Another Bed

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!

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

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

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

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

"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

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."