Tour Journal #5

greensboro
richmond
hamilton

our friend lyle set me up a house show last night in greensboro, nc and even though there were only about 10 people the hangout-age was intense! we played with some sassy kitties, ate delicious chili (though they were baked beans everyone kept saying "chili". i dont know why.) and played a rowdy game of what we refer to on the west coast as "brooklyn edge break". (and NO i did NOT BREAK EDGE so keep that shit off the bridge nine page or whatever) it's basically a mix of Taboo, Sharades, and Password but there were some awesome phrases like "awkward warts" and "keanu reeves" (mine!).

richmond, va was a beautiful, friendly and welcoming place. Alison Self ( www.myspace.com/alison ) set me up this amazing show in a clothing store called Rumors. all four people who play were super good; Wrist Rocket, Trouble! and of course Alison. the turnout was amazing, i managed to make enough donations to make up for all the days i had no shows and an awesome womyn named Desi made me the BEST vegan gluten free cookies and a brownie i have ever had!! all i can say is: WOW! the show it's up for consideration for best show of the tour. we had the next day off and Alison took us to all these old civil war buildings on Belle Isle and it was a fascinating, beautiful and hilarious experience. i climbed down this sketchy latter into a pit that we only started referring to as HELL and found a charred nutcracker that was super creepy looking. then we went on a walk on the rocks through the frozen river where alison, adrian and I started an epic war against the ice where we heaved boulders and logs as hard as we could to try and crack it. sadly it was a battle we couldn't win, and we had to count our losses and continue on.

we spent all of 30 minutes in Hamilton, NJ. let me just give you a brief explanation of what jenn and i have both dubbed: the worst day of our lives. it started out in Richmond when we took the car in to get a flat tire patched and the headlight repaired. what was supposed to take an hour turned into 3, and after they claimed they couldn't patch it and we'd need a whole new tire they brought us out a bill that was nearly $900 claiming that we "couldn't go on driving for even a month with all these problems" which was fucking bullshit because jenn had it serviced by a friend of hers before we left. so we let them know that they were fucking liars and to just get our shit done so we could leave. once we got all the bullshit out of the way we ended up getting 2 new tires because the other was worn and we had the basic alignment done it came out to almost $500. (seriously so much money to spend on something that you do not care about, jenn's tires are really expensive for her car because of the way they're shaped.) so as we were leaving we noticed that the glove box had been unlocked, which contained the hundreds of dollars we had stashed away for food. needless to say we were furious, but i let Jenn handle all the yelling because she has much more sass then me. nothing was missing but i can tell you we were a little flustered. then we hit insane post-inaugaration traffic going through D.C. which added another couple hours to our trip up to Hamilton and made us about 2 1/2 hours late. we showed up at the house and the last two bands were setting up, only with a problem that we only had 30 minutes to finish the rest of the show because of the noise ordinance and an angry father. i played 3 songs in the corner, traded 2 cd's for a switchblade with some kid, gave a couple hugs and then left. so hectic!

as you can imagine we were a little stressed so we drove farther up north after the show instead of staying in town. we are in lovely Stamford, CT and in a few minutes i'm going to get up and go for a walk in this pristine snow covered park about 2 blocks from here.

tour has been pretty off the wall the last 2 days, though being around animals and spending time with some beautiful trees and rivers has helped deal with the stress of riding in a car 6 hours of the day. i miss southern california but i'm excited to be in places i've never been before. we drove through new york last night and it was just a reminder of how fucked civilization really is and how we just accept the mental damage and emotional suppression it enforces.
anyways, i hope you're all well and hopefully be seeing you soon.

damn right that's how we pay the rent (hell yeah),
mike xvx