tour diary pt. one
ok so here it is. luckily drew brought his laptop on tour and we have pretty much been able to check the internet regularly. nobody is going to read this anyway, so i am taking the time to document these first few days for my own self! i want to look back and be able to remember more of the details. on a tour where you are constantly drinking and having fun with your friends, making new friends, and playing loud music, you tend to let a few things slip through the cracks.
day one.
drive up to denton, even though there is no show. i've made the long boring drive many times, so it's pretty unremarkable. a big bike benefit was booked at J&J's Pizza that we couldn't hop on like we were told we could, and Denton is a pretty small town so you know how that goes, anyway, we get to hang out with Payton at his house and we end up raging pretty hard and having a good night anyway. Lew and Ben decide to stay at the xtreme dudes manor while me, drew, and payton drive the van to a pretty raging and hilarious party with lots of frat dudes and insane sorority types. some rad things i see at the party are 1. a fat preppy girl talking to a dude, trying to fix her tube top and accidentally flashing her left boob at the people who manage to be absently staring in her direction (more than 10 secs!). 2. a big burly frat dude tries to climb over the fence when the cops come, and me and drew heckle him and throw beer cans at his face. 3. i get carded by TABC on our way back to the van for drinking an open container in the street and my fake ID totally works.
after that we went back to Payton's and Ben and Lew were watching movies, so we basically just got a little more drunk and i ended up walking to Brittani's and sleeping in her bed. she made me a friendship bracelet in my favorite colors. her cat looks like it got bigger since the last time i saw it. her apartment is very cute, clean and familiar smelling. it looks and smells amazing. probably the only time i'll sleep in a bed on this whole tour.
day two.
wake up pretty early, around 10 or so, and walked back to Payton's house to meet up with the band. we sit around and fart and joke all morning while getting ready to take off. me, Ben, and Lew check out a garage sale across the street for a second, all they have that interests us is a pair of "GENUINE BLUEBLOCKERS!" and a sega genesis with one or two games. we round our shit up and Payton guides us to an amazing cafeteria style indian resutraunt located in a Kwikie-Mart. their samosas are pretty fucking off the charts. there is insane indian music videos playing. even though there are no indian places i go to in austin, i get homesick for some reason. i'm thinking about my friends. they are all i will have when i come back.
we make the 3 hr drive to Tulsa in practically no time. along the way we stop and buy a clip on fan for the backseat of the van. 20 dollars well spent. we get to Tulsa around 6pm and the kids we are staying with are out on the porch, gardening, or playing with their dogs. i size them up as you do with anyone you stay with on tour. looks like a bunch of gnarly kids with dreads, dirty clothes, and stick and poke tattoos. they had just come back from a flea market, and bought some knives. they turned out to be really awesome hosts. they have a rule that you have to take off your shoes at the door. they are growing cauliflower and broccoli in their front yard. there are weed plants peeking over the fence in a rectangular pot. they have an affectionate pitbull terrier, a puppy that will grow to be huge, and another huge dog, all of which are wearing bandanas. we sit on the porch drinking Olympia beer, talkin about flea markets, listening to Sabbath vol. 4, talking about 3.2% beer and the differences between TX and OK alcohol laws. we end up going to a bbq that not too many kids show up at. it's kind of boring but we make conversation on the porch for a while. we drink tons more beer and find our way into downtown Tulsa, and the bar Sound Pony that we're supposed to play at. Ben tells me that Tulsa was booming with oil money in the 1930's and one day people just gave up on the place. if you've never been here, it sounds pretty fucking dead on. i am the most sketched out about this date of our tour, even though the day on the whole has been pretty much unexpectedly fun and relaxed.
its revealed that Bright Eyes is playing next door, so the street is being raped by 16 year old girls with wet panties. we could give a fuck, and we don't have to play for several hours. we do shots, play yahtzee, ms pac man, and eat the bar's complimentary hot dogs complete with nuclear relish. we are told we are getting paid in unlimited hot dogs and pitchers of coors light. we are only playing with one other band, a slow stoner-y band from baltimore, who end up being alright, but i don't really watch them because i'm occupied with getting wasted. it's saturday night. we get through our set without fucking any songs up. we take pictures out on the street next to Cain's ballroom, where there is a "walk of fame" style sidewalk with some famous old country star's names. a kid from Tulsa buys us 100 dollars worth of shots. i am so fucking hammered and he orders us a round of shots called the "tidal wave". the bartendress brings over four brightly dyed blue drinks and we say cheers and pound them. not a second later, the bartendress throws glasses of water all over our faces. hence the name, "tidal wave". i am actually pretty refreshed. the kid keeps buying us shots until we cant take it anymore. we get paid 70 bucks and are very happy we somehow load out, then get lost driving around Tulsa.
day three.
we all call our mom's before we leave to say happy mother's day. we drink some coffee, say our goodbyes, and we make the fucking annyoing 6 hour drive from Tulsa to St. Louis. along the way we stop at the "World's Largest McDonalds!" not very exciting. its only big because it arches over a strip of toll road, the resturaunt itself is the same size, or smaller than a regular one. we re-fuel at the McDonalds travel stop and keep on truckin. we roll into St. Louis around 7 or 8pm, not sure cause my phone is dead. we make it to the kid's house that we're playing at. St. Louis looks fucking crazy. people are fighting on the sidewalk and screaming. all the buildings are red brick. we see the arch for about three seconds, while exiting the highway. i'm not impressed by it, its smaller than i imagined. we're playing at a crazy punk house where a bunch of 19 year olds live called the Skullfuckeree. it reminds me of 1702 but dirtier, more fucked up, more gnarly and unlivable. these kids obviously dont give a fuck about anything, and are fun to hang out with. we hang out on the porch, drink beers, and walk to find some burritos. we put off loading in and finally walk down to the basement to watch some of the other bands. one is kind of bad, sloppy. one is okay. then we play. its unremarkable, this place isn't that rad other than the house we're playing at. then our friends the conniption fitts play. i'm pretty drunk off some beer called Stag. i jump around, head upstairs and help load out. we decide to drive to Carbondale, IL to hang out with our friends. we barely get paid. i fall asleep for what seems like 30 minutes, which is more like an hour and 1/2.
we make it to Carbondale and i crack a beer, i fall asleep before i can finish it. we make some puns about Oprah (fried Oprah), watch Royal Rumble, and i crash hard.
day four.
i wake up to another beautiful sunny day. i'm convinced that this is the best time of year to tour. everyone is out of school, everyone wants to drink, have fun, swim, cookout. Carbondale fucking rules. southern Illinois is like the south, preople have the same manners, the people can be okay if they want to. everyone i've met here is so nice, funny, attractive. we decide to sleep in and go swimming at the Spillway in the afternoon. we grab some nachos and sodas at Don Taco or Taco Don's or something. they're ok. i miss real Texas mexican food. we start drinking as soon as we get to the river. it reminds me of the greenbelt in Austin. the water is dirty. we stand halfway in the water and drink from a 12 pk of Old Style. there is nothing to jump off of or swing from. our hosts rule. we come back, hot and tired, and play Wii for a few hours. then we decide to make Champipple and buy the necessary ingredients before walking across the street to the show. we head over to Lost Cross and start grilling some bratwurst, cheeseburgers, and veggie burgers. I am fucking hammered off the Champipple and like 15 beers. i take an adderall to sober up. it makes me super talkative and i keep on drinking. i'm feeling it. i love Carbondale, man i fucking love it. i could totally see myself living here. i lose 75cents playing dice with this weird homeless dude named Jason. his favorite game is craps and he's pretty good at it. we load in the basement after watching the first band who is a pretty good hardcore band from Kentucky. i move around a little. its fun to hear some high energy music. i'm very drunk and shirtless when we play. i play a few songs with a 30 pack of Old Style on my head. the show is fun but pretty sloppy. we are all hammered. we all fall down. we laugh, we play the set with alot of enthusiasm because this might just be our best show ever, who knows, we love this place, our friends are here, i feel pretty goddamn amazing. i live for this shit, i waited all fuckin year to do this. this one moment, all the bullshit lead up to this one amazing moment where i am playing with my band, wasted, to 50 kids in a basement in Carbondale. yeah fuck yeah, i am finally happy, maybe for the first time this year.
i cant count the number of beers i have drank. i steal some fritos from a beautiful drunk girl. she is passed out on the lawn, wearing a black miniskirt and converse with no socks. she has a boyfriend of 5 years. when we leave i tell her goodbye for the hell of it. i know girls like this dont exist to make guys like me happy. they are probably doomed to a tragic life. fine with me. i drunk dial Natasha and ask if she wants to hang out tomorrow night in Chicago, she says yes, i'm pretty stoked. we return to the house and watch the Stoned Age. i sleep for about four hours. i wake up and think i lost my phone but its just stuck under the couch. its way too early for this shit. no one else is awake.
pt 2 coming soon...
day one.
drive up to denton, even though there is no show. i've made the long boring drive many times, so it's pretty unremarkable. a big bike benefit was booked at J&J's Pizza that we couldn't hop on like we were told we could, and Denton is a pretty small town so you know how that goes, anyway, we get to hang out with Payton at his house and we end up raging pretty hard and having a good night anyway. Lew and Ben decide to stay at the xtreme dudes manor while me, drew, and payton drive the van to a pretty raging and hilarious party with lots of frat dudes and insane sorority types. some rad things i see at the party are 1. a fat preppy girl talking to a dude, trying to fix her tube top and accidentally flashing her left boob at the people who manage to be absently staring in her direction (more than 10 secs!). 2. a big burly frat dude tries to climb over the fence when the cops come, and me and drew heckle him and throw beer cans at his face. 3. i get carded by TABC on our way back to the van for drinking an open container in the street and my fake ID totally works.
after that we went back to Payton's and Ben and Lew were watching movies, so we basically just got a little more drunk and i ended up walking to Brittani's and sleeping in her bed. she made me a friendship bracelet in my favorite colors. her cat looks like it got bigger since the last time i saw it. her apartment is very cute, clean and familiar smelling. it looks and smells amazing. probably the only time i'll sleep in a bed on this whole tour.
day two.
wake up pretty early, around 10 or so, and walked back to Payton's house to meet up with the band. we sit around and fart and joke all morning while getting ready to take off. me, Ben, and Lew check out a garage sale across the street for a second, all they have that interests us is a pair of "GENUINE BLUEBLOCKERS!" and a sega genesis with one or two games. we round our shit up and Payton guides us to an amazing cafeteria style indian resutraunt located in a Kwikie-Mart. their samosas are pretty fucking off the charts. there is insane indian music videos playing. even though there are no indian places i go to in austin, i get homesick for some reason. i'm thinking about my friends. they are all i will have when i come back.
we make the 3 hr drive to Tulsa in practically no time. along the way we stop and buy a clip on fan for the backseat of the van. 20 dollars well spent. we get to Tulsa around 6pm and the kids we are staying with are out on the porch, gardening, or playing with their dogs. i size them up as you do with anyone you stay with on tour. looks like a bunch of gnarly kids with dreads, dirty clothes, and stick and poke tattoos. they had just come back from a flea market, and bought some knives. they turned out to be really awesome hosts. they have a rule that you have to take off your shoes at the door. they are growing cauliflower and broccoli in their front yard. there are weed plants peeking over the fence in a rectangular pot. they have an affectionate pitbull terrier, a puppy that will grow to be huge, and another huge dog, all of which are wearing bandanas. we sit on the porch drinking Olympia beer, talkin about flea markets, listening to Sabbath vol. 4, talking about 3.2% beer and the differences between TX and OK alcohol laws. we end up going to a bbq that not too many kids show up at. it's kind of boring but we make conversation on the porch for a while. we drink tons more beer and find our way into downtown Tulsa, and the bar Sound Pony that we're supposed to play at. Ben tells me that Tulsa was booming with oil money in the 1930's and one day people just gave up on the place. if you've never been here, it sounds pretty fucking dead on. i am the most sketched out about this date of our tour, even though the day on the whole has been pretty much unexpectedly fun and relaxed.
its revealed that Bright Eyes is playing next door, so the street is being raped by 16 year old girls with wet panties. we could give a fuck, and we don't have to play for several hours. we do shots, play yahtzee, ms pac man, and eat the bar's complimentary hot dogs complete with nuclear relish. we are told we are getting paid in unlimited hot dogs and pitchers of coors light. we are only playing with one other band, a slow stoner-y band from baltimore, who end up being alright, but i don't really watch them because i'm occupied with getting wasted. it's saturday night. we get through our set without fucking any songs up. we take pictures out on the street next to Cain's ballroom, where there is a "walk of fame" style sidewalk with some famous old country star's names. a kid from Tulsa buys us 100 dollars worth of shots. i am so fucking hammered and he orders us a round of shots called the "tidal wave". the bartendress brings over four brightly dyed blue drinks and we say cheers and pound them. not a second later, the bartendress throws glasses of water all over our faces. hence the name, "tidal wave". i am actually pretty refreshed. the kid keeps buying us shots until we cant take it anymore. we get paid 70 bucks and are very happy we somehow load out, then get lost driving around Tulsa.
day three.
we all call our mom's before we leave to say happy mother's day. we drink some coffee, say our goodbyes, and we make the fucking annyoing 6 hour drive from Tulsa to St. Louis. along the way we stop at the "World's Largest McDonalds!" not very exciting. its only big because it arches over a strip of toll road, the resturaunt itself is the same size, or smaller than a regular one. we re-fuel at the McDonalds travel stop and keep on truckin. we roll into St. Louis around 7 or 8pm, not sure cause my phone is dead. we make it to the kid's house that we're playing at. St. Louis looks fucking crazy. people are fighting on the sidewalk and screaming. all the buildings are red brick. we see the arch for about three seconds, while exiting the highway. i'm not impressed by it, its smaller than i imagined. we're playing at a crazy punk house where a bunch of 19 year olds live called the Skullfuckeree. it reminds me of 1702 but dirtier, more fucked up, more gnarly and unlivable. these kids obviously dont give a fuck about anything, and are fun to hang out with. we hang out on the porch, drink beers, and walk to find some burritos. we put off loading in and finally walk down to the basement to watch some of the other bands. one is kind of bad, sloppy. one is okay. then we play. its unremarkable, this place isn't that rad other than the house we're playing at. then our friends the conniption fitts play. i'm pretty drunk off some beer called Stag. i jump around, head upstairs and help load out. we decide to drive to Carbondale, IL to hang out with our friends. we barely get paid. i fall asleep for what seems like 30 minutes, which is more like an hour and 1/2.
we make it to Carbondale and i crack a beer, i fall asleep before i can finish it. we make some puns about Oprah (fried Oprah), watch Royal Rumble, and i crash hard.
day four.
i wake up to another beautiful sunny day. i'm convinced that this is the best time of year to tour. everyone is out of school, everyone wants to drink, have fun, swim, cookout. Carbondale fucking rules. southern Illinois is like the south, preople have the same manners, the people can be okay if they want to. everyone i've met here is so nice, funny, attractive. we decide to sleep in and go swimming at the Spillway in the afternoon. we grab some nachos and sodas at Don Taco or Taco Don's or something. they're ok. i miss real Texas mexican food. we start drinking as soon as we get to the river. it reminds me of the greenbelt in Austin. the water is dirty. we stand halfway in the water and drink from a 12 pk of Old Style. there is nothing to jump off of or swing from. our hosts rule. we come back, hot and tired, and play Wii for a few hours. then we decide to make Champipple and buy the necessary ingredients before walking across the street to the show. we head over to Lost Cross and start grilling some bratwurst, cheeseburgers, and veggie burgers. I am fucking hammered off the Champipple and like 15 beers. i take an adderall to sober up. it makes me super talkative and i keep on drinking. i'm feeling it. i love Carbondale, man i fucking love it. i could totally see myself living here. i lose 75cents playing dice with this weird homeless dude named Jason. his favorite game is craps and he's pretty good at it. we load in the basement after watching the first band who is a pretty good hardcore band from Kentucky. i move around a little. its fun to hear some high energy music. i'm very drunk and shirtless when we play. i play a few songs with a 30 pack of Old Style on my head. the show is fun but pretty sloppy. we are all hammered. we all fall down. we laugh, we play the set with alot of enthusiasm because this might just be our best show ever, who knows, we love this place, our friends are here, i feel pretty goddamn amazing. i live for this shit, i waited all fuckin year to do this. this one moment, all the bullshit lead up to this one amazing moment where i am playing with my band, wasted, to 50 kids in a basement in Carbondale. yeah fuck yeah, i am finally happy, maybe for the first time this year.
i cant count the number of beers i have drank. i steal some fritos from a beautiful drunk girl. she is passed out on the lawn, wearing a black miniskirt and converse with no socks. she has a boyfriend of 5 years. when we leave i tell her goodbye for the hell of it. i know girls like this dont exist to make guys like me happy. they are probably doomed to a tragic life. fine with me. i drunk dial Natasha and ask if she wants to hang out tomorrow night in Chicago, she says yes, i'm pretty stoked. we return to the house and watch the Stoned Age. i sleep for about four hours. i wake up and think i lost my phone but its just stuck under the couch. its way too early for this shit. no one else is awake.
pt 2 coming soon...