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.

Spokane, WA

After spending over 15 hours in the van I was more than ready to get the hell to the show. I pulled the 3:30am- 6:00am shift, and then I was out, but since we’ve got seven people with us I had to sleep on the floor. I sleep really well, but woke up with my hips killing me since there is only some carpet covering the metal flooring of the van. We played this place before a few times, the last time was about two years ago, and the venue changed, I like this building better. We loaded in and waited for project to show up and do their sound check. Nothing too exciting, the venue is next to winery, so it smelled like booze out front, I kept looking around for a homeless guy or some drunk Spokane scene kid, but they didn’t show up until later. Our set went well, no local bands, just the tour tonight, so it came our time to play pretty fast. The kids seemed into the show, but no noise ever came out of them, maybe it was the way the room was, but they were silent after almost every song. I checked with the other bands, they had the same problem, so it wasn’t just that the crowd thought we were crap. Tonight is kind of the first night on the tour for us, no going home now. I’m sitting in the green room right now and there’s all these signatures from bands that I’ve never heard of, and they’re dated from 1995- 1996 era, old school. There are some sweet band names though. I can see ‘Big Dirty’, ‘Fluffy’, ‘Space Spackle’, they were on it back in the day. Today was a slow day, nothing crazy. The only slightly funny thing was some scenester kid was trashed and told us to move out of Spokane as fast as we could, his reason, because he’s been going to shows for over five years and no one recognizes him. Lame. He must really not belong here if no one remembers who he is, it tears him up so much he needs to get shitty to make himself feel better about it all. I mean, what life is worth living if no one at a rock show remembers who you are and won’t let you in for free? Portland tomorrow, I get to sleep in a bed tonight, it’s gonna be great. Later: We are in our hotel room and Jeff, my brother, Brandon & Ryan from Spoken are all playing Halo, they're super stoked right now, I'm not as stoked being that I kind of hate Halo.

Why Is It So Early

Well, we started our tour last night in Roseville, and things couldn't be better. All the bands are great, the two shows we've played so far have been great, people have been crazy at the shows. Since Friday night a lot has been going on, rides on drum cases, people getting hit in the head, police chases, football tossing with Jimmy Eat World, my car breaking down and getting flat tires, circle pits (it's funny to watch), long drives, no sleep, dirty laundry, geek talk about Halo (not me, others). I don't know, so much, so little sleep, it's hard to think. Tonight, or this morning, is my last time in my own bed for nine weeks, I'm excited, but kind of stressed out about all the stuff I have to do before we leave, mainly I need to do laundry and pack my bag, and say goodbye for a while to all my Chico friends. Once I get into tour mode I'll be set and have my thoughts together a little more. Day off tomorrow, drive to Spokane, Tuesday Spokane, Washington. Goodnight.

I thought I saw an Osmond, but it was just a regular Mormon

Well, I spent the last day or so in a van driving to and from Salt Lake City, home to the all mighty Mormon. I actually spent so little time in the town I didn't even see one, I think. We drove the twelve hours there, played our set, hung out for a half hour and drove twelve hours back. But we didn't leave our friendliest eastern state (Nevada) without stopping and living it up a little, and by a little, I mean A LITTLE. The idea was to eat somewhere crappy, so we picked the Peppermill Casino. The one in Reno is great, $5.99 breakfasts after midnight, but not in good ol' Wendover. I thought the $7.95 steak and eggs was going to be great, but it wasn't, I think they finished cooking my food first and put it under the heat lamp because my 8oz. steak seemed to have shrunk down to about 4oz and one of my eggs was very cooked, very hard yolk. It was all worth while, though, when I won a little bit of dough playing the penny slots, I was up thirty cents at one point, but then I blew it all, three times in a row. I felt it was three dollars well spent. Then I drove for a while, thinking I could make it to Reno (about 450 miles) not quite, I was 175 short, I realized when I almost hit that smart ass wolf in the road that I should end my shift, so I got some gas, forgot to put the gas cap back, and went to bed, I woke up just in time to see the southern end of Chico, it was beautiful, but this trip was not really worth the time I spent in the van, I still don't really know why we even went there, no offense to the kids that were there, you all were great. On another note, I love my IPod, it's probably one of the best things I've ever purchased, besides that stock in cardboard I purchased when I was eight.

Chico Party (kind of)

So lately there hasn't been a whole hell of a lot going on around town. Lots of down time, no practice until next week, so I'm mainly bound to the house, but I've found some interesting projects to do. I've tackled the weekly lawn mowing, but instead of waiting until the evening I decided to do it early morning, well, not actually early, but early for me. With that out of the way I rearranged the living room, cleaned some floors, changed some light bulbs and fixed holes in my clothes. That's all there was to do around here, so I went out tonight, and I realized for the millionth time in my life that people in Chico pretty much suck. That's not saying everyone is a bunch of idiots, but the vast majority is. Why do people need to get all dressed up to get shitty drunk and look like an ass, you could wear your normal, everyday clothes and get shitty and end up looking the same to some drunk girl/ guy that won't want to remember what went on come the next day? I guess that's what comes with living in Chico, and I figured after 23 years I would realize that. I think I'm just ready to leave for a while, I've been in town all summer and I'm ready to get out and play some shows. This afternoon we were people watching downtown and there was little 10- 12 year old kid playing his violin, he was pretty good, and people kept giving money to him, he must have made at least fifteen bucks in a half hour, we were joking about he did crank, and all of sudden he packed up his money and his violin and took off, probably to get his fix in down by the creek, his parents should keep a closer eye on him.

Oh Canada

So I made it back safely from Canada, but just barely, not really. The trip went over pretty well, besides getting over the border and back again. The drive to SF went smoothly, no problems except that we had to park our van in the international terminal, then walk all our stuff a mile to the other terminal. We flew to Seattle then connected to Edmonton, Alberta on a smaller plane. Our flight crew was pretty nice, except for this larger stewardess, she thought she was hilarious, like Rosie O' Donnell funny, she thought. The rows in the plane were about two feet wide, this woman was about three, so there was a lot of ass touching elbow action going on every time she walked by. Overall, she sucked, I didn't like her, but it was a short flight. Once in Canada we had to go through customs, which was a lot less painful than we had heard. They made us pay taxes on the merch we brought in, not too steep, and the guy let us put our guitars through the x- ray machine so we could see their insides. We got to the hotel, went to sleep and woke up early the next day to go play the show. The amphitheatre the show was at was really nice, except it was outdoors and it was ass- cold out there. We played, kids had fun, we had fun, we ate some food, hung out with geese and seagulls, even got a seagull to pick up a smoking cigarette butt, it just stood there with the thing smoking in it's mouth, I wish I had a picture of it. That night we hung out in the hotel. They had a nice bar in there, so we had a drink. There was a Russian guy in there drinking some interesting drink, we asked what it was, he said it was a Sea Shanty, it was made with Grasshopper beer, Clamato juice, lemon, salt and pepper, probably one of the best things I've ever had. We had most of the next day to hang out, but no transportation, so we spent some time at the stores across the street from us, a super shopping center, a liquor store and a cigarette/ gas station. The liquor store had a lot of nice Canadian beers, the superstore had tons of food, and the cigarette store had lots of Canadian cigarettes. They don't have normal American cigarettes there, no Camels or Marlboros, they have all these other brands that look like boxes of condoms and are all exactly the same, just different brands. They also have a law that a certain percentage of the package has to have warnings on it, so they have nice little warnings (some are pictured above). Around 2pm we left for the airport, sat in there for three hours, went through customs again, they drilled us about what our trip was about (or aboot, as they say), finally they let us pass, we got on the plane, flew home, and our trip to Canada was complete, I'll post more little details soon.

Stepping into the year 2000.

After my near death experience with the meat bee I realized I needed to live my life to it's fullest, so I bought an IPod. This is like a dream come true for me, I've asked for an IPod as my Christmas and birthday presents for the past two years, but never received one, and for some reason I kept putting off buying one myself, that is until yesterday. I found a good deal from apple.com so I went for it. I realized that carrying around a giant book of cds isn't cool and it's a huge pain in the ass. In anticipation of getting the IPod I have been loading all my cds onto my computer, and it's taking forever, I started last night and I am now almost on the Ds in my cd collection. Fifty cds down, 600 more to go, I've got my weekend planned, sit, watch some movies and put cds into my computer, I hope the IPod shows up tomorrow because I'm running out of room on my hard drive. I'll post pictures of me and my new best friend as soon as it gets here, I can't wait.

Don't Fuck with Meat Bees

meat_bees_fish
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

Just a quick note, don't fuck with meat bees unless you're totally covered up. I thought I could dig up their nest in my bushes and be totally fine, but I didn't count on the one bee waiting behind me to scare the shit out of me. While the other bees were busy trying to figure out what the hell was going on the hero of the bunch decided to get caught in my hair and bite my head, just once, but while I was running to the front yard it chased me, I'm pretty sure I lost it, but I keep feeling little things that I think is the bee. I'm jumpy as hell now and my head hurts a little, I don't think it got a good bite on me. So either hire a professional or be willing to burn down some bushes to kill the things.

Flying to New Mexico

teatime 1
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

This past weekend, hours after my people watching experience, I was flew out to Albuquerque, NM. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:45am, so figure it out what time we had to leave to be in Sacramento on time. The first half was easy enough, just went to Las Vegas for a nice tow hour layover. I was running on zero sleep, and when that happens I am Mr. Dick. I wouldn't lay off of people, I noticed everyone's bad features and was extremely verbal about them, but everyone around me got a good laugh at the other people's expense. Flight leaves, we go to NM, we play a show, go to the hotel, sleep, wake up at 6:15 to leave for the airport for an 8:45am flight. We're waiting to check in and I can't find my wallet, I notice my pocket has ripped all the way across, leaving a nice hole for my wallet to fall out of. We call our shuttle van, no wallet, they call the hotel, no wallet anywhere, I even had to tell them to check the women's bathroom due to me being impatient and using that because the men's was occupied. But no wallet. Our driver went to check the hotel herself, walks into my room and it's right there on the floor, in plain view she said. I was happy to get my wallet and not miss my flight, but I was little ticked at the hotel people, did they even look? They didn;t give a shit, I could have been stuck there for another day because of their laziness. But, I made it home, no other big problems, just the fear I will lose something important up in Canada this next weekend, I could be stuck in the hell of the north, but I won't think about that.

On another note, high school kids look damn young, like they're 12. It scared me, they shouldn't be able to leave campus for open lunch if they look like they help using the bathroom. Just my two cents.

People Watch

ErnstDrunk
Originally uploaded by trevorsellers.

I spent my last Saturday night watching people from a corner bench in downtown Chico, and as weird and mildly creepy as that sounds, it was one of the best things I've ever done in my life, maybe. I'll give a rundown of the night's events.

Happenings

1. The first five minutes I was at my bench I saw a guy nearly get hit by a car. Now normally this would be something I would feel was well deserved by the almost crippled, but in this case it was the driver that should have been badly injured. The guy was walking through the cross walk, a woman pulled around the corner, not looking, and almost hit, his shoe fell off in front of her car, and when he bent down to pick it up she started to go again, dumb ass lady. This made me feel really bad for the guy, worse than I've felt about anything for a long time, I don't know why.

2. Some lame ass Chico, hippy types get pulled over right in front of me, I mean I was four feet away, so I got to see and hear everything that was going on. The cop said they were speeding and had expired tags, the driver tried to explain why his tags were expired, something about the moon not being in line with stars and so his tags wouldn't stick to the license plate. The two guys in the car were obviously stoned, the cop didn't seem to notice, the passenger also had to me on crank, he couldn't stop moving around. After ten minutes of the guy asking why he needed to sign his ticket, they were off.

3. Some creepy couple came and joined me. The guy was around 30, the woman, around 50+ and homeless looking, but they were ion the mood for love that night, so they took off after a short time to go find a nice bush or pile of dirt to do their thing in.

4. The line for the bar across the street was immense, I mean it wrapped around the block, which is a little longer than normal. All the kids that came up to my corner and saw the line were baffled as to why there was such a long line for a bar on a Saturday night during Labor Day weekend in Chico, idiots.

5. A little strange guy came up, I remembered him from elementary school, he used to be deaf, no hearing aids anymore, so I thought he would still be friendly. He asked me if I needed a job or some extra money, "No" I said, he kept asking, so I thought he was trying to get at something, you know, "You need a 'job' or something for some extra money?" Finally he tells me I could earn two hundred dollars if I wanted to kill somebody for him, he made it sound so simple, just kill a guy for me that was being a jerk and I'll give you two hundred bucks, my bank's right here. I told him to go away from me, he offered again and I suggested he should go stand way over by the stop light, away from me. He asked a few more people the same thing and finally left. No reports of any murders yet.

6. A second couple joined me and the bench. They were nice enough, came from the bay area to visit some friends who happened to ditch them to go to a crowded bar. They were trying to get a cab home, but not actually trying. When the taxi would get close the guy would kind of flap his wrist around, looking really fruity in the process. Finally, after 30 minutes of this I got up and hailed a taxi for them so they would leave, his girlfriend was super bitchy and she needed to go somewhere else, far, far away from me.

7. Two more girls joined me, they said they ususally sit on the same bench Saturday nights and watch people, it was nice to have someone to verbalize my thoughts to. But when you have two nice, young girls sitting next to you, dudes will look for any excuse to try and impress them, so me, being the only other guy around, was the butt of these brouham's jokes. On two different occasions dudes asked me if I was a little bit gay, not gay, but just a little bit. They were so sure of themselves, too. They'd be like, "Dude, are you sure, not even a little bit?" What the hell, do I look a little gay? Maybe they were attracted to me and my Lyle Lovitt haircut and that made them feel super uncomfortable?

8. Two a.m. rolls around, the bars close and the streets are filled with tons of assholes trying to find the girl they're going to take home with them, most of them ended up leaving on pedi-cabs with their guy friends, anly to go back to their homes and make homoerotic jokes towards one another.

I walked home and thought about how interesting it was to watch the Chico in their natural habitat. Very, very interesting stuff, my only complaint is I wish I would have brought a notebook to write stuff down in, because I know I forgot a ton of things.

They feel like string beans.

I was never a big believer in karma, until Monday night. A mere three hours after posting a blog that made fun of some sorry sap kid, I started to feel kind of crappy. Not the kind of crappy you feel when you make fun of someone, I rarely feel that, but the kind of crappy you feel when your body shuts down. It started with a minor sore throat, then my back and legs started to ache real bad and I was feeling a little warm, so I headed home. My symptoms worsened throughout the night, my throat swelled up nice and big, my body hurt like I fell off a roof, and all the damn sweat, it wouldn't stop. So I stayed in bed all day Tuesday, shivering and sweating at the same time, not able to swallow, no appetite whatsoever. Wednesday comes around, after one of the longest nights of my life, and I visit the doctor. Now with a name like Immediate Care, I would have expected a little more immediacy when dealing with the patients, but no. The nurse kept looking at my chart, then putting it back and sitting down, but I was finally seen, and my doctor was very nice, she informed me I have tonsillitis and not strept throat, good news, and to save me money, she gave me medication samples instead of making me pay for a prescription. Last night wasn't as bad as the previous, but I was still pretty unsuccessful in getting a whole lot of sleep. I think the worst part is I can't swallow very well at all, so when I fall asleep I drool like crazy and wake up with crap everywhere, I can't wait to wash my sheets, I feel disgusting. My tonsils feel like some sort of tiny vegetable in the back of my throat, it kind of grosses me out. Took some Advil to help with the pain of eating, I'm just waiting for it kick in so I can eat, it's been a few days since I had a meal, saltines and yogurt have been holding me over for the time being, but I'm ready to move on to tougher things, like chicken soup. One last thing, court shows are some of the best stuff on t.v. if you don't have cable, and I think I'm starting to really think this.

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.

Long Beach, CA

Due to popular demand, and me trying not be lazy, I've decided to update my blog. I'm surprised and flattered that people check this to see if it's been updated. A lot has happened since I last updated, I got to go home for a while. My activities while there included band practice and things of that sort, hosing off my porch in the sunny afternoon, cleaning my house and a whole lot of sitting around doing nothing except sweating. Fast forward to today. We had the day off in sunny ol' southern California, so we decided to go to Raging Waters, one of the sweetest water parks around, where they like to say "Have a raging time". Stupid. But it was a lot of fun. I was very reluctant at first due to my dislike of sunburns, but I came around and had a great time. The water was chlorinated, the lines were long, but the rides were fast and wet, so it made up for the waits. There's a strong smelling pineapple in front of me right now, it's nice. I'm worn out and ready for bed. One more thing, I don't want to be cheesy, but this I'm going to be, please go buy our new cd, it would be great if you did. Thanks.

Mt. Vernon, IL

I've spent the last three days in Nashville doing a lot of things, especially schmoozing, but it was fun. We were trying to get our songs in movies and tv shows and things like that, and I think went pretty well, we'll see though. Last night I went out on the town with some friends and Nashville bros are the worse kind. They all wear polo shirts, mostly pink or black with white stripes, and backwards baseball caps. We sat in the bar and played the name game (where you yell a random name trying to get someone with that name). Dudes were not into it at all. Our friend Ryan went up to some random group and started bro-ing down like he knew them and they were into it for about two minutes, until they saw the rest of us laughing in the corner. Later on some dudes wanted to pick a fight with us, supposedly because we were "faggots". Whatever. The night didn't end until about 6:15 am, I got a few hours of sleep and now we are at our next destination. Tonight we had a nice little surprise when we got here. We were told that John Davis, former Superdrag singer, will be opening for us. I'm excited as hell, and then I start thinking, this guy was in Superdrag, I used to love them, and growing up seeing them on MTV, weird. Then I met him and he is one of the nicest people on the earth. I can't wait to see him play. Also, the A/C is broken in the venue so it's about 105 in here right now, heat makes shows more fun. That's all for now, go buy John Davis' record, it's amazing. Oh yeah, I got the coolest picture frame in the entire world, it's got grim reapers on the sides, but the best part is the picture it came with, it's a dragon with skulls around it and then a weird faint creature from the black lagoon face about the dragon, just come to my house when I get home and stare at this wonderful thing for a while, I'll have it open to the public on weekdays.

I'm sick and on tour.

So right now I'm sick as hell, my throat is swollen, my body aches, I'm freezing cold and hot at the same time, and to top it off, for some reason I was spitting up blood earlier today, it's real shitty. But tomorrow is a day off so I'll get some rest. I can't think striaght about what has been going on in my world, I'll get my thoughts together and post on this thing a lot more often than I have been. One thing is, I hate liars, most of the time. Example; this kid tonight tells us he has our new record already, that it's been leaked to the internet, we get all scarred and start to point fingers, then Jeff gives him the third degree, asking where he got it, how long ago, which songs, and the kid buckled, told us he was nervous and didn't have any facts to back up his story, damn idiot kid. It's not impressive to a band when you tell them you have their new record a month before it comes out, awesome. More in a few days, I promise.

Denver, CO

Hippies suck, a lot. I haven't seen a real hippy since I was fourteen or fifteen and attended the concerts in the park. But tonight they were out in full force, and we played on their turf, a real live hippy bar. So we show up and the club looks pretty nice, except there was Greatful Dead and Jerry Garcia posters and pictures everywhere. The first three bands sucked, sorry, but it's true, then we played and the soundguy was not happy, we were too loud for his hippy ears, too much distortion, not enough upstrokes. At one point Jeff asked for more monitor and the guy told him he would turn it up if Jeff turned his amp down, no deal buddy. After this comment I thought, Jerry Garcia would turn the monitors up, and Jeff, being the band mouth piece, said that through the mic, everyone, but the hippies, thought it was hilarious. After us was Showbread, and they had the same problems, but there was more and more soap dodgers coming in, we later found out they were waiting for us to be done so they could have their weekly jam. After the show there was one particular guy that was making fun of us and Showbread, so Jeff and John, the keytar player, went and confronted the guy and supposedly he wanted to throw down. Now I've never seen a hippy fight, just get beaten up, so that would have great to get in a fight, some hippies and the eleven people in both Number One Gun and Showbread. Hippies suck, again, stay away from any and all Phish, String Cheese Incident concerts or anything that is that shitty. Also, if you beat up a hippy, let me know, it will make me happy.

trash

So I just remembered something. Yesterday we were driving through western Tennessee and were stopped at a Taco Bell/ KFC, so you could imagine the crowd in there. So we get our meals and talk and eat for a while, then a girl comes up to us, maybe sixteen years old and she's got her eightteen year old friend and a baby with her. So they start asking why we're there and stuff like that, so finally she ask some sort of question, which I didn't think she was smart enough to do, that basically makes me answer that we're a band. Then she starts saying all the same b.s., "Can ya'll sign a CD for me so when ya'lls is famus I cun tell people I met you?"
All of this is said with a thick drawl, some words, I'm pretty sure, weren't real words.
So I tell the girl that we have one cd left, we ran out at a show, she says she'll buy it, I tell her twelve dollars and then she starts trying to get money together with her friend, then she pulls this one out of nowhere, she says "I can give ya'll a boob shot for the cd", none of us jump at that, we kind of start talking with each other, she then says "I'm just kidding" and friends tells us she's not. Anyway, this was our first time being offered to see boobs for merchandise, and from a damn teenager too.

St. Louis, MO

I didn't see Star Wars tonight, and I don't feel bad about it. I'll get around to watching sometime, possibly on video, I don't know. The BMG music club is a great thing, so many choices of cds I really kind of wanted, but would never pay full price for. I don't know how, but every night I end up wth my own bed in the hotel, some people share a bed, another sleeps on the floor and I get my own. The people in the room next door have a dog and it barks everytime someone walks by, I'm thinking about ratting them out to the front desk, but only if it keeps me up tonight. I'm looking forward to coming back home, two weeks left of tour, plus one afternoon home halfway through that. Wayne Newton is on tv, I'll leave you with that.

Tupelo, MS

So I'm in the south and it's been pretty nice, except for the lack of the internet, these southerners haven't tapped into the new century yet and purchsed wireless internet, except for this place, a Super 8 of all places. Everything has been going great though. The band we're on tour with have been super nice guys, all very southern and well mannered. We started this tour off with a nice little 48 hour drive to Birmingham, Alabama, or BAMA!, as I like to call it. The show was a little different, but we all loved it considering we'd been in a car for two days straight. Then it was off to Orlando, Florida, another nice little drive of ten hours and a time change, but this drive was well worth it. We played the Florida Cornerstone Festival which had about every band you'd want to see playing. The first day was kind of exciting, I can't remeber any of the bands off the top of my head, so I guess it wasn't that memorable, except for As I Lay Dying, they are an excellent band, I like them. The next day was THE DAY. We played, which was exciting and went pretty well, but the best line up was in the evening, starting with the Chariot. I'm not too into them, but one of our friends is playing drums for them, so it was exciting to watch. After them was Emery, Copeland, Anberlin, underOATH, Relient K, David Bazaan, Jon Davis and mewithoutyou, I was beat after all that, not to mention very sleep deprived due to the time change and the early mornings. Another highlight of the festival was the hotels. The promoters decided to put all 75+ bands in two hotels next to each other, so there was a lot of (for lack of a better word) partying going on. The first night us and Morning September thought it would be fun to get some beer and hang out around the pool, and everyone else had the same idea. Almost every band I knew was there at once and it was great. Leaving a festival is always hard becuase you have to go back to "reality", less people at shows stuff like that. It's not really that bad. We've spent the last two days on BAMA! and then tonight in Mississippi, and I've found that southerners are a lot friendlier than people on the west coast, they are kind of weird and some seem a little inbred, but they are friendly. We're acting like we're cool right now and are watching 8 Mile, Eminem is doing his battle rap, and I think we're going to have our own rap off after we watch this. and why do some people cover their mouths when they laugh? I don't get it. Is that Coolio? So not much more around here, St. Louis tomorrow, I'll think of some good stories to post.

Nashville, TN

So we are still in Nashville, getting pretty boring now, I want to play a show. A bunch of us got tattoos yesterday, and my leg is a little sore. I cut the crap out of myself shaving with the razor, not good at all. The thing kept bleeding for almost two hours, but I'm healing up just fine today. Memphis tomorrow, finally a show. I get to sleep in my own bed monday, can't wait to be back home.

Nashville, TN

So we have three days off and we decided to spend it in good ol' Nashville. Last night we had a barbeque with our friends in Yellow Second and the Merienthal sisters. Tonight we had a barbeque with our friend Sam from Bleach, he's one of the best people in the entire world, I always leave feeling real happy after we hang out with him. I had the idea to get another tattoo tomorrow, so I shaved my leg, and it is gross. Men should never shave their legs, especially if they haven't seen the sun in over four years. I can't even look at it, it is so damn gross. I hope they can fit me in tomorrow, or I'm going to have a bald leg for the next five months, because my hair does not grow very fast. My brother made the drawing for me and he tells me my mom is not happy about it. I made the decision to get a picture of Leatherface and Ash (Bruce Campbell) fighting. I love both of those characters and thought why not put them together? Well, my mom doesn't like the idea of me getting horror movie characters permanently affixed to me, she'll get over it someday.

Plymouth, MI

So much to write about, so many thoughts coming out at once. I'll try to start from the beginning. We arrived in Nashville last sunday, checked in to our fancy looking hotel only to find that the internet advertised cost $10 a day to use, so we were internetless for the week. I'll get to the good stuff. Monday was the day of the Country Music Awards, and I was excited for some reason. I've been caught watching CMT on more than one occasion, but I didn't think I would be excited when I spotted Montgomery Gentry or someone of the same stature, but I was star-struck the entire day. I got to see Big and Rich soundcheck, but missed their set, I saw the Low Cash- Cowboys try to hype up the crowd, they were jackasses, but it was still neat to see them. The most exciting star spotting was that of Lynryd Skynyrd walking through our hotel doors as I was walking in, I was speechless. I can't remeber much else off the top of my head, except Chris and I got free tattoos from a place in Nashville, our booking agent told us all bands booked by him get free tattoos at this place anytime we come through town, so I'm going to take big advantage of that deal. We drove 11 hours today to get to Michigan to play a show that we were told was going to suck really bad. So we go into the show knowing it's going to be awkward, it was for some youth rally at a church. The show was a little odd, but it was the most fun we've all had in a while, there six hundred or so kids, and you could make them go crazy. We were throwing shirts and cds out to them, and they were insane, we also made a good little bit of money and they put us up in the Hiltin Garden Inn, not too bad for a few hours' work. We're playing the University of Wisconson tomorrow, easy drive, time for a shower.

Driving

I almost forgot what being on tour was like, it's been over six months since we last went out, but it seems a lot more fun this time around. We started off in Salt Lake City, which is a nice little drive from Chico. The show was a lot fun, we were all nervous for some reason, but everything went off without a hitch. Night number two was in a little town called Greeley in Colorado, again a nice little drive for us, but it was only eight hours this time, the first drive was about twelve hours. The show was pretty crappy, especially for being on a Friday night, but it was fun none the less. Today we were supposed to play in Kansas, which was a ten hour drive, so we planned ahead, got up early, actually left on time, but there was no way we were making it to the show, so we called and cancelled, the guy was bummed, but at least he can keep his money. Instead of going to the show we decided to drive straight through to Nashville, we're going on twelve hours in the van, but it's been some good fun. So far we've seen a lot rest areas, the outside of the OZ Museum, it was closed, some buffalo and some other less interesting things. I pissed off a whole store full of people when I decided to run my hand over the two dozen large wind chimes they had, they were very unhappy. I roads here are probably the worst thing in the world, especially since I'm trying to type while we're driving. They should fix this shit. I got invited to a party in Nashville that is being out on by a tattoo shop, and they said free tattoos for band members, I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can actually get a real tattoo and not some four leaf clover or a sailor's anchor. Almost Kansas City, then we get to eat Fazzoli's, which is the best and least expensive Italian food ever known to man, I've been waiting months for the food out here. Waffle House, Chick- Fil- A, Cracker Barrel, Fazzoli's and so many truck stops with great food, I can't wait. It's too damn bumpy to type anymore. One last thing, my phone got turned back on, so I can communicate with the outside world.

Denver, CO

Not much time to post much of anything, it's 8:30am, i went to bed at 5:30 and need to drive over ten hours to the next show that is happening tonight, but everything is great so far. I'm alive, I have no cell phone still, so I keep to myself, and the IHOP I had before bed isn't sitting too well. Off to Kansas. I'm trying to find a picture and the computer is going slower than anything ever.

Bye Chico

So I'm leaving Chico for tour in about four hours, and I'm getting more excited by the minute. It's been over six months since I've last toured, so I'm ready to go. We play Salt Lake City tomorrow, then Colorado, then Kansas, then Nashville, and then some other places, I'll list them later, and then write about each place, maybe. More exciting things to come.

today, not all too good.

So most of today was horrible. I woke up to find that my phone was shut off due to my dumbass not paying the bill on time, shitty, then to top it all off, the airport card I ordered for my computer was undeliverable to me for some god awful reason, so it is being sent back to New Jersey, which means I probably won't get it before I leave for tour, super shitty. So I have no way to stay in contact with people, at all. On the plus side, I drove to Stcktone today to get a new bass head, and the guy ended up giving me a new cabinet also, so I am a little happier, until the reality that all the other shit went wrong sets in. I am kind of pissed off though, and I so badly want to be mad at the post office, but they didn't so anything wrong, and I have to be nice and civil to the guy I bought the airport card from so he will send it back to me, even though I paid for two day shipping, it's going to take over a week for me to get it. Dammit, it's frustrating to even think about it.

Day 37

Today is my last day in Seattle, and to celebrate we are having a big farewell to me/ Josh Head/ Toby Moreno dual birthday party. There's going to be lots of friends and lots of barbeque, the only downside is I have to catch a plane at 6:50am so I hope I'm able to get up on time. The record is still not finished, and probably won't be done on time, but it should be done at some point in the next few weeks, I'll believe it when I see it. I keep worrying that I'm going to forget something important, I have to keep checking, I've got my clothes, my computer, my cds, my house keys, my shoes, jacket, socks, underwear, guitar, that should be everything, I'll know for sure when I don't have it, and hopefully that's before the other guys leave. After I get home I get to find a job so I can earn some money for the week and a half I have off, I'll get something, or I'll have to look through dumpsters to find food. I can't wait to start practicing the new songs and then finally we get to tour again. First off we go to Nashville for GMA week. Now most people don't know what GMA week is, so I'll explain. GMA week is an event held every year in Nashville where the christian music industry shows off what it has. This time is the most hellish thing for bands that understand that there is a better market outside the christian market. Believe it or not, there aren't many that understand that, or want to understand that. Now, this may be my opinion, but I don't think I stand alone on this. We have gotten used to this whole thing as we have atended the past two years, so this year shouldn't be too bad. Our week will consist of a bunch of things; Sunday- Showcase show for booking agent; Monday- Thursday- interviews with various radio stations and magazines asking us questions like 'How did you get your name' or 'What does the title of the new record mean' or 'Why did you switch record labels?' stuff like that, which at first, isn't too bad, but after four days of this, it gets a little tiring; Tuesday- Acoustic showcase for EMI suits sales conference, we're basically trying to show EMI why they should put more money into us; Wednesday- Tooth and Nail showcase. This is a short overview of the week, I'll post more when I get there, there should be some good stories nightly.

Day 35

So here's some sorry shit. It's 5:15 in the morning and I've been playing the Legend of Zelda for eight hours straight, and I'm not even half way through it. I thought when I started the game at 9:30 last night that I would be done by two, or three at the latest, but not a chance. I've looked up maps and hints on the internet, but it's all come down to my skill level, and without much sleep I don't think I'll ever beat the game. Looks like I might be using my last three days in Seattle to finish the Legend of Zelda. I wouldn't really mind, it's raining anyway. I also found my Halloween costume early, can't wait for October.

Day 31/33

Ah yes, St. Patrick's Day, the most pointless holiday in the world, but also the most fun. I'm on my way out to sell some clothes that I don't wear to get some money for this evening.

That above sentence was started the other day, then I went to lunch and forgot about it.
So I have five days left in the great northwest, and I'm having mixed feelings about leaving. On one hand I'll be glad to be at home, sleep in my own bed, hang out with my friends and family, plus it should be spring time, so I can ride my bike. But on the other hand it is so nice up here. This city is great, there's so much to do, so many places I can walk to. I'll come back up to visit sometime. Tonight is Aaron's birthday party, it sounds like it's going to be a ton of fun, it will have the hippest, cred worthy guests in attendance. Speaking of hip and cred- worthy, I saw the guitarist from Modest Mouse (and MCD) walking to his brand new Volvo the other day, and he just stared up at me as I told the person I was on the phone with who was staring at me. He was probably wondering why someone looking like me was up in a nice condo. I don't know, maybe he wanted to be friends with me, but he didn't know for sure, so he was thinking about that? Our house guests have left, but we got Chris back, so it evens out. Lastly, Excedrine PM works wonders.

Day 29

Irony is a funny thing. To back up this statement I will share the following story. So I am broke. I have one dollar to my name, so I decide to try and get a job for the day at a place called Labor Ready. So I get myself up at around, oh, 8 am and walk down there. There are a ton of homeless drug addicts waiting for jobs as well. Now I don't mind any of this, but then I start thinking to myself, here's where the irony is, I'm staying in a 1.5 million dollar condo and am on a good record label and here I am waiting with a group of junkies to earn $30 so I can have some money in my pocket. That's about it.

Day 27

Everyone left today, and while I thought it would be nice, I'm actually kind of lonely. Luckily we'll have some house guests staying with Jeff and myself. Last night and everynight after we'll have the wonderful Josh Head bedding down with us, and then tomrrow we'll have Mr. Dave Tosti and his brother Aaron staying with us. Hopefully some other folks will be stopping by like they said they would. I think I'm just rpeating myself now, let me know. I got to see the Velvet Teen last night, the first time with Casey playing, and it was amazing. Today I was awakend by a man yelling my name with a hand towel tied around his face (turned out to be Jon Dunn), and they said I looked about the funniest they have ever seen me. I was also makikng some horrible yell/ screeching noise as he was shaking me, I don't know why. The recording is shaping up nicely, I'm excited for other people to hear it. Josh, Jeff and Jon have been playing Halo for three hours now, I really hate the game, I admit it is because I'm so horrible at it, so I guess I'm pretty much a sore loser, but I hate it.

Day 25

It's all of a sudden damn cold here. they day started off nice and warm, and now the wind has picked up and it is chilly, what gives? Oh yeah, it's Seattle. Aaron hooked up this intercom on the outside of the building today. So we are able to talk to people walking by and we can watch them on the closed circuit t.v. It so far has been responsible for us losing about two hours in which we could have been recording, but it's so much fun. I spent the majority of my day sitting around the Tooth and Nail offices acting like I worked there. I signed three bands, all of which were dropped minutes after my phone calls to them. This part might have been made up. We have a new roommate now, Mr. Josh Head, Emery keyboardist/vocalist and one of the best people to have around. He's great, he makes food, tea, cleans, runs errands, and I think he's capable of other things as well. Tonight has a lot in store, but we'll see what actually happens when the time comes.

Day 24

Hey, I heard some crazy stuff yesterday. I apologize if any of you have read about this, but I doubt it. So there was a husband and wife visiting a chimpanze that used to live with them when two other chimps got out of their cages and started to maul the man and woman. The woman got her thumb bitten off, the man lost all of his fingers, an eye, part of his nose, heel, buttock and testicles, and then to top it off, one of the chimps proceeded to drag the guy down the road after doing all of this, so the monkeys were shot to death, end of story. So don't fuck with chimps, they're strong ass animals. I'm waiting for the O.C. to come on, I've gone a week without it, I'm doing pretty good though, so don't worry. We all got another free lunch today, and drinks, I can't get enough of free food, or anything free for that matter. I also got to meet some of the guys from the Blood Brothers today, they came by the studio and hung out for a while. I always think that some of these people will be dicks, but not at all. They were all super nice, namely Cody Votolato (note: Josh, Rocky's little brother). So don't let anyone tell you these guys are asses, and if they were asses to you, you probably deserved it. O.C.s on. More tomorrow.

Day 23

You know that feeling when you want to do something, but you do the same thing all time, so you always find yourself doing the same thing you just thought about not doing? That whole sentence ight not make any sense. So basically I'm getting restless. Guitars are being recorded, so I sit around waiting to hear the 'closer to being done' song. I tend to find things to pass the time, a few minutes at a time. Like last night, I went to a show, it was a good one. Project 86, He Is Legend and Classic Case, tons of fun. I hadn't seen the Project guys in a while, so we hung out all night, first the Cha Cha and then the studio. Today we got free sushi from Brandon Ebel, it was really good. I tend to find myself just doing things that I normally wouldn't do, not that they are bad things, just things that I'm usually too of a pussy to do. Lately I've gotten up the balls to get us product endorsements, and I'm on a roll. So far it's been amps and strings and the guitars we should know about in a few days. I don't know if it's just me, but these blogs seem really boring, I can't wait to start touring so hopefully there will be some more exciting things happening. We'll see.

Day 22

Trying to find new and intersting things to write about is kind of hard right now, since I don't do a damn thing. At least, until last night. So I finished my bass parts, all done, so in celebration we went to the Wing Dome, for the fourth time. Lots of wings and drinks, some of the Emery guys were there, we had a blast and I found the secret to eating a 7alarm wing is not water afterwards, it hurts for a second, but then its nothing. For the second part of my celebration I went to the Cha Cha with Aaron and Chris, it was fun. We get introduced to a few people and before I know, we're hanging out with the guitarist from Vendetta Red and the ex- drummer of Acceptance. Chris left and a bunch of us went to this kareoke bar. I found out after I entered the place that it was a primarily gay bar, there were still women and couples hanging out, but I guess this place was technically a gay bar. So I'm hanging out in a gay bar with Aaron Sprinkle, a guy fom Vendetta Red and another guy who used to be in Acceptance, it was the most fun I've had in a long time. We made fun of the horrible singers, drank a lot and then headed home. Aaron was going to stay the night, but he disappeared around 4 in the morning and drove home, but he left his shoes in the apartment. I also couldn't sleep because the wings had caught up to me and made me feel like crap. They have these new cigarettes called Marlboro 72's. They were two for one, so Chris and I bought some. These things are like pygmie cigarettes, we're guessing the 72 means they are 72% of a real cigarette, I don't know, they're tiny, so don't buy those. Free lunches this week courtesy of Brandon Ebel and a guynamed DJ, free food is always nice. The Velvet Teen is playing up here this week, so I'll finally have something to do this weekend, until then, I'll find something to do.

Day 16

It's been a while, say this to yourself in a yeah voice, it has a bad effect on me, I hate this phrase because of this thought. Anyway, It has been, not that things haven't been exciting and fun, I just haven't felt like writing. And then just when I work into my routine up here, I get the horrific news that the O.C. will not be on tomorrow, what the hell? I have my brothers coming up though, so I'll get by without it for one week. So I'm almost all done with my tracking, well, half way done, then I get to sleep in and do nothing for another four weeks. It will be great. Today one of the most awkward things happend. One Michael Freestone, or Freakstone as J.R. McNeely calls him, calls and says he'll be by in an hour. So we wait in anticipation, Aaron tells us he doesn't want him to come inside, so we aren't allowed to let him in. We also have to get the idea across to him that he has no chance in hell with this label or studio or anything that has to do with any of us. So he finally shows up and says he has to come inside and talk with Aaron, we tell him Aaron's not in, and he insists on wating in the lobby for him to come back. Not cool, mainly because Aaron was in the other room. After a lot of b.s.ing with the guy we get someone to say they are an intern and will give his record to aaron to listen to, then he starts to lay into the girl, one of our good friends, about how her promotions department needs to get this record out as quickly as possible because it is going to fly off the shelves, or some crap like that. Then, out of nowhere, Austin, one of the most quiet and unassuming people ever, tells the guy to do that himself because we are not interested in his music. This catches Michael off guard and he asks why. Here is the best part, Austin calmly tells him that he doesn't like his music and it's not good, the guy is speechless and turns and walks away. I could not believe that whole thing, i was unbelieveable. In other news, there are some really crappy cars, probably abandoned, that are parked in front of the studio, and for some reason they really piss me off to look at them everyday. But I think they are going to get towed tomorrow, so now I won't have to look at those pieces of crapanymore and we can get a great parking spot. I almost forgot to mention, we hit up the Wing Dome for a second time on Monday, and this time it was a killer, ten 5's again and a 7 to finish up the night, but it killed me this time, and for some reason I can't wait for next week, Wing Dome again.