Chico Fucking California.

I'm back in my room, and I'm excited, we aren't doing the first night of this next tour because of scheduling things, basically, we are burned out and have so much to do before the next tour. So I get an extra day in town. I've got tons of pictures to post from the last few weeks of the tour and plenty of mustaches.

Wha?

*Here are some entries taken directly from my new purchased journal.

"I want to put somethin' in that backdoor"
- Fred Rogers
*one of the best things I've ever heard anyone, let alone Mr. Rogers say.

Florida sucks, it's dirty and sticky and they make old men work the night shift.

Atlanta, Georgia. Not as dirty as previous states. Everyone here is trying to find Nelly so they can go clubbin' with him. People like to honk and not stop for people. Dudes are scared to walk across the street.
*This show sucked, the only positive thing of the night was Avenged Sevenfold was playing upstairs, I don't like them as much after watching them.

Nashville, TN- Some girls peed in between our van and trailer, I threw pennies and banana peels at them, they didn't like it. I told them not to pee on our van. Chik-Fil-A is goodness in a bun with pickles. Sweet Tea is also one of the best things ever. The Slaughter House sounded like one of the coolest haunted houses ever, I didn't want to spend the money to go inside, nobody seemed very scared when they left. Tonight we had Number One Gun kereoke. Jeff was too sick to play the show, so some of our tourmates helped us out. It went over pretty well, I had a good time.

Plano, TX- Chris' ass went through the side window. Went through like a baseball goes through, I guess, a window. Last night was Number One Gun kereoke part 2. It was a lot more fun this time, everyone came onstage and sang with us. Tomorrow is Houston, this routing is stupid. We're right by Dallas, but we play Houston and then Dallas, backwards? Five shows left. If you're ever in the Plano, Texas Super 8, watch out for Blair Knight. You'll know him because he is the only guy that lives in the hotel that is missing his left leg, is a giant black guy, rolls around in a wheel chair and, if you look like me, will want to "party" with you. Yes. He rolled up to me, asked if I wanted his number. I said I would never use it, so he just jumped to the point, said room 104, I should come over and party. He said I could come to his room and he could show me some things and set things straight in about 40 minutes. I should bring a pen and paper and something to read we could set things straight. This incident took away a huge part of my innocence, I don't think I'll ever be the same, I may have nightmares tonight.

Texas- Ghostface Killa eats at Taco Bell. We ran into the Wu- Tang Legend, he gave us his number and said we should get together in the future and write some music. So I've decided to start writing a Linkin Park- esque album for the occasion. The venue left the Red Bull cooler open near our dressing room, so we took advantage of that. All the bands made up for the 20% merch fee in Red Bulls.

Durham, NC

I don't know what day it is, I haven't had any internet access in a while, I have a lot of e-mails to check and return, great. In the past few days I've slept in the car a lot, I went to California and back to Pittsburgh, spent some time in an aeroplane, like the one that RHCP sing about, you know the song. I slept eleven hours in the car today, after a night of not sleeping, and now that we are at our hotel it looks like I will not be sleeping at all tonight as well, I just woke up. I saw P.O.D. play Saturday night, they are good, but I don't like them, Ivory from Showbread got up on stage and sang Southtown with them, and almost got thrown off stage by their bass tech, he was pissed, we all laughed, Ivory won five bucks. My thoughts are extremely scattered. Being back in California was a huge tease, six weeks left until I get to sleep in my own bed, and turn 24, that's weird. I've been in Waffle House country for weeks, and I haven't eaten it once, what the hell? I have pretty nice beard (based on my standards) going on, except for this one patch that I can't seem to get to grow, no matter how hard I think about it filling in, someday. Ten hours to go until I leave, hopefully there's some good movies on tv tonight.

Columbus, OH

Tonight we played about the most amazing and historical I've ever been to. It is called the Newport Music Hall and everyone from AC/DC to Bruce Springstein has been on the stage we played on tonight. Amazing building, amazing sound, amazing stage crew, everything, and plenty of homeless peeps to make the whole experience complete. After the show the entire tour, five bands, about 26 people, all went to the TVU television station. They informed us once we got there that we would be filming live, and that is when all hell, at least for the TV crew, broke loose. We were walking around doing the dumbest stuff in the world behind the host, calling the station and asking to talk with the bands, finding outfits that makde no sense. The head producer was keeping his cool, but he didn't seem too happy that everyone was screwing around so much. I thought it was great. What do they expect when they invite so many people to be on live TV after they've played a show and are tired?


In other news, we got a new crew guy, his name is Stu and he is a great help to us.

Cincinnati, OH

In a Days Inn in the supposed chili capitol of the U.S. (based on taste?) Nothing too exciting today, a bit of driving, not as cold. The only thing of interest, really, is my stupidity. As I was trying to step over the front of the trailer (where it hitches to the van) I misjudged the distance needed to step over it, and I fell, hard. Luckily I tucked and rolled so I didn't hurt anything but my left shin and my pride. The leg swelled up pretty fast and bled for a while, the picture doesn't do it justice, and now I'm very afraid of that area around van, I've been getting nervous everytime I use the back door of the van.

photos

Check This

This is a shameless plug, but I feel it is worth the criticism I might receive. Go here to hear a new Mourning September song.

Minneapolis, MN pt.2

Minneapolis is a wonderful city, minus the coldness that swept through last night. They have a giant mall, so big, in fact, it is called THE MALL OF AMERICA, as it should be. We spent the better part of yesterday there, and I only got through about a third of it. We even went back today to do some more exploring and some more eating. They have about anything you can think of in there, unicorn rugs, Starbucks (I saw three, there were probably more), a log ride, cocky magicians, chess nerd central, so much crap, so little time. While the majority of my band spent their day on the roller coasters I teamed up with my buddy Brandon and looked at things we couldn't afford, but the biggest disappointment was not having money to shop at the H&M store. If you ever get a chance to shop there, so it, it's probably the best clothing store ever, seriously. After the mall we came back to the hotel and spent the evening with rest of our tourmates. It was the tour managers pre- birthday party, so we had ourselves a good old time at the hotel bar and Applebee's. Around midnight some of the guys jumped the fence to the hot tub, the security guard came by and got a little pissed, which isn't the best idea around a bunch of rowdy, smart- mouthed band members, he ended up getting heckled more than he would have liked. Earlier, in the bar, there some "jar- head" dudes that kept staring us down, we almost thought it was the perfect night for a bar fight, it ended up not being so, we'll save that for a future night. The guys were total asshole though, the waitress told us after they left that they asked her if she could come upstairs with them and give them "some extra assistance." We should have thrown some shit at them when we had the chance. Tonight we played at one of the nicest clubs I've ever been to, full on catering that never stopped, all you can drink Rockstars and sodas, plus a great stage and sound system, and the crowd was amazing. If it weren't for the damn cold, I would love to live here. I'm typing in the hallway of the hotel and security guard keeps coming by and giving me weird looks, I don't really like him.

Minneapolis, MN

First day back on the tour, and it feels better than going home. I don't think we've ever played in Minnesota before, just stayed the night around here somewhere. The town we were in, Mankato, was strange to say the least. The kids at the show were amazing, except for the group of five or so that clapped so far off beat it was hard to tell if they were doing it on purpose or not. When we pulled up it was raining like crazy, but was hot as hell at the same time, so we were nice and wet and hotter than crap, all at the same time. The venue was upstairs, about thirty stairs to be exact. Not fun. There was a nice bar downstairs with a bunch of drunken locals who decided to drive themselves home even though they really could stand on their own. I was frightened watching them drive off into the rain, I'm sure it might be an everyday event for them. Back at the venue, it was so damn hot in there, probably 80 plus, they had a guy from the club spraying kids down with water to keep them from passing out. Tomorrow is day off, so we're hitting up the Mall of America, all eighteen of us staying in Minneapolis, I can't wait.

Monday

These past two days have been long and stressful. In the past forty- eight hours we've driven a lot, been completely broke, popped a trailer tire, gotten charged a ton by some backwood dudes to fix it, quit a tour and rejoined within eight hours and driven some more. I won't get into too many details about us leaving the tour, I will just say that we are now back on the tour and very happy with the way things have worked out. I will try and update as much as possible about the upcoming shows. I would also love to post some pictures from the tour, but my brother forgot the usb cord for the camera, so I will have to wait to out those up.
On a lighter note, pick up a copy of the new Alternative Press this Wednesday and read my two cents worth on Myspace being sold to Fox.

Salt Lake City, UT

Salt Lake City, UT

It’s been a few days, we’ve done some driving, actually, lots of driving, it kind of sucked last night, but I’ll get to that. We played Portland, OR Wednesday night, the show was a little weird, the sound on stage was bad and it was hard to tell if people were into us or not. I got us lost on the way there, our directions said something like take exit 1, go onto ramp, continue onto, no help at all, so me, being the navigational genius that I am drove all over the damn place trying to find the venue only to find out that it was right by where I originally brought us. None of this seems too bad, but I used to live there, so I had no excuse for getting lost. We drove overnight to Seattle. The next show was a good one. There were tons of friends, it was a good time before and after the show. The rain made the day not as nice as it should have been, but it was still good. The next day was a day off, meant for driving to Salt Lake, but we said screw that and hung out in Seattle. I got to eat some Wing Dome, go there if you are in the area, seriously, Jeff recorded some Mourning September demos in the T&N basement and we went to Guitar Center, where I was hit on by a not so attractive female employee and a male employee, all I wanted was some guitar picks. We left around midnight after a good drinking game, I don’t want to say what it was because it makes us look like loser nerds. All I can tell you is the Backstreet Boys have sold more records than Nirvana, sad. We drove overnight and ended up in the greatest place in the world (for Mormons), Salt Lake City. The show was sparsely attended, but it was a lot of fun. The venue was near an outdoor mall where we ate and people watched. This city is actually really nice; there are just some different people here. They have these orange safety flags at crosswalks that don’t have lights, so you’re supposed to hold this flag up in the air while you walk across the street and that will prevent cars from hitting you; I guess it worked since we didn’t get hit. I thought I saw the bass player from the Used painting the inside of a café that opening soon, but nobody else believed me and were all to scared to go back and look, I’m pretty sure it was him, honestly. Two kids running through the mall in their underwear while their friend videotaped brought on the excitement for the night. I thought it would be nice to give him some ice cream, so where he ran by I tossed an ice cream cone to him, I don’t think he thought I would really toss it, so he fumbled it a little, he said he was sorry for not catching it, I asked him what kind of athlete he thought he was. I want to see the tape of the whole thing. We’re now at a friend’s house getting ready to sleep, in a real bed finally. We leave at 8am for Denver.