10.31.2007

so behind...

oh man, where to begin?
i guess we've been on this tour of weirdo smaller towns in american for about a month now, and i've gotten pretty run down and burnt out. my voice/throat hasn't been strong for a couple weeks now, and nothing all too exciting has happened. strikw anywhere is on the tour, and i've been watching them almost every night and loving it for sure!



i spent the majority of the last week obsessing over the tv show lost. i watched the entire first season in a day, with a brief 5-6 hour sleep break in the middle of it. i watched the second season over the next few days, and then downloaded season three on itunes, and watched it this past weekend mostly. i love this show.

okay, lets get back to where we left off. more photos of joe's birthday celebrations in...uh....colorado? so long ago! we bought joe an ice cream cake and i lucked out with a slice of vegan chocolate cake from whole foods.






we stopped in salt lake city on a day off, which was canadian thanksgiving. we all headed out to pf changs for a family dinner to celebrate over tofu lettuce wraps!



we had an aftershow tattoo party with our friends at absolute tattoo in reno.



josh got a shel silverstein sketch of the guitar the plays itself on his inner bicep.



i manned up and got the strike anywhere anti fascist circle logo on the back of my leg. aside from strike being one of my favourite bands and good friends, the logo stands for some really great ideas, which i am pumped to stand behind (errr, more stand with?)




tony showed me this sketch of this "fixed gear graveyard" tattoo he did on a girl he knows, comemorating 3 bikes she's lost in accidents. love it!



we played a bunch of shows in cities in california i've either never gone to before, or hope to never return to, capped off by 2 shows at the glasshouse in pomona. amanda brought her puppy out to one of the shows, and she hung out on the bus for a while before peeing all over the couch. you can't blame a puppy this cute!




after the first show in pomona, i got a ride with the lovely and talented lisa johnson back to LA where i met up with the friendly and attractive william evans and spent the night on the couch at his east hollywood apartment.



i really enjoyed his "comeback kid dressing room" bathroom sign.



in the morning, will and i met up with dave shapiro and the band blessthefall (who were staying with him) and got some breakfast with a few other silver lake friends.








eric tobin even made an appearance!



after breakfast will and i ventured over to melrose where i stopped in at posers and i grabbed some fine fred perry selections.

now insert the better part of a two week gap while we ventured through texas and the south, which i don't really enjoy all that much ever.

my beard is getting pretty long, and i'm not sure if i should keep it or not.



here are some photos i took of strike on my new blackberry curve!




yesterday we had a day off, and went to new york city. i ended up sleeping in until 3ish, on account of my sleep schedule being extremely fucked thanks to lost marathons. i tried to catch a bus from our hotel in secaucus to the port authority in nyc, and somehow ended up on a bus that took me through the ghettos of jersey to the newark penn station, which was like 45 minutes out of the city. i then had to wait almost and hour for the next bus downtown, and finally, over 3 hours since i left the hotel, i arrived in the big apple. sean and jon happened to be on the bus infront of mine, so we met up. we hopped the subway and headed down towards red bamboo. made a few stops at urban outfitters and american apparel and then made it to red bamboo. i had the crispy soul chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries, mmmmmmm! i ran into my friend mike from LA who was in town with the hellogoodbye/say anything tour, who were also parked at the same hotel as us, along with the armor/academy tour, as well. mike was with some dudes who knew hambone, and we chatted with them for a while. sean and i met back up with kenna (who passed on red bamboo for "the slaughtered lamb" or something equally opposite/non vegan) and hopped the subway over to katiebrowns apartment at 154 attorney (rip). between getting off the subway and arriving at katie's, we passed the mercury lounge, where we noticed david bazan (formerly of pedro the lion) was doing a show an hour from then. we headed to katies, and i showered, then we walked back to the show, which was amazing! he played a mix of new stuff from his upcoming album "david bazan's black cloud", a couple songs from his solo ep, a couple transposed for guitar "headphones" numbers, a fine selection of pedro material. he also closed the set with a cover of the leonard cohen classic "halleluja", which he said will be on his new album.



seeing this show definitely made up for my day of getting lost/almost shot in the ghettos of new jersey public transit. he did the classic "does anyone have any questions" thing a few times during the set, and that made the mid song banter pretty great. i managed to ask if the song "fewer moving parts" was "actually what happened" (re: pedro the lion breaking up) and he awkwardly said that he wrote the song before they had problems, but mostly they couldn't keep it together as a touring band when a few dudes had families at home to support. after the show we stopped so that kevin could get a slice of pizza before hopping a cab back to jersey, and in walks david and his touring crew. we ended up chatting for a minute about the show, and he remembered the show in south carolina where pedro played a late set after a show we played with emery. it was pretty rad to chat with him quickly and randomly like that, and my day ended up pretty great!

i'm going to try to dig my camera out of my bunk pouch, and take some photos tomorrow of halloween. i'm dressing up as a member of the dharma initiative.



okay, i'm a nerd, bye.

10.12.2007

funny, violent...and the soundtrack kicks fucking ass.



my new whip got posted on fixed gear gallery. shortly after, it was torn apart on their forum

the next day, my bike made the ranks of being picked on by the infamous bike snob nyc, a high honour to fixed gear fiends and posers alike.

personally, i take all of this with a grain of salt. you're better off focusing your time and energy ripping on track vandals, or better yet, get off your computer, ride your bike, or spend more time watching fantastic films such as high fidelity.

10.06.2007

"i am not a nugget" fall tour 07 - let's do this!

we're already 5 days into tour, so i should probably get rolling on talking about it.

peta2.com presents the "i am not a nugget tour"



the one thing that bums me out about this tour is that i am bikeless. that's right, i have been bucked off my trusty steid, and must rely on my own two feet to get me around on this tour. there wasn't enough room in the trailer this time around for bikes, and i am dealing with extreme bike separation anxiety.

the second day of tour was in madison wisconsin, which is a very pretty town. i decided to take a walk real early and see what i can find. i headed by the wisconsin state capitol building, which looked pretty neat between the trees and buildings on a beautiful fall morning.


my first stop brought me to the yellow jersey bike shop, a world renowned bike shop for it's selection of extremely rare odds and ends, and extremely poor website.


the shop had a wide variety of vintage steel frames, as well as piles upon piles of new and used parts and components. walking into this place was like the first time i ever entered amoeba records, there was just so much cool shit, i didn't know where to start. much like i have before at amoeba, i ended up leaving without buying a thing, though not unlike amoeba, i could have easily spent a couple hundred dollars. if only i had've stumbled across this store about a month ago before building the new whip...


bonus! right up the block from yellow jersey was a jamba juice! power size mango-a-go-go, sub plain sorbet for pineapple sherbert + pineapple juice (to make up the taste), and top it off with an immunity boost!


madison seemed to be a real nice place to ride, which bummed me out not having my bike.


i headed the other way to get some brunch, and found this place called monty's blue plate diner.


i ordered their tofu scrambler plate, and a strawberry soy shake to boot! tasty and cheap!


like i said, it was a gorgeous fall day, and i really did enjoy walking.


we played a show in fargo, and team CBK-MPLS came out! it's crazy to think that only two weeks have gone by since i've seen these guys, definitely miss having them around. not to mention their lady friends are total sweethearts!




some sort of handheld video gaming device has taken over the bus. what a bunch of fucking nerds!


today we are in colorado, and it's joe foster's birthday! here him and josh are basking in their safety patrolling.


we went to some shady chineese restaurant for a birthday lunch. i had a really nice sesame tofu with steamed rice.


fortunately - the fortune cookies were vegan!
unfortunately - joe and i both got 2 of the most unfortunate fortunes i've ever seen, what a bum out!

10.04.2007

"boys and girls in america have such a sad time together"

here i am, back on tour in america for another month and a bit. extremely stoked on being out with strike anywhere again.

being home for a little over a week was pretty sweet. i managed to cram in a ton of fun stuff, building a riding a brand new bike, spending time with a bunch of great people, a couple shows, and a 5k run into the mix!

seeing as i don't have internet at the apartment, i have been lacking in the blogs while at home. luckily i have a few friends with great blogs. you can read more about what i got up to HERE, HERE, and HERE.

you can also check out more info on my new bike HERE.