eat

i'm sick, my tonsils are swollen, I can't swallow very well, so eating is hard to do. More on all this later.

This is sad.

So I found this on purevolume.com and I feel that it should be taken in by everyone. For those of you that don't find anything funny about this, there is something wrong with you. Note: pay attention lines such as; "you are inside of me", "I loa,la,la,la,la, love you" and the best is at the end, so you've got to listen all the way through to get the full enjoyment of this recording.
FUNNY AS HELL, CLICK HERE

The Celery Stalks At Midnight

Another post from me, the biggest slacker when it comes to new posts. Anyway, my whole week was spent on the west coast as part of a nice little tour with some bands that, at first I was not too fond of, but grew to like, mostly as people. The week started off in beautiful San Diego, Ca. We show up and the line is crazy, around the building, people all over, then we start to notice the large amount of Asian kids. This was Saturday, we played on the tour until Wednesday. By Sunday night our joke about how the shows would be attended by only Asian kids became reality. Now, don't get me wrong, a person into your band is a great thing, it's just weird when there is an entire community all about you. To make this rant short, we gained a lot of Asian fans, and that means we sold a lot of crap, those kids love to buy things. The only not so well attended show was in Eugene, OR, home of too many hippies, and apparently not so many Asians. In the coming weeks I will be going to Canada for the first time in my life, I'm excited and a little scared, what if they think I'm trying to smuggle pot out of their country, I don't want to get detained in Canada for something I would never do, but that would also be a great story. This is the most boring shit ever written, I need to come up with more witty, clever things, it will come to me. One last thing, someone slept in my bed while I was gone, I don't like that, but they left a copy of the Big Lebowski in my DVD player, so that makes it a little bit better.

My Hero of the Week

Mr. Gabriel Derose is one the nicest, but craziest guys ever, and he is the hero of the week. A little back story on Gabe. He is the merch guy extrodinaire, he does merch for a band called Mourning September, but when asked to work for the Eagles he couldn't pass up the chance. So he packed his bags and flew out to Tahoe to start on the Eagles' California tour. After a few days of greuling work he realized that the long hours and little pay was not worth it, so he up and left, leaving a note saying something along the lines of "I'm quitting, keep it real." He then had nowhere to go, so he decided to walk to Chico, after hours and hours (he was in Angel Camp at the time) he arrived here later that evening, he got a few rides. I was surprised as hell to see the guy come walking down my street pulling his suitcase behind him. I made some steaks, he took a shower and we hung out. With no way home Gabe was here in town for at least a few days, so we took him to the mall where there a fashion show going on. This wasn't a huge show or anything, but these models thought they were badass. Gabe decided to get in line with the models and when he was up, he grabbed a helium filled balloon, sucked it down and proceeded to do a little dance on the stage, walked off and came to sit back down. I haven't laughed that hard in my life, he was so nonchalant about the whole thing too. And to top it off, he goes to the DJ who is spinning records for the show, asks to check out his rig, and then starts to scratch the record that is the background music for the fashion show, the DJ was pretty pissed, but Gabe casually walks away and acts like nothing happened. Later that night he casually walks into Duffy's after blowing off the doorguy, Gabe is only twenty. After being found among the masses he tells the bouncer you only need to be twenty to drink in Oklahoma, but he gets kicked out anyway, left to fend for himself in downtown Chico. He left yesterday after getting a cheap plane ticket, but he is always welcome here at my house. So if you ever run into Gabe, talk to him, he's a one of a kind guy.

In other news, a local writer decided to make an example of my band and our fashion choices. Now I'm totally open to any criticism about how I dress and how I look, but this guy is an ass hat, so it kind of pisses me off. If you're in Chico, pick up this week's Synthesis and look at page 9, read the story, see what you think, I feel it is kind of unnecessary to put the comments he did, but what is even more unnecessary is his column. Just my opinion. It's hard to say what makes me so angry about this. His facts are truthful, I wear women's pants, I like them, they're comfortable, someone else in my band wears a camouflage hat, it looks good, so what's the issue? I think if kids get too large of an ego when they are 17, their heads might not make it through their early twenties, I would be careful, you could burst a blood cell in the old noggin' there, so be cautious about how badass you think you are. Enough of that, I'll get over it this afternoon.

Best Day Ever

After many a day being super angry and frustrated at the system, postal systm that is, my legal ID fianlly showed up. Some more things happend with the whole situation that I will not go into because there is no reason, the only thing that matters is it's here. With all this talk about waiting for my ID it seems that's all that I do, but that's not the case. I do other things, like yesterday I drove up to Redding with the Cabrini Green crew to watch their show and sell some shirts for them, only to arrive in Redding and find out that the show was cancelled due to a fire next door to the venue, what are the chances. I was super excited to hear the first song they're playing right now, it's excellent, you should hear it. So we went over to the Round Table Pizza and got some ber and pizza. The highlight of this trip was when asked for our IDs to get beer glasses James (who is not 21) noticed the lady didn't really look at ours, she just held them and gave them back. So James had the idea to try and get a glass as well, so he gives the woman his liscence, she looks at it for a minute, trying to do the math in her head, and failing miserably, she gives it back to him and goes to get his glass. She was slightly flustered, probably because she can't do simple math, but then you don't need those skills to sweep and drop off plates. So I look in the back and she's consulting three other employees about the issue, it takes the four of them a total of five minutes to figure out that he was a month short of being 21, genius- ass people. We then made the hour and a half drive back home and spent a nice night hanging out at home, where everyone showed up except for a Dr. Prado, he was missed, as was Josh Kerney, but he's a legit excuse. If you read this today, come to LaSalle's tonight and get real close to the front of the stage so Mikee can hit you with his bass.

Patience.

Pointless Fact of the Day:
Tomatoes are seedless strawberries.


A few weeks ago, in an effort to look cool and waste my money, I decided to get my right arm tattooed. So I go to one of the shops in town I trust, expecting the artist I want to be there to plan out the tattoo. He was gone on vacation until the next week, so, being as impatient as I am, I went to another shop. I talked with the owner and the artist that would be doing the tattoo. They were very friendly people and I felt comfortable with the situation, so I made an appointment. I go in and get the outline of the thing done, I'm happy with it, it looks really good and I'm thoroughly excited about how the finished product will look. Fast forward two and half weeks to today. I go in to make another appointment for some fill in work, and I'm informed that the artist no longer works there, and the woman thinks he has moved out of town. What kind of shit luck is that? So I am a little miffed at the news and now I am stuck with the outline of what was going to be an entire sleeve of a tattoo. Now I have to suck it up and go to the original shop and tell the guy what happened and hope he can pick up on the idea of the tattoo based on what is there right now. I have faith that the guy will be able to do an excellent job, it's just getting over my pride and admitting that I'm an idiot that will be the troublesome part. Moral of the story; patience is a great thing to have, don't be an ass and get something right then and there, just wait a few days, it's well worth it. Also, don't go to Gearhead Tattoo and Barbershop, I should have known not to when I thought the name was stupid. This is an excellent learning lesson.

On a lighter note, I went to a softball game today, and I realized something, softball/ baseball players say some of the dumbest shit trying to hype each other up. At the game I heard things like; "Let's make this another 9 pitch up to bat" and "Line drive hitter, yeah?" Exactly, I didn't know what the hell he meant by this, and I don't think he knew either. I think I'm going to start playing softball and saying things like "Yoke that bat around and wind it up over there" or "Face the car around backside flip- flops." I don't know, they'll probably love my team spirit, I could probably get an award for having such a positive impact on the team.

USPS should get mad cow

Pointless Fact of the Day:
Rain comes from trees.

I am thoroughly pissed off at some of the biggest companies in the US, and I can't do anything about it. What, you may ask, am I so pissed about? I'll tell you. Back in November of 2004, my driver's license expired. I neglected to do anything about it until a month and a half ago. I figured, I'm twenty three, just because my ID is expired doesn't change that, which worked for a few months, but now I have same privileges as a high school kid, I haven't been to bar in six months, I have to have my friends buy me beer. So anyways, I get up real early and go the DMV, the wait is very short and I renew my card, easy as hell, I should have done it sooner. I leave for tour and come back, no ID, okay, it will be here after the next one, I tell myself. Get back from tour number two, no ID. Okay, I'll be patient and wait a few more weeks, leave, come back a third time, still nothing, so I call. This little man answers, I can't understand him very well, he's got a weird accent, borderline gibberish is what he's speaking, but I manage to understand that my card was sent out over a month ago and I should have it. I tell him I don't, he says sorry, I have to come back in and do it all over again, I ask if I have to pay again, and this is where I got really mad, not because he said I did, but because I couldn't understand a damn thing he said. He could have been telling me to fuck off and I wouldn't have understood him, I kept asking, "Do I need to pay again?" and something sounding like a man talking underwater with a mouthful of food came back over the phone making noises, so I hung up. I called back, worked my way through all the menus and that bullshit, this time get a nice woman, she tells me I don't have to repay, but I have to come back in, take another picture and sign some legal documents stating I didn't receive it, okay, easy enough. I ask her, "Can I make an appointment with you"? "No, you need to do that through the automated system which will then switch you over to a real person." Fuck that. This was the most infuriating thing I had experienced since the day before. So I try to call the post office, who is even more difficult to handle because they don't give a shit, you need these people. They say all my mail has been delivered as it should and I should contact the sender. I was so angry at this time I didn't know what to do, so mowed the lawn and I pushed to the back of my mind. Until last Friday. I talked to brother, who lives in Davis and I ask him if he's gotten any of my mail, he just got back from Japan so he hasn't looked through it. He calls me the next day and tells me it's there, in Davis. Now, I get his mail still sent to my house, and he gets a lot my mail, so why in the fucking hell can the post office not look at the damn change of address form he filled out, with his name on it and send the right mail to the right house? Who the fuck knows? I think I should be allowed to trip my mail man or something like that for being borderline retarded, I mean, they get paid enough, so why not do a thorough job? If they had some sort of competition I would probably go with them because I'm tired of the mail people doing a shitty job. So to sum it up, the DMV and USPS, the two biggest companies in the US that you cannot do without, are the shittiest things ever, but there's nothing you can do about it.

Home sweet home

Pointless Fact of the Day:
If you wear socks to bed, your feet shrink.

After spending the better part of three days driving in a van, I'm more than happy to be at home. Don't get me wrong, touring is the best thing in the world, but there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed all day long, and as of today, using the internet in your own house. That's right, my roommates and I have stepped into the present and purchased high speed internet, we're still working out some bugs, but I don't have to drive to my parents house for anything now.
So this last Thursday I played at a festival in Washington called the Creation Festival. It was a big gooshy christian music festival, but they pay well, the kids that watch are into the music and, the best part, it was at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington. So we leave the night before around 7pm, which outs us at the festival around noonish on Thursday. Myself and my bandmate, Jeff, decide to get dropped off in Seattle so we can hang out with some friends for the afternoon, and just kind of sit back and relax and not have to be in the sun at the festival all day. We're having a good time, we go to Tooth and Nail for a few hours, we hit up the studio to say hi to Mr. Sprinkle and hear some awesome Demon Hunter solos, they're amazing, then we hit the road. So we're about 45 minutes into our two hour drive when there is just massive amounts of traffic, they say delays up to two hours, and we have to play in three hours, with over an hour left of driving to do after the traffic jam. So we wait and wait and get through the jam, haul to the festival, it luckily was running twenty minutes late, which we later found out meant we had twenty minutes less to play. We setup and are all ready, but the sound guy was just sitting there with a thumb up his ass not doing anything. I told him to start checking things, he yelled at me, a lot, but we got stuff where we could deal with it, then we played. This was the worst show ever, or so it felt like it at the time, everyone said the sound was terrible, probably due to me pissing off the sound guy, but screw him. So we're done and it's time to eat and hang out. For food they gave us this fake money to buy food with, and you got real cash back for your change, and here's the best part, they also sold cigarettes there. To make this story good I have to back track a little. Earlier I found an example sheet with all the backstage passes on it, they use them for the security guards, well I cut out the all access pass, went and ate for free behind the main stage and spent my fake money cigarettes, and to top it off, I got cash back. Not super exciting now that I think about it, but at the time I thought I was damn genius.