Hiking In Jurassic Park With Insane Bakers Of Bread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.