:: Music As Social Agitation Records::

:: Monday, January 17, 2005 ::

I realized now, as I try to remember what happened just a short week ago on this tour, that it is the bus rides that blend together the most. most our rides have been pretty tame, so I suppose you might not be missing much by me leaving such details out, but there were some sights and some cities that I hope I am able to recall as this diary thing progresses… so we headed south and east from Denver and things surprisingly never got much warming. in fact, denton was in the late 20’s most of the time we were there. the greyhound station in denton was a small cubicle-like office of an operation and was embedded in TA travel station. we would come to know this station well. we called Joshua when we got into to town and tony had somewhat of a time trying to tell where exactly in denton we were, but about 20 minutesa later Joshua’s arrived and we made our way back into the townier part of town. this was my first time in texas. it pretty much looked the same as everywhere, america in the night with all the corporate neon lights filling the intersections and nameless streets cross-stiching the suffocated and buried earth beneath the concrete. this is a troubling thing to me, that it is true that denton looks like little rock looks like federal way looks like corvalis looks like Spokane. it is especially true in these flat cities, where there are no outstanding hills to mark the horizon with natural features and attributes. we went to Joshua’s house quickly and met his mom and hung out for ten minutes. they both were very nice and we were offered a place to stay, but sadly tonight was another night were our bus left too early after midnight to warrant trying to spend a few hours sleeping at someones house. we said goodbye to Joshua’s mom and then made our way to mable peabody’s beauty parlor and chainsaw repair. the club, dentons only queer-run music venue, was hidden at the dark end of a small, older strip mall behind a chevron and surrounded by broken down cars. the brown and brittle earth siding was complimented by various adornments of the rainbow on the outside and a big sign which announced the false identity of the place. though a lot of beauty, there was no parlor, and though a few fake cardboard cut-out chainsaws, there was no repairperson. there was the owner, whom though I never officially met, seemed nice and had a good report with her clientele. the bands were both there, tough we wouldn’t really meet them till after the show, and we wondered if people would come out for a sunday night show. I decided to go get some food at the chevron and came back with one of those pickles in a sack (first time ever) and some of those dorrito’s brand jalapeno crackers. love the crackers. don’t love the pickle. we still had some time before show time and though we smiled a lot at what appeared to be band members, still no go on the chatting it up. which was weird. I decided to work on some merch and finally put together the dozen or so “dawn treading� covers I had frantically printed out in the few minutes before leaving home. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the 30 copies of “from penrose to montrose� I had brought, though I had enough soft-sleeves and boxing tape to do something. by this time the place was actually filling up nicely with people, aka friends of the bands. me and tony were schedule to go between the first and last band. the night was funny as both me and tony use band names, though we are solo, and the first band sounded like a solo project (sara reddington) and the last band, a solo project, sounded (a child-like fear) like some Christian emo band. anyways, sara reddington, a four piece with drums, bass, keys/vox and lead by guit/vox, began their set and I immediately thought of Dame Dulce. this band would go perfect with Dame Dulce if they ever came to Bellingham, though they had less back-up vocals and were a little more constrained than my favorite bham slop-pop band. after sara reddington, I took the stage. Joshua, the self-proclaimed “promo-homo� was achored as the doorman and occasionally the bartender, so we really didn’t talk with him at all till 2am. after sara reddington played first (a condition they gave Joshua to play the show, as some member lived kind of far away for a sunday night show) the 15 or so of their family and friends left pretty hastily, so by the time I started my first song (as tony manned the PA –DIY or die!-) there were about 7 people outside of the 12 or so regulars. ouch. but I don’t mind such things and I played a set of tunes (for the most part the sets have been some combination of Eulogy, Pier 57, November, Olive, Blue-Purple Failure, The Leash, Bow Interrupted and occasionally All Is Sun). then tony took the stage and had a lady or two dancing to the jewish hymn. sara reddington was loading out a bit in front of tony and we were both kind of surprised/frustrated that 2/3 of the people in the bar had just left in the course of a minute or two. luckily, and kindly, almost all the members of sara reddington stuck around for the rest of the show and they were pretty nice dudes to talk to. I went to the bathroom right after tony’s set and when I came back out, a child like fear had taken control over a table and was sitting on top of it with his acoustic guitar. he was doing “that whole thing� and followed the formula by asking people to come sit closer. so there we were, all 6-8 of us sitting around trying to hear ACLF over the noise of the increasingly intoxicated regulars, a few of which had to walk right in front of our parade in order to get to the cheering pool tables. ACLF was awesome, sounding a lot like what you would expect from a modern day kid asking people to scoot in and going sans PA. after his set we chatted it up and thankfully he was not of that annoying socially-awkward sect of such performers who always inevitably wind-up sounding stuck on themselves. the dude was nice, me and tony got some t-shirt action (though I wish that he had had a recording moreso)… then the drama began….

we had Joshua take us to the bus station and we were gonna sit in the diner for a couple hours putting together some more cd’s and and merch stuffs and then catch our 6am bus to little rock. so we sit there. and then tony went to sit and hang out elsewhere and I continued making covers for “from penrose to Montrose� (which I decided would just be various portions of the maps from the atlas I had in my bag that was falling apart, laminated with boxing tape (initially it was supposed to be just the map of Colorado with penrose and montrose and the death highway joining them). so I got amped up on coffee for a couple more hours and then went and joined tony. and then our bus pulls up at 6am, me and tony go out to line up. it is cold. we are the only two people boarding. we show the dude our ameripasses and he gives us the no go. turns out this was a private line (Jefferson) and with private lines you need to have an actual ticket printed out, which I knew. whole thing is, though, that the greyhound office there didn’t open up for another two hours. we pleaded with the guy (since this was our only bus that would get us to little rock on time) but no go. we are pissed and frantic. we start scheming and try figuring out if there are any city buses (no) or trains (no) that could get us to dallas before our connecting bus left at 10:30am. we contemplate hitching with one of the dozens of trucks parked outside and tony briefly tries to convince a few drivers near the gas pumps. we realize that one of our only chances might be to call Joshua and beg him for a ride to dallas (40 minutes away). we were not looking forward to that notion. our other option was to convince the officeperson (once they got there) to comp us some taxi rides and we craft a story about how we and our passes have been unjustly treated. nothing at the station said the bus was a private line and we called the 800 number as well and nothing said it then. so I assume control of the spokesperson and we get riled up to try our diplomacy. the office lady comes in, we let her settle in for ten minutes and then I make the case. she gives us the dallas number (she doesn’t have the authority) and discovers that the morning bus was supposed to be a greyhound bus not a private bus. I call the dallas station with our info and the new, convincing info about it not supposed to be a private line and I get a lady who is pretty nice. she puts me on a hold a couple of times (seeming like she might be able to help us) and after five more minutes of holding (and tying up the phone line for the office lady) I realize I have been transered to a national representative, who happens to quickly make herself known as a bitch. she questions whether the bus was really a private line (since they had a greyhound one scheduled) and nearly calls me a liar and treats me like shit from her corporate office somewhere in anywhere, America and then puts me on hold. after 7 or so minutes of hold, I do what she obviously wanted me to do and give in and hang up. at this time, Joshua, whom we had called earlier to see if him and his mom could be our backup plan, shows up. we have a ride and only 45 minutes to make the 40 minute drive. me and tony are exceptionally thankful and grateful as we head out. it is MLK day and the traffic is relatively bad. we try to make small talks, both feeling like assholes for having these nice people get up early and spend 2 hours driving us to where we need to go. we get to the station on time, thank them again, I toss them a 20 dollar bill on top of the ten we gave them and tell them to please go get a nice lunch. a few minutes at the Dallas depot and we are off, set to arrive at little rock at 6pm…

:: brs 1:34 AM [+] ::
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