C:E:L:E:B:R:A:T:O:R

reason number a billion that the media is gross

2009-12-20T20:40:00.002-05:00

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/people/hollywood-actress-brittany-murphy-dead-20091221-l7qr.html

Actor Ashton Kutcher, who starred with Murphy in the 2003 film Just Married, spoke about the actress’s death on micro-blogging platform Twitter.

"[Today] the world lost a little piece of sunshine," he wrote just after 7am [AEDT].

"My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany’s family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon."

Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson also expressed their sadness on Twitter.

found googling "fake bapes"

2009-07-04T18:01:00.002-04:00

???

reason # a million that the internet is disgusting

2009-07-03T20:21:00.002-04:00

complete list: things my coworkers have googled today

2009-06-26T22:31:00.004-04:00

boy bands
buffalo bill silence of the lambs
can you tell me a lot of boy bands
chapelle what the fuck is juice
euchre
fun children outdoor games
knoxville bridal gowns
knoxville drug hotline
naked guy cat scan
old ladys legs
premarital counseling
popular boybands
scabies
twilight
uti symptoms
westlife
what does ct at the end of a street stand for
will my insurance cover premarital counseling

chills

2009-06-21T17:52:00.003-04:00

feelin mad scared tbh

2009-06-12T23:16:00.002-04:00

would kick it with

2009-05-30T22:54:00.001-04:00

Chile seizes elderly 'drug women'

time out! time out! extinction is forever, maaaaaan

2009-05-16T17:34:00.001-04:00

Lending credence to the idea that shorter songs = better albums:

friends you would like to have

2009-04-25T19:04:00.002-04:00

to be fair, she IS very cute

2009-04-18T23:59:00.005-04:00

shirt idea

2009-04-17T18:08:00.004-04:00

shirt idea

2009-04-13T21:16:00.005-04:00

Would thank it to be less crooked, though.

We're An ____________ Band

2009-04-13T01:36:00.010-04:00

Just thinking: What must it be like to be in a band like Yo La Tengo -- a band that never got big and that the mainstream would still view as an "up and coming" or even unsuccessful band -- and know that your "legacy" or what you'll be remembered for is basically already built? Like, you're headlining the Pitchfork Music Festival, but you'd be in only medium-sized or smaller print on (say) the Bonnaroo poster -- under Beastie Boys, way under Metallica -- you're not a household name, you're not famous . Knowing that, but also knowing that you have fans that love you, and that there are many people who have your albums -- these little albums that you've made over time, every one on a budget -- as their favorite albums? You've created these things, these texts, your classics, and there you are.

What does that feel like? Seems like it would be similar to being in a big local band. To a subset of people you are an obvious, known name, but a vast majority of people have no clue about you. You could have changed (could have moved to a bigger city or worked harder vs. could have appealed more consciously to a mainstream audience, sold out, signed to a major, whatever), but you chose not to because it's either enough for you or the alternative is undesirable. It's like being a local band, local to the world.

Us2 - No Line on the Horizon Preinterpreted

2009-02-28T17:36:00.004-05:00

Download it here. "This is not a fake U2 album, it's just a not-U2-covers album inspired by U2 song titles, with varying degrees of whimsy."

01 No Line on the Horizon
02 Magnificent
03 Moment of Surrender
04 Unknown Caller
05 I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
06 Get on Your Boots
07 Stand Up Comedy
08 Fez - Being Born
09 White as Snow
10 Breathe
11 Cedars of Lebanon

it's valentine's day + i'm catatonic iirc

2009-02-14T21:29:00.004-05:00

I love you, the internet, you are my valentine for all time. And the shit kids draw is completely over the top.

<4

might as well say "afaik"

2009-02-08T20:50:00.008-05:00

A friend and I ran across this very groundbreaking monument today during a stroll through scenic World's Fair Park in Knoxville, TN:

TRUTHBOMB

superheroes

2009-02-01T22:57:00.003-05:00

These images confer a delicate thrill on my heart. See here, but the pictures are all I really care about.

I'M YOUR SOURCE CODE OF SELF-DESTRUCTION

2009-02-01T20:51:00.009-05:00

So, there is this young gentleman named ZS who:
-Has a blog called Barry Lutz.
-Links to here, because here links to there.
-Made an animated .gif of me and set it to a MIDI of "MASTER OF PUPPETS." (!)
-Makes variously unsettling, absurd, hilarious and beautiful net art out of found images, midis and brief billets-doux.
-Looks like Michael Cera.
-Describes his work thusly: "multiple .gif dramedy tales of mischief and betrayal."
-Built a miniature Acropolis out of gingerbread, if I recall correctly?

Here are a couple of my favorite ZS masterworks:

You should look at all of his stuff, though. He's pretty brilliant.

I had a very metal brunch this afternoon.

2009-02-01T00:06:00.009-05:00

a rare pitchfork appresh

2009-01-24T18:46:00.006-05:00

Even famous pfork haters have to brake and celebrate this, the greatest headline + byline + photo combo of the young year:

I died.

INDIE TEENS IN "HAVING NO SENSE OF HUMOR" SHOCKER aka animal coLOLctive: what happened?

2009-01-04T07:10:00.051-05:00

How do you get your blog 12,000 hits, a cease-and-desist order and a mention in Baltimore City Paper? Answer: post a stupid rickroll. In my case, I put up a link (that I thought would successfully fool one, maybe two of my friends) which ended up turning the ol' Animal Collection on its collective [;)] ear. Oops! So here's a blow-by-blow account of what happened.

DECEMBER 5TH

A pal of mine concocts an 11-song rickroll, strangely very close in length to the soon-to-be-released, aspie-anticipated Animal Collective album Merriweather Post Pavilion. He uploads it and posts a link on ILXOR.com reading "this will probably get my friend at Domino fired.... but Merry Xmas ILM!!!!" All the corny indies on ILX download it (and being sports, they go along with the prank until everyone else on ILX is also fooled, posting things like "Somehow this seems even more 'experimental' than something like Here Comes The Indian, yet definitely rooted in pop...wow." It takes moxie to be that cool after downloading "Never Gonna Give You Up" eleven times and expecting it to be some bullshit indie album you're champing at the bit to hear. But, you know, some people have moxie).

Anyway: all I do is upload my friend's ingenious roll to this blog on December 5th and forget all about it (my exact thought: "Probably only Nick will even read this, but maybe I can get Bain to fall for it, too." An hour later, I receive an ominous text reading "Do you realize what you've done?!" Turns out Celebrator is the top GoogleBlog result for "animal collective leak" and has seen 600 unique hits within the hour (and on a Friday night). O_O

When I log into my account, I find that the "comments pending" box is filled with messages showcasing some seriously murky bile (Sadly, I deleted this initial flow of negative comments and allowed only the positive, prank-enabling ones through. Later, I began saving the negative comments to be posted after the initial hooplah died down). The Animal Collection then follows me to my personal email address, which is soon filled with similarly butthurt messages and spam (admittedly, they did sign me up for one reasonably hilarious item: a Menopause Digest). One outraged fan sends an epic indictment calling down a plague of frogs on my dwelling, and another expresses a desire to see my entire family in receipt of cancerous tumors on Christmas Day as a result of my rickrolling escapades. One little scholar expresses a hope that I am "rapped by a gay slob." I realize (for the first time that week) that Animal Collective fans are mostly retarded idiots (my favorite of these idiots, for sentimental reasons, comes to be Michael Chornomaz, pictured above in email form).

DECEMBER 6TH - ENTER THE WEB SHERIFF

Things continue like this^ for a day, and my blog hits steadily rise. Sitemeter informs me that people are linking to the blog from all over the world and that tons of forums and other blogs are all perpetuating the joke.

I receive a stupid email from someone rather delusionally referring to himself as "The Web Sheriff" and claiming to be sent by Domino Records, imploring me to remove my "links." I neither reply nor remove the (single) link. Email herewith (premier idiocy in bold):

Hi ‘EmilySue’,

(We hope you’re well and, on behalf of Domino Records and Animal Collective, we would kindly ask you not to post supposed links to copies of "Merriweather Post Pavillion" on your blog (or any tracks from the artist’s new album – street date 20th January). We do appreciate that you are a fan of / are promoting Animal Collective, but the label and artist would greatly appreciate your co-operation in removing your links to the files in question which are now dead in any event). Thank you for respecting the artist's and label’s wishes … .. and, for info on “Merriweather Post Pavillion” and the band’s 2008/09 shows, check-out www.myspace.com/animalcollectivetheband and www.myanimalhome.net … .. you can also view Animal Collective videos at www.youtube.com/dominorecords and, for details of preview material and pre-release promotions, keep an eye on these official sources. As you will appreciate, this e-mail is written on a without prejudice basis and, as such, all of our clients' accumulated, worldwide rights and remedies remain strictly reserved : please excuse this required formality.

With Thanks & Regards,

WEB SHERIFF

Simultaneously, the Animal Collectors begin attempting to hardman FreakyTrigger into firing me (I have never written for Freaky Trigger, and to my knowledge they don't pay) and harrassing a blog I posted on years ago (that has been abandoned for 3 years).

DECEMBER 7TH

I receive my favorite of all hatemails: "I hope for your slow death. Your family can have cancer now. Remove the link you stupid assfuck." This is soon followed by (from the same genius): "By now you should have died, your family as well. Fuck off for that link. Wish you die later this day."

Later, Laurence Bell or someone claiming to be him begins commenting on the blog itself, demanding like a spoiled Baby Huey that I remove the "links," and his comments are c+ped to my personal email from laurencebell@dominorecordco.us. He gives me a deadline of 5:00pm to remove the supposed "links." "Laurencebell@dominorecordco.us" emails me a notice that he is filing a cease and desist order, and I laugh heartily, realizing that if he ever downloads the fucking link to see what it really is, Rick Astley could potentially sue him. Anyway, knowing Bell has no legal leg to stand on, I leave the "links" up and tell Laurence that he is simply forcing me to behave more and more like the Joker as portrayed by Heath Ledger in 2008's critically acclaimed "The Dark Knight."

[SIDENOTES TO LAURENCE:
1. WHO DIED AND MADE YOU THE BOSS OF "SUPPOSED LINKS"? ELLIOTT SMITH?!
2. THE ONLY PEOPLE BOTHERED BY THIS PRANK WERE PEOPLE WHO ATTEMPTED TO STEAL YOUR SHIT. YOU'RE WELCOME, DUDE.
3. WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT THE STATE OF THE RECORD INDUSTRY THAT THE PRESIDENT OF A RECORD COMPANY IS SITTING AROUND COMMENTING ON BLOGS ALL DAY]

Oh, and I received a string of prank calls from a handful of especially cheeky Animal Pals on this evening. I was confused about this for a long time, but I realized much later that I had been an idiot and left my (phone-number-inclusive) signature in an email reponse to a hater.

AND LATER

On December 15th, ILX, Celebrator and this charming rickroll were written about in a Baltimore City Paper article with the awesome title "Animal Collective Fans Open Wide, Swallow A Rickroll." As late as December 26th, people were still unwittingly downloading Rick Astley from here, and I am still, in 2009, receiving the occasional hatemail from your average perverse indie child.

To the fans of Animal Collective, I have only this to say: Goodbye, and thanks for all the memories. Getting pissed off that your illegal download of your favorite band's album (that they don't want you to hear yet) was thwarted by a prank is one thing...getting death threat pissed off about it is another thing...and both are fucking retarded things, but I'd still like to thank you all for making Celebrator a marshmallow wonderland of lols (and my AdSense account that much more successful). Maybe someday you can check out some music that will make you less angry. In fact, I have a recommendation right here.
LYLAS and have an unfuckwithable 2009,
roxymuzak

Recommended reading:
ILM thread basically liveblogging the rickrolling developments
Laurence Bell of Domino Records FAQ
I just got RickRolled in the WORST WAY!!!!
And, of course, the comments section of the original blog.

****************UPDATE: 2/25/09
Michael Chornomaz wrote a very sweet apology to me. He seems like a nice kid who somehow got mixed up in a rabid Animal Collective frenzy, and I totally forgive him for using the power of the webernet to call me a "fucking asshole." If you are a potential employer of Michael Chornomaz who happened onto this blog by accident, you got a keeper in this kid, I think.

Little Taylor Saporito of "cock-gobbling bitch" (relative) fame, however, appears to be one entitled little douchebomb who can't GTFOver himself. He mailed me several lengthy tomes, each requesting that I remove his name from this blog and indicting me for "making it personal." Sorry T, but you made your dormroom IKEA bed, and I'd thank you to now lie in it (in a paisley bowtie).

Love y'all.
Rox

"Will you win?"

2008-12-13T21:40:00.004-05:00

Welcome to fruit mystery, the best game on the internet.

Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009) - LEAK (REUPPED)!

2008-12-05T18:50:00.007-05:00

Leaked via ILM:

http://link-protector.com/673613/

"In the Flowers" – 5:22
"My Girls" – 5:41
"Also Frightened" – 5:14
"Summertime Clothes" – 4:30
"Daily Routine" – 5:46
"Bluish" – 5:14
"Guys Eyes" – 4:31
"Taste" – 3:53
"Lion in a Coma" – 4:12
"No More Runnin" – 4:23
"Brothersport" – 5:59

Who is "thepandamystery"?

2008-11-28T22:04:00.003-05:00

All hail the greatest and most Sbarro-obsessed aimbot ever:

thepandamystery: Would you like the grilled stuft burrito.
me: I'd like a taco, to be honest.
thepandamystery: I want a sbarro nut basket. I want a taco.
me: What is a Sbarro nut basket?!
thepandamystery: Sbarro is a nut, But it's also the name of a clown in the basket.
me: Ok, so there is also a clown IN the nut basket?
thepandamystery: Son of a clown in the basket.

Best News Headline in Months

2008-11-23T22:30:00.006-05:00

Mystery Piano In Woods Perplexes Police

Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in tune.

Arcturus

2008-11-13T20:57:00.016-05:00

friend: I went to the ATL aquarium yesterday and saw a whale sharks and beluga whales. There was a giant manta ray that I envisioned riding with Amon Amarth playing in the background.
me: Lol at picturing you looking at it with that in your head
friend: I mean, does viking metal and aquatic life go together even?
because they should
friend: there's Mastodon's Leviathan, which I actually enjoy because of the sea theme lol
me: see: arcturus
friend: oh yeah
me: they are probably the single most confused band ive ever seen. ok, a "true norwegian black metal" band who dress in circus outfits, ok, but also have a pirate theme and yet sing about space travel.
me: featuring hellhammer on skins.
friend: O_o, for real
me: that is the face i made, yes. they are also terrible
friend: I've never listened to them.
but i can imagine it being
confused
me: theyre seriously godawful, and i like a lot of crap
lol
speaking from the heart^
friend: I know exactly what you mean. I'm going to listen to them
wait
?

me: ok yes lets bring a revolutionary war motif into the mix
friend: lol
me: that wont confuse anything
god fuck these guys
friend: "why not?"
me: also, is that a crystal ball?
friend: goddamn
me: "we love to dress up! whatever the style"
friend: "Photo shoot?! hell yeah! Knut, do you still own those adult size squirrel outfits?!"
"I burned them"
"Fuck it, we'll go revolutionary"
me: hahahaha hellhammer: "can i hold this crystal ball?" steinar: "like im gonna stop you!!!" *all hug*
friend: holy shit
me: oh to tour the arcturus costume shop

friend: "the belly pooch works"

me: arcturus tour '09?

friend: Oslo tour:

me: steinar greets fans:

friend: lol
me: Categories: Heavy metal musical groups | Avant-garde metal musical groups | Norwegian heavy metal musical groups | Symphonic metal musical groups | Norwegian black metal musical groups | Musical groups established in 1987 | Symphonic black metal musical groups | Supergroups
me: Formed from a mold of popular rock and roll in the costume of black metal, Arcturus anchor their music with cruising beats and "inspirational"/"emotional" pulsing keyboards backed by acoustic guitars.
friend: huge smiles
me: "inspirational"
friend: cruising beats
friend: actual lol
me: omg a song called "3. Whence & Whither Goest The Wind (5:15)"
that is the kinda shit im talking about
fuck this band
friend: I'm in agreeance.
me: hellhammer <3 you, hate your current hair, politics and band
sorry
omg, one more thing: this is like the 5th image search result for "arcturus costume"

friend: HOLY L O L
GOOGLE IS OTM

Invisible Oranges is like "Enough Metallica Shit"

2008-09-14T12:27:00.004-04:00

I'm posting this a little late, but I'd like to give a shout-out to Invisible Oranges (Head over there immediately 1. because it is the world's most consistent metal blog, and 2. to say happy 2nd birthday) for posting this entry deriding the press for inundating us with inane Metallica news in the runup to the release of Death Magnetic.

I love the 80s.

2008-09-12T11:31:00.013-04:00

Thanks to Rhino, Americans are gonna get 2-disc remastered reissues of the first five New Order albums this November 11th. Technique bonus disc looks awesome. <3.

Full tracklistings below --

Movement:

01 Dreams Never End
02 Truth
03 Senses
04 Chosen Time
05 I.C.B.
06 The Him
07 Doubts Even Here
08 Denial

Movement bonus disc:

01 Ceremony (12" Version)
02 Temptation (12" Version)
03 In a Lonely Place (7" Version)
04 Everything's Gone Green (12" Version)
05 Procession (7" Version)
06 Cries and Whispers
07 Hurt (12" Version)
08 Mesh (12" Version)
09 Ceremony (Alternate Version)
10 Temptation (Alternate 12" Version)

Power, Corruption & Lies:

01 Age of Consent
02 We All Stand
03 The Village
04 5 8 6
05 Your Silent Face
06 Ultraviolence
07 Ecstasy
08 Leave Me Alone

Power, Corruption & Lies bonus disc:

01 Blue Monday (12" Version)
02 The Beach (12" Version)
03 Confusion (12" Version)
04 Thieves Like Us (12" Version)
05 Lonesome Tonight (12" Version)
06 Murder (12" Version)
07 Thieves Like Us (Instrumental)
08 Confusion (Instrumental)

Low-Life:

01 Love Vigilantes
02 The Perfect Kiss
03 This Time of Night
04 Sunrise
05 Elegia
06 Sooner Than You Think
07 Sub-Culture
08 Face Up

Low-Life bonus disc:

01 The Perfect Kiss (12" Version)
02 Sub-Culture (12" Version)
03 Shellshock (John Robie Remix) (12" Version)
04 Shame of the Nation
05 Elegia
06 Let's Go
07 Salvation Theme
08 Dub Vulture

Brotherhood:

01 Paradise
02 Weirdo
03 As It Is When It Was
04 Broken Promise
05 Way of Life
06 Bizarre Love Triangle
07 All Day Long
08 Angel Dust
09 Every Little Counts
10 State of the Nation

Brotherhood bonus disc:

01 Bizarre Love Triangle (12" Version)
02 1963 (12" Version)
03 True Faith (Shep Pettibone Remix) (12" Version)
04 Touched by the Hand of God (12" Version)
05 Blue Monday '88
06 Evil Dust
07 True Faith - True Dub
08 Beach Buggy

Technique:

01 Fine Time
02 All the Way
03 Love Less
04 Round & Round
05 Guilty Partner
06 Run
07 Mr. Disco
08 Vanishing Point
09 Dream Attack

Technique bonus disc:

01 Don't Do It (12" Version)
02 Fine Line (12" Version)
03 Round & Round (12" Version)
04 Best & Marsh (12" Version)
05 Run 2 (12" Version)
06 MTO
07 Fine Time (Silk Mix)
08 Vanishing Point (Instrumental) (12" Version)
09 World in Motion (Cabinieri Mix) (12" Version)

Not actually fame, but (otm) praise

2008-09-03T17:36:00.006-04:00

names changed to protect the innocent

bobloblaw: Roxy is upset because King Diamond joined Metallica onstage and she missed it
roxymuzak: like hell i missed it
roxymuzak: i was in the first row
crangarson: emily is my hero
crangarson: pwning ppl L and R
roxymuzak: haw
simolean: pwning everything
saucerpilot1947: i misread that as "roxy joined king diamond and metallica on stage and we missed it"
simolean: that's probably closer to the truth
bobloblaw: roxy is the most metal poster on ILM. Even more so than Statler & Waldorf (chuck n george)
simolean: more so than Janne Karlsson?
crangarson: those guys lost their metal bonafides when they started posting more about miley cyrus than metal

PTJ: Ok, were P-fork paid off to write this?

2008-09-03T02:00:00.007-04:00

This "review" of "Metallica"'s new "song" and video is tremendously o_O. Hey Mark Richardson: ever heard any 80s metal?

You may lol at the video right here:

The Streets: Everything is Borrowed

2008-09-01T14:38:00.011-04:00

Skinner's new joint:

"Everything is Borrowed"

I'm amazed that he's written a song that has a chorus. Not only that: a song with a chorus as its highlight. From Skinner's MySpace blog: "WWOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. THE 2.5 YEAR MARATHON IS OVER!!! ALBUM 4 BABY! EVERYTHING IS BORROWED. REAL BIG UP IN THIS PIECE. AAAAIIIIII."

PTJ: Tricky in Wire

2008-08-31T12:40:00.012-04:00

Wrote this en rapide: Mark Fisher conducted a great, great interview in the current issue of Wire (preview: Tricky believes he has two souls and that one is his mother's, this is why he typically channels his words through female voices [!]). Thanks to the internet and thewire.co.uk, you can read the unedited version right here, which will be a treat for some (myself included), though I still encourage you to read the printed, edited version. (Note: I don't know Mark Fisher, and the last Tricky album I liked was Pre-Millenium Tension.)

I Am Really Famous

2008-01-25T15:25:00.003-05:00

There is this great metal blog called Invisible Oranges (named after the open-handed gesture metal dudes sometimes make [I always called this "doom fingers"]) and today they posted something stupid from my blog about Carcass, so I am extremely, impossibly famous.

Now We Are Sixteen #1: Poll Position

2007-12-11T06:59:00.001-05:00

As the first installment in what is to become a regular series, what follows is a selection from the zine I wrote between ages sixteen and eighteen.

But first, some hawstory:

In 1996 I met Tommy who quickly became (and who remains) one of the most important humans in my life. He secured this position by giving me 1. my first bass guitar and 2. my first (only?!) bass guitar lesson. After forming a band, we started writing a zine together (mostly interviews and record reviews) called Only One Tongue. Each of the 5 issues was completely created over the span of a day spent entirely at Kinko's, typing (on a typewriter!), cutting (with scissors!) and pasting (with Kinko's brand glue stick!). It was a good, creatively rich time in our lives; all our friends were writing and forming bands. It was a state of affairs that it is easy to feel romantic about and swept along by.

However, I'm definitely not posting this to act nostalgic or to hagiograph Ye Olde Halcyon Tymes. All of our bands and zines S-U-C-K-E-D with very few and very rare bright spots. The writing was abysmal (shocker)! I have all the master copies of O1T in my file cabinet and about once yearly I look through them, and of course each year heralds cringing more intensely gnarly than the last's. [A brief rundown of Only One Tongue "high points": I interviewed a lot of bands that are now mostly embarassing, including Bright Eyes. We had our cover printed in Maximum Rock and Roll, twice (at the time, this was the only magazine in the world that I read. To our credit, the zine always looked pretty nice, so it's not shocking that they chose to print our covers considering what most zines look like, i.e. Liquid Paper-soaked turds). And finally: Alison Mosshart wrote a column for us. You: "who?!" Well, she is now the strung out and embarassing junkie-chic singer/chunks-blower in the Kills, but back in '96 she fronted a band called Discount (that we worshipped), drew awesome pictures and was sweet and wonderful. Funnily enough, the things we did that we thought were great at the time (like some of the above) rank among the very worst, and the silly, childish things we did when we were just screwing around (like, say, Chapstick Reviews or interviewing Kinko's employees) survive as the only true caches of gold in the mire. C'est la vie.] I talked to Tommy about this recently, and he said pretty much the perfect thing, which was: "At least we were doing something." True, and none of this naysaying is to say I regret any of it.

Anyway. So why am I posting this? Not to poke fun at myself or our lives back then. Not to say "oh, how did I manage to emerge butterfly-like from such a monstrous coccoon?" because ew. Just basically to say "lol" and "wtf" at life, I guess. There is a (wise)crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

So, here is a reader's poll that we published in issue one (the results were in issue two, natch). I am not going to comment on all the individual stupid shit, because that is cheating (by the way, I am totally easing into this by posting the LEAST embarassing thing in the entire history of the zine, believe it or not. There is way, way worse to come).

Age:

Sex:

Are you straight-edge?

Do you think that straight-edge should incorporate veganism? Why or Why not?

Are you in a band?

Have you ever put out a zine? Glue or tape?

Fave band of all time?

Fave Rugrat?

Fave zine of all time?

Have you seen the movie Half-Cocked?

How long have you been involved in the punk scene?

Fave Care Bear?

What's your favorite stereotype?

Fave emo-core band?

Fave metal band?

Fave straightedge band?

Fave pop punk band?

Fave indie band?

Fave mainstream band (or funniest)?

Do you hate it when people say fave and not favorite?

Ice or Hammer?

Is there a Kinko's near you? Do you go to it?

Do you love your parents?

Do you read Maximum Rock and Roll? HeartAttack? Flipside? Fizz?

Do you like being in love?

Have you ever watched Twin Peaks?

Do you talk on the phone?

Fave puppet from Mr. Rogers (excluding Mr. Rogers)?

Are you into radical politics?

How many times in your life have you said "Cowabunga"?

Have you ever said "dude" to where it sounds intelligent?

Favorite video game?

Fave Ramone?

Fave Beatle?

Fave book?

If someone paid you to cut your hair into a mullet, would you do it?

[Ok, this is me being 27 again. That was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, especially typing the word "emo-core." Next, a sampling of poll results with a tiny smattering of present-day commentary in brackets. Also, I still have all of the individual polls that were filled out and turned in. If I feel rude enough, maybe I will post some of them, too. A lot of gold there.]

Are you straightedge?

22.7% said yes. [christ]

Do you think that straightedge should incorporate veganism? Why or why not?

Selected answers: "Meat has a bunch of chemicals and hormones that aren't good for you." "Meat is not a drug." [astute] "Straight-edge means drug-free, not meat-free." "I think that the separation of these two movements will ensure their longevity."

Are you in a band?

86% said yes. [salad days, 4 real]

Glue or tape?

One answer: "You can't huff tape."

Are you married?

No - 100%

Favorite band of all time:

The Beatles - 14%

Other answers: [this is amazing] Crass, nomeansno, Heavenly, Culture Club, Genesis, Jawbreaker, Heart, Nine Inch Nails, the grubbies, Black Dog, Emmet Otter's Jug Band, the Clash, Dinosaur Jr., Jesus Jones, the Electric Shoes, and Polvo.

Fave movie:

Star Wars and That Thing You Do!: tied at 9% [!]

Do you hate it when people say fave and not favorite?

Yes - 45%

No - 22%

"Never really people use that term": 4% [note: I understand none of this math]

Are you into radical politics?

No - 54%

Yes - 27%

politics are rad - 9%

cool - 4%

gnarly, dude - 4%

Favorite video game?

Selected answers: "Wiz and Liz", "anything but Wiz and Liz"

Fave Ramone:

Dee Dee - 18%

Joey - 18%

None - 13%

Hate all - 9%

Alan - 4%

Brak - 4%

Zorak - 4%

"the long-haired one" - 4%

Fave book?

[brace yourselves]

The Catcher in the Rye - 9%

The Bible - 9%

People who explicitly answered "none" - 9%

That's mostly it. And I'm sure you'll be happy to know that Tommy swept the coveted "Fave rugrat" category.

Tenderhooks Tour Diary #3

2007-10-09T14:22:00.002-04:00

When last you saw us, we were falling asleep at the Wading Girl's house in Roanoke.

We wake up to hustle and bustle and the sound of our own song blaring from a laptop.

Day 15

5/28/07

to Chapel Hill, NC

The Wading Grill is preparing a feast of mammoth proportion and coffee is flowing like the Congo. We watch more of the Cash doc (and marvel at Dylan's weird voice during this period), shower/shine, play some more cornhole (demonstration video starring Matt and Ben here), and eat grilled meats with Wading Girls and their families and friends until 5:00pm (without doubt the longest amount of time we have spent with any band). It is sunny and beautiful outside, and the camaraderie is gratifying. We do not want to leave. None of us mentions the inevitability of a downswing from this apex.

Anyway, it appears as soon as we pull onto the interstate. Ben realizes he has lost his phone, and we turn around and blindly navigate back to the Wading House. When we pull up to the house again, they are all still outside, drinking and engaging in horseplay, as we left them, and when they turn to look at us confusedly, it is as if the needle has slid off the record. Phone again in hand, Ben emerges from the house and we drive away, waving, a second (less enthusiastic) time.

We become lost, a bit, while listening to David Thomas's Variations on a Theme (Matt declares that he found one of the songs to not be annoying), discussing last night's show and how great it was, and driving the opposite way back to the Tri-Cities, where we already were the day before the Roanoke detour. We arrive in Chapel Hill and attempt to find the Cave. It has a "1/2" address and is underground, so you can imagine how it jumps out at one. Cliffs Notes to the Cave: like a divey version of the World Grotto, sells Utz chips at the bar, great jukebox, live feeds from the webcam, bossy posters everywhere:

We meet the band we are playing with, Beloved Binge, who are a cordial and cool couple named Rob and Eleni, and peep their wares. It soon becomes clear that they are very into veganism and animal rights, though they are not obnoxious or preachy about it. We rock, and there is a minor flap over our cover song ("Tears of a Clown"), the moral of which incident is "'Tis better to beg forgiveness than ask permission." Beloved Binge play and sound like a more DIY and playful X. In the back room I meet a Sean who tells me some local dirt: Apparently Mac of Superchunk Is BFF with the singer of Seven Mary Three. Confirm/Deny?

^the Binge

Rob and Eleni help us load out, and we follow them to their digs in Durham. The boys sleep in the living room, and I fall asleep reading Experience in a room painted in a pointillist tropical storm.

Day 16

5/29/07

to Raleigh, NC

"Noise rock is becoming passe, so I'm going to be Islam." -Ben

We wake up and Rob cooks us a delectable vegan scramble while Matt grumps around outside on the phone. When Rob realizes he has forgotten Matt's existence, he hurriedly scrambles to scramble more tofu, and (in the process of explaining his snafu) calls the rogue drummer a keyboardist. We lol at this (we have since gone back and played with the Binge again, and Rob called Matt our keyboardist that time, too). I love Rob and Eleni's house, and take 1,000 pictures before we go. Ben: "I'm not even going to think about asking them where a Starbucks is." None of us is really keen to do so, so we say goodbye to the Binge and their sweet dog and cat, and pile back into the Green Destiny.

We are heading to a hotel room in Richmond (this fully explains our early departure from Chapel Hill, by the way). When we check in, Matt and Jake immediately and somewhat uncharacteristically set about pumping iron in the hotel gym, and Ben (equally) immediately heads back to Durham and the Binge house where he has left his bag.

I luxuriate in the bath (second bath in as many days! King me!) and read. There is some issue with public address systems and the Pour House, and Ben advises me, from the Binge house, to call and cancel our show, which I do.

To cut a long story short, we stay in and get wasted via a drinking game of our own invention, wherein one chugs Australian wine for any of the following words said on a rerun of Law and Order: How, Now, Brown, Cow, Juice, Juicy, Semen, or Penis. Ben soon amends this to "Let's just do it any time there's a question." I vomit wine and we all pass out.

Day 17

5/30/07

to Charlotte, NC

"It was really dull recording Give 'Em Enough Rope. They opened a McDonald's down the street, I had the first milkshake, and that's all I remember about that time." -Paul Simonon

We wake up hating it (shocker) and book it to Denny's, where Matt has never dined. While chowing, we are in receipt of a phone call from our label dude, Eric, informing us that we are number 15th on a CMJ most-added chart (or something). I get afraid for a moment that we will become very famous immediately, but these fears are soon swept aside as I realize that we are eating Rooty Tooty Fresh-n-Fruities on an interstate exit. We drive to Charlotte, blabbing and listening to the second half of Sandinista!.

Once there, Ben, Matt and I go to the Smelly Cat Café and merge onto the information superhighway while Jake is out doing God knows what (probably changing his guitar strings). We come around to discussing our varying abilities to picture Jake singing a duet with Beyonce, somehow.

At some point during all this I am shat on by a bird. After a few hours of this type of thing, Jake rejoins us and we go to Cabo Fish Taco for killer burritos before checking out our venue for the night (The Evening Muse).

It's a nice place, and everyone seems to be talking about how great it sounds. Chris Gervais is nice and plays before us by himself and with a violinist, covering a Rancid song (and prefacing it with "going all the way back to freshman year here") and treating us to the best cover of "Can't Hardly Wait" we've encountered thus far on tour. We set up and play our best show of the tour in what is clearly the best-sounding room of the tour. I look out and see a cache of cool-looking probably pre-teenaged kids, and am actually a little intimidated by their obvious leader (odd-but-awesome-looking be-dreaded kid with writing all over his shirt) who is staring concentratedly at us with a tightly clamped frown. At the end of the song he unexpectedly releases a loud yelp of approval, his hangers-on clap excitedly, and I am proud (there is a good response from the grown-ups, too, as if they matter as much). A guy with a shaved head gives me his card, takes me by the shoulders and talks to me from an inch in front of my face: "Promise me, no matter what, that you will never, ever, ever give up, no matter what." I promise, and promptly lose the card.

Public Radio play and are very, very into what they are doing, to a cultish degree. It becomes clear that they are into Jesus when the singer complains to Jake, in normal conversation, that having a girl in your band sure is a real hassle when sleeping arrangements come up (ARE YOU EVEN SERIOUS). As we load out we scramble to find a place to stay, and a very small, emo/metal-looking guy comes correct. I give him a notepad and ask him to write down directions to his house while we finish packing the van. Six or seven people compliment my playing only (and I mean both my playing/not my singing AND my playing/no one else's), and my head grows to the size of Jake or Matt's. When we are done, I return to Mike and check out the directions. He has written the following down:

"North Davidson."

I press him on this issue. He acquiesces. I talk to some more peeps and return to him about fifteen minutes later.

"North Davidson."

Is he crazy? Illiterate? New in town? "Can we just follow you to your house?", I ask. He responds in the affirmative, and we go. When we park, he expresses surprise that we are touring in a minivan, and then immediately proceeds to complain, douchebaggily, that his band was recently downgraded from buses to "unchauffered RVs" on their recent tour. What the fuck are we supposed to say at this point? "Bummer"? Cut to a shot of all four of us holding our pillows by the corners in jaw-dropped silence as he jingles his keys in the lock.

Apartment rundown: Spartan décor. 3 bikes in various stages of repair, magazines called Bike World and Biker Monthly. Floor strewn with concert videos of bands called stuff like Mourning in Autumn (for instance). A bathroom with (not exaggerating) more skin products than I have ever seen in one place in my life. Jake is somewhere, I know not where, and our guy regales us with delusion-tinged stories of being in a band, touring, agents and managers. At one point he asks us "Have you heard of (x band)?" After we reply "no," he says something like "All musicians know them, because." Oh, really? I keep glancing at Ben who I can tell is in as much pain as I am, and Matt just goes ahead and lays down and begins sleeping during the guy's lecture. +1 for Matt, because the dude continues his brainlessness for over an hour, maintaining a complete lack of reason, sensitivity, and humour throughout, even making a diversion into the completely appropriate land of "female band members" and the problems therewith. He asks me some hyperpersonal (not to mention retarded) question about my (nonexistent) BF and the implications of this for my band, and I honestly just laugh in his face. He finally goes to bed. Ben and I indulge in an extravagant eye-rolling session before joining Matt in the world of slumber.

Day 18

5/31/07

to Oxford, MS

He is long gone when we wake up, surely having woken up at five in preparation for a long day of bike-messaging about town and being an idiot. We immediately begin a harried (we have a delicious nine hour drive in our immediate future) Starbucks quest. While downtown, who do we spot zipping by on a bicycle in short shorts but our gracious host? We point and laugh as a family before traversing the street and entering the busiest Starbucks in America, which also serves BREAKFAST SANDWICHES (insert sound of Link opening a treasure box here).

We begin the trail of tears back to Mississippi and discuss the relative juiciness of our Starbucks sandwiches, which is extremely minimal. I start a bit of a flap with my suggestion that the "sandwiches" fail to even merit use of the Juicy Scale, which I will defend today (I blame the prevailing delusion on the general hunger level, both spiritual and physical, present in the van that morning). In the middle of the long haul, we are pulled over. I nearly die because I know that we still have some Tuscaloosa Surprise in a ziploc under my seat, and selected scenes from Dig! are flashing in my brain, but the cop is only concerned with the legibility of the van's temporary license and lets us go quickly. We have the worst bathroom stop in the history of the world ever, which involves only one bathroom stall between everyone and a huge line of men, women and children freaking out.

In Oxford at last, we explore our venue. Proud Larry's looks to be a nice place, and a survey of the walls reveals that many great peeps have preceded us here (I am particularly pleased and a little surprised that Culture have graced the stage). We are in collegiate surroundings. There is a particularly nice bookstore that we spend a lot of time in, and another, less nice bookstore that employs a cute cat to lure people inside. We eat at a place called the Rib Cage (a cumulative 4 juicies) and then call our friend Katie who lives here (she expresses disgust at the Rib Cage and states that she will be joining us within minutes to prevent any further mistakes of this kind).

(When I was taking the picture on the top left, a guy emerged from a bookshop and looked at Ben and Jake and said, "really?")

(Here's something I somehow haven't mentioned in this blog so far: Jake wanders off really far when he is on the phone, and it is a constant source of amusement to Ben and me.)

Anyway, we set up our stuff and a guy gives us a bucketful of beer.:

We are lead to a secret hideout below the venue where, apparently, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist has just had a birthday party and left his stash of liquor. We begin to consume this.

(lol @ the label on ^that cd, by the way)

Jake, in a wild display of hypocrisy, indicts Matt for being a bridge-burner, referencing the (extremely minor) phone incident with BonBon In Tuscaloosa (stay tuned: this will soon blow up grandly in his face) before we go upstairs and play. We rock, the crowd is receptive, and we receive our first-ever request for "Rocky Top".

I am surprised by some intimidatingly fashionable girls treating me like a celebrity and showering me with praise as I head back downstairs to the VIP hutch. I find two bros (Kyle and…John?) smoking chess on the couch, join them and text Ben "doja alert" (he appears in, no exaggeration, five seconds). I go back upstairs to find Jake suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree on fire. Some highlights:

"This band is the rock equivalent of soy milk. Nourishing yet unexciting. All the nutrients are there, but…" (live and direct from right in front of the stage/the teenaged band playing on it)

"I can't tell what's good and bad anymore. I'm comfortably numb. I feel nothing. I hear nothing."

And later:

(sarcastically) "Uh, yeah, where's the BACARDI at?" (to a guy asking his friend where a party is)

"CLASS?! What a puss patrol!" (to a stranger who has just told another stranger that he has class in the morning)

Taking it to the streets, he puts Matt's bag of pistachios under the control of a very strange French girl and an indie kid (who tells me "don't give up, forever"). Dismissing "antioxidants" as "some sort of indie term", he attempts to sell our cds from his mouth (just as it sounds). I consort with my other bandmates who advise me to keep Jake from attempting to sort out our evening's pay inside, while agreeing that he is providing some serious lols.

I collect Jake and we follow Katie to her home. Ben delivers Jake's comeuppance and Matt expresses disquiet regarding the pistachio dispersal. Katie's house: a boxful of copies of Henry Huggins and a six-toed cat. I sleep on the couch. My last recollection of the evening is Jake singing "Knockin' On Heaven's Door".

Day 19

6/1/07

to Louisville, KY

Bidding adieu to Katie, we pile into the van. There is a silence, and then Matt, clearly still harboring a pistachio grudge, punches Jake in the arm. All seems to be well after this, and we go to a crap Starbucks in a Kroger. Ben rightly protests that his pick of the Clash's debut has not been truly listened to, so we re-listen to the last half, and then have the entire thing again. We go to Cracker Barrel (a brief and not very funny video) where I slaughter Matt at giant checkers, embarrassingly for him. I make a tiny po boy out of fried shrimp, a biscuit, and tabasco sauce and pine for Louisiana and the early days of the tour (4 Juicies, R.S.). It is upon getting back into the van that Matt, having clearly lost it, raises both palms to his face and makes the loudest, longest fart noise ever. Exuberantly. Unashamedly. A silence follows, and then (Ben): "That was…pathetic." Jake and I laugh hysterically, though not unashamedly. This event marks what I consider to be the beginning of the home stretch of the tour.

Many hours pass. Ben and I engage in a heated debate (ending in a draw) over whether or not Johnny Thunders is awesome. We arrive in Louisville and check out the venue, the 3rd Street Dive, which is closed, but appears to be a kind of punk club. We wander around looking for food and end up sadly eating at an Arby's. There is a renaissance of hypothetical questioning during these Louisville walks, as we ask each other things like "Would you rather cut off your own penis and play music you liked or retain your penis and become an auxiliary percussionist in Edie Brickell and New Bohemians?" (In particular, Jake's answer to that one might surprise you), "Would you allow that [indicates some Arby's wallhanging] to be the cover of the next Tenderhooks album if it meant that Brian Eno produced it?", the ever-popular "Would you rather drink a gallon of jizz or a gallon of rotten milk?" and "If you could ensure complete success in every way for your band, but had to projectile vomit with all sexual contact, would you do it?"

Back at 3rd Street, some idiot believes our name is Tenderloins and that there is no such thing as sample clearance (this all comes up as he is jawing to Jake, who is trying to change his guitar strings in peace). My friend Adie, with whom we will be bunking tonight, arrives, and she, Ben and Matt basically hold a music student meeting while I listen and Jake walks around the bar. The free beer here is not PBR, nor is it Highlife…it is something called Old Style, which amuses me. The first band plays and is bad, for a very long period of time (and have the distinction of being the only band from the tour whose name I have forgotten). We play and rock in spite of quite shitty sound and precious little room. The third band plays and is very poor but for a limited period of time. Ben is losing his mind:

Adie and I drive to her house and the boys follow us in the van. On the way, we pass a little shack called something like The Burger Trailer, which Adie tells me is a Louisville institution. Adie introduces us to her rats, one of whom is named Miss Chuckles, and we beg her to play piano for us, which she does not. The boys sleep in the living room and when I announce that I am sleeping in Adie's room, they beg us not to jaw and giggle all night. My last memory is of the boys jawing and giggling all night.

Day 20

6/2/07

to Chicago, IL

"Chicago smells like it's not sure." -Alan King

In the morning, we wake up, have coffee and cleanse ourselves. Adie leads us to a place called Mama's Music where Jake buys the 700 packs of strings necessary to sustain him through the next two days of touring, and then we bid her farewell and head to the interstate. After days of razzing Matt for having lost 3 pillows on the tour, I realize that I have lost my pillow at Adie's house. The moral of the last few days seems to be a resounding "don't razz Matt." We go to a Waffle House (whose sign reads Waffle Steak, for some reason) and Jake plays "Waffle House Hashbrowns (I Love You)" on the jukebox which includes the nauseating lyric "you know I long for you/you melt in my mouth/pretty golden hashbrowns."

We are in Chi-Town, "ooh, tall buildings", etc. The drive into the place is among the weirdest-looking drives I've ever been on: there are electricity-conducting structures everywhere, and the roads seem crazily shaped. We park (badly). Jake immediately heads to a coffee place to change his strings, and the rest of us go to Restless Records. I lol at the electro section, am convinced that I see Saul Bellow's wife, and leave without purchasing anything. Back out in the street, every third man is Jess Harvell and the air smells of chocolate covered urine.

We collect Jake and begin a pizza quest, ending up at a place called Piece, and the joint is jumpin' like djamn. There is an unexplained picture of Rick Nielson on the wall. Matt and I immediately hit the incredibly overcrowded bar and I order a Dolomite (which comes to me served in a pint glass, itself in a BROWN PAPER BAG [message from the future: Matt is still lolling at this]). According to the menu, Dolomite is "a malt liquor crafted with 25% Illinois corn, fine German hops, and a sense of purpose." This purpose is, I assume, to fuck you up fast and, sure enough, I have only taken 3 sips when I start using non-words like "attacksive" in conversation. Finally at a table, we order a Golden Arm pitcher, which Jake states they will hereafter dub the Golden Capo (and put his picture next to Rick Nielson's).

We go to the venue (The Pontiac Café) and meet Kyle, with whom we are to stay tonight. "I take care of Knoxville because Knoxville took care of me," he intones, and proceeds to treat us like kings for the duration of our stay; free drinks of all kinds, free cigarettes (me), free hilarious stories about R.B. Morris. Kyle is not only our Chicago contact for sleeping arrangements, he is also the Pontiac's bartender and the keyboardist of the other band we are playing with (called Screamtogofaster). There is graffito in the bathroom reading "Fuck religion, cook eggs in the kitchen."

We get plastered (obviously) and rock (tentatively). Screamtogofaster sound like a drunken New Order, and Kyle apologizes to us unnecessarily when they finish. A man and woman DJ for the rest of the night and we drink and lame-dance to stuff like "Lose My Breath" and "Digital Love", and I flip out when the woman plays Catherine Wheel (and then everyone else in the band is like, "…Catherine Wheel?") Kyle displays an amazing ability to drink more than anyone ever and not act retarded (he is drinking here, there, and everywhere tonight, and no one can come up with a real estimate of how much he has consumed). We eat, after much deliberation, at Underdogg, which is within walking distance. Did you know that they put an entire pickle/tomato slice/etc on the hotdogs in this city? Sadly, this is the only known picture of Chicago that night:

We go to Kyle's, and I am amazed that he has a Blur football scarf hanging from his mantle (we bond over this). We pass out quickly, Matt and Ben in the air-conditioned upstairs, and Jake and I on couches in the blistering downstairs. It is the only time on the entire tour that I am jealous about sleeping arrangements.

Day 21

6/3/07

to Marion, IN

"Is the small town a place, truly, of the world, or is it no more than something out of a boy's dreaming?" -William Saroyan

"Dude, that shit is realer than real deal Holyfield." -us

In the morning, we desire Chicago-style pizza, and Kyle leads us to Giordano's, where he regales us with lollable tales of R.B. Morris hatred and Jeremy Bain love. We eat a very huge and very delicious pizza and (does memory serve me correctly, here?) Kyle purchases a pitcher of beer. It is with heavy hearts (and stomachs, har) that we bid adieu to Kyle, because he is awesome.

Our show tonight is in Marion, Indiana, undoubtedly the smallest town we have yet played, and thusly a polar opposite of Chicago. It is also Winstrom-land, full of Jake's ancestors, grandparent-baked toffee cookies, and precious little else. We head to Jake's aunt's house to eat and I instantly regret that I am in a blasphemous t-shirt (Ben later confesses to me that he felt "like a wasteoid" during this, and I know exactly what he means. There is something about meeting a friend's older family members that can make you feel suddenly insecure about everything).

We go to our venue, which is a coffee shop/bar called Beatnik's. My enduring remembrance of the place is that it is awesome because they have an autographed and framed photo of Maynard G. Krebs on the wall.

What seems like Jake's entire family tree shows up and we all drink Guinesses. Ben and I talk to a child outside (he states that he is in sixth grade!) in a HIM shirt who says funny things like, "It's an ok place to live because if you get in trouble you can just lay down in the corn and no one will be able to find you." He says that he likes Steely Dan, who we actually listened to on the way here, and that "pretty much the only good band with a girl is Evanescence." "There's a lot more than that, dude," Ben lollingly replies. I recommend Arch Enemy to him (and immediately pray that he looks them up and fully embraces darkness). A homeless-ish guy "witnesses" to Matt and me, asking if we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Nope! Sorry, dude.

So we play our last show of the tour, and it is as fun and as hot as hell (overheard from the crowd: "Well, he sure sweats like a Winstrom"). We sell a zillion cds (mostly to Jake's extended family) and autograph them (small town). We drink many beers and field many potentially embarrassing Winstrom stories.

We are done earlier than what is normal, and we go back to Jake's aunt's house. She shows us where we will all be sleeping (she went ahead and designated the best bed for me because we are BFF) and goes to sleep. Jake takes a shower and goes immediately to bed, having spent all his energy expelling fluids during our performance. Matt, Ben and I stay up late eating leftovers and watching episode after episode of a show wherein an old lady takes calls about sexual problems and holds a contest about vibrators (one of them is just a big, weird, vibrating dome -- it loses).

We sleep and would be dreaming of our beds at home, too bad our subconscious minds can no longer recall them.

Day 22

6/4/07

to Knoxville, TN!

We wake up late for breakfast at Jake's grandparents' house, but the extra time does nothing to diminish the meal's unmitigated deliciousness, which is matched only by its abundance (sausage, eggs to order, coffee, homemade jam, toast, homemade cookies…) We eat retarded amounts while Jake's grandpa hilariously trashes hometown hero James Dean ("Made three little movies and nobody saw any of them!") and grandma attempts to guilt Jake into a haircut ("I like Matt's haircut!" Jake: "He's a sellout!").

We depart. We drive in silence for a long time, then listen to the Pogues' Sodomy, Rum and the Lash. When we get into Tennessee, there is a bizarre proliferation of rainbows and one stretches clear across the horizon. As soon as we take the exit into downtown Knoxville, Chris Rusk calls me and says, among other things, "We are going to be doing coke off of so many bitches' asses!" There is indeed no place like home.

Tenderhooks Tour Diary #2

2007-07-25T21:50:00.002-04:00

Day 8
5/21/07
to Lafayette, LA

"There's not a Starbucks anywhere near here." - Man standing in front of a Starbucks

Jake and I, being early birds, dutifully set about catching the worm in a trap forged of deceit and naivete. We whisperingly conspire to essentially steal the van (I silently and boldly free the keys from a slumbering Ben's jeans pocket as Jake cheers me on), travel to a Starbucks (we google up the address of every one in NOLA and commit each brilliantly to memory), and, dipping into our cache of fake Starbucks money, bring delicious breakfast in bed to our comrades: a perfect start to what is surely to be a perfect day. What we don't bank on: a couple hours spent in traffic, asking directions in gas stations, finally finding a Starbucks and making a massive order only to hear "we don't take the card." We return to a confused Matt in the yard who preps us for the cranky Ben we are to find inside. He angrily chides us. Jake apologizes, and I do not, because I am so annoyed at everything this morning that I decide to go ahead and be annoyed at Ben, too. It's a brilliant beginning to the day.
Did I mention my feet have swollen to the size of basketballs, most likely because I slept completely upright? Jake chalks it up to my constant supplement consumption: "The fish oil is clearly draining to your feet." I have been phoneless for days on account of the breakage of my charger in Jackson and the collective refusal of my bandmates to ever stop at a Cingular store. I am on the verge of panic about this (my birthday is tomorrow, and I want my mom to be able to call me) when Jake geniusly spots such a store on the street we are traversing. I calm down, cheer up, and will pretty much stay that way until we go home. We eat at an open-air place called Market Cafe in the French Quarter while a guy plays a terrifying rendition of "Rhapsody in Blue" on a combination casio keyboard/karaoke machine bedecked in American flags (he occasionally toots a trumpet, as well.) Ben eats a weird roast beef po boy (5 Juicies, R.S.) and Jake bizarrely encounters a couple he knows. We ramble around the French Quarter in the blazing heat until we tire of it and must leave.

The venue in Lafayette is called Artmosphere, and it is palatial enough that we remain there until we are to play. I can't stress the degree to which this never happens. It's a kind of bar/cafe/eatery/venue with framed art all over the walls, a big, shady patio, and comfortable couches and chairs everywhere. We relax for hours.

We have the pasta, then Matt declares that he feels "buttery inside." We set up, because we believe we are playing with a solo, acoustic-type fellow, and do the regular dance of debating who is to go ask the bartender what the drink policy is, and eventually discover that we are entitled to two free drinks of any sort. We order drinks whose massiveness is matched only by their ridiculousness and hang out on the patio. Ben comes out and declares, "The other band appears to not be lovin' it." Matt: "Did you tell them we're playing Bonnaroo?"

After some hee-hawing, two guitarist guys play a bluesy rock and roll set, peppered with many covers, including both "Wish You Were Here" AND "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". We play and rock. Jake introduces us as "Gin and Tonic on lead guitar, Mojito on drums....some kind of ice cream thing on bass," and he is OTM: I am currently drinking a chocolate martini given to me by the bartender as a birthday gift, as it is now past midnight, and I am now 27. As we play, two acid-casualty types perform that dance where you mime a ball and then pass it to the other guy who also mimes it and then passes it back. One of them, a smiley chap with long, golden locks styled in what can only be described as a topknot, plays the egg shaker on "Tears of a Clown" with astounding skill and enthusiasm.

After we play we appear to be in a fantasy world. A beautiful guy with an eyepatch on his straw hat tells me we are brilliant and the bartender starts giving me free whiskey shots. Jake finds a golden capo, which seems like it's happening in The Legend of Zelda: Monsters of Ocarina or something. We become acquainted with the topknot (Craig Futch -- more, much more, later) who tells us he knows a cracking house we can sleep in tonight. His friend Chad gives me a beautiful picture of an owl for my birthday, and claims, among other things, that we believe in aging only because we are taught it in school, and that he will never die, because he is clued in on this tip. A crazy old woman with a thick, maybe Romanian accent accosts me and slurrily asks if I'm a writer, and a guy who has been hitting on me for the last two hours screams "you'll regret this for the rest of your life!" as our van screeches away into the night.

I am not expecting much of Craig Futch as he leads us through the suburbs to this mysterious crib. However, we enter the house and our collective jaw drops. My notes about the house state simply "AMAZING" with several underlinings...It is apparently the home of some type of benefactor of Craig's, apparently a musician as one room is a kind of studio, full of guitars, amps, computers with enormous monitors, equipped with all kinds of recording software, etc. The guy probably owns a million cds, no exaggeration. Craig asks Ben if he has ever tried chocolate (ruminate on the supreme bizarreness of that for a moment) and offers him some of his "homemade chocolate" which appears to be powdered hot cocoa mix in a bowl. We roundly decline, though we all dig into his stash of goji berries apparently from the Himalayas (Craig: "Monks eat them.") Craig plays us some tracks he has worked on, including one about his homemade chocolate entitled "Black Crack" that features the line "GIVE ME THE MONEY, BITCH!" He smiles innocently and even a little confusedly as we giggle at his hilarious creations. Matt warns Craig that his phone is "blowing up" and Craig's face goes pale and terrified. "I'd better...un-blow it up, then," he stammers. He is the second illustrious craze-ball we have met on tour, on we love him almost as much as Neil.

Unfortunately, this is the only known picture of Craig Futch.

I sleep in a beautiful waterbed full of ergonomic body pillows at Craig's insistence. "Because it's already your birthday!" are the last words I hear before I drift off.

Day 9
5/22/07
to Tuscaloosa, AL

"It stinks!" -Jon Lovitz, The Critic

I wake up to Ben wishing me a happy birthday, closely followed by Futch prancing into the room. In the master bedroom's private bath I am greeted by a note affixed to the mirror reading something like "We are closer to death with every passing moment". Delightful. Opening a cabinet, I am showered with bottles of prescription pills, and, investigating another, am the recipient of a similar waterfall of pornography. We bid Craig and the beautiful house goodbye, after an embarrassing scenario in which we ask him where the nearest Starbucks is, and the whole song and dance of "I'll make you guys coffee if you want it" and "No, no, see we have these gift cards..." We depart. It is Jake's pick, and he uses it to make me a brilliant birthday mix on his iPod, signaling its arrival with the Beatles "Birthday", and including a bunch of my favorite things. It's very sweet. Then we listen to Ludacris "Word of Mouf," which I pretend is also in my honor.

We are in Tuscaloosa, which I have thought of with a modicum of dread since learning it would the setting of my fete de naissance. It is small and collegiate, and seems to have the only campus I have yet encountered besides UT's that is possessed of a "strip", i.e. one street where everything is. We find Egan's, the bar at which we will be rocking, which is vaguely Pilot Light-ish and clearly closed. We decide to go walking, and in two seconds we are in suburbs, so we walk down the strip in the other direction, and in another two seconds we are again in suburbs. We call Bon, our contact from the other band we are playing with, who are called Abby Go Go (rest assured that of these names, neither Bon nor Abby Go Go has gone without roffling from our camp). Bonnie asks if they can borrow our drums and Matt acts consternated right by the phone, and Bon Bon hears him and is all "Brah, if it's a problem, don't worry about it!", and then we feel bad. Jake chides him. We find that we are not featured in any local press, which almost as big a shocker as the fact that the venue has not hung up our flyer.

We go back to Egan's, which turns out to be a cool bar with a crazy bartender who would probably achieve Neil/Craig status if we spent any time around him. Abby Go Go show up and we learn that Bon has a twin brother named Jon, which for a brief moment is one of the funniest things in the world, ever. They play and it becomes clear that they have been generated by the cosmos as a birthday present for me: Twin stoners in stripey shirts play jangley guiitar through Vox amps and sing reverby harmonies a la Ride, backed by a nine foot tall bassist and a drummer with Legend of Zelda tattoos. Huh?! "You only like them because they are cute! You are all, 'aw, broheemies!'", Jake drunkenly reckons, adding "Is this produced by Daniel Lanois? Turn the reverb down. I said it!" Me: "Someone does need to tell this guy that you can't shoegaze in moccasins." Jake: "Yeah, cause then you're moccasin-gazing, and you don't register on All Music Guide. You're not in a category!" When they finish playing, Bon says "chiz" into the mic, which is forgiveable, even heartwarming, because he is approximately 12 years old. Jake thoughtfully has the bar play Combat Rock while we set up, in honor of my b-day. We rock heartily, and a Jon Lovitz-looking guy amusingly cramps our style the entire time by requesting awful songs and telling Jake in earnest that he sounds like everyone terrible from James Blunt to Chris Martin. Lovitz asks Jake his name mid-set, and he responds that it is Eddie Vedder. Lovitz then shocks everyone by buying $100 worth of cds and forcing us to autograph each of them, which proves difficult because various Go Gos and the crazy bartender have kept me constantly supplied with pitchers of stout beer (I hold a pitcher of beer like a mug, and continue to drink in this fashion for the duration of the evening).

We follow the Go Gos to their house in what seems like the silliest 'round-the-mulberry-bush goose chase of all time ("Follow us to this house, then a Jeep is gonna come out from behind the house, and you follow that 'til the light, then follow the white car that will appear behind you." Not an exaggeration.) They have a suburban home for which they somehow only pay eighty dollars a month. It is spartan in its decor, though there are paintings all over the place (Jon's) -- one, I remember, says "Sandinista!" on it. Jake sleeps in righteous defiance as the rest of us listen to Dead Meadow and JAMC in a thick haze of reef steam. I attempt to school these kids on shoegaze, which they stonedly tolerate. I tell them I'd thank My Bloody Valentine to suck my dick, apparently a controversial point of view in this house (non-shocker). Bon takes a lot of pictures of everything, and then we all go to sleep, Ben complaining about me getting the bed despite my birthday being "long since over."

Day 10
5/23/07
to Murfreesboro, TN

I wake up and take a shower. Jon/Bon, somewhat unsurprisingly, have a cornucopia of fine haircare products, and I abuse all of them, not least of all the ionic hairdryer. Jon wakes up, gives us directions and the remainder of the bag of doja, and asks for the names of the bands I was talking about last night, writing them down in neon orange crayon on a paper towel (cute). There is a kid who looks exactly like Adult Link from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (I know I've mentioned Zelda 700 times in this blog, but he seriously does look just like him) who volunteers to lead us to the interstate. In the sunlight, I see that Jon/Bon's driveway is inscribed with the legend "THE AMERICAN DREAM", and I mean, with a crib in the suburbs for eighty dollars a month, all the reefer you can fill your lungs with, being young, surrounding yourself with people who look like video game characters, and living with your brother in the Taj Mahal of hairstyling, I can't argue with it.

At Starbucks, we spot hovering around the Wilco kiosk what is clearly another band ashamed of being in a Starbucks. I ask one what their name is, and he replies "the Damnwells" before clambering with his Nonfat Orange Mocha of Shame into a U-Haul full of miserable-looking thirty-year-old men in short pants. I stand there with the blazing heat reflecting off the Starbucks pavement and think -- is this it? Has the Ghost of Christmas Future shed his death robes, a military cap instead to don? Is my future, once spread before me like so many poppy fields, to be slammed shut like the sliding metal door of the UHaul, confining me to a 6x6 space crammed with stinking men, beef jerky wrappers, and pounds of drum hardware for all eternity? As the Damnwells pull away, I somehow re-resign myself to the rocking life and climb into the Green Destiny with my team. I use the vanride to meditate on the highpoints of tourmanship: being with B, J and M, seeing the USA, free drinks, Neil, Craig, and po boys.

We get to Anthony's house (a cuz of Jake's), where a lot of college students are grilling meats and listening to jam music, and we each drink a brew and engage in signature relaxation modes (Matt: nap. Ben: crossword. Me: book. Jake: grilled meat). We go to the 'Boro, who do not have a drink policy, and who also do not accept credit cards (i.e. force me to spend entire night completely sober and smokeless), and watch our openers, Reindeer Armies, thrill sorority girls with their cover of "Why Don't We Do It In The Road," which is elaborately nauseating. We play awkwardly, but to a huge crowd (mostly girls, and all piled in a column directly in front of Jake, as if he were a reverse Moses at some kind of Greek Sea. Jake, later: "They're trying to get to Matt, but they have to go through me.") I see my friend Mikey and hug him enthusiastically, and he says my bass confuses him -- "Has Emily gone metal?" In truth, I am using Ben's Silvertone (and I was born metal). While Happy Birthday Amy play (band fronted by opera singer that can't really sing but people are still like "ooh, she sings really loud!"), Ben and I wander around and find a newsstand. While checking to see if there is anything about our show in the local press, we spot a glossy article about not us, but...the Damnwells, who are apparently doing great (I'm unsure whether this is good news in light of my epiphany earlier, or bad. Was that peek inside the UHaul a glimpse of the good life? Horrifying! On the flipside, could this mean that we, too, are doing great, or at least close? I push both possibilities out of my mind.)

We head to Anthony's, where a sole survivor of the party is blasting Phish and drunkenly attempting to dance to it. Ben and I smoke his reefer while he tells us we sound like Blind Melon, putting in a live cd by said band. While attempting to concoct some variety of nacho cheese dip in a juicer, he describes Blind Melon hit "No Rain" as a "rarity", and Ben and I nearly let loose with our suppressed laughter at the whole picture. "I'm sorry, I'm...completely wasted," the drunk guy needlessly explains, and Ben and I tell him it is all right. We all sleep, Ben and Matt on the couch together (not as weird as it sounds), me on a tiny couch that apparently belongs to a dog (payback for bed two nights in a row), and Jake in a mysterious and unknown place upstairs.

Day 11
5/24/07
to Huntsville, AL

We wake up, eat over-mediums, do laundry, drink coffee, and are grateful to do all of these. While shoving vitamin bottles and hair products into an already over-packed suitcase, I do my half of a phone interview while Matt Herron of Louisville types furiously on the other end and interjects questions about Bonnaroo in a gorgeous speaking voice. We head to Huntsville circuitously at first, listening to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (Ben accuses Jake of only liking it because it contains the lyric "smell of coffee, eggs and bacon").

In Huntsville, we follow directions to the Flying Monkey and, pulling into its giant parking lot, become concerned that it is, in fact, a jail. Upon entering, we find that it is a massive art collective/venue/warehouse and load in, which is a big ordeal involving wheeling things in shopping carts up hand-operated elevators and down long corridors. I carry my amp the whole way, but Ben and Jake wheel theirs on skateboards, which makes me feel briefly like The Toughest. We leave and eat at a place called Bandito Burrito that is cheap and ok, then return to the Monkey and look around its record store, which somehow carries every 7" I had in high school, and also records by bands local to us, like Torture Kitty and the Bitter Pills.

We play with bad sound to teenage kids who are very polite. A woman sells root beer for a dollar, and Ben and I each get one and watch Circuit Pop play. They are two tiny, baby kids who play 80s pop on Casios backed by a drummer that asks what beat to play before each song. They sound like Maniac Mansion for NES fronted by a 17-year-old, American Terry Hall, and sing teenage lyrics like "encores always ruin the show" and "hey, what's in your backpack?" One of them rushes to get a Jolly Rancher during a break in a song. Adorable! Even more so when I realize that not one of them was even alive during the 80s!

My sentiments exactly!!! Get it?!?!!

Loading out, Ben messes around on the skateboard designated for amp use, and asks a young couple, "Hey, do you guys call skateboarders 'thrashers'?" "No," one of them replies. "A thrasher is someone who gets in the pit and, like, hardcore dances." We tell them that in our day thrasher meant skater, and they look at us like we are Grandpa. The smallest Circuit Pop is seen outside smoking a cigarette and I have half a mind to smack it out of his 16-year-old mouth.

We drive to Chattanooga (Jake sleeps, we listen to System of a Down, it's a chicken/egg situation) and land at Matt's childhood home (where his dad has waited up for us -- cute!), passing a sign that oddly reads "JAKE OFF TODAY." There are photographs of Matt at various awkward stages of existence festooning every square inch of the house. We are too zombie-fied to even lol at this, so we go to sleep.

Day 12
5/25/07
to Asheville, NC

Ben: "This is all a charade" (pronounced shuh-raaaahhhhd)
me: "You're French now?"
Ben: "Yes. This is all a Cirque du Soleil charade."

We wake up to the most ridiculously delicious breakfast spread ever, courtesy of Matt's awesome mom, who is the most cheerful and hilarious person ever (second place possibly going to his dad, who enthusiastically shows me a selection of killer soccer goals he has TiVo'ed, yelling "swee!t" with each one). We enjoy being in a normal house and eating normal food for a while, then step back into the Green Destiny, back into crazy, Subway-eating, floor-sleeping, smoke-breathing world, and drive to Asheville by way of Knoxville (it's weird driving through the hometown on tour. You can almost see it as outsiders must see it. Almost). We go to Guitar Center where Ben has his Heritage intonated and Matt purchases a tambourine, thus opening the gate to a fresh, jingling hell every time the van so much as rounds a corner. There is some confusion in the van concerning pick order when Jake wakes up after a long winter's nap (he seems to have been sleeping approximately 24 hours a day since New Orleans, I'm not sure what's going on there) to discover that "Fricke's pick" has been skipped ("I wish Fricke had brought a cd instead of an iPod." - Ben).

We're in TrAsheville. We head to the venue, Broadway's, which is closed (and says "private club" on the door). We walk around and eat an unspectacular dinner at Old Europe, who only serve four sandwiches (we each eat a different one, because we are individuals, with individual taste).

Voltage is closed, so we go to Static Age and look at records. Ben buys Sleater-Kinney's Hot Rock, and I find this:

We go to Malaprops and drink coffee for a while (this is always the awkward part of the day on tour -- venue is closed, so you have to waste a lot of time in a town you don't really know. It can always go either way). We go to Broadway's, who have a stupid ID policy where you can't drink if you don't drive (I don't understand it, either), and load in. We meet Ryan Cox from If You Wannas (playing tonight) who looks exactly like the host of The Soup, and who is extremely nice and super-accommodating about band order and things of that ilk.

The show gets underway, and there is a first band who do not deserve mentioning (they are awful, though). We play and rock, but everyone who came to see the awful first band takes off, leaving a tiny audience. During our set, a girl loudly disses my harmonies to her equally bitchy friend, so I stare them down like a blood-crazed zombie during "Kidstuff" and they awkwardly leave. The If-You-Wannas seem bemusedly resigned to playing to no one, then shock everyone by producing an upright bass from nowhere and playing outside on the patio, where everyone has gone. They are charming and are the only band we have played with on tour who have a song that I can remember ("You're A Ticking Bomb").

Ben clogs for the duration of their set, Matt meets some Butthole Surfer at the bar ("tell Ben, tell Ben!!" Jake and I scream in unison), and an If-You-Wanna tells Jake his voice is "decadent", then "unconventional" (Jake: "Decadent? Decadent is a cookie with icing piled on top of it"). The four of us sit drunkenly together and the men get into some kind of argument about Sandra Bullock vs. Meg Ryan, which is boring, and pictured here:

That's us at Rosetta's Kitchen with Ryan and his girlfriend, whose name sounds to me like "Fedora", though that is surely not right. Fedora has locked her keys in her car, or lost them or something, so we have to go around a bit of a mulberry bush before we get to Ryan's house. We settle down on floors and oddly shaped couches, and Ben has barely had time to quietly mutter "I hope they don't have sex or something all night" when Fedora heads out on a giggling spree that continues 'til dawn.

Day 13
5/26/07
to Durham, NC

We wake up early to Ryan and a gang of his friends heading to the beach and politely hustling us out. We ask Ryan where to eat, and he directs us to the Sunny Point Cafe, which has a waiting list like this:

Ben and I have Huevos Rancheros that are worth the wait, Jake and Matt have some kind of yogurt/granola thing that looks delicious, and Jake indicts the condiment selection for being indie (organic ketchup, raw sugar). We get an oil change, which is boring, but necessary, and we have definitely been on tour too long because a sign that says "The Juice is Loose" seems to be the funniest thing Matt and I have seen in days (this is the kind of thing where you look back through your notes and are just like "Christ"). We drive to the Broad Street Cafe, which I immediately like because it has this kind of drink selection:

...and we get everything for free. We drink coffee and pile on a couch together to read our first bad review, which is humorously perched in the "thumbs down" side of some college journal's music column. Welcome to the minor leagues, I guess. The men go to eat at some burrito place (I don't, but I do eat half of Jake's burrito that he brings back to the cafe. The things were the size of my head, and amazing). There is some kind of comedy routine going on which, while a hundred times better than whatever it was we witnessed at the P&H Lounge, is not so hilarious.

The first band eventually plays, and I don't have much to say about them besides this: when we rate all the bands we played with at the end of the tour, they will tie for last with the Unlikely Heroes (remember them?). What will end up the second act, the Monika Jaymez Band (not making that spelling up), is basically a troupe of assholes who keep upping the ante with excuses about why they can't play last. Before they go on stage we keep harassing them by mirroring their bullshit back to them: "Hey guys, you better leave for home in ten minutes! You know, like you said? Man, gonna be a short set tonight!" They play second (thanks, guys!) and a bunch of middle aged Borders shoppers trip the fuck out and worship Monika in all her Rhiannon-covering, frosted perm-having "glory". We hate her. Still.

So all her fans leave, and we blaze awesomely through our set for a few guys who love us (one of them follows us to Chapel Hill later), sell some cds, give Monika Jaymez the evil eye, and take forever loading out for talking to everybody. We follow a Joe to his homestead and sleep comfortably on assorted beds and couches.

Day 14
5/27/07
to Roanoke, VA

We wake up and hurriedly take showers (though there was some kind of issue with this -- it mysteriously was not allowed, or something) before Joe's sister can come home and find strangers in her house. We pile in the 'Dest and, after driving an hour in the wrong direction, decide to go to Cracker Barrel instead of turning around or making haste or anything. We play that Cracker Barrel game involving golf tees (Matt: Egnoramoose. Ben: takes an hour to play the game, emerges finally as a genius after everyone stops caring, demands credit. Matt: "Well, you're Just Plain Dumb in your attitude.") We drive on, Ben selecting "an hour of silence" as his pick (as unnerving as it is against the rules). Jake makes an equally poor choice: the new Wilco album, again, after we have all already decided it is a snoozebomb (there is a particularly blatant Beatles rip as we pass a sign reading "Thieving Bastards Burn In Hell" -- poignant).

We are in Roanoke, with less time to spare than normal due to our detour earlier. We walk around without each other, because we are fourteen days into tour and have done enough walking around with each other, but eventually all end up in the same coffee shop. Jake changes his strings, then we head to the venue, which is called the Green Dolphin Grille. We meet a nice woman and some dudes who end up being The Wading Girl, a band we are playing with tonight. "Why do you have to carry everything?" she says to me, after seeing me carry a couple of amps in. "Ha ha," I say, "ha ha." Twice, because I am an awesome conversationalist. I wash, blowdry and style my hair in the Dolphin's bathroom, and when I emerge everyone asks me where in the hell I've been, as if it weren't obvious.

We eat some killer fried fish and talk a lot of shit to each other about exactly how ready to rock we are, and when the time comes to actually rock, Matt goes ahead and starts playing "Needle in the Haystack" while the rest of us are playing "Mouthful of Rain" to nauseating effect. Despite this initial setback, we go on to rock gloriously and make a few people shimmy, and a shrimpy guy in a Kill 'Em All shirt tells me I am awesome while drinking two beers (Dude: Get in touch). When the Wading Girl plays (they're good! They work everybody into a frenzy), we have to take turns working the door in the keyboardist's stead, and the task is so maddening that it drives Ben to draw this portrait of us:

(I don't know why Jake is a snail, or why my name is Fugazi, but that's drunks.)

And all of us to believe this is an extremely funny joke:

A very, very drunk Nicolosi-looking guy keeps attempting to get in for free, and Matt overhears him screaming "TELL ME WHY YOU DO OR DO NOT LOVE NASCAR. YOU FUCKING KNOW!" to a group of very scared individuals. We make the touring equivalent of a million dollars and engage in a lot of inter-band bonding outside on the pavement before making our way to the Wading Girl's house (I love bands where all the members live in one house like the Beatles in "Help!" This isn't actually true of the Wading Girl, though). The Wading Girl kids like three things: 1. Cornhole (one of those games where you throw a beanbaggish thing into a hole on a wooden thing), 2. Coors Light (one of my prevailing memories of this admittedly hazy night is of Ben standing in the Wading Garage singing "Tap the Rockiiieeeeeees!!" at the top of his voice), and 3. Denny's (They discuss it constantly, and the computer in their house says I LOVE DENNY'S!!!! in Sharpie on the monitor).

creDENtials, get it!?

We just get wasted and play cornhole (I don't want to because I know I will stink at it, but Jake makes me be his partner, and we are awful, because I am awful. Ben and Matt dominate consistently and eventually match some kind of record). After all the broing out we watch bits of a Johnny Cash documentary before falling into a deep and drunken sleep on various couches and floors.

STAY TUNED FOR UNIT 3, HOPEFULLY FASTER THAN UNIT 2 (SORREEEEEEEEEE)!!!!

Tenderhooks Tour Diary #1

2007-07-16T13:30:00.003-04:00

HERE WE GO, INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN, A REBEL WITHOUT A CLUE, ETC.

Day 1
5/14/07
to Memphis, TN

We depart at 1:45 and Ben steers us westward. We pass a place with a giant, neon orange sign reading "RB" -- we always joke that this is where R.B. Morris lives. We find that Ben has left his phone charger in Knoxville -- faced. Discussing what songs we would have permanently erased from our brains if we could delete only one (Jake picks Sarah McLachlan's "Adia"), we stop in a town called Bucksnort to urinate. Matt confesses that Bucksnort is the town where he purchased his first porn mag ("You're writing that down?!"). Every sign we pass for a few miles has the words "Loretta Lynn" in whatever it's advertising. We pass a truck bearing the legend "Let's Roll From The Goodness Of Milk", which is to become a kind of motto over the coming weeks. In true Tender fashion, we indulge in some frank discussion about eggs: I confess to Jake that I prefer over-mediums to over-e's these days, Matt requests scrambling advice, etc.

It is 6:30. We snake our way through Memphis and find ourselves at Murphy's, a kind of Irishy-themed bar we've played before. Current staff: one confused man who does not seem to know what time we are playing, whether or not bands play at the venue, or if music exists in the world. He advises us to come back later. We go to a Greek deli and eat sandwiches and briami. As "Somewhere Out There" plays, Ben and Matt go public about the quality of their falafels: apparently very bad.

Back to Murphy's to find that our show has been mysteriously cancelled. FABULOUS NEWS. "Maybe you should try calling first next time," an asshole says to Ben on the way out. I suggest looking around for another venue and we head for the Hi Tone, where the Clientele bar us from entering (and, apparently, begin to follow us from town to town for the duration of the tour). "Memphis is bad," Matt intones from the backseat. "Let's go to a place that actually appreciates musicians." At the Poplar Lounge, which has the exact same sign as the Corner Lounge, we send Matt and Jake in to ask directions to the Buccaneer. They emerge with a napkin emblazoned with "The Blooby Foot of Zock" (which they insist is meant to read "The Bloody Foot of Rock", or the name of the bartender's stoner rock band) and the Buccaneer's address. We joke that we should go busk on Beale Street. Matt suggests we play the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Blues, and Ben states that we would be booed off the sidewalk, if that is even possible.

We fail to find the Buccaneer. Needless to say, this is a shit first day. Matt, as if to drive the point home, again points out the poor quality of the falafel he ate at lunch.

I call Howell Evans, who lives in Memphis, and is one of those guys who lives to help out touring bands. He meets us at Murphy's in what seems like thirty seconds and leads us to the Buccaneer, which was apparently a block away the whole time. They deny us a bit brusquely, and Howell suggests another place, so I hassle the bartender for the number and we call them: also no. I call Jeremy Bain, who seems to know something about everything, and he tells me he will make a few calls and calls and call me right back, and I immediately drop my phone and break the screen -- quel fuckup! We catch up with Howell for a few minutes and then dejectedly decide to go ahead and leave town. We drive, complainingly, and as soon as we pass a sign reading "Flicker Street" (!), my phone rings (I thank God that it still works): Bain to the rescue with a venue name (The P&H Cafe) and phone number. I call, and the show is on, albeit after a comedy show (Bain, you are an American hero.) We go to the P&H Cafe, which seems to be a bar rather than a cafe, and watch the open mic comedy night unfold. Not one of the people is at all humorous, and one guy's material is entirely comprised of unknowingly racist jokes about his students. We load onto the tiny stage and play weirdly. I recall a modicum of technical difficulty and general un-seemlessness. A girl in a Hellcat Records shirt buys two cds, and people put lots of tips in a jar that we didn't know existed. These acts elevate the P&H above our last Memphis show, at which we made zero dollars (again, Murphy's).

We pack up and drive to Summer's family's house. We all sleep on the way except for Ben, who enjoys two picks while we all slumber -- this will fuel minor controversy for the next couple of days. At the Sheltons', I sleep in Summer's dad's room devoted entirely to Apache paraphernalia (I will wake to a stuffed wildcat and stoic daguerrotype of a chief eyeballing me), and the boys sleep in the living room.

Day 2
5/15/07
to Birmingham, AL

"Aren't you guys glad we're doing this instead of working for the clampdown?" -Jake

We awake to Sheltons cooking a delicious breakfast (eggs, ham, biscuits, muscadine jelly), discover that Jerry Falwell is dead, and learn that today is No Gas Day. Will we make it? We tell Summer's dad, who is also a musician, of our travails. "I love being old," he says. "Youth is full of insecurities and you don't know where you're going to play next." I learn from Summer's mom that we are in the sweet potato capital of the world, and she regales me with an imitation of Summer as a child. After two delicious meals, we head to Birmingham, discussing the fact that I am heading for age 27, aka Rock & Roll Death Year. I pick London Calling ("A very idiosyncratic choice, Emily." -Ben) and we roll along through pleasant National Park-type surroundings. More egg talk: I have a maxiumum of two in the morning, while Jake apparently makes a minimum of three: "Feeling sassy, I go for four!" We pass a strip club that is actually called The Boobie Trap.

In Birmingham, which appears to be an actual city, we head to the Rocking Horse/High Note, where no one is, but where they have hung up our flyer, which is nice. "Hey, you guys playing tonight?" The voice comes from a minivan parked across the street, inside of which is a bald, rotund man with a cell phone attached to his ear. He turns out to be the "sound man" (more later) at the club, and he leads us to a Starbucks (for which we have $200 in gift cards, thanks to Eric), where we attempt to abandon him due to his being one of those extemely annoying types who comes off as very proud to be in the music biz ("booking agent") and constantly, truly constantly, answering his phone to chat loudly to one or other of his "clients", who all have names like The Killing Floor and 50 Watt Highball. We exit with coffees and realize he has been waiting outside (on his phone, natch). We go to Bailey Brothers' guitar shop so Matt can buy drum heads and they have a room with a massive tuner in the wall -- you can sing a note and it will tell you if said note is in tune. We mess with that for ages, try to sing a chord, confuse the tuner. We go to a record store where a woman knocks two dollars off a Soca record for me, then back to the venue, which is now open.

It is beautiful, but we don't understand where to play. When they lead us into the actual venue (past a Schindler's List poster [in a bar?!]), we ooh and aah, because it is huge. We discuss our band fund policy as relative to beer-drinking (Jake takes a surprisingly liberal viewpoint, even calling me a "square" at one point). Another band is finally there (East End Lights), and they in quick succession prove to be both racist and sexist, AND obsessed with jazz chops (they are cornily emo to boot, and clearly not into the idea of letting us crash at their house). Matt's patience is immediately thin with their drummer, who seems hellbent on jawing about drum rudiments until Matt's face is red and his knuckles whiten around the pint glass in his hand (it doesn't take long). The openers tonight are Evergreen Express, three out of four of whom are in vests. The flashing lights give me anxiety (epilepsy, see), my face goes numb, and I head out. Ben joins me, Jake comes out soon after, and then Matt. The annoying East End Lights drummer again approaches us, this time asking if we would mind if they play next, since they have to work at 3am or some equally ridiculous tall tale. "Yes, we would mind," we reply, "especially since you are basically admitting that even you would leave immediately after you play, leaving no one to watch us. Do grow up (paraphrase)." I ask the soundguy if we can have no flashing lights when we play and he is incredulous and hurt. "You don't like FLASHING LIGHTS?!" he screams, as if I have just declared my distaste for kittens, or Christmas, or anything besides flashing lights. "Uh...they make me have seizures." "Well, is this okay?" he asks, and showcases a more slow-moving light display. "I guess," I reply, defeated.

We set up, and suddenly Baldy is nowhere to be found. I can't figure out where to do a direct-in, no one can find a microphone, etc. A guy helps us and we eventually realize he is just a patron who happens to know something about doing sound -- soundguy still nowhere. We play (to East End Lights, two girlfriends and a mom) and after fifteen minutes the bald booking agent guy comes up to the front of the stage and tells Jake that we can only play two more. "Two more!?" Jake blurts. I, having had it, grumble "Let's just play Kidstuff and Vidalia and get the hell out of this town." Soundguy rambles off saying something about kids being assholes and we rock said songs (Matt later admits that Ben scared him during the rockout portion of Kidstuff). Jake introduces himself as Peyton Manning and leans down to turn off the monitors because they are screeching so loud. "We just have one more," he says, and someone in the audience insists that we do not. We say YUH-HUH WE DO and sing Unscared before unloading as quickly and painlessly as possible (not easy when what seems like 20 East End Lights and their 50 piece drum kits including gong and chimes are perched in every nook and cranny in and around the stage). They play and suck and we chat with Evergreen Express who suddenly seem like the nicest people on Earth, ever, and they tell us to try the Bottle Tree next time.

We head to Microtel and Matt realizes he has left his credit card at the venue. Jake and I check in and watch some bizarre Michael Caine movie that involves a mystery about a grandfather clock while Ben drives Matt back to the club. They return cardless and Matt declares himself sad. I take the floor on account of having the only bed last night, Ben essentially sleeps in the window, Jake takes the bed, and Matt takes an angry shower before joining him. We sleep, fitfully. (PS -- we totally made it through No Gas Day.)

Day 3
5/16/07
to Jackson, MS

Jake and I are the first to wake, and we head down to "continental breakfast", wondering aloud what continent considers dime-sized bagels and half-and-half the industry standard. Jake declares us in need of a morale boost. "Before it gets too late," I concur. We check out and attempt to swing by the High Note to retrieve Matt's card, and they are, of course, closed. We rally round coffees (more fake Starbucks cash) and discuss ways to get Matt's car back. Ben suggests that he call the bartender and ask if he can meet us at the High Note. Matt tries this, and the bartender says that he has no ride. "Tell him we'll pick him up!" Ben says. No dice. The bartender says he lives a million miles away and is really busy, or something. I suggest that he have the bartender express mail the card to Darby's house, where we will soon end up. Matt again calls the 'tender and tells him to mail the card to his parents house, which still renders Matt scrill-less for the next week, but at least the problem is basically sewn up. Back out on the Alabama Adventure Freeway, Matt selects Green Day's Dookie (I realize Matt is totally a child because he was 10 when it came out[!!] ) to two cheers and one silence (counts as a jeer). We drive through Chunky, Mississippi, a town that will become the butt of one of the most persistent jokes of the tour.

We land at W.C. Don's, another spot we've played before, and a guy immediately tries to sell us a chow puppy. Jake learns that his phone bill is mysteriously a million dollars higher than it should be and Matt simutaneously discovers that the drum heads he bought yesterday do not fit. "This is a day of turmoil," Jake deduces. A W.C. Don's staffer tells us to enjoy Jackson, and we laugh as his face immediately lets us know no joke has been made. We walk around town a bit, and then head to Hal and Mal's for the first po boys of the tour (aaaaand the worst po boys of the tour). After lunching we become afflicted with a severe case of the giggles, roundly chalked up to "losing it." Ben attempts to prove that a plastic bottle can not be broken by cement by banging it repeatedly on the sidewalk for ten minutes. A fellow band member approaches with caution during this display and introduces himself as Bernie of the Unlikely Heroes. I sit at the bar and read for a while, realize that my phone charger is broken, suddenly understand why people in bands on tour act so odd sometimes.

We play and rock decently, though we still seem to be getting our footing. The next band (Oriental Hitler) are some kind of extremely loud, shambley, wall-of-sound side project of another band, and they are friends of Tim and Susan Lee which makes us instant BFFs. They treat us to some peachy shots, and I head back to the stage where some kind of shred-off is taking place (a black metal-looking guy thoroughly trounces the gentleman who ends up being the guitarist of Unlikely Heroes, who are brutally, brutally terrible. They are far and away the worst band we have ever played with. I can only describe them as a kind of grade-Z Staind.) I can no longer justify watching awful bands to myself, so I head back to the bar where the bartender is playing Toots and the Maytals. He gives me a pack of cigarettes and writes down "toots, from the roots!" on a napkin. Outside, a girl tries on my glasses and has a picture taken, which is one idea, and the Oriental Hitlers are completely obliterated and talk to us for an eternity.

Darby tells us he has secured us a hotel room, and after a lot of heehawing and you-didn't-have-tos we check into the hotel, which is clearly the single best thing to happen to us since we left Knoxville. Ben and I take a giant mint puffball bed each, Jake sleeps on a couch, and Matt takes the floor. We fall asleep talking about the weird songs that occasionally get stuck in our heads -- Ben's is "Cheer Up, Charlie" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and mine is a seemingly apocryphal Dr. Pepper jingle from 1990.

Day 4
5/17/07
to Baton Rouge, LA

"We responded to the crisis in the manner of middle-class adventurers the world over: We phoned home for more money." -Martin Amis, Experience

(PS, there are suddenly pictures, because there are suddenly batteries in my camera.) Jake and I again wake first and head to breakfast, which is over. We raid drawers and rifle through cabinets until we find coffee and bananas, which we happily consume in the empty lobby. Jake plays some Elsah songs (the band we are to play with tonight) on the net-equipped computer, and they sound like they will surely be the best band we have played with thus far. I accidentally throw away Jake's banana and he chides me for it. Despite this setback, we all agree that the hotel experience is a turning point and that we are in the beginning stages of a major upswing (and I see a newspaper headline reading "Odd Package in Hazlehurst Turns Out To Be Just Jelly", which is probably the best one I've ever seen.)

We drive, and Jake makes an excellent Louisiana-themed mix, which sets the mood for this, what is sure to be the most exciting leg of the trip.

Baton Rouge seems beautiful, sunny, musical, and peopled with indies on bicycles. There are flyers for shows everywhere, and we seem to be in a college area (it turns out to be the area right around LSU, which has a car-free campus).

We walk around and go to a place called Roul's for our second po boys of the tour (grilled shrimp). Roul serves up these delights under a marquee proclaming "ROUL LOVE U ALL JUICY JUICY". We have already laughed about this for a minute when Roul turns around to reveal the back of his shirt, which also reads "Juicy Juicy". We develop a system of 10 possible Juicies which becomes the standard by which all po boys are hereafter to be judged. We walk around LSU campus which is all uniformly beautiful and Spanish-looking architecturally,

and covered with massive palm trees (and another type of tree that grows like a giant overturned bowl over the ground -- anyone know what this is?).

We are assaulted by friendly ducks at a swampy pond, marvel that they sell liquor in gas stations in Louisiana, and agree that this is the first truly interesting city we have found ourselves in. ..(Lol, This is where you study Daft Punk at LSU, natch.)

We walk for ages, then circle back to the club and find a nice and well air-conditioned coffee shop. We slouch in massive, overstuffed chairs to read/do crossword puzzles/drink coffee and be quiet for a while before North Gate Tavern opens. We also hit a killer deli called Louie's (?) and Jake has some kind of delicious seafood omelette called a Fisherman's Friend or something, and Ben has some kind of sausage and egg/chocolate chip waffle combo, which is disgusting, and pictured below:

This gentleman created the food for us:

North Gate Tavern seems harmless, even nice. We hang on the porch until Neil of Elsah shows up and quickly proves himself to be full of taste and hilarious anecdotage (Ok: Neil is one of those people that is impossible to describe well. He is one in a million, not unlike a Sonny Simpson or a Jeremy Bain, scattering astonished lols and hysterical wtfs everywhere he goes and preaching Awesome to the youthful rockers of the world one whiskey shot at a time. We loved him almost immediately, and we love him still. Hooray, Neil!) He soundchecks our mics for us and is so good and hilarious at it that he should clearly host a weekend workshop on the topic. We play and rock very well. Elsah play and are the best band we've played with thus far.

Neil geniusly merges the lyrics of "Pinball Wizard" with the tune of "Folsom Prison Blues" and sounds like Mike Ness fronting the Old 97s. It becomes clear during their set (which also includes weirdly great covers of the Go-Gos, a song from Disney's Robin Hood, and a Public Enemy track that I can't remember the name of) that they intend to play until someone stops them doing so, and they do, until the bar closes at 2am (and even then they play two more, and one of those is a song they have already played). As Elsah reluctantly wrap up their set, I discover through discussion with a local that Louisianians do not consider Tennesseeans southerners ("Because we were Union?" "No, because you're in the North." Harsh!).

Outside, Neil declares that one Tender must ride with him as he leads the rest to his house, where we are to sleep tonight. I volunteer, and climb in. He clandestinely hands me a wad of cash, our first real cash of the tour, and we're off. "Why did someone have to ride with you?" I ask. "Oh, they don't realize this yet, but we're going to Mississippi!" I glance at Neil, who does not have the look of a person who has just made a joke, and go back to scrolling through the selections on his iPod. Lucinda Williams, Gram Parsons, no surprises here I guess, Gillian Welch, hmm, Carter Family, OH MY GOD, ARE WE DRIVING THROUGH A FIELD?! "What are you doing?!" I shakily ask, as Neil over-corrects across a median. "Sometimes you only get one chance to freak people out, and you just have to take it," he replies. I wonder what my fellow Tenders are thinking from the van as I cover my eyes, as Neil presumably continues piloting the vehicle through fences and up underpass ramps.

We arrive at his house, which is a beautiful little crib, and Jake immediately takes a shower. Neil, suddenly already in a helmet, asks who wants to ride his scooter. Matt volunteers with gusto, though (as you can see from the picture below) the scooter clearly has his best interests in mind when it decides not to start.

As Matt and I pass out on couches and Ben hits the floor, Neil passes us the sweet leaf and we all partake a bit, and Neil proves that he can go above and beyond the rest of us in smoking as well as drinking and long-distance rocking, which he proved earlier. He expounds some rock and roll wisdom to us, and Jake emerges from the shower to find us smoking reefer and listening to Lucinda Williams's Essence (I will learn later that Neil passed the dutchie to Jake while he was in the shower). Neil bids us all goodnight, and, after a few scattered, deafening attempts to start the scooter, heads off to his boudoir. The last words I hear before dozing off are Matt's: "I can't wait to talk about this in the morning."

Day 5
5/18/07
to Mobile, AL

We wake and enjoy eggs, ham, toast, and Neil's New Orleans advice on the porch. He leads us to the interstate, loping gingerly from side to side on his scooter, and bids us farewell.

We head for Mobile listening forebodingly to Highway to Hell. We arrive and walk around the city, which has a sprawling, squat, cute downtown area that surrounds its central sky-scrapery business-district area. We want coffee and a some kind women tell us where a Starbucks is, stating that it is definitely not walking distance. Ben tuts at this, and we end up walking ten miles to a Starbucks in the blazing heat. "Well, this was worth it," Ben sarcastically says, as we swing open the Wilco-propaganda-adorned door. I remind him that walking was his idea, he reminds me that I am not an automaton, and I remind him that I hate him. Back downtown, we eat at a place called Busaba's Thai: pretty good.

Later, we head into a place to pee and see a troupe of streetpunk kids with giant liberty spikes mohawks and joke that this is the crowd we will be playing to tonight.

When the Cell Block opens, we go in and discover that they are actually one of the bands we are playing with. Imagining how "Quarter of a Century" will play to a mosh pit full of Grimple fans, we hit the bar. This is the first day of our first weekend on tour, so we decide to really drink -- we deserve it. Ben imbibes his new favorite, Jagermeister, and I line up the whiskey and Cokes. There is a giant, beautiful poster of the Clash in their Bond Street-era gear opposite where we are sitting, and it is a picture I've never seen before. "I love that picture of the Clash. It's making me want to be better," Ben says. "It's making me want to look better, that's for sure," I reply. "You should look at them and know that you can become anything you want. Take them as a blueprint and then do it 'til you collapse," Ben says. The opener performs (sample lyric: "I came from Alabama with a banjo up my ass"), and then we play, and everyone comes up to front and seems to enjoy us.

After we play, I bond with the punk kids over some punk talk, and then American Suicide plays and I feel 15 again (except drunk instead of straightedge). They have one guy with long, long dreads, another guy who dresses up like Angus Young, and a "Safe European Home" cover that rocks. "That's my favorite Clash single!" I screamingly lie to the bassist, and he yells back, "Mine too!" A sorority-type girl accosts Ben and their dancing styles clash hilariously. The bartender declares our drinks free for the rest of the night on the strength of our set, and we do Jager shots in a huddle together, Jake making a toast about touring with three great peeps. It's sweet.

The dream is quickly over as the band of punkers plays and they reveal themselves as crudely sexist and not very good, more disgust occuring when I head to the bathroom and witness their friend attempting to force a girl to kiss her sister so that he can film it. I trade cds with the American Suicide dread, and we prepare to leave. In the van, we realize to our chagrin that 1. Ben is drunk, and must drive, and that 2. We have zero of the ten cds we took inside, and somehow only made three dollars and fifty eight cents. We decide to put the drink down in the future in the interest of making fewer friends. We white-knuckle it to a dormitory where a cuz of Jake's is putting us up for the night in an empty room. I will learn in the morning that at this point we ate two entire jumbo bags of beef jerky. We sleep badly, Ben and I on beds with no blankets, and Jake and Matt on the floor.

Day 6
5/19/07
to Hattiesburg, MS

I wake first, way first, and go walking around campus in search of coffee. I read a little in a coffee shop (recommended to me by some nice power-walking ladies) called Carpe Diem and rehydrate with some much-needed orange juice (and then immediately dehydrate with some much-needed caffeine). Back at the dorm, where the boys are in varying states of wakeitude, Jake confesses that he and Matt vomited side by side in the dormitory lavatories last night. We disrupt a boys' soccer camp on the way to the van and a man with a withered hand chastises us. At Starbucks, we discuss our misbehavior and collective need to reign it in a bit.

We buy the new Wilco album with our fake Starbucks money, and when the question of who gets to keep it is raised, we devise a rock battle, set to occur in Chicago. We drive to Hattiesburg, listening curiously to Sky Blue Sky (I won't go into any crit here; you've surely read by now that it's boring).

Once our flag is firmly planted in Hattiesburg, we immediately set about finding Peter's Po Boys, heralded in Jackson as both "the best po boy I've ever had -- bar none" and "what I would choose as my final meal were I slated to receive lethal injection." Ben calls Summer to ask her opinion on Peter's and I can hear her response from three feet away. In the parking lot Darby (Hattiesburg native, Summer's brother, and our precious friend) calls us and, catching wind that we are eating at Peter's, meets us in less than a minute on his motorcycle. Peter's Po Boys, it appears, loom large in Hattiesburg legend. We enter Peter's and are greeted by what is surely the tallest Chinese man in history (Peter). Po boy sizing is handily demonstrated by a wall-hanging of giant foam tubes labeled small (about 12"), medium, large, and x-large (about the length of one of those foam noodles people play with in pools -- in fact, that's exactly what it is). We order (po boys, of course), and I hear Peter yelling Cantonese numbers to the cook. Excitedly, and flusteredly, I attempt to tell him thank you in his native tongue, but end up saying (I think) "unable to sleep." "HAH?" he yells. "Nothing," I say, and bolt to my seat. The po boys are, of course, elaborately delicious and satisfying. We variously rank them between 8 and 9 Juicies on the Roul Scale, and go to Darby's house to digest. It is here that, one year ago, we first saw the Arctic Monkeys performing on MTV and said "now, who are these kids?" Darby's dog has recently mothered one million tiny puppies, and we all say "aw" while hugging them, then shower and get dressed.

(This is the only known picture of the Thirsty Hippo.)
We head to the Thirsty Hippo, our favorite venue from our previous tour, and load in. We drink free Abita, soundcheck, and talk to Brad (the Jason Boardman of the Hippo). Our rocking is primo, and then our pals the Squirms play and are primo, too. Ben and I stand outside talking to Brad and I spot an orange cat that I dub Pumpkin Time -- Brad does not love this, and his reaction to the name becomes Ben's favorite imitation of the tour. A guy on an enormous chopper pulls up beside us and asks Ben if we have already played. On hearing the answer he fires up the chopper and pulls away into the night, deafening us and blowing our hair and clothes behind us. A cutie asks me what I was reading earlier, and then barrages me with baiting questions about it. Brad pays us the only big money we've yet laid eyes on, and we head back to Darby's and crash (I have no memory of this save for a blurry image of a multicolored quilt).

Day 7
5/20/07
to New Orleans, LA

We wake up early, consume breakfast, and head for NOLA, bidding fond adieu to Darby and his wondrous menagerie of pups. Driving into New Orleans, we cross the longest bridge I have ever seen, and enter some hurricane-addled areas -- some just looking windswept or trash-strewn, and some with houses bearing black x's. It is unbearably hot. We meet a cuz of Jake's that he has not seen since childhood, and he takes us to some botanical gardens boasting alligators (we see none), massive red flora, and a family of turtles, which are beautiful.

He takes us to Acme for po boys, which garner a cumulative score of approximately 7 on the Roul Scale, We are in poor moods, for some reason, and I have written in my notes that Ben and I are annoyed with each other, but can't remember why or what happened. We are probably just hot, tired, full of po boy, and homesick, which explains the quotes I have written down: "I'm going to knife myself in the kidney," -Matt. "Stab me first, please," - Ben.

We finally get to the French Quarter, which is brightly lit, musical, and delightfully filthy, and we meet a band called 3-Legged Dog at Checkpoint Charlie's. They seem much older and cooler than us, and we tell them we will be back to see them later. We head to the famous Cafe Du Monde and eat (literally) platefuls of beignets.

We pass a park full of fat, stray cats, and I coo at them through the bars before bolting to a piano bar past a tarot reader and a guy playing "Stairway to Heaven" on a row of wine glasses.

(This is where the cat park was...I know, it kinda looks like the Magic Kingdom.)
The piano bar is called Patrick O'Brien's, and though I know nothing about this sort of thing, it seems terribly authentic and un-shitted-up. Matt and I obsess over writing our requests on napkins (he ends up selecting "Have You Met Miss Jones" and I go for "The Man That Got Away" by Harold Arlen -- the pianist says "Well, this is not the sort of thing we normally play, but we are happy you want to hear it." Do what? I figure out what she means when she plays "Walking in Memphis" and the crowd goes wild, spilling steinfuls of booze over the ashy floor.) We go into Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, which is apparently the single oldest building in use in America, or something -- it was recommended to us by Neil, who was correct in telling us that it is lit entirely by gaslight.

Bourbon Street is magically wanton. We pass a man wielding a sign (reading "cheap beer") the size of a car (no exaggeration), which he then uses to physically stop cars from progressing down the street by placing it in front of them. A sign advertising Live Sex Acts blinks at us, and Jake is soon whispering to me that he was unaware such behaviors were legal. He is clearly scandalized. People try to sell Matt and I beverages that come with "strongest cocktail on Earth" credentials that are called something like the Brain Grenade or the Nuclear Gutbomb or something, and we decline, because we are responsible adults. We watch the excellent TBC Brass Band play on the street, and then pass a couple of anarcho-punks sitting behind a table with a sign on it reading "ADVICE." "Hey, let us give you some advice!" one says. "Yeah, we even have a sign here that says 'advice!'" intones the other. "I get it, like the Calvin and Hobbes comic," says Eric, as we pass. "Dude, it's from Peanuts!" screams one after us. "Yeah, you should let us give you some advice on comics!" shouts the other. We go to Checkpoint Charlie's again and watch 3-Legged Dog, who are wicked badasses and sing hymns of blues and misogyny. Realizing we are physically unable to become drunker, we return to Eric's home, and I sleep upright in a chair.

STAY TUNED FOR UNIT TWO: Our four heroes become even more depraved, rocking, and oyster-grease-soaked as they continue to hassle Louisiana and the rest of the tres juicy Po-Boy Belt. Also: I turn twenty-seven Inna Fine Style, and one Tender bangs his head incessantly on the van in frustration. Why? TUNE IN TOMORROW NOONISH!!!