tour march the first, part one

It is 7:10 in the morning, and while I am quite tired, I have managed to find some magnetic legos that we lost some four nights previous, and also the switch on the router that makes the internets work. I am just amazing, people. The reason I am awake at 7:11 (it's later now) instead of nice and warm in my bed has to do with some goblins or some such playing silly fuckers (8:10 =/ 6:47) and doing things to my alarm clock. Regardless, I writing this in my kitchen, from one of the comfy bowl chairs. It is red, and covered with a grey blanket. To my left is probably the most delicious cup of coffee I have ever goddamn had-- the foam on top of it is so thick that I was actually having difficulty getting to the coffee bit (It was an issue, I overcame it.).

The previous four days stand in my mind as being a lot of different things, which can be described by many different adjectives. The first one that jumps to mind is 'surreal.' I had a great time overall, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Regardless, I feel like I have sort of led up into the tour blog proper for far too long, and ought to just shut up and get down to business.

Day One:

I woke up a bit hung over from a pre-tour celebratory binge-drinking soiree, but sucked it up. I had my hair to dye, and also my apartment to clean. I had mostly finished cleaning the kitchen and living room by the time Kingland woke up. We finished everything by about noon, lunched on leftover pizza and ginger ale, and watched the rest of Snakes on a Plane (we had started it the night previous, but had passed out before it was anywhere near finished.). By this point my hangover was basically gone.

Jon and Shawn arrived at around two. Jon claims that they (we?) are a 'dangerous youth gang.' I laced up my boots and we left the apartment. Jon gave custody of the merch bag to Kingland, and we piled in to our respective vehicles for the drive to Modesto. Kingland and I listened to a lot of the Long Winters. When we arrived in Modesto, we stopped at a gas station. Kingland and I had filled up a few days previous, so it didn't take too terribly much to fill the tank. For some reason, when the car was full, the gas nozzle popped out of the car. It was almost as if the car had had enough of all of that semi-coital nonsense, and was saying 'Uugh, just get OUT of me.'

Jon gave us some cherry blow-pops, and I skipped back to the car. We drove on back roads through Modesto. The cherry trees were in full bloom, and the blossoms littered the ground in between the rows of trees. We went to P. Wexford's pub for lunch. They were cleaning the tables with some crazy sort of chemical. The smell made me quite nauseous, and I actually ended up having to retire to the restroom to throw up.

It was only about five o' clock by this point, and sound check wasn't until six, so we went to the Queen Bean for some coffee. We sat outside (it was cold) and played a card game of Shawn's devising with some Batman the Animated Series cards (Jon's,) from 1997. We left for the Fat Cat at a quarter of, and drove to the Fat Cat.


Kingland and I had a bit of a time finding parking, but eventually we did, and walked over to the venue. We all walked around to the back, as we had been instructed. The door was locked. My only assumption about this is that they aren't used to bands actually showing up either on time, or at all, for sound checks.

Sound check was pretty fun, actually. It took sort of a while to get the levels right, but eventually we did. After that everyone retired to the merch table to fold and draw on the sleeves for our live compilation CD's. (They are made of multicoloured construction paper and awesome.) Shawn bought everyone vodka-based drinks, and eventually we played (arguably) our best show to date to a very enthusiastic crowd.

Afterward I went back to the merch table for a while and helped Kingland. (Sort of.) For the rest of the night I flitted back and forth between the green room and the merch table, and had a near-altercation from a crazy girl with flaming red hair and enough piercings to alarm any children under the age of four. Other than that, I had a great deal of fun. Sometime in between flitting back and forth, I was asked to sing harmony for the first song in Brother Lunch's set. (I feel like this went relatively well, but admittedly I haven't seen the video of it as yet.)

At some point we cleared out and headed to Bob's house for the BEST SLEEPOVER EVER. I can't really remember what was discussed, other than it must have been hilarious. We laughed an awful lot, and eventually passed out.

The next morning, we woke to Shawn's phone buzzing on the table. It was his friend J.D, wondering if we still had breakfast plans. We all managed to get ready in the space of about thirty minutes, and piled into the Mazda. We were headed to a brunch joint that we had passed by the day previous, called 'Scrambl'z Kountry Kitchen.' One important feature of this place was that, on the sign, it said in smaller type, '...a fun place to eat.' With the ellipses and everything. It ended up being the sort of family restaurant which has lots of stuff on the walls, in the manner of most 50's themed diners. (It was sort of fucking awesome.) We are all very much of the opinion that they ought to change their slogan to '...we don't fuck around.' The food was plentiful and delicious, and our server was excellent.

After breakfast we took a side trip to Target, for some towels. (Apparently Bob only had one towel to speak of.) I got a fluffy pink towel, Kingland got a black one, Jon got a blue one, and Shawn got a sort of salmony orange one. When we got back to Bob's we all showered and played some Smash Brothers. After a while Jon started getting antsy and we got back out on the road. (Which is where part two comes in.)