:: Music As Social Agitation Records::

:: Monday, September 27, 2004 ::

in the process of redesigning and settling back in after tour. i've only recently discovered the greyhound, not the bus, but the drink, and found it quite obviously fitting. every time i'm talking about something, i inevitably say: "when we were in...." and i talk about some city and some highly exaggerated story follows. and whenever i'm listening to someone i say: "awesome, awesome, awesome."

heading back down to california by this friday. had a great weekend. someone find me a job where i do nothing and get paid a lot for it.

COOL. THANKS. -tim

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:: brs 2:33 AM [+] ::
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we got back into washington state a couple of days ago, playing a show in kennewick on the way back to seattle. the kennewick show was just okay, not many people stuck around for matt's or my set. the show last night in seattle, however, was awesome. lots of familiar faces and good times. thanks to everyone that showed up.

we're playing in olympia tonight at le voyeur. should start around 8. tomorrow night at the derby house, email me for directions. also starts at 8 and we're playing with the inimitable jack saturn aka the online romance. should be good times.

last thing: a bic can open your kryptonite lock. -tim

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:: brs 2:33 AM [+] ::
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here's an update from two days ago. what was that, tuesday? we're in provo, ut, right now, reaping the benefits of wi-fi in karl's house where we're playing tonight. i'd update more, but then that would make the update below even more obsolete than it already is. i'd be impressed if you've gotten through all of matt's posts. get reading, sucka!
-tim

ps. edit: i've also been slow to get labrynt's very, very last post up which was sent to us via the internet from missoula, so i'm adding that, after my post, in red. enjoy!

9:12 a.m. central time, boulder, CO

sitting on the deck at brandon's apartment after a marathon greyhound ride to denver. boulder reminds me of parts of rohnert park, at least in my immediate area. winding down to the last week of tour, we'll be in kennewick on friday, which to me, is as good as over, since having lived there for three years will be like returning to a home of any kind. anything familiar is very welcoming at this point.

the last few days have been excruciatingly long travel days, and we have two more of those to go; the ride from denver to provo, ut is supposed to be pretty long, and we spend one more night on the bus leaving salt lake city to go to pasco. the shows have been pretty bad, too. the show in st. louis at the infierno room had only me and matt playing, no local acts, thus, no one showing up. there were a few people in and out, but we actually lost money on the show, since we had to pay for beer and food there and didn't sell a thing or get paid. we both played two sets, in hopes that people would come in, but i was so out of it after the bus ride and the walk from the greyhound station that i hardly felt like playing, and it was pretty obvious. st. louis is pretty effin' scary, anyway, what with the greyhound station being in a pretty rough part of town. luckily, some nice people we met gave us a ride there at 230, right before our bus was to leave, thus minimizing our time in the scary station. matt contends that the seattle station is still the ugliest and dirtiest of all the stations we've been to, which may not be far off.

before that we were in chicago, actually, blue island, il, which i'm told is still actually chicago. we played at ray's pizza with foxtale and the bee's knees, both of which were great and very nice. during our first stay in chicago, i was a bit turned off by the city, the people, the traffic, the gentrification, (mostly due to the wicker park fiasco/show). the second time around i liked the show better aside from the drunken heckler that only matt had to deal with, and the people were nicer. we got to see tosch again, which was nice, and we got to check out jamie's landmark studio. if only we had enough time to record. anyway, my point is that the first time around chicago lost me, the second, it reeled me back in. hooray for chicago.

holy shit, remember those crows we saw in the grand canyon that would make swooping sounds every time they flapped their wings? i just saw one, and it's flapping was audible over achilles heel right now.

speaking of achilles heel, i had to buy the mutherfucker again through itunes the other day because i was THAT desperate to hear the shit. best tunes on the record as of today: start without me, the poison, arizona.

before chicago we were in kent, ohio. kent state university looks nothing like the pictures, and all the kids party on thursday night. there's a 24-hour deli/cafeteria downstairs in one of the dorms and it's packed with kids at 2 a.m. the show was off-campus at julie's house-- it was well attended and we met some nice kids, as usual. mc homeless and his acapella flow was a nice change of pace to all the whiny shit me and matt do all the time. kids are smart over there, though, they are radical and know their shit, intimidating. this kid noah made some tasty vegan vegetable/tofu curry that we devoured in a second. matt didn't sleep that night. i did.

i think we're gonna go look for some wi-fi in town today so we can post this shit, as brandon's teaching class and we got bee-dogg at our disposal. heading west feels good. -tim

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:: brs 2:31 AM [+] ::
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sitting in the greyhound station here in springfield, MO. looks like we are not gonna be playing the house show tonight and instead will be high-tailing it west to denver (6am arrival tomorrow morning). we really need to be getting that way at this very moment. i think we are gonna try to pick up a show/gig at a coffeeshop tomorrow morning or evening. i want to be playing tomorrow somewhere. i added it up yesterday and though we have 10 of the next 11 days booked, we have had 11 days off. five for the convention. four missed shows. three our fault or the NYPD's and one greyhounds. and two scheduled days off for the last three weeks. huh. not as busy as i would like to be and i am for sure a little pessimistic about how effective or how much we have been successful getting our music out there. lots of fun shows for sure, and nothing to horrible overall happening, but... i dunno. for how taxing this whole greyhound thing has been, and for how much of normal life and normal productivity we are missing right now, i am not sure if it has been worth it. i am eager to do another greyhound tour, but i am thinking the 21 day passes are probably the perfect amount of time. from here on out, i want to be touring at least 60 days a year. maybe two 21 dayers and two week longs. i want to take eli out before the end of the year... so last night was st louis and the infierno room. downtown STL, on washington. an odd area that seems stuck between run-down, urban ghost town and aspiring young, professional gentrification. tons of empty first story spaces right next to ritzy sushi bars and shit. apparently this is the second time in the last decade they have tried to re-vitalize the area. it was kind of like a beautiful GQ-ing model person you might meet and then they laugh and you see there teeth are yellow and they are missing a few. BUT i was excited cause as we approached downtown from our walk from the greyhound, i realized that i had read/looked through a book a few months ago in the library all about urban st louis and its history and development of its architecture through the last century. there really is some beautiful architecture downtown, nothing too flashy but just these huge impressive structures with subtleties. what is most impressive is how all the buildings are packed up tight and right next to each other along the blocks, too the point where it just looks like a massive cube, flat-faced yet striped every quarter-block since there are actually four not one building. tall, high-rising massive wall of concrete and almost forgettable windows. overture. overdeparture. anonozine. more later. the show was fun, the 3-4 people working there were nice considering there was no one else on the bill and about 15-20 patrons over the course of the five hour night. there was obviously a little miscommunication between me and elvis, the owner/booker, which sucked. me and tim made the best of it though hitting up the dollar tacos ten times over and taking in a few of the dollar pabsts and getting replay on the cowboy pinball game 6 times in about 12 plays. we each did two short sets. tim, me, tim, me. things picked up towards the end of the night, we met some nice locals and talked about our scenes and our cities. no offense to you bham and seattle, but everywhere we go, be it rural wisconsin or scary urban downtown areas people are so much friendlier and open-minded than you. sorry if it hurts, but you should really try to smile and listen more often. we all should. (steps off high-horse). we had to catch a 3am greyhound and to get to springfield for our show here tonight, which we cant make.

friday night in chicago was a lot of fun and jaime and his posse were really nice. foxtail kicks ass and you should all check them out, as does the bees knees. the show was at this pizza place in south suburban chicago (blue island) and susan, the foxtail drummer, grew up there. her friends and family came out and there was a good amount of people. rays pizza was good. before the show and during my set (onlY) there was this really obnoxious drunk dude. it didn't bug me much at all, i was just having another rough set, but everyone else seemed to be getting pissed at him. during bow interrupted he was talking loudly on and about his cellphone and 1985 cemented its first commercial plug for verizon. the bar tender gave me a sympathy pint, which was nice, but i think she was annoyed about us hipster looking young kids coming in and taking over and scary-ing off her locals. it kind of annoyed me too, how these kids were looking down upon and getting disgusted by the hometeam when they were the out of towners. i have been hyper-aware of suchness, this notion of being an alien in an unfamiliar system and not just cause me and tim are constantly the foreigner on tour.i think alot of it had to do with the RNC and how NYorkers felt invaded and taken advantage of both by the republicans and by the protesters. anyways, after the show we went back to tim (foxtail and PAL bassist) house which was a nice pad above an old, now apartmented cornerstore. john tosch was staying there and we were hoping to bump into him. we then went and got some beers and went over to jaimes house to check out his studio and his place, he was interested in recording us in the morning as seth (PAL'er and bees knees singer/guitarer) was interested in having me and tim be a apart of this free music series he was doing. he essentially recruited artists and friends and then made 100 copies of a recording of theirs and passed them out. me and tim are gonna try to record one of our NW dates to use for it. should be awesome. seth was awesome. he gave us one of his zines and three of the cds in the series. after jaimes we headed back to tims and passed out in the niceness. woke up, got to hang out with them and tosch for a bit and then finally had a chance to experience the chicago l train and mass transit as we made our way back to the chicago station for like the 5th time.... getting ready to bus out of here in springfield, i will try to finish off the RNC shit soon. oh there was this crazy ass bar/repair shop made of wood paneling down the road from here called joes. tons of auto signs, shoes hanging up everywhere (kind of like the peanut man in bham). wednesday night stareting at 8pm, pay five bucks get free beer on tap till closing. fuck. saturday. bikini carwash from 10am till??? whoa. -matt

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:: brs 2:23 AM [+] ::
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on the greyhound again, just got done dropping people off and picking people up in toledo, OH on our way from kent, OH to chicago, IL. toledo was were we had missed our connection last time through due to the bus being late and we decided just to express-line it to NYC. kent was alright, another mostly college town. lots of rich kids, a semi-historic looking downtown. mc homeless, aka matt, set up the show and it was at his friend julie's house. about 15 people showed up or were car-pooled there. the kids around here are super on top of their leftiness, and though many looked like normal dames and dudes, many were hard core socialists or hard core anarchists, etc. ohio is another swing state this year, and we had a nice debate on the car ride to the venue over how important it might be to vote for kerry (over nader or another). i think very. tim started the show off and then i followed and then mc homeless through down some words acapella style. i am eager to hear what it sounds like with beats behind it, it was pretty good stuff. then this kid jeff played some songs on julies electric guitar and ended a short set with "a boy named sue." julie was then inspired to play a couple instrumentals and that was that. the plan was to go to Noah's apartment and cook some food before heading back to matt's dorm to crash. noah was in the middle of moving out of his apartment though due to some black rot issue and so we went to this other kids house and noah cooked up a fine vegan dish, we also went and got a vegan pizza on top of that at this pizza bar place and i hung out with the apartment dude and this girl he was trying to pick up on. got a shot of whiskey. got sick of transient associations again. played tool's "anema," sinatras "when i was 17" and princes "1999." on the juke box. tonight was thursday, a big party night, and there were tons of kids out and about and we drove by a lot of frat parties as well. after eating we headed back to matts kinda quick since we had to get up early to get a ride to the bus station. maria, jeffs girlfriend, was kind enough to give us a ride early into akron (10 miles away) so we could catch our bus. and here we are. i am looking forward to chicago tonight, i guess mostly because i know what to expect since it is a bar show and such. this last batch of gigs have been house show oriented and that is a lot more socially taxing than a bar, and a lot more unpredicitable. yesterday, when it was warm and rainy outside, the driver had the heat fucking cranked. it sucked with irony. all other days have been freezing on the bus due to too much AC being blasted. of course, i also dont have much to wear in the warmth department since i have left all my warm clothes elsewhere, including my sleeping bag. last night was the worst night of "sleep" yet. hard, cold floor. AC going.arm for a pillow, windbreaker for a blanket. the third week out is always the toughest for me. that is when i really start to miss everyone and when i get frazzled by the new city everyday transience. the fourth week, and hopefully in this case tonight, things begin to be homeward bound and it makes it much easier, plus you start to get into more familiar parts of the country. anyways...

back to jail. lots of dialogue throughout the night as frustrated detainees chimed in at the frustrated cops on the other side of the grate. for many, many hours only about 5-6 people were being moved along each hour. the funniest thing was probably the solidarity clapping and cheering that would take place when any of the female inmates, who were being detained in another big room like this, were brought into the medic area in our room. often times these cheers sounded like catcalls and it was kind of funny. we had sporadic phone access in this third cell finally. a cop would log in who wanted to make a call and then dial it for them and allow about 10 people every hour or so to make calls. i called the Legal Justice Center folks on a couple of occasions to try and get word on my one concern of having out of state warrants. i called tim as well, to give him an update on what had happened. about the only thing they told me was not to tell them that over the phone. many of the cops spent many consecutive hours passed out in the chairs outside the cells. just waiting like us to get there shit processed. i did not see my officer throughout the night at all. one time i awoke and saw a glimpse of him and figured he would be here for now and so i wanted a few minutes to call him over and see what our status was. he was gone for several hours before i saw him again. the cells were a cig smoke stained yellow. there were benches around the outside. the rooms were about 20 feet by 30 feet or so and there was at many times, more than 60 of us crowded in. it was nearly impossible for us all to even sit down anywhere and lucky were the ones who passed out length-wise on the floor first. early in the am, probably about 1 or so, things started to pick up a bit and more and more of us were being released to the next stage. everyone started to get increasingly anxious to be moved along. most people were able to see/chat with there officer to get an update. apparently the drama was that the officer had to go with all his detainees at once to booking and so it was a matter of finding the five people they arrested and getting their paper work all together. it was another two hours before i saw my office again. his named kept getting called while he was gone too, which meant that his papers were coming up if he was just there enough to get them. when we chatted he said he was a long ways away from getting everything together, so sit tight. he kept moving in and out, probably just as tired as me, he had been working since noon the day we got arrested. on two occasions i had to shout out his name so he could hear from the hallway that his papers were getting called. finally, at about 4am or so i was called out and handcuffed to a chain of four others. it was so nice to be able to move this freely. we were led to the fingerprinting area and i began to freak out here again about the whole prior record thing and being detained longer because of it. i had one bench warrant out for past court fines and another for an incident involving a BB gun and a non-moving vehicle in the spring time. they had the high-tech fingerprinting machines, no-ink, just laser-imaging and high-speed connection to a national database. after finger-printing they brought us to a smaller, yet more barred cell that put the prisoners on each of the long walls and had a middle cage for visitors, perhaps lawyers or family or whatever. on the other wall was a group of women who were at the same point in the process as us. some chats occurred about how everyone was doing and after a half hour we were called out again. it was no time for the mug shot. it was a longer walk to the basement to get the mug shot and apparently at this point we were entering the real realm of the corrections department. it was also here that we first came in contact with other arrestees and prisoners. while waiting in line the guard, older and pretty nice, spent 20 minutes scaring the shit out of us about how much we were gonna get messed with once we made it into a cell-block. i was pretty much shitting my pants, not so much from his dialogue, but just realizing i might be one of the few protesters to get left in the system for awhile. behind me was a kid who was in the same boat, as he had been arrested on friday for protesting and was released with a DAT (date to appear ticket) which gained him his release, for now, but prohibited him from returning without hard consequences. we were both pretty sure we would be there for another couple days and set loose with all the normal patrons (said to be murderers, rapists, psychos, etc). the CO's were pretty harsh and blunt, as they have to be, and they had a fun time with all us soft-skinned babies for the next 12 hours. got our mug taken, and then lined up to be brought into a cell block. after 20 minutes we were lead into the pistachio green cell block and all the familiar faces surrounded us. we were welcomed by the familiar cheers and claps. we had phones here in each cell and i called tim and the LJC folks again and again didn't learn anything. the CO's were really having fun with us, yelling at us excessively and being generally pissed off for having to deal with 1500 of us. after a few quick medical questions, we were moved across the hallway to another cell. it appeared that there were 12 of these small cells down the hallway, and the center of the passage way was the desks and working center for the CO's. another batch of sandwiches and fruit and milk was brought to us and one cell, in solidarity with the palestinian prison hunger strike apparently decided they were not gonna eat any food. apparently soy bologna exists and apparently we were offered it. some people tried it, but no one really believed it was veggie. apparently bloomberg had told the press that we were gonna be giving boca burgers in jail. that is funny on so many levels. a major thread of the dialogue between protesters and cops that week was that the cops were on our side, they had been fighting (and protesting) for a new contract and the protesters often reminded them of that with chants like "come join us" and many anti-bloomberg things. our whole cell block took to chanting, and randomly shouting fuck bush, fuck bloomberg. back in the yellow cells upstairs, there was this kid with a funny accent. when we were given cereal and milk to eat, he wanted more rice crispies, what he called in the funniest of accents "crispies." "can i get some more crispies" sounded hilarious enough, but when we all took to protesting chants he would often change the nouns in the chant to crispies, and we soon followed his lead. "what do we want? CRISPIES! when do we want them? NOW!" was some funny ass shit. anyways, a lot of chanting happened in the green cells and at times we had the upper hand. the CO's were not as easy to ignore us when singled out and yelled at and there were some heated shouting matches. i think what pissed the CO's off the most was the special treatment. everyone on their side, and our side, was completely blown away at how much off a failure the set-up to get us processed and through the system was. of course, this was the single largest amount of people arrested in one day for them ever, and we were part of the largest protest the streets of NY had ever seen. (or something close to that). that was a good feeling. so word came down from the CO's and through the telephone wires that lawsuits were being filed against the city to get us immediately released and that it was likely to succeed, apparently a lawsuit was also being filed against our treatment (both for the pier conditions and for the length of our jailtime). they are not supposed to keep you more than 24 hours without arraignment (though they claimed that normal inmates sometimes went days before it). i was never read my rights, though i think they didn't have to for some reason. anyways, this cell was the most cramped and the most uncomfortable and everyone was exhausted and trying to sleep, which didn't work to well. they started to call people out again and at a somewhat quick rate and, for the first time, i was one of the first half of people called. we were told we were being taken to see a legal advisor and then to see the judge. fuck yes (even though my hands began to sweat at this point over the warrants). we were brought to another cell in another part of the jail, these were beige and fit five of us. with me know was one of the protesters who actually got into the convention and made a spectacle in front of all of madison square garden (not during bush's speech of course he was not set to speak until the morning) throughout jail, it was kind of hinted that we were being detained so long to keep us off the streets. i dunno, it seemed like the system was just not set to handle all of us. i do know that many cops admitted that they would be cracking down exceptionally hard on thursday and they would have no tolerance for deviance. we were also threatened that if we were arrested again things would be a lot different. after 15 minutes there, my lawyer (i requested an LJC one) arrived. i immediately asked her about the warrants and she seemed to think it wouldn't come up, since they were trying hard to get everyone out now and plus she had apparently all the paper work the judge would have in front of her and she didn't see any mention of warrants. five minutes later, at 2:45pm, i was sitting off to the side in the air-conditioned courtroom watching the judge make 30 second decisions, all the same, all for conditional releases that as long as we didn't get in trouble in the next six months charges would be dropped, and two minutes later i was thanking my lawyer, thanking god after two hours of sweaty nervousness and walking out the courtroom a free man... -matt

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:: brs 2:24 AM [+] ::
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just left state college, PA and josh and renda. it was really great to see josh and this was my first time meeting renda, his fiance. she was awesome and cheerful and sincere and her positivity made me smile often. they make a great couple. i guess dairy products are big here and it was a must that we stop at Myers Dairy Farms front store to get a milkshake. i sat that one out because during our five hour layover in harrisburg, PA there were cheap frozen treats at the station store and i got myself a Banana Jamma (like a banana pudding pop covered with a layer of chocolate) and a Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream treat... brenda had sent out an email to the kids in her grad department and we were set to play a show in her living room at 8pm. no one really cared if anyone showed up and we were hanging out eating burritos and listening to music. by 8:15 or so, 4 of their friends showed up. josh played a set of songs, though he was admittedly drunk and had only practiced for a bit earlier in the day. it was good to hear his music and his voice again. he writes such good songs. tim and josh did a couple MLB songs together, too. we were picking up free wireless from someone in the apartment building and i stayed up later uploading a lot of songs to myspace for some masa artists and watching the station agent and starsky and hutch and drinking more beers (sorry for drinking too many josh and brenda). i decided to go for a walk cause the weather was wet and autumnesque and once out the rains let loose and i got fucking soaked. fucking soaked. i actually had to strip the clothes off and wrench out all the water. i could have easily filled a pitcher with how saturated my clothes were. keeping with my tradition of leaving needed clothing and such behind, i symbolically (or for practicality sakes) disposed of the 2 dollar salvation army shoes i had purchased in NYC to demonstrate in.

the night before we were in binghamton, NY and played a house show at Phranks place. Phrank and Adam (who had set the show up) played an acoustic set of their songs (the band is called Nancy and i have been plastering their stickers everywhere since). it was good, acoustic punk and very assertive. also on the bill were two indie pop kids, Justin Clifford Rhody and Matty Pop Chart, they were from indiana and knew serene. i kind of have a bad taste in my mouth for that area and those circles right now because serene was so certain that some of those kids (via this message board so many people are on) would help me out with a show and no one every fucking even tried to point me in the right direction or help set a show up. justing seemed to know who i was when we introduced ourselves but kept quite about it. i dunno, in these DIY punk community environs, you have to really not like someone to not even try to help them come to your town/area, if you are of the sorts to set shows up and such, which tons of these people were. maybe some of it had to do with me not being able to help a few of them out when they came through bellingham, i dunno... i will have to talk to serene more about it... anyways, justin and matt both had cute tunes and voices, and pretty guitar playing. i realized that this toddler (or baritoned) voiced, mellow indie acoustic thing seems to be taking the nation by storm these days. so many kids doing it. so many thanksgivings and microphones and mirahs and blows. i think it is a good thing. what a mild punk revolution. huh... me and tim switched back and forth a bit but i don't think either of us was really comfortable. after a chunk of four of my songs tim decided people were probably bored with us and finished our set with one of his songs (abruptly at that, i think he might have played 3 songs to my 6). huh. we had to catch the greyhound that night and matt and justin, though stoned, were the soberest drivers to get us there. we also played with this band rookie from columbus, ohio and they were pretty good at the power pop punk bit. i could see them playing with axes of evil at the 3b nicely... the night ended with matt and justin begrudgingly accepting the rest of the roll of transparent duct tape i had left from NYC. damn, i wish i wouldn't have given it to them.

as far as our oneonta show. shit got fucked. we showed up at fine arts 212 (a classroom) around 6pm and wanted for vic/others to show up. no one did and by 7:30 (half hour past show time) we were exhausting our options of trying to get a hold of Vic. luckily we had wireless connection in the building so we could search on the computer for how to get a hold of him. we emailed him found a home number for him and called, found his AIM and buddied him (he was "away" for a long while). asked some of the musician students practicing about him they told us to search the school website for his campus number, so we did and called him and left messages. we decided to go to the student union building and there we got some food, watched good will hunting and used there computers there and kept trying to get a hold of him. we got kicked out at 11pm cause they closed and called a cab to take us to the all-night diner in town, and possibly to a motel. right before the cab came, we decided to go back to the fine arts building and try to hang out there all night (act like students practicing). it was unlocked and we set things up with our guitars to look like we were studying. btw, oneonta apparently has an excellent music industry program, though the university was the most elementary school looking college i had ever seen. i couldn't believe it was over 100 years old. once we got back to the building we set tims computer up and signed on to AIM, Vic was on and after about five minutes he replied to me and apologized and said he would come get us. we had been worried alot about where we were gonna be spending the night and it was nice to know that we would have a place now. the place was vics dorm room. we met his suite mates, got some pizza, drank some mountain dew and played Halo on their Game Cubes. seven of us were playing on two TVs. i got my assed kicked. vic was a nice kid, soft-spoken and well-mannered. i felt bad that only a few hours earlier i had been cursing him out and calling him Chumbley (the dude in menomenee who flaked on our show). i have yet to hear the cd of vics music that we got, but i am looking forward to it. its funny, and really cool, how many cds you get on tour of the artists you play with. good times....

vermont, upstate new york and pennsylvania are all beautiful with all their rolling hills and deciduous trees. too bad falls only last a few weeks out here. i am sure they are beautiful, none the less. the hills and rivers and trees get a little boring after awhile, or maybe the stuffy, drab greyhound is tainting our appreciation of the surroundings... i dont know...

okay. back to the RNC story, i guess. pier 57 is a place of big contention and a legal case now. the cops had announced only a week before (about the same time they were bragging they were gonna be able to handle 1000 arrests a day) that they had created a temporary detention center for protester arrests. well, actually, one article in the village voice, claimed the cops had plans to keep the pier open afterwards for such violent events as the US Open. huh. anyways, it was a huge old warehouse that had stored metro busses and seen them get fixed. as such the ground was black with oil and anti-freeze and other chemicals. apparently, when all the critical massers got arrested in friday, the ground was soaking wet as well. there is more legal issues with the floor, in that a lot of people were having respiratory problems and breaking out with rashes. (let me just disclaim here that i was frustrated a lot by how whiny and wimpy a lot of the people i was arrested with were). most of these folks were white and middle class, though some of the loudest were older and not white. people were bitching the whole time, rightfully so for the most part, but often it got old to hear so and so go on about the gross sandwiches again. mostly i thought it was disrespectful to those who live this prison-industrial complex on a daily basis, and to those who have been wrongfully or rightfully imprisoned for political and non-political causes. plus, we were getting special treatment, be it the extra food or water, or the extra patience the cops had with us). anyways, people were getting sick i guess form the unavoidable floor. they had created with tall, razor-topped chain link fencing a series of about ten fifty by fifty foot pens or so. there were benches inside that could hold about 15 people total. there was water available and a portapotty in each. there were enough people in each, though, that it was tough to find room for everybody to sit (on the grease-drenched floor), let alone for people to lay down. when we arrived, they checked in our clear garbage bag with all or belongings and we were sent to various pens. it took about an hour and a half to get through the line and eventually assigned a pen. i met 30-something Carmal McMahon from Ireland, who had lived in NYC for ten years and was going to NYU for english education work. non one really knew what to expect, there were rumors that we were to be arraigned and possibly released here. all throughout the two days, the cops responded to inquiries by playing confused, but being optimistic about how long it would take. this is a strategy they use to try and keep us calm and rulable throughout the process. they have a legal right to lie to us, though we cant lie to them. i spent the first four or five hours in my first pen with about 80 people or so who kept arriving and departing. every time, over the course of the two days, someone got their name called and advanced to the next detention, everyone would clap in solidarity. no one still, or would ever, really know what process and stage was next (despite however prepared, researched or experienced they were beforehand). once i was called out from the first pen, i was taken to a desk and me and my arresting officer and another cop went through my belongings and listed them. i got a receipt of all the cops had and was shipped to the next pen, even more crowded, though a bit larger and with mostly new people. things, at times, were unruly. protest chants occurred and every time a new busload of people arrived from later protests, the whole place would erupt in cheers. we spent till about 8am in this next pen. afterwards were moved to a very large pin and lined up in rows. this pen was larger than all the others put together, and some people had had the luxury of being kept in this one all night. word spread around that they were gonna bus us to corrections now. and they used a megaphone this time to call out the names. there never seemed to be any order to who and when one was chosen. beforehand, though, they tried to pass out sandwiches (bologna or cheese) to everyone, though a lot of people didn't get one. oh, and also, we were sex-seperated. boys in ones et of pens girls in the other. apparently they decided that all the boys were gonna be moved along first (perhaps becuase their was more of us, i dunno).... oh, i forgot, they also were taking polaroids. 3 were taking at the arrest site, three more once in line at the detention center. one of each was a picture of you and your arresting officer. one picture was attached to your bag of shit.... anyways, i was put on a jail bus with a whole new group of people and we were bussed to the corrections facility. the PD officers warned us that corrections is a whole new ball game and that the officers there were vicious and mean. about 10am we got off our bus and lined up alongside of it. we were being shouted at and such and the guards were definately meaner. the bus that came in behind us had chanted and cheered the whole way there and when the head of a five person team watching over us heard them come in, he told his boys to put on there riot gear, which they did. that dude was an asshole and looking to cause trouble. we were brought single file, handcuffed in a chain, upstairs to a floor with three holding cells. we were searched (for the 3-4th time) and loaded into first cell. i spent from 10am till 3am in two of these cells. people got stir crazy not everyone could lay down, or even sit down at once these cells were so crowded. there was a shitty toilet and a sink that barely worked. in the first cell we were made to wear our cuffs for about two hours and people increasingly complained about this. for the longest time the cops were not sympathetic, but finally they decided it wasnt cool to keep us cuffed when we were locked up. a lot of people had issues with their cuffs and i know several that were gonna go to a doctor to document it. again with the random name calling and we were moved to the third tank over. outside the tank, officers were busy with paper work, by late evening, all the officers had arrived back and were sitting around waiting to get the paper work for their arrestees... -matt

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:: brs 2:25 AM [+] ::
...

we are in albany today on a three hour layover before our first, and only, campus show. not sure how it will go, we are playing CUNY-Oneonta. we were in albany yesterday for a bit on our way to burlington, VT. which was a alright. i guess burlington is a sister city to bellingham. do they realize that it snows maybe twice a year in bellingham and that autumn usually lasts a few months at least? i don't think so. there is a huge lake (5th biggest in the world or something). it is called lake champlain. i am called lonely. i am having a hard time dealing with all this quick several hour at most relationships, "too lonely for these transparencies" is how i wrote it on my hand yesterday. "charming is amphibious," unrelated, lay next to it. i am listening to the lullaby, lullaby compilation that greg copied once again for me (since i lost the last one). this was one of the last albums that hit me hard in the Irving house. i miss them muchos i have postcards for them. i have no idea how anything in my life will be when i return. perhaps autumn this was probably the worst time of the year for me to leave for a month, as i wasn't doing well the months prior to leaving and am insanely upset at myself for how efficiently i push people away and out of my life. it has gotten bad. i haven't given my heart out in the open to anyone in years. fantastic. anyways, the radio bean in burlington was quaint and small. this dude mostly monkee was playing when we got there. turned out he had some early set time. we found out the show had to be done at 10pm and the fliers (listing four acts) said the show began at 9pm. carl, who helped with the show was nowhere to be found, neither was any audience greater than four heads, and me and tim decided to play the 8-9 hour, switching every three songs. carl and co, though unannounced to us, arrived and him and his posse (about 15 people) hung out outside until they went on. they didn't finish setting up until 9:20 and apparently weren't aware the show had to be done by 10pm. sean _____ opened up, these were all high school kids from Jericho (about 40 minutes outside of burlington), and played about 5 songs. than carl and co did about three songs, all pretty long and pretty two chord repetitive. both of them were goo dsongwriters though for being so young and it was really easy to sing melodies and harmonies along to their songs. we obviously couldn't stay at carls house and so we pestered the barista/bartender. there weren't really any all night diners or anything. we decided to go hang out at this club where a band called the aphrodesia (who were on a "just vote" tour and who also traveling in a huge bus that ran on 100% veggie-table oil. dope ass kids. they were from san fran and played african/worldly funk music, elaborate costumes and stage antics as well. i fucking loved them. a lot of demonstrating and protesting seems to be about confronting negativity's with communal positivity's and bright, cuture (like theatre, puppetry, costumes, music, etc) and it never occurred to me that the pinnacle in music for such revolutionizing is worldly funk music. so perfect for revolution. anyways... i wanted to talk to them after to see if they had gone to the RNCon, but tim wound up finding these two dudes whom we could stay with, they lived 10 minutes outside of town and we walked there with a cool lake breeze and half lazy moon. john and justin. not from burlington. college grads. dog named buckley. we had to leave at 5:30 am to get to the bus station on time. we took a nap at like 2:30am. nice.

syracuse was awesome. didn't get to see much of the town, liked i had wanted to (since my grandfather spent all my life there until coming to the NW to die). emily and her friends were all nice, beautiful people. i don't think syracuse lets ugly people live there. "the eaves" is their attic. and it is big. they did a nice job decorating it. they had a bar set up there. there house was amazing too. they were mostly industrial design majors. emily was a music industry major. they are thinking of moving to PDX. the whole set-up and such reminded me of the DOS in anacortes, right down to the amazing hospitality. we were the second show there. casiotone FTPA played the first with joel and emily and kats band the martha dumptruck massacre. CJ1 is playing in a few weeks. we played with tony presely and dan solomon. dan did spoken word, half comic and commentary, half set pieces. good stuff. charmingly political. tony played electric guitar and sang. he had only been doing both things at the same time for a month. they are on a 11 week tour and will be coming through bellingham in early october. i am tired. afterwards, we drank some more than made a trip to a foosball table. couldn't stay at that house so we went to another house and played atari and listened to nighthawks at the diner. i was sloshed. amazing i made it back to the eaves house without getting lost or passing out and i crashed on the second story porch. i had a hard time all night with the notion that i would be gone tomorrow and never see most these people again. this is where the loneliness started to hit hardcore. anyways... this bus is moving around too much... -matt

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:: brs 2:25 AM [+] ::
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i'm at some school in oneonta, ny right now, i'm not even sure what school it is, but we're playing in what looks to be a classroom. i couldn't care less though, because there's wireless in here and the floors are tile and stuff and i'm a sucker for the reverb. last night we played in burlington, vt, to maybe two people or something, at least i know one of them was actually listening. we made two bucks. the night before we played in syracuse, i made bad jokes and felt stupid, but the eaves was rad.

here's some leftover pictures the past few days. -tim

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:: brs 2:21 AM [+] ::
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"oh me, what have i done..." serene covers a song with a chorus that begins with that line. i forgot whose song it is, but serene does it so beautifully. during our eight days in new york city, i had few songs stuck in my head. one line, "times square hit without warning" from some gibbard song that neither me or tim can figure out right now (i sang it to the melody in lowell, MA and subsequently, and fittingly for this weeks events, got "theres a look in the faces tonight thats untrustable as the hope that you'll never return in awhile, but your always on time..."). that last line was pretty much stuck in my head the whole week and felt right in NYC. where to start.... well, after an hour of pretentious, snotty gabbing from two 10-12 year old indian sisters behind us on the bus to syracuse, the unofficial first name for the second half of the tour has been named "Dammit, that sucks." (make your suck start loud and trail off into a lower keyed whisper for proper pronounciation). so yeah, i got arrested. i was one of 80 persons left as part of a solemn march from the WTC to madison square garden. we knew we would be stopped before then, and sure enough, the cops (though we were walking quietly in two by formation down the sidewalk) wouldn't let us past 28th and Broadway. it was tuesday night, the night of 1500 (police total) arrests and we laid down in the road wearing white, holding hands. NYC lifer Mary Round (44 years young) was on my right, and John Stewbridge (25 years old) from jacksonville, florida was on my left. i would see him in various pens and concreted rooms for the next 44 hours. but that is not the beginning of the story. i guess i will start with tuesday, the preset day of creative, non-violent direct action. i woke up late and missed both the direct action refresher "courses" (one at st marks at nine am and one at another church put on by the WRL at 11am). there were many things happening that day and i made a rough plan to go to union square to check in with how the day had gone so far, then travel to the fox news "shut up" protest at four pm, than travel down to union square again and see if the WRL solemn march was on time to pass by at 5:30 on their way from the WTC to madison square garden and also to see which of the two convergence points (NYPublic Library or Madisan Square Park) was better suited for a non-affiliated or affinitated solo protester to join up with people, then to travel to that location to make the massive trek to madison square garden. if things went all right i was going to travel to st marks afterwards for updates and then to the bowery cafe (open 24 hours a day that week as a santuary) and then possible call it a night, though i had arranged to be a part of the pink slip, unemployment line that was set to snake a single file line through miles of downtown manhattan. there were dozens and dozens of smaller actions planned for tuesday by various, small affinity groups aimed at disrupting the daytime and nighttime activities of the delegates and various RNC related entertainment and business plans. because i had not planned well enough before arriving, a problem i had all week was finding out about and trying to join up in such actions. these groups were designed to be small and enclosed, as to prevent infiltration and to keep actions efficient and more easily consensus-based. for the most part, i felt on the outside of a lot of the protesting and demonstrating, though i was in the thick of a lot of it. while in jail that changed, but i still wished i had planned ahead more and connected more with a/some groups before arriving. anyways. so i checked in at union square and already people were being arrested and the police, who up to this point had been pretty accommodating, had been cracking down pretty hard. at the WTC, the word came up that the solemn march had already been broken up and 100 people or so arrested. i had wanted to march with them from union square to madison square, but it looked like that was not gonna happen. murmurings abounded that any large group of people making their way towards the garden were gonna be confronted and stopped by the police. which was contrary to their reaction to both permitted and unpermitted actions earlier in the convention. so people were arranging to move in small groups and to converge later. i decided to head up to the fox news "shut up" shouting and their was a good crowd of people taking up the block of the sidewalk in front of the fox building, as well as the sidewalk across the street and some of the the other nearby sidewalks. my estimate was about 500 people or so. (i have not had a chance to read all the indy -and mainstream news- about the convention yet, i will try to and get back to this with their numbers and words... for now i want to try to get down my story their without losing it to time or to other takes on events). plenty of fun chants to be had, anti-o'reilly and anti-fox. the police decided to give us some of the street, a bit more than a NYC sidewalks width, but people were hesitant to be penned in with their little metal fences, and it took about 10 minutes for 4/5 of the crowd to move into and feel comfortable that it was not a concession for them to rally there. the other 1/5 remained on the sidewalk. the rules for the week were that you could stand on the sidewalk if you were up against the inside of the sidewalk and not blocking traffic. it didn't take long, especially in a few of the more colorful, smaller actions against delegates for the cops to decide (illegally) that no one could just stand on the sidewalk, you had to keep moving. we weren't to that point yet at the fox rally. one person was arrested, i could not see what for, but once she was put into the police van, it appeared that she was scantily clad, or possibly topless. i stayed yelling at the highrisers for about an hour and then decided to walk to the library, as i was told that would be an easier place to affilate with marchers for the night. i got there a half hour before the gathering was supposed to start. i am not sure if this one was a permitted rally, but the actions of the cops were as if it wasn't. it didn't take long for the crowd to swell to probably 500 and the geography of the front entrance was difficult. i will probably half to draw it out, but essentially there was a big main walk/stairway up to the entrance from the front and then two side stairways that fed into a small plaza about halfway to he front doors. the architecture was awesome. anyways, people took to the vaulted plaza area and there were many banners and a guy handing out dozen of flags. people were taking his flags and then taking to the steps to display them, it looked like there was gonna be a nice wall of banners and flags to look at and inspire before we headed to march on the garden. cops were awkwardly dispersed throughout the crowd and there was no set, us on this side them on that dynamic, which can be a recipe for disaster. on the sidewalk in front of the building and stairs the cops began antagonizing lingerers and telling people to move along, so i made my way up onto the plaza area. apparently someone had already been arrested for trying to hang a banner from the the stone pillars at the entrance. people were just mulling around and their was little organization to the crowd. out of no were, the cops surged into the crowd and attacked a kid (probably for "illegally" wearing a mask or something) and chaos broke out. more cops surged in to support the arresting cops and used their clubs to violently push people away from the kid, in a circle form. tons of boos and "shame" and "let him go" chants were had (the standard for isolated arrests like this). and the cops stayed on the plaza and begin pushing people, in a very unorganized and hostel way, away from the middle of the plaza. many people were being pushed and directed right into the clubs of cops coming from the otherway. eventually, after five minutes of this, the cops had cleared to people of the plateau of the plaza and everyone was pretty much caught between the plaza and the sidewalk, on the front stairs and the two side stairs. this efficiently isolated us into three different groups. the cops on the sidewalks stepped up there keep moving get away rhetoric and in five minutes the white shirts decided to cut of the middle section of the sidewalk, isolating the protesters even more. no one, even non-demonstrators could walk along the block now. a few more arrests had taken place in this scuffle and soon the group began to reorganize on the right side stairway and corner of the block. the geography hindered this effort again and the group was now probably down to 300 people. leading the group (keep in mind the most efficient and accepted form for these rallies is to have them be anonymous, group-led, non-individualistic efforts) was this shirtless, 29 year old blonde fellow with a megaphone (illegal) who had stumbled into my portion of the poor peoples march the night before and assumed control of leading the chants. i hated the fucker. he was alone and he never stopped with his loud noise and assumed power and never passed it off. i am pretty sure he was a cop. i had been the night before and was even more so now. anyways, after having to listen to his conducting (the crowd -which felt pretty inexperienced in general- for the most part was into it, possible just out of a "something is better than nothing/we just got fucked with and need some kind of order" way) for 15 minutes HE decided that it was time for the procession to the garden. people, in a very spread out/nonchalant/disorganized way started to make its way west on the sidewalk. after two nights of massive, tight processions through the streets of manhattan, this was not doing it for me. there was hardly any chanting or few signs and it was like i was walking down a normal sidewalk with the sole bonus of hippie-stank. i cut out at the first subway station we passed and decided to head to the madison square park location in hopes of meeting up with a larger march. i was depressed to come up out of the station and find a small group of many 50 people. i did bump into kris jorgenson from provo, though and it was nice to see him. i mulled around trying to overhear where everybody was and apparently across the city, various groups were being met with aggressive police resistance. the colorful parading at union square was getting attacked over the course of the hours, in harold square people were beginning to converge and the cop presence was as well. there were two "organizers" there and they were advising people to not travel in groups bigger then ten or so. they then launched into a quick training course on direct action and decided to walk up to harold square. cops and media were all over the city and most extremely on tuesday. just as a was getting ready to set out, the lady said that across the street a march was traveling by, but she advised us it was unpermitted. she was a wuss.

during her talk i chimed in asking about if she or anyone new the route of any of the marches heading to the garden and she didnt want to answer that. as if i was a cop, the crowd was happy she didnt either. i was out of the loop. i was getting really frustrated about all the sissyness and disunity that day which was heavily augmented by the fact that i was alone. on the one hand their was these people, not willing to front-line it, scared of the cops scared of pushing the limits. on the other side were the people i wanted to be affiliated with, small groups that got up at 7am to go piss off some delegates at a breakfast, anarchists that were shouting in the faces of delegate families as they came out from watching the lion king. these people were organized and ready to push the limits. some had been in the city for a month preparing, most were staying together at various hostels and squats around the city. regardless, i was not on eof them because i had not prepared to be one. thus, i found myself with a desire to take it to the next level, but unable to without breaking one of the first rules about such actions. that of having a small group, or at least a partner, around you.

the group across the street happened to be the white shirt wearing, quietly marching solemn WRLers that i had wanted to march with for a bit earlier in the day. i ran to join up with them and was excited that there route took them to harold square were the shit was going down. i quickly learned from them (at least the three people around me, since it was a double-file line) that they were not the ones that got mass arrested earlier near the WTC site, it was a different group (i think some critical mass kids and more colorful types). i found partner to march with. mary had been arrest twice before in marches (both in new york, the first in 82 or so in an anti-nuke march, the second in 99 when the cops shot a civilian (for got his name) and riots almost broke out). and was nervously excited, anxious about the cops response to us. the cops, in a walking bike line were guiding the march down broadway. we marched like that for about 15 minutes and in that time i learned that their plan was the plan of all groups. march as close to the garden as possible and then stop and rally. at 28th street, and in about ten seconds, we knew this was as far as it would go and we all took to the street and laid down. i was not to worried about the police response as there is a formula and game plan for both parties in these die-in situations. out of nowhere it seemed, and within 10 minutes time, there was a crowd of probably a couple hundred around us (i did not see any of them marching with or around us). they began chanting in solidarity and at one point chanted the bill of rights. there was way too many fucking cameras. it was annoying. and, of course, presspassers could walk freely in the street. everyone else was quickly pushed to the sidewalks and we were told that we would be arrested if we stayed there. we were on the ground there for a bit over an hours time. lots of chatting with mary and john and this other young woman. everyone was on there cell-phones calling home and friends to let them know they were to be arrested, even mary who laughed at the idea first, being that it was a die-in. the folks on the sidewalk were eventually pushed off of the block we laid in (probably to keep them mostly out of eye-sight of us, to reduce the amount of witnesses). there were a few scuffles on the corners but most of the people stayed for a bit, and about 50 saw us till we were on the busses. there were legal observers taking our names. by the time the cops got around, finally, to plastic cuffing us and packing us up and in and on the road, it had taken about 2 hours at least. we got to pier 57 around 10:30 or so. the cops were nice at the die-in, got our first hints of how much they were being overworked (some i met had worked upwards of 40 hours straight by the end of the fiasco).... -matt

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:: brs 2:27 AM [+] ::
...

matt got out earlier today. we're heading to boston tomorrow. the convention is over. bush is revered, kerry is "desperate," the race is too close to call. i got some great pictures though, which i'll put up soon. jason and i stood in times square watching this twenty-something kid stand around with a big W shirt on and a sign that said, "Bomb Iran Now" on one side and "W is my war president" on the other. -tim

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:: brs 2:21 AM [+] ::
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this is what matt was arrested for. i just talked to him and he sounded pretty tired but said they were giving them food and stuff and being treated pretty nice. i got his arrest number and he will hopefully see a judge this evening, since i hear that arraignments have been happening 24 hours (not stopping like 1 a.m. like previously noted) a day because it's been so swamped down there.

i called to cancel the show tonight and hung out outside of 100 centre street where central booking is. at 730, i finally got through to central booking and they hadn't gotten matt an arrest number yet, 24 hours after he'd been arrested. i called again around 1130 and finally got the number. it's a waiting game now. i'll know more tomorrow if he doesn't get out tonight.

if anyone is worried about me, don't be, save your good thoughts for matt.

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:: brs 2:20 AM [+] ::
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i'm in baltimore with jason. matt called me at 730, a few hours into my bus ride here and told me he was getting arrested. i've called the legal hotline a few times and will go down to 100 centre street to pick him up tomorrow. arraignments only happen until 1 am, and i was told there'd be no way for him to get out tonight, so i should just go there tomorrow and hope he gets released.

if anyone didn't know already, matt's hardcore. he was arrested during the die-in and Legal said he'd probably only be charged with disorderly conduct, but we'll see what happens for sure tomorrow. do what ever you do (ie, pray, wish, voodoo) and hope he gets out soon.

here's pictures from sunday. -tim

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:: brs 2:19 AM [+] ::
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yet again i only have enough time to upload pictures without too much commentary. hopefully the comments are working now. check out all the pictures from madison to our bus ride to nyc. we're here in new york right now, and i have a ton of pictures from the protest yesterday, but i haven't uploaded them to the computer yet and like a dumbass, i not only forgot my charger for my computer at greg's house in the bronx (i only have 13 minutes left, and it's probably not even really 13 minutes... it never is), but i also left the battery for my camera charging there, so i couldn't get any pictures of the big guns lining the new york public library and grand central station. (oh, yeah, matt took like ten pictures of his toe and i exported straight out of iphoto, so no time for editing-- apparently there was a big gash, i dunno, because i never looked too closely).
-tim

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:: brs 2:18 AM [+] ::
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travel log stardate 020042608 goldstar the long road Special thanks to pattern is movement, the silence, the new blind nationals, and the venue in Milwaukee for making my last show of the tour very fun and magical. I wish I could have hung out with them some more.

It was incredibly difficult to leave my compatriots at the bus station in Milwaukee at 4 in the morning. Matt with 50 bones to his name and rushing to catch the bus at that. After they got on the bus I had to stare at Matt on the bus and convince myself that they were going to be ok, and that it was ok for me to leave. It took about 20 or so minutes to convince myself.

Then with 2 hours of sleep I was back to Minni, Minn to stay with Adria and finally get a good nights rest. We went to the Mississippi river and watched the boats go through the locks and had a general good time. It is hard to believe one of my favorite people in the whole world lives so far from me now. As usual, the good ones always leave, don't they?

I left Minni, Minn yesterday at 2pm and arrived here in Missoula at 8pm MN time. I have driven 1500 miles in the last three days and have just under 600 to go. So I thought I'd stop off here to stretch my legs.

God damn Montana is beautiful. I am considering cashing in all my gear and buying a horse to live on the range. What do you think? Would I make a good cowgirl? Who the hell would I sing to?

Everything has been pretty smooth on the drive (knocks on wood.) When I drove through Yellowstone a truck had hit a baby black bear. I am sad for the bear but happy I didn't have to be the one to find the thing in the road.

I'm going to get some food and get back on the road. Don't think I'll make it home tonight, though.

Tim and Matt, wherever you may be, take care of yourselves and stay focused. Ash, I'm gonna need you when I get home. I am sore!

See (most of you) soon! Love, labryntina crampypants.

ps The leaves have begun to turn. Favorite tour quote: "Tim, am I going to explode?"

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:: brs 11:27 PM [+] ::
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one of the things that i've been enjoying hte most on the tour is the thunderstorms. there's one happening right now as i sit here in The Attic by myself after tonight's show. last night in ann arbor there was another storm, and the smell of wet concrete is absolutely spectacular.

i played a short set again tonight, like last night, and covered a bunch of kissing book songs because thery're almost more fun than playing my own. matt and the scratch and sniff crew went over to ott's to go see a band called trouble bubble, or something close to that. i really need s hower, so that's what i'm going to do. pretty soon. here.

the days have been short, but that has nothing to do with the time flying. i don't know who's idea it was for me to not play a show in two years and then up and go on tour for a month-- and on a greyhound no less. matt and owl have had the unfotunate burden of hearing me whine and be grouchy, sorry guys. the uneasiness of such dramatic ups and downs just kills me. tomorrow morning, when i'm rushing to catch a greyhound so i can sit on the bus for eight hours, i'll be on the opposite side of the spectrum to the relaxing evening i'm having right now, sitting next to a window listening to rain and thunder.

we head to oberlin tomorrow, fredonia the next day, then in nyc. i hope everyone's doing fine. i am, too.
-me

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:: brs 2:18 AM [+] ::
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gawd, i just spent a ton of time getting shit done and no time for me to update. sorry, hopefully tomorrow. -tim

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:: brs 2:39 PM [+] ::
...

so we are on a brief one hour layover in detroit. tim is playing the station video games for the first, but promised not to be the last, time. damn, the greyhound routes and schedules are fucked up in michigan, taking all these sideways and heading hours in the opposite direction of the designated end point. and so begins our 30 day bussage. the first route slapped both me and tim hard in the face. it began with lab's dropping us off at the milwaukee station to frantically board a bus that was apparently an hour early but leaving right away at 3:45am and ended at 8pm the next evening. 16 hours. ouch. we had a four hour layover in chicago station, which was actually really nice. my whole last 24 hours though have been plagued with trying to find internet access in order to turn in my weekly article, finalize some more show details and work on the housing thing for NYC (still homeless, still worried). after a half hour of searching, i found a coffeeshop 8 city block away. big blocks. the second i stepped out of the station it started pouring down rain, the way it had when we first got off the freeway. the storm put most NW heavy rains to shame. within a few minutes i was walking barefoot through the oily lakes (wet flip-flops don't work at all) and shawled by a button up shirt i had with me. i got to W MADISON street and took a right towards the heart of chicago's financial district. it was 7:45 am and the streets were filled with suited and dressed high-rise, 200 grand earning office people, 98% of them wielding umbrellas. then there was me, trekking rapidly through them in shorts and a mesh hat, barefoot and soaked. the weather and the buildings and the thunder were surreal enough, and i felt like i was in a video. actually, the first floors of these buildings, with their 18 elevators and huge security desk and hundreds of people filling in felt like a modern version of "the apartment" with jack lemmon and, fuck i forgot, but she was hot as hell in the movie... anyways, something about the dark radiance in each. plus, there is nothing like a rain-soaked daylight urban scene in an old black and white film. or something. anyways, i walked ten blocks into this chaos before i figured out i had gone in the wrong direction. 20 minutes later i was at westgate coffee, trying to dry off and drinking the shittiest (burnt) drip i have had in some time. btw, people don't know what you mean when you say DRIP coffee out here. the show last night was fun. john set it up at this bar called "white's bar" and we played with him and his bandmate (your best friend), tim a____ and another band whom i will remember later. the place was tiny, but real cozy and though the street out side of it was a wide, three laner, it felt like one of this corner, neighborhood bars. the night ended unlike the way it progressed, but more in line with the feel of the bar, with a flogging molly cover and then more flogging molly on the juke... oh yeah, in case you didn't know, tim's name on tour is sanchez (a mispronunciation in winona). our show in milwaukee, i mean menomenee falls, fell through. after two weeks of trying to get a hold of spencer to get details for the show that "was still on," ewe wound up at a gas station in his neighborhood getting tips from a girl he went to high school with. we looked up his name in the phone book, called the number. his mom said he moved out and we got his cell number. called it several times in the next hour and some before leaving a message (didn't want to leave one off the bat because then he would know it was us). i decided we should go to a busier part of town, a hip part of milwaukee and try to find any shows and possibly jump on a bill. about two blocks into a younger, hipper strip we passed a bar and saw a few bands loading in. after ten minutes, in which i looked in the weekly to see what was happening on monday night (an open mic was our only other option). i went in to ask the booker, which happened to be a band-dude, to see if we could get on the bill. i told him there was three of us and that we didn't need much time, but that we would love to play since our show fell through. 10 minutes later, after he had asked the other bands, we were on the bill. we played with pattern is movement, the silence (apparently with members of camden who keep popping into my life) and new blind nationals. it was a fun show and all the bands were super nice. we each played 3 songs. i went first (with bow, blue-purple failure and eulogy) then tim and labrynt. be the end of the night i was pretty tired, though all the bands were real good.... the night before that we were in madison at the glass nickel pizzeria playing with freddy faggot and screaming cyn cyn and the pons. the bar/show was in the basement. the restaurant above. it was a nice place and the people were really friendly. we got free drinks but no free food. tim did score a pizza order that was messed up though. he keeps scoring these flesh-items that neither me or labrynt can eat. cyn cyn and the pons were fucking awesome. it was dancing, sassy rocking pop music with keyboards. almost like what electro-clash would be if the continent electronic music developed on split in two the smaller chunk developed separate and independently, with different resources and environs. i think the website is cyn-cyn.com ...we will be sure to get you all the websites for the kick ass people and places we met... we are now off to ann arbor to play a show at patrick elkins house. we randomly bumped into him at the greyhound station in kalamazoo yesterday as he was off to his parents and we to saginaw. wish us few trips as gruelign as yesterdays, homes -nto bus stations/rides- to crash at and luck with getting our NYC housing situated. thanks to greg for looking into that for us.... (side note to self, so i can go maybe a day without having my entire hand covered with words and numbers, hawaii = early mag experiences getting past now. library as most yin-yanger of them all. also, "maid to last forever" as description of work of the bhodishatva). oh, and for my own records, last night: bow, blue-purple, leash, journal, sailor, a framing, all is sun. or something... 12pm, Wednesday August 25th, 2004. -mattfu

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:: brs 2:15 PM [+] ::
...

[this is labrynt's last post. right now, she's somewhere between minni, minn and bellingham. we'll miss her, but she won't miss the greyhound, i assure you. -tim]

travel log stardate 020042308
goldstar its almost over tour [horshit]
madison is graced with screaming cyn cyn and the pons, who we were lucky to perform with. They are my new favorite band. Somewhere between spinal tap, and devo with one of the cutest girls in the whole world, and danzig singing lead as if he were a musical major. Plus they had props, which is catchy. Nonetheless, their charisma exceeded their use for props and their originality was refreshing, Can't wait till they record.

one of my biggest concerns for this trip was that I would miss my weekly swims in the lake, but madison provided a beautiful lake at sunset with sun rays coming through the clouds and the whole thing to myself because it was cold according to the locals. sissies. It was perfect.

on the way to minominee falls for my last show which is outside of milwaukee. then I go visit adria in minni, minn and take the long road home. 2,000 miles of myself and the planes of the midwest around me.

this is I spy signing off. over and out.

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:: brs 2:13 AM [+] ::
...

matt and i are sitting in the memorial library at the university of wisconsin in madison. the show last night was very sparsely attended, at least until the touring acts were done playing. regardless, i got some free pizza (the benefits of being able to eat anything, including dead animals), but the pizza was sadly turned into asphalt pizza as it was left on top of the van as labrynt brought our new friend christian home. screaming cyn-cyn and the 'pons were the shit, no lie, and freddy was awesome and terribly hospitable.

we've been in search for free wireless, but dunn bros. router was down and i thought it'd be a good idea to reset the router and not only did that not solve the wireless absence, but it also brought the hardwired computers down.

just spent 500 bucks on fucking greyhound tickets because our dumb asses didn't buy them in advance. really have to start watching the cash flow now, seeing as i don't sell shit, like, ever. except for, of course, the wonderful kids in great falls, right. i don't really know where labrynt is right now, i think maybe somewhere on state street busking for some extra cash. -tim

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:: brs 2:13 AM [+] ::
...

the slim creeping beautiful. winni, minni. we played on an island, latsch island, in the mississippi. i think that river is trying to seduce me. kansas city, me and jeff's drive to to tulsa, winona. i am pretty sure i was conceived in saint louis, delivered at swedish. we are listening to clamdust trying to attach ourselves to something familiar as we follow the river back to 90. the mississippi, though a state as well, is not the arkansas. this i keep repeating to myself. it got creepy. it started friendly, familiar. i felt really comfortable on stage, on the island. i am not referring to the performance thing either, just very physically comfortable regardless. i felt like letting go and, because of it, played a very sloppy, gelatinous set. it felt good, though. i played bow, blue purple, the leash, olive, eulogy. joe, jaime and then mike byrd. then tim and labrynt. the kids were very friendly post-show. lab sold a few cd's, i gave a few away and we made 20 bucks in donations. we got several offers for a place to crash and several for post-show hanging out. we decided to go to this cafe called "the acoustic cafe." it was a nice cafe, quaint and friendly. good size, alright food. it was there that the calm within became apparent. this is the way i was feeling a few weeks ago in bellingham, saturated with a foreign divinity. one idea about this feeling (which comes in pulses, flashes, waves) is that it is a premonition of the permanent soak that is after-death. a blip of iridescence/incandescence to our color, our sliver of the color spectrum. it is a light, warm possession. regardless, it didn't feel creepy until tonight. we went to a green party gathering. alex took us there. there were speakers, some music, drinks. polly, the coordinator, was happy to hear our story and wanted us to share it with the group. i asked her if i could play a song instead. we wound up each playing a song, probably taking up too much of their time. i stumblingly told of MASA and the reason for our trip and how beautiful their city was (i guess people flock here from distances in the fall cause there are soooo many green trees turning red orange brown) and how beautiful their togetherness was. it came out rough, as did olive but i felt compelled to share it. afterwards dwayne, who happened to be the county commissioner, offered us a place to stay, 16 bucks and wished us well. we gave him cd's of ours. joe got this brilliant idea to squat, or at least visit the auditorium of this junior high was being renovated. so we went. the door that was usually open, was locked. we found another way in. it was dark, bare and that echo was there, the imprint of a silenced location that was used to heavy people traffic. apparently, there was something else there. the pictures we took as we fled had what appeared to be "orbs," round spots on the picture that weren't there otherwise. supposed psycho-kinetic energy. we fled because there was a loud bang from a distance down the hallway. we heard it twice. we fled fast. tim snapped some shots as we fled laughing. after that, winona wasn't the same. i felt a calm, quiet around me, labby felt something in her back. we went to jamey's to hang out and say goodbye. he wasn't home but we hung out in his very nice, quaint apartment for a bit. he had two nice cats, wood floors, high ceilings and plenty of plants. we left shortly after, found jamey at a bar on the corner. lab, who had stayed in the van came in and said she was ready to go NOW. we pulled jamey out to say goodbye and as we packed up, him and a few friends started a drunken clap circle with indian chanting. if things hadn't been getting weird, it would have been simply funny, but present circumstance made it kind of dark and foreboding. i left feeling that our new friends were not on my side as they had appeared. a sick colony tie-casting there spellings on us. i am getting tired. i want to write a musical autobiography. as in, a recounting and fleshing out of my entire life through the exclusive personification of the songs, albums and musical acts that aurally periodicated my existence. as in, all the characters in your life story are the artists and bands you listened to. your relationships, your reactions and interactions with their music... admiration is a lazy, patronizing distance. inspiration is a personalized tribute, an empathetic activating response to another. fuck admiration.
1am, Sunday August 22nd, 2004.
-mattfu

***
travel log stardate 020042108
goldstar the incessant spilling tour [horshit]
When I lived in Chicago there was a magazine being made and distributed in pure DIY fashion called Lumpen. When the makers of this zine would make their deliveries they would do it in pure John Cleese style: jogging raising their knees high and chanting something while wearing white plastic paint coveralls. The ritual of the deliveries in my neighborhood became as dear as head butts by Wesly Willis as a strange wicker park phenomenon. Well, these kids have opened an art gallery and this is where we performed. www.lumpen.com I ran into Miss Florida Butter, my old downstairs neighbor who performed a story with hand drawn illustrations. I always wondered what happened to her. Unbeknownst, I ended up performing with her. There have been so many strange synchronistic moments like this on our adventures it is uncanny. I love that we drove all the way to Chicago to play with two northwest artists.

Today we played in a park along the mississippi river. There were clovers in the grass, tall beautiful trees and eagles soaring above them.

Crashing the green party party with a gillian welch cover afterward was a nice treat. Just one short and sweet song.
-labbypants

***

10:21 a.m. sunday

we're driving from the rest stop we stayed at about 25 miles from madison. we drove there after an odd night in winona. it didn't start out as odd as it eventually got, but i have pictures to prove that there are ghosts in an old school there that joe took us to. whenever i think of the school, i think of that part in the sixth sense where the kid that sees ghosts sees those three people hanged. everyone was spooked after that. we went to jamey's, a guy that played the show with us outside on the banks of the mississippi, and we sat in his living room with his cats as he was across the street listening to a band cover bruce hornsby.

we met some really great people there, and some endless nw connections, as alex, our guide for most of the evening, showed us around. we showed up at the winona county's green party "party," where each one of us played a song and the county commissioner (we've come to the consensus that we have no idea what he does, but matt seems to think he's like a delegate or something) gave us all the cash in his wallet and wished us well. nice people in winona. the green party was interesting, it was nice to see activity and people involved and active.

but the green party was before we went to rascal's and jamey's and the last thing we experienced from the winona scene was an impromptu native american drum circle chant as we packed the car to get the hell out of there. i wasn't as creeped out as the rest of my crew, but the contact creepiness was more than enough. we left at about 130.

matt just pulled a completely illegal u-turn whilst listening to al green soulify the car with his soulful souliness. my back and neck hurts from sleeping in this van. touring isn't all fun and games, boys and girls. i'm looking forward to free pizza today, hopefully. next stop glass nickel pizzeria. i need to brush my fucking teeth.

a few things i keep forgetting to mention. matt's designated quote of the tour, which happened way back in minni, minn:
me (singing): "i seen fire and i seen rain..."
matt: "this isn't james taylor, this is ben harper."
labrynt: "you can tell it's james taylor because beneeeeeeeeeeeeee."
-tim

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:: brs 2:12 AM [+] ::
...

we just got done eating at the acoustic cafe here in winona, minn. the highway we took to get here ran right along the mississippi, which is absolutely breathtaking, almost as good as when owl and i were driving through mississippi in the summer a few years ago. lush, thick greenery like a wall on the side of the road.

the show in chicago last night was okay, i only played three songs, and it was an odd crowd that was a little too cool. but.... whatever. the show today was good on latsch island, awesome punks in this town. awesome town, actually. god this entry is staid, maybe it's because everyone's waiting for me to finish this so we can get the fuck out of here.

i'll try to be a little more verbose and entertaining next time.
-tim

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:: brs 2:03 PM [+] ::
...

we are flying on 90 west to get to La Crosse, WI to hit 61 north to Winona, MN. we are set to play a big afternoon/evening hang out gathering in a park on the mississippi river today hosted and attended by winona punk kids. or, winopunx. we are an hour late. hopefully they will be receptive to our indie inclinations and not be disappointed when we don't sound like against me. last night was chicago and chaos and fun. i played bow interrupted, blue purple failure, eulogy and olive. the show was at this cool art gallery (none on the walls, though) called the buddy gallery. it was all-ages and most people were drinking. it was on milwaukee street , in a gentrified hip neighborhood. i had a piece of cheese pizza, normal style but tasty. the evening began with an hour and some quick show and tell slide show presentations that were mostly pretty funny. especially one of stick figure drawings and readings from the instructions a kidnapper left for this girl he intelligently buried under the ground for a week. bill, who set the show up, couldn't be there that evening and edmar was a gracious host, though he didn't know what to do about the order. there were six acts, yacht, thanksgiving and lost robots (a local screamy electro dance duo). edmar left right when the music was supposed to start and i decided we should just go first and get out of the way. i guess i seemed pissed off or nervous or something. i need to fix that. sometimes when i am trying to be quick with my shit on stage, i come off that way. for the record, i wasn't pissed, i just wanted to get or songs out of the way quick so that there would be time, and people enough, for all the other acts. i was a bit nervous. the crowd was, musically, right up our alley. CJ1 was there (a term john schroder coined and john tosch brought to our attention). tim played 3 quick songs well, labby did 5 or 6 i think and did nice. no cd's sold, but i gave away a few 1985 dawm rtreadings and MASA comps to seemingly interested folks. john put us up, despite moving in a few short weeks. he was awesome and hospitable and hilarious, with a dry delivery throughout. we left today around noon and saw wrigley filed on the way out. twin cities visit with grandma was good, fritz seems extra worried about her health and would like to see her go to a nursery home. she , of course, opposes that. it was good to be there again. i only saw her, fritz and adam though, as we got there at 7pm and left at 12pm the next day. we were supposed to go back up there tonight, but i feel bad about dragging tim and lab's two hours north out of our way... anyways, approaching winona northbound via the mississippi now, gotta give KTMae a call to get directions to the park... 4pm, Saturday August 21st, 2004.
-mattfu

***
travel log stardate 02004200
goldstar "geekout"
the incessant search for objects tour [horshit]
when I recorded "I wish you all the happiness you allow yourself", I listened to two albums extensively. One was the 3 disc 69 love songs set by magnetic fields and the other was Sebadoh's "Freed Weed". Whenever I was at a spot in the recording process where I was stuck or frustrated I would pop in freed weed and it would always inspire and enllighten. The influence of that album may not necessarily be audible, but is alive and well, buried in the heart of it. After driving 14 or so hours into Minni, Minn I find that Sebadoh is performing at bar in Minnni, Minn. It just so happens that this was our only day off and I was able to not only see Sebadoh play, which I thought would never happen, but I also got to give Lou Barlow a copy of the goldstar cd and tell him that he was a major influence on the recording- which I never thought would happen; the possibility never entered my thoughts that I could give him credit personally. Thanks for the nightgown, Lou.
-labbypants *

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:: brs 2:01 AM [+] ::
...

1 am, Thursday August 19th, 2004.

so we just left great falls, MT and a 50’s style diner with nacho cheese fries and 20 kids in the fluorescence of a thrift store basement and a set from old shoes and pants. we have a mascot. his name is Jack Trimble and he is 20 years, he is a teddy bear. contrary to what you might hear from labby or t-dogg, the name for our tour is horseshit. not "the horseshit tour" or "summer tour horseshit," just horseshit. and you have to say it right, with a certain guttural, old man cranky sass. i keep spilling things. a lot of things. we have played two shows so far, both set up by tyson ballew. the first was last night in missoula at an art gallery called area five. victor, the absent owner who is often accused of persistent flakiness, has been letting kids have shows there often. which is kick ass. it was like a cleaner, bigger show-off gallery. with art. i would kill to have a space like that. we listened to transatlanticism today and i was reminded of cardinals tour last summer around this time and falling in love with that album and back in love with you. what a year. i mean really. sets so far:

KUGS: blue-purple failure, journal, a framing, all is sun.
MS, MT: eulogy, blue-purple failure, bow interrupted, olive, way things are here, a framing, all is sun.
GF, MT: bow (interrupted), blue-purple failure, the leash, way things are here, olive, A Framing, all is sun (edit), eulogy.

those are estimates. i begin with the improv-ing eulogy in missoula because it turned out to be a positive song about getting past past pains and plagues and it continues to have the line "and yeah colorado hurt, but so does every other place you'll go." it was the last song we recorded when i was down with bob in oly last week. it was a three chord riff i came up while we were sound checking and then at the end of the day we had an extra hour and i suggest we try the riff and i would improv lyrics. we wound up doing two takes and decided to keep them both. so the new album (called where tomorrow lets us breathe, currently being assembled and designed from out here on the road) ends with this song. in between the takes is 15 minutes of delay and feedback (all ambient style) created by bob.... all the seats in this van make my back hurt. we made five too many extra top ramens last night and by morning they had turned into a medusa monster of noodle glory. we are aiming to hit the twin cities by suppertime. spend the night there with my grandma, consider giving Jack back to Adria and then head out to chicago in the morning. i forgot how much driving, my four hour shift from spokane to missoula was the first driving i have done in 7 months. we are having fun. this was a great way to start the tour out.
-mattfu

*** travel log stardate 020041908
goldstar the journey is the destination tour [horshit]
patron saint jack tripple. fields of sunflowers. listening to friends songs driving further and further from home. driving hours through the mountains at night and seeing only one car. a wolf, deer, a giant bat, and hawks swirling the sky playing in the wind. lack of sleep. delirium. green tea and laughing so hard my stomach hurts. cory, jake, and the kids of great falls, monatana. our very own traveling radio station. Area 5 attic paradise in missoula, montana, with stenciled wall paper patterns on pink walls. the wind in the grass like waves. the dry air. ranch settlements in the valleys of the plains. sleeping in the van in a rainstorm. almost there.... minni, minn
-labbypants

***

on the road to the twin cities after the show tonight in great falls. the crowd was amazingly young and receptive, i had a great time. we're listening to pedro the lion right now, and i'm kicking myself for not having brought achilles heel with me, and i'm embarrassed at how much i can't stop talking about how great it is. last week (was that last week?) i was driving back south from northern california and listened to it a few times in addition to a new favorite that i'm digging a lot that i didn't realize i would dig, the long winters when i pretend to fall. good shit.

the great falls officemax was a fucking gold mine, though, what with the treasures that it's given us, including what's enabling this post right now, a dc/ac converter that lets me plug my computer in, and also enabling the pedro the lion coming through goldie's speakers. something was missing from the drive yesterday, and it certainly was not the prog rock rush was providing on the local eastern washington radio stations.

we traded a 7" for a mug because matt left his in the freight elevator. old shoes was awesome tonight, and played a really rad song that once i get around to it, will show up here and i might work on a cover. that is all. over and out.

-tim 2:13 a.m. thursday

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:: brs 1:59 AM [+] ::
...

i wrote this in the car yesterday: we got out of seattle this morning around 10, right now we're in the car on i-90 on our way to montana. last night's show was all right, i was too nervous to enjoy my rancho burrito before the radio show. after the show we had to help matt clean his room out, and we didn't get back into kirkland until about 130, and we stayed up until 4 to get my cds finished, which look great, by the way, thanks to rick for the design and alison for all the cutting and pasting and burning work. you can buy one soon, i promise. 8 songs cheap, 5 bucks.

today, i'm sitting in the raven coffeehouse in missoula. the show last night was a lot better than the radio show, and i even got a drunk guy to compliment the songs. i didn't sell anything, but so it goes. the place we played at had a bunch of kittens wandering around, and as soon as i get around to it, i'll have a picture of the cute little bastards up here. old shoes was great, and some guy named scott channeled the spirit of elliott smith, too.

we're waiting around until we go to great falls, where apparently they don't have any fred meyers, but they do have radio shacks. i need to buy a bigger memory card for my camera (which i will pay you back for soon, owl)!

last night there was a big thunder storm passing through the area, it was amazing and loud and flashy. we slept on the floor of a house with one of the most disgusting bathrooms i've ever seen. but i'm not complaining.

a few more shows have been confirmed and details are slowly coming, keep checking the masa site for the dates and details.

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:: brs 1:55 AM [+] ::
...

from tim (via infinite regress): i went to bed at about 230 last night because i took a ton of time setting up the 8-track and the mixer and everything, woke up at 8 to get started recording. replaced drum heads, but the music store around here has awful hours, so i wasted a good portion of time waiting for them to open so i could give them my money for drum heads and mic stands. got home and spent three hours or so tuning drums, and i still think they sound like crap. how the hell are you supposed to tune drums? it's frickin' hard.

i'm laying down tracks tomorrow, FOR SURE. i lost some bucks playing texas hold 'em. i'm gonna get back though. here's ALL the g.i. joe PSAs, i think. even quite a few that i've never seen.

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:: brs 1:53 AM [+] ::
...