neat to see that person playing it while jumping around. Besides, you're too busy [drinking free whiskey/trying to hit on some girl who works for MTV/eating free tacos] to listen to the music anyway. See you all soon!

I also had the pleasure of sharing my sister's floor with Wynn throughout the week, and competing in Snore-Off 2k8, which I'm pretty sure Wynn dominated. Rebecca Hewett is a saint.
Besides putting up with the snoring, she made me a birthday cake. Which was delicious.

After driving 19 hours in two days, from Austin to Charleston SC, this week has been spent at the beach with my parents. Next week, I fly to Hawaii to stay with Matt Hime. It's kind of embarrassing to tell people that, but exciting nonetheless.

Louisiana

2008-03-09T21:07:00.001-07:00

I wish it was easier to put pictures up on here. It's not that hard, I guess I mean I wish I had the camera, because it's not too difficult to put them on here once the camera is around. It's much more fun to point things out in photos.

We're at Birdman Coffee/Books in St. Francisville, LA. It's a very tiny town, about 30 minutes north of Baton Rouge. It's not even on the map in our car (which is a great map). We played tonight in front of a packed room of 25 or so people who were incredibly attentive and very excited. It was another un-mic'd show - those are usually the most fun, because you can hear everything well. And there's no soundboard for the soundman to not be running when he doesn't show up.

There was a blinding light shining on me throughout the entire show, giving me a terrible headache. I also was pre-occupied with thoughts of the peach cobbler that the owner (Lynn) made that afternoon. I told her I'd have some after the show, which was a huge mistake, because it's all I could think about. Boy did it live up to expectations. I have a wicked stomach ache at the moment.

One of the men at the show talked to me about how he worked in Baton Rouge as a drafter for about 20 years, hated it, then bought a piece of land "about 30 minutes east of here in the country," built a house on it by himself ("No, I had no idea what I was doing. But I kinda know what a house is like, so I just kinda built one."). He now bakes his own bread, bringing the number of self-sufficient breadmakers that I've met on this trip up to two. He also rides a scooter everywhere, so as to save money on gas. He totally rules. Here's his website, I haven't been to it yet, but I imagine it's zany.

Mobile, Alabama is really cool. Celebrating Mardi Gras originated there. Neat. "It's like a little New Orleans." I think we've heard that about 15 times in the last month, but it seems kinda true for Mobile.

We stayed with Dylan's friend Lance in Hammond, LA. Lance is an upstanding country gentleman from the Louisiana countryside who refers to everyone (regardless of gender) as "love" or "babe." His family owns a 9-hole golf course. About six years ago, he turned on the television and happened upon a soccer game. He had never seen much soccer, but fell in love with it, and now is the head coach of the high school soccer team. Somewhere down the line, he plans on moving to Liverpool, England, so he can marry a wonderful pale-faced British woman and go see the Liverpool soccer team as much as he wants. Lance is marvelous.

Tomorrow we drive to Austin for South By Southwest.

Tonight I will sleep in a bed, for the first time in a long time. I can't even figure out when the last time was that I slept in a bed. I'm too tired to calculate. However, after tonight, I don't think I'll be sleeping in a bed for the next 6-7 nights. Boom.

Back In H-Ville

2008-03-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

After some schedule juggling, we are back in Huntsville, AL. To be honest, it feels like we're coming back to an old home of ours. The people here we know are all fantastic. We'll be here for a couple more days before our show in Mobile, then off west to go play another show before South By Southwest.

We're playing at SXSW on Friday 3/14 here - http://www.loveaustintexas.com/shows.html

I need to put up some pictures, but I'm too tired to even do that. Sheesh.

Yes And Yes

2008-02-28T21:47:00.001-08:00

I need to put more pictures up here. I keep forgetting. Or I'm just lazy. I also keep forgetting what day it is and where we are.

In Wilmington, a wildly inebriated man (of questionable homelessness) put on an amazing display of dance moves. His name was Chopper. I cannot wait to see the pictures that were taken of Chopper's dancing. He also repeatedly requested that we play "Billy Jean." But at the same time, he seemed to enjoy our music. Usually when folk bands get requests for Michael Jackson, it's a bad sign.

Places I want to move: Charleston SC, Richmond VA, Wilmington NC.

A guy today in Hartsville, SC, told us a fascinating story that ended with the phrase, "Five seconds is AN ETERNITY when you're locked inside a clothes dryer." That cracked me up.

He was one of the owners of The Midnight Rooster, a restaurant/bar/coffee shop in Hartsville.

We're playing at South By Southwest on Friday 3/14 and Saturday 3/15.

I think we'll be touring with Brian van der Ark in the fall. That's the latest plan I've heard. Boom.

More Raising Up

2008-02-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

After a week in Virginia, we decided that 7 days was too long without pimento cheese and came back to La Casa De Hew in NC. Last night we played at home for a group of about 15 of my parents' friends. One of the best shows of the tour, it included The Kristy Kruger Band's debut performance of Kool And The Gang's "Celebration" with Kristy Kruger on kazoo. The 30 minute show turned into more like 2+ hours. The festivities were capped with shot-taking and cigar smoking with Pops Hewett at some point in the morning. Then I fell asleep on the floor, watching "The Matrix Reloaded."

The highlights from VA were many - we played at an incredible place in Arlington called The Iota and opened for Brian van der Ark from The Verve Pipe. We'll definitely be doing more shows with him down the road, he's a swell gentleman. "Just a solid dude." There were many superstar sightings - Greg Harrell-Edge's mom; the Himes; Derek Moore; the Williams; The Ess and Sahar; and our lovely host Sarah Rand, her sister, and her crew of like 11 people.

We stayed at Matt Williams's house for a few nights that consisted of hours of Nintendo and playing with his dogs. At Sarah's house, she baked us cookies and got destroyed in our Jeopardy matchup. She was nice enough to show us the sights of Arlington - including The Lost Dog Cafe (I think they help you adopt pets - I don't get it) and The Silver Diner. The latter serves a mean eggs benedict, any day of the week, any time. Sarah's hospitality was remarkable - she made the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the world, and even put them in a lovely tin, complete with that fake pseudo-grass stuff that comes in Easter baskets and doesn't really make much sense.

Richmond, Virginia is beautiful. Old and beautiful. The Camel ("Richmond's Social Oasis") wasn't as beautiful, but was a wonderful way to spend an evening. Right before we started, my friends Andy and Sarah had to leave, cutting the size of the audience in half. I thought we'd be playing for the sound guys. But about 10 minutes into our show, a big crowd came in and I think we ended up playing in front of about 50 people. Intensity.

Dylan and I saw the U2 3D movie in IMAX. Heavenly sensory overload. The only problem was that they didn't spray you with water when there was water splashed on stage, like they do in Muppets 4D at Disneyland.

You're Dreamy Music Was Awesome

2008-02-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of barely eating/sleeping for a month is weight loss.

Unfortunately, a week of ice cream, sleeping, and homecooked meals puts it all back.

As I sit here at my parents' house in Sanford, NC, I wonder why I'm even writing this, since I always imagine my parents as the only people that read it. Hi mom. Hi dad. Thank you for having us.

I think my dad's entire office was in attendance in Charlotte last Saturday night when we played at Snug Harbor. The employees couldn't have been more rude to us, and the crowd was a bit loud, but we had fun, played as loudly as possible and Kristy finally complained about her "ears bleeding because it's so loud." That moment was far too long in coming. Dylan and I were vindicated for asking the daily question of "you ladies like folk rock?"

Wednesday in Chapel Hill we played at a used book/record store where at night they move all of the tables to the back and have bands play. It was one of the less crowded shows of the tour so far (it was also snowing), but we got to browse books from 1908 after soundcheck and listen to Beat Circus from Boston and Crowmeat Bob from Chapel Hill. The drummer for Crowmeat Bob played all kinds of weird instruments like metal globes with a viola bow. Neat.

Then Friday night in Greenville became an instant highlight of the trip. The venue was a pretty cool wine/beer shop in a strip mall, and we were very skeptical when we pulled in and there was no stage and not much space. The guy behind the counter told us we'd play in the corner and that "some people will show up."

The owner then arrived, and told us that we could drink any beer we wanted -- and as much as we wanted. Also neat. I drank one beer from Farmville NC that was 11% alcohol and tasted exactly how I imagine sewage to taste. I stuck with German beers after that.

By the time we went on at 11, we couldn't believe how many people had showed up -- the owner later told us that it was around 100 people and it was the biggest crowd he'd ever had. Earlier in the week, Kristy actually bought me "Norbit" on DVD, leading to more streams of "Norbit" jokes, which once again went over surprisingly well. Nothing polarizes a crowd like Eddie Murphy as a 400 pound woman. There's also no better feeling than playing music for an hour and having some guy approach you with a big smile on his face after the show, but instead of complimenting the music, he wants to give you a hug because he's finally found someone who appreciated Norbit like he does and "is really pissed off because he's been driving around with a NORBIT poster in his car for the last three months because no one would take it from him, and so he finally threw it out four days ago and is furious that he did because he would've given it to you."

Capping off the evening was a wonderful gift from a woman who had been in the store selling clothing/bags that she designed. The shirts were pretty cool, so I told her that after we played, I'd come back and I'd buy one. I saw her leave while we were playing, so I was kinda bummed that I wouldn't get a shirt.

But as we left the stage, one of the store employees handed me the t-shirt I had been looking at and told me that the girl wanted me to have it. What a nice gift. I asked him if he knew her, so I could give her the $20 for it. He said he didn't know her, but that I could call her. I laughed and told him that of course I didn't have her number, and he told me to check the tag.

On the tag was written

"You're dreamy
music was awesome"

along with her name and phone number. Neat.

Of course Kristy and Dylan insisted that what she meant to write was "Your dreamy music was awesome," but I beg to differ. She had clearly run out of space on the line where she wrote "you're dreamy" and she clearly was too overwhelmed by my dreaminess to use any kind of punctuation. So, ha!

North Carolina - Raise Up

2008-02-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

The only appropriate headline I could think of.

Onstage at WDVX Knoxville. Photo by our new friend Jack Goodwin.

Knoxville TN is our new favorite town. We got to play on WDVX which is a radio station based in the visitors center in downtown Knoxville. It's a daily live music show, that is free to attend. The crowd was interesting - a huge group of (mostly retired and/or independently wealthy) people who come to see the show almost every day. We had a blast and ended up hanging out with a bunch of the people for much of the next two and a half days.

The citizens of Knoxville treated us to lunch, drinks, dinner, and drinks throughout our time there. The show at night was also wacky -- we played at The World Grotto, which is built to look like a gigantic cave underground. People refer to it as "The Fraggle Rock." It's totally weird, but was fun.

On our day off there, we went back to the WDVX taping and saw all of our friends again - and more lunch/drinks/dinner/drinks....by this time they were our family. What a group of swell people. The host of the radio show is a guy named Matt Morelock -- an amazing banjo player, world traveler, and impeccable dresser. Pictures to come. We stayed at his house and he made a very convincing sales pitch to move to Knoxville permanently. We're strongly considering. I paid back his kindness by stepping in an enormous pile of dog crap and tracking it into his house.

Matt's roommate is the member of a fantastic band called The Everybodyfields, and since that band is on tour, I got to sleep in her vacated room. So last night, after our show in Winston-Salem, a girl I ran into was excited to hear that we played at The Garage, because she had just seen "The Everybodyfields there and they were amazing." When she asked me if I had ever heard of the Everybodyfields, I got to tell her that "yes, I've heard of them, and I actually slept in her bed last night." Boom!!! I calmly took a drag from my cigarette, finished my glass of cognac, left a $50 on the bar, and exited.

Yeah, the cigarette, cognac, $50, and exiting are lies, but the rest happened.

We're in my family's apartment in Charlotte right now, eating bagels and doing laundry. The excitement never ceases. It's going to be a week of nothing but raising up and waving shirts around our heads like helicopters.

Fiddle Dave

2008-02-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting outside The Jack Of The Wood Pub in Asheville NC right now hanging out with Fiddle Dave. The self-proclaimed "bluegrasstafarian" looks EXACTLY like Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes. I love the Black Crowes more than I care to admit (I guess that's admitting it) and if you had introduced Fiddle Dave to me as Chris Robinson, I would've believed you. There are many men in the world who look like Chris Robinson -- but Fiddle Dave's resemblence is uncanny. Fiddle Dave, about four minutes ago: "Actually, a whole bunch of people have been saying that to me recently. Weird. I guess there are worse people to look like.....stoners have never hurt anyone."

Last night we played at The Town Pump Tavern in Black Mountain NC. It's a really cool pub in downtown Black Mountain, about 15 minutes from Asheville. Fiddle Dave had come out to see us, and he invited us all to the Jack Of The Wood to come play with him during his lunchtime set. We've been here all afternoon playing music and hanging out with him. He plays the mandolin, guitar, and fiddle (duh) and picked up all of the Kristy/Dylan tunes instantly.

There were two babies in the audience who tried to dance for most of the time.

I get the feeling there are a lot of people like Fiddle Dave in Asheville.

We're playing on this radio show tomorrow in Knoxville - http://www.wdvx.com. I'm not sure if it's only going to be broadcast live or if it'll be available when we're done. The phrase I've used most on this trip has been "Dylan, you're hogging the god damned blanket", with "I have no idea - I just play the drums" coming in a close second.

An Eventful Week

2008-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

The shows this week were some of the most fun of the trip so far.

The Strutting Duck lived up to all expectations of ridiculousness. I'm not exactly sure what I want to remember about it.

Eddie's Attic in Atlanta is a really nice place. There's a long line of mugs way up on top of the bar that the bartender would not let me drink out of. After trying and trying, she still wouldn't budge. Finally I got to meet Eddie. I figured since it was his attic, I should bother him about the mugs. He immediately asked me which mug I'd like to use, and I spent the rest of the night drinking out of a massive BUD MAN mug. The only negative part about using the BUD MAN mug was that all the bartenders were very eager to fill it back up. Pictures to follow.

That night we stayed at Dylan's friend Maggie's place in Atlanta. Don't let her pleasant demeanor fool you - she has a HUGE boxer dog named Bruno who will lick, attack, jump on, kick, and slobber all over you as much as possible. Bruno was not a good sleeping companion.

Athens, Georgia was also a lot of fun. Next door to the Flicker Bar is a place called The Trappese Pub which had something like 5000000 beers from around the world. We met two friendly patrons who come in every week and try out the new ones that the bar receives (they even kept a notebook). They recommended something called Avery's Elation or Avery's Ecstasy or something like that, which was probably the best beer I've ever tasted. Ah, here it is.

Because beer does not occupy all the time on the trip, I'll mention that we ate some soul food at the Five Star Day Cafe in Athens, where $7 gets you a pile of chicken/cornbread/hoppin' John/mashed potatoes and who knows what else we ate.

I'm also addicted to Chick-Fil-A. People always insist that In-N-Out should open up more restaurants on the east coast, but I think Chick-Fil-A should be everywhere.

I'm still reading "Atonement."

It's 31 degrees in Nashville right now. My toes are frozen.

Go Tigers

2008-01-28T14:30:00.000-08:00

We're in Auburn, Alabama, right near the university.

It actually reminds me a lot of UVA and for a while it made me miss being in college.

Until the couple sitting next to me in the coffee shop started breaking up. I wish I could've heard a lot more, but the climax of the fight seemed to be

"I think you think less of me now."
"Well, I don't think I think less of you now."

The girl was wearing sunglasses the whole time indoors, because of the sun coming into the place. Hilarious. After thinking about it, that kinda makes me miss college even more. Even though I've never been involved in a romantic fight that approaches that one in terms of absurdity (cough cough).

We're playing tonight at The Strutting Duck. Part of me is scared to get there, because it's supposedly a huge redneck bar and I've already been thinking all day about how I've left my job to play music in places with names like "The Strutting Duck." But apparently, "The Duck" is fun. Fingers firmly crossed.

We spent the last couple of days in a cabin in Fort Payne, AL, rehearsing and trying to catch up on some sleep. Kristy cooked for us, which was pleasant and unexpected, and her boyfriend and I took a long hike which included a wander through some sort of old butchering facility. The cabin also had 20+ fishing knick knacks - including one in the bathroom which said "If There Ain't Fishing In Heaven, Then I Ain't Goin'!!" Which was particularly humorous considering the owners are very religious. I dared Dylan to cross out "Fishing" and write "Doing It."

I Heart Birmingham/Huntsville

2008-01-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Our show at the Bottletree in Birmingham was quite fun. The club has a deer head mounted to the wall, a camper/trailer in the back for the bands to hang out in, and the nicest sound guy you can ask for. We got to play with our friends Through The Sparks, who pretty much packed the place and were incredibly awesome. They're also incredibly nice. Too much fun. Here's an ad for the show which includes a poster they made for for it. Doc Dailey brought some friends from Sheffield to hang out and see the show. That guy just keeps getting better and better.

My friend Ellen was a wonderful hostess. We heart Ellen. I would put a link to Ellen's picture/bio from her law firm's website, but I don't know if she'd appreciate that.

Yesterday I got to go see the Pompeii exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

With a few days off in between shows, we decided to spend some time in Huntsville, Alabama. When we got to town, Dylan had somehow arranged places for us to stay, with people that he didn't know. When I asked him who knew these people, he said he didn't know that either. Skepticism ran high. He and I ended up staying with our new best friend Breanna, on the floor in her wonderfully carpeted living room. While Kristy is staying two doors down with the marvelous Rita.

So we still don't know exactly how we found these people (I think it's like 6 degrees of separation), but they apparently host bands all the time. My only question is if other bands have as much trouble with Breanna's cat, who is clinically insane (literally). He spent most of last night jumping onto me from a nearby table. Breanna also told us a fascinating story about how the first time he "got excited", he didn't understand what was going on, so "he attacked it" and had to be taken to the hospital. This very second as I write this, he's slapping me in the face with his tail while pawing at the window and whining loudly.

Our first night in Huntsville, we went down to an open mic night so Kristy and Dylan could play some songs. Kristy's host Rita went too and was the last person to play right before the place closed. We were shocked when she got up with her ukelele and belted out an amazing soulful bluesy spiritual. When we asked who wrote it, she told us that she had written it. That was the tip of the iceberg for Rita.

Rita's house is covered with artwork that she has painted. Rita wears 1950s glasses and has a bob haircut. She is one of the kindest, warmest people I've ever met. She plays the accordian and who knows how many other instruments, and recently started writing songs on the ukelele. She is white, but attends Alabama A&M University, an historically black college where 98% of the students are minorities. She is also the mother of two super cool daughters. She volunteers at The Flying Monkey Art Center, which is like a mega-mall for artists.

Last night we had a house concert at her place which was attended by numerous adults, a bunch of children, and some animals. Late in the evening, Rita finally pulled out the ukelele to play more songs that she had written. I couldn't believe the soul that comes from this woman playing a ukelele.

Here is some of her other music here. It ain't on the ukelele, but it does the trick.

Some day someone will write a book about Rita.

More Pictures

2008-01-23T13:50:00.003-08:00

After soundcheck at the White Water, Little Rock.

On stage in Little Rock.

Little Rock, the next morning. Dylan, me, Jane, Michael. I don't know what Dylan and Jane are trying to accomplish.

Obama For President

Dylan on bed at hotel in Oxford. Yeah, that's right - the headboard is glued to the wall.

Pictures

2008-01-23T13:25:00.000-08:00

From rehearsals at Dylan's house. You can see the ghost of Kristy hovering in the middle (her foot is on the floor). Creepy.

The house where we played in Fayetteville, AR.

Inside the house, Fayetteville.

Sweet Home....

2008-01-20T21:17:00.000-08:00

One summer while working at Trail's End Summer Camp we had to take our group of 35 kids (aged 9 and 10) on an overnight weekend camping trip along the Delaware River. The trip was to include a long kayak/canoe trip down the river, and then two nights of camping/hiking.

Over the three days/two nights, various kids had every imaginable encounter with body fluids (including one kid urinating in my tent at 3 am because it was too cold to go outside); one kid got deliriously scared by a stray dog; our leader almost had a nervous breakdown; and it rained the entire time. Rained and rained and rained. We sat in mud -- freezing, disgusting, gross mud.

The counselors discussed the possible solutions to the mass of problems and realized that we were completely stuck -- none of us had ever been in a more ridiculously uncomfortable situation where we were more helpless. Despite the weather conditions, health, cleanliness, and sanity of our group, we had to stay.

We agreed that all that we needed at that moment was a shower. One respite from the environment (however brief) would have made the world seem a bit brighter.

Miracously, we found our saving grace in one of the (putrid) restroom facilities near our campsite. The shower was coin-operated, so the counselors pooled together our coins (we weren't supposed to bring along money on the trip), providing each guy with about 5 minutes of time in the tiny shower. For an uplifting 5 minutes all was okay with the world again, before stepping outside to mud, rain, mud, madness, and vomit.

While driving today from Florence, Alabama, to Huntsville, Alabama I realized that those two days at camp was the only time in my life when I wanted a shower more than I did this afternoon.

I don't know if it's physically possible, but I believe that standing within 10 feet of my pants for more than 30 seconds was equivalent to smoking an entire cigarette. I would have advised pregnant women to stay away from me. My jeans seemed to contain the entire smoke output of every 21-35 year old in Mississippi and Alabama.

Combine that with a lack of showering in the last few days (2-4, probably), a few hours of sleep, and a gigantic amount of driving, and I began to reminisce about the last time I wanted a shower so desperately.

Marvelous people we've met in the last few days:

Doc Dailey - Singer who opened for us in Sheffield. Probably has the best Huge Beard/Bald Head combo that exists in the universe. Also as nice as humanly possible. Dylan and I slept on his bed at his house while he slept on the floor. Because he absolutely insisted. Five days ago he returned to his home in Florence, AL, after hiking in Peru for a month. Loves to lift weights in his weightroom while drunk.

Jack - owner of The Old Town Tavern. All-around swell guy. Lives above the bar. On New Year's Day, he "brought down his couch from upstairs, bought a big ol' bag of Taco Bell and watched movies in the bar all day." Had our CD in the jukebox. Cooked a delicious blue cheese and bacon hamburger. Also had Thelonius Monk, Jimmy Cliff, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and The Strokes in the jukebox. Every day of the year at The Old Town Tavern, the most you would pay for a bottle of Yuengling beer (normal or Black & Tan) is $2.50.

Christin - citizen of Jackson, MS who asked if I had eaten Chicken On A Stick From The Chevron Station as soon as I told her we had been in Oxford the night before.

Drunk Dude At Old Town Tavern - man who kept shouting "RIIIICHAAAARD" at the end of every song.

Dylan's friend Norman - rocket scientist in Gurley, AL. Has two dogs (Mac and Cheese) and a beautiful guest room.

Ms. Orr - draft clerk at the Mississippi State Capitol. Dylan and I met her while walking around the capitol building in Jackson. She taught us some great facts about the building (for instance, the eagle on the top faces south, so as to have its back towards the North). Also called her daughter in Birmingham to insist that she see us perform there next week.

All The Big Spots

2008-01-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

Once again I find myself sitting in a ridiculous bar in a ridiculous town in the south, exultant that they have a wireless internet connection. This one happens to be in Sheffield, Alabama. I have no idea what the population is, but it resembles where my parents live in Sanford, NC. The bar is dark, smells terrible, and is in an empty stretch of "downtown," yet has wireless internet, an ENORMOUS HD tv, and the coolest jukebox ever. We've also been told that there's going to be a huge crowd tonight.

The crowds so far have been well above expectations. The people in Jackson, Mississippi, couldn't have been nicer. Every single person was polite and interested in what we were doing (and willing to buy us free drinks). Fenian's is a really old-looking Irish pub that was packed. We played for 3 hours, it was hot, people were drunk, etc etc etc. Raucous again.

Dylan and I actually got recognized in Little Rock by some dude in a coffee shop the next morning after the show. We felt special.

The night before was a much more tame show at Proud Larry's in Oxford, MS, which is a really really great venue, but we played very early to a smaller crowd. That left much time to explore the town, including roaming around the the "town square" with about 10,000 drunken U of MS students. One of whom saw my UVA sweatshirt and is actually good friends with Matt Lucas, who is the little brother of my friend from middle school Chris Lucas. My mother is probably the only person who will remember Chris Lucas, but I thought my head was going to explode. She showed me where the best spots in Oxford were, including the Chevron station. At 1am when the bars close, it's just about the only place that serves food -- so she insisted that we go there to eat "chicken on a stick" which is a GIGANTIC piece of fried chicken (on a stick). So you walk into the Chevron station and there are 50+ people milling around eating massive sticks of fried chicken. The upstanding gentleman in line in front of us treated us to ours. It was possibly the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life.

The next morning before leaving town we stopped by William Faulkner's house in Oxford. We felt very intelligent and studious. The house was surprisingly homey and uncreepy. Except for the walls in his office where he wrote out an outline for "A Fable" which apparently is an unreadable novel. The man working there -- the only other guy in the place -- told us that he's read every single thing by Faulkner except "Fable" and that he's failed three times to try to do so. Neat. The outline on the wall seemed enjoyable enough.

Hot Springs, Arkansas, was bizarre. Lots of weird, wacky people. We played at this really cool "loft" upstairs that had a big stage and lots of seats. We actually drew a great crowd, but I've never met more strange people in a span of a few hours. Dylan and I left town to spend the night again in Little Rock. Hot Springs prides itself on two things - being the birthplace of Bill Clinton (who the locals "thought was a real jerk when he was growing up") and this. I think 7 people mentioned it. Wow.

Today we drove for four hours on The Natchez Trace Parkway. I wanted to stop about every 3 minutes to explore. Farms, enormous fields (we couldn't tell what they were used for), swamps, trails, campgrounds -- it's like a very long, skinny national park.

Too much to mention. Or remember. I hope to have pictures soon, when we can figure out the cord on Dylan's camera.

Big Rock In Little Rock

2008-01-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

I wonder if the line "Little Rock? More like BIG Rock tonight!" has ever been used from the stage by a band in Little Rock.
The White Water Tavern may be my new favorite place in America. Probably the most fun I've ever had playing music....it's a decent-sized dive bar with a huge stage and an impossible-to-find location. We got there and thought we'd be playing in front of the 15 elder gentlemen sitting around smoking cigarettes. The only person under the age of 40 was our marvelous bartender Jane. We instantly loved Jane.
But by the time 10pm rolled around, the old men had left and were replaced by a large crowd of Arkansas hipsters. It was $3.50 pitchers of beer night (and I think free cigarettes....every single person in Little Rock smokes).
We played for a couple hours again, and the people could not have been more fun. People danced, people shouted, people got right up to the stage and yelled things to me, Dylan, Kristy - about the Muppets, about her dress, about our music - it was an event. Impressive levels of enthusiasm. As we were told, "people in Little Rock just love music." Dylan and I insisted we dedicate a song to Jane (Dylan didn't know "Sweet Jane", dammit)....which "completely embarrassed the hell out of her", not least of all because Kristy doesn't really have any happy songs. When we finally had to leave, we headed out to Matt's house, the owner of the bar. Who just happens to live with our new best friend Jane. They were gracious hosts and I (finally) got to share a queen-sized bed with Dylan.
Our plans to get to Hot Springs early today to bathe didn't happen.

Here's a review of the Fayetteville show.

Arkansas

2008-01-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Walked into Mike Shirkey's Good Folk last night in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and immediately knew we were in for a treat. He offered Dylan and I venison stew, which he promised was "pretty damn good." From a deer that he himself had shot while hunting. Delicious. Mike and his friend Scott played old folk tunes in the kitchen while we were eating.

Mike is an amazing guy - a Vietnam vet who fell in love with music after he learned to play guitar during the war to pass the time. He now hosts all kinds of folk/Americana shows at his big old house in downtown Fayetteville. He's been doing it for about 17 years, and all kinds of well-known names have passed through to play on the stage in his huge living room. He's also somewhat of a local legend, and even victoriously sued the city of Fayetteville when they tried to build a massive condominium high-rise around his house. The city originally told him he didn't have the "proper standing to sue the city," but later caved in after he politely responded that "I do if I'm gonna be standing next to the damn condos all day."

Once again we played for 2+ hours in front of an enthusiastic crowd. We were able to play old stuff, new stuff and one song that onstage Kristy told me "is a waltz - you'll figure it out."

The show ended early, so Kevin Kinder (a local music writer who was at the show), took us out on the town. Kevin is a really nice guy, and a terrific music writer to boot. We hit the Fayetteville highlights, including a karaoke bar where an enthusiastic overweight local belted out Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl."

After a breakfast of venison steak and eggs, we're off to Little Rock.

Folklahoma City

2008-01-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the second show of the tour....The Blue Door in Oklahoma City could not have been cooler. As my friend Tony would say, "we poured gasoline all over the stage and burned it down." Or as my friend Jon would say, we've "seen a million faces......and rocked them all." Oh my lord - doing a Google image search for Jon Bon Jovi (no apostrophes) yields some amazing fruit.

Last night in Dallas, we played at Kristy's hometown joint and ended up being onstage for around 3 hours through guitar tunings, banjo switching, and general chaos. The stage was about the size of a reasonable closet and Kristy ended the night playing some songs on the piano in the corner of the room. Got to meet some very interesting people, including the small crew of high schoolers known as Robert Jones, who opened the show. Absolutely amazing....the kid is 18 years old and sounds like he's been lying on Bob Dylan's floor doing heroin for the last 30 years. Talked with them about the Libertines and old folk music and then were interrupted when one of their mothers called on the phone, wondering when he was going to be home. Coincidentally, their lead singer is "the kid in No Country For Old Men who looks at the guy lying in the street after the car accident and goes 'Mister, what the f happened to you?' " Yeah, no kidding.

Then it was time to leave Dallas - it was sad to have to pack up my little sleeping nest on Dylan's floor and say bye to his roommate Ryan. Ryan's girlfriend Allison made us cookies to take on the trip. That's how nice they are.

Rode the 3+ hours to OK City from Dallas and made our way to The Blue Door, which happens to be in the Vietnamese section of Oklahoma City. Bizarre. It's an old building with a few blue doors. We had a fantastic crowd who were really into the show. It's the premiere folk music venue in town, so I tried to convince the owner Greg to rename it "Folklahoma City." No dice. He told me that, incredibly, no one had ever suggested that name. I'm 100% positive that the next time I come to OKC, he'll have changed the name and he's going to owe me a ton of money. Instead, he gave me a can of frozen Bud Light, one of the beers which had been confiscated from his teenaged niece's party. We also got to hang out with Damon, a dreadlocked music manager from Norman, Oklahoma who loves the Packers. Ice cubes of beer and rastafarian Packers fans in Oklahoma City - definitely a snapshot I would love to take back to show 11 year old Richard and say "15 years from now, this will be your life for one night."

Oh, we're also staying with Dylan's friend tonight in Edmond, Oklahoma. She and I discovered that we were actually born in the same hospital a few months apart, and she went to high school with a girl that I dated in college. Oklahoma City rules.

I Love My Sister

2008-01-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

I write one g-d thing on here and already someone is furious.
I rudely forgot to mention that my sister helped me move my things into storage in Austin. And let me sleep on the air mattress on her floor, and gave me Chips Ahoy! cookies and milk to eat. Thank you. I love you Rebecca. Right here is a picture of her.

Dylan and I are sitting in a coffee shop in Dallas trying to finish up some tour plans while my car gets an oil change. The best thing I've found out so far today is that we're playing with this band in Chapel Hill. I was convinced that "Beat Circus" would be a hip hop group, but alas, they're like the Nine Inch Nails of the 1920's.

Getting to Dallas

2008-01-10T17:50:00.001-08:00

Next time I drive from Los Angeles to Austin, I won't be stopping in Casa Grande, Arizona. I pulled in at 3am to find a hotel room, but none were available at the three hotels I checked. I finally found a Holiday Inn miles from the exit and was informed by the night clerk (who had no fingers on his right hand [only a thumb!!]) that we were in Mountain Time, so it was actually 4am. And that none of the other hotels had rooms available because the town was having the annual "Balloon Twisters Convention." Neat. Fortunately he didn't see that my military i.d. had expired 7 years ago, and he gave me the military rate. Maybe I should've told him I twist balloons and tried to get the Balloon Twisters rate.

The next day was 14 hours of driving to Austin. Followed by throwing my remaining possessions into storage.

Today was hours of rehearsing. There's a very good article about our tour in the Austin newspaper here. The guy accompanying Kristy and me on the tour is a delightful gentleman named Dylan Sneed. Please listen to his music here. In the picture on the webpage, he's playing music in a bar. I am actually sitting in that bar at this exact moment, writing this. Dylan is about to go on stage and play a show. Also neat. It was wonderful to learn, upon meeting him, that he is in fact a nice individual. I will be spending the next two nights on the floor of a spare bedroom in his house, then the next 65 days very close to him. Thank god he's nice. And pretty cool hygienically.

Is this boring? It's weird to write about yourself this much and try to act like people are interested. But I figured I could post some pictures on here for people to see, and it would save me from writing numerous emails thanking god that Dylan is nice and hygienically cool.