Show Journal 1999-08-20
Day 14 – Tonight was Jim’s return to Redding and Anderson. He used to live there and play with 3 out of 4, a band who’s new incarnation was playing with us tonight. The show tonight ruled. Period. Kids slam dancing, jumping around, singing along … it was great. It was easily the most fun show on the tour. All ages shows rule and it’s even better when the kids go nuts. We got to hang with Statch and the Rapes who rocked everyone and then lived up to their name (who wants free PBR?). We stayed at Jim’s dad’s house which was a welcome change from the floor of the van.
Show Journal 1999-08-19
Day 13 – After our day of luxury and relaxation it was back to the road and we headed on to Long Beach. We left early so we could ride the Desperado – the 200 foot tall roller coaster on the CA/NV border. Unfortunately, it was closed and we ended up getting to Long Beach several hours ahead of time. We saw the world largest thermometer on the way. Speaking of which, it’s been over 100 degrees ever since Illinois. Portland summers are usually between 75-80 degrees, so this 100 degree thing has been quite a change for us. The rumor is true, traffic really does suck in LA. Long Beach scares me because of the gang stuff there. Nothing in particular happened, but I felt uneasy the whole day afraid I was going to get shot again. A local record store (45 Revolution) was putting on the show tonight so we went to hang out there for a while. From there we did some some more record shopping and then drove out to see the Queen Mary to kill some time. The show tonight was kind of sketchy. There were a lot of skinheads and crusty punks tonight. I thought for sure they would hate us, but they ended up liking us and everyone ended up being cool to hang out with. It always amazes me how three relatively lame looking people like us who claim to play “punk rock” can get a good reaction in these crowds. Back to the gang thing, while packing Jim saw some guys walking around yelling LBC and as we were leaving we actually saw a ghetto bird. Anyway, the show was cool and I’ve decided I’m too paranoid. We decided to get out of LA and stayed in a truck stop somewhere on I-5.
Show Journal 1999-08-18
Day 12 – After all the nights we spent in truck stops we decided it was time to put our money to use and stay at a Casino. To our dismay we found out that they were really pricey. We were sitting around discussing where we wanted to park the van and which truck stop we should stay in that night. I really didn’t want another night in the truck stop (especially not the same one), so I decided to take one for the band. I threw down the credit card, and we ended up staying at Excalibur on me … real beds, clean bathroom, a pool and a casino … exactly what I needed on this day. Worth every penny too. Feeling much better about life, we had a breakfast buffet and went into full on tourist mode and casino hopped for most of the morning. We rode the roller coaster at NY, NY and then ended up going our separate ways. Dave and Jim went down towards Treasure Island to obtain skull mugs and see the sights. I had different plans … my goal for the day was to sit by the pool and read for a few hours. Warm, sunny, poolside and incredibly happy is how I spent the afternoon. That night we went over to the Luxor and did the buffet thing again. Afterwards we went out and cruised down the strip to watch all the free entertainment … volcanoes, fountains, pirates, etc. As for the gambling, Dave was the high roller tonight packing in $8 at the roulette table. Not me, I burned $7 in slots and Jim got away losing $2.
Show Journal 1999-08-17
Day 11 – The drive today was very nice but very uneventful. I discovered that the small broom we have is a good fly exterminator. The fly problem now dwindles each hour. We tried to stop at the ‘meteor crater’ in Arizona but it cost 9 dollars a person to see it. Can you believe it? 9 dollars to see a three mile stretch of earth caused by mother nature? We are once again out of band money thanks to the cancelled shows in Dallas and OK City. We are now paying out of our own pockets again. Before Kingman, we got on Route 66 for a while and got a glimpse of the Grand Canyon. I had only seen it from a plane, very cool. The show in Kingman rocked. The guys at the club unloaded for us and gave us a full sound check. Rock on. Cool place, nice people and they had a sound system which gives the biggest and best clubs a run for their money. The two hours of metal songs for the opening bands “soundcheck” was a bit much to endure, but after so many hours in the van my patience level is at an all time high. The show was good, and it was nice to play again. I had almost forgot why I had been the van all this time. Due to the cancellations, this was our second show in six days. Props to Deborah for selling our shirts and CD’s! The show ran late, but we decided to stay at a truck stop on the road to Las Vegas. Turns out there are no truck stops on the way to Vegas, so we ended up driving much longer than we anticipated … all the way to Vegas. We got to see the Hoover Dam which was rad. Since it was 2 in the morning, we missed the tour, but it was all lit up. More impressive than the dam, was pulling up over the mountains to see the Vegas sky line at night. There are lights as far as you can see in either direction. It was surreal, very impressive after so many miles of late night driving. By now it was really late and we discovered that Las Vegas truck stops are patrolled lots, so we ended up having to drive 20 minutes past the city to find a truck stop we could sleep in.
Show Journal 1999-08-16
Day 10 – Since we had the day off, today’s goal was to see Roswell which is exactly what we did. We did the museum and gift shop thing for a while and headed on through the beautiful countryside. My camera broke today and was buried along side Smokey the Bear’s grave. There are still flies in the van. At one point I could see 7 at one time. Very annoying. They have been in there since North Dakota. Speaking of flying things, I’ve dubbed our van “the aviary” because every time someone takes a picture, someone else is almost always giving the bird. For dinner, I ate beef jerky until my jaw was sore. We stopped at Highway 666 tonight and hailed the true master. Another truck stop night, but this one was unique. We didn’t know it, but we were parked about 100 feet from some train tracks. We are about to drift off to sleep and a train comes racing through scaring the absolute crap out of us. We all thought for sure we were going to die. It sounded like a plane was about to crash into us. Too tired to move, we slept through the night with the hourly train passing.
Show Journal 1999-08-15
Day 9 – We thought the show was at 2 and left early but found it was at 7. So we had 5 hours to kill in Dallas. We had already done the JFK thing and it was really hot out, so we decided to go see the Blair Witch Project. Afterwards we splurged and got some big ol’ steaks. After that we decided to go to the club. The address we had for the club was 30 minutes out of the Dallas city limits. Didn’t seem weird until we got there and it was a house. It turns out the address we had was for the booking guy’s house. Oops. After some frantic phone calls we went back downtown and found the real club. We get there only to find that the headlining band cancelled and the booking guy “didn’t know we were coming.” We should have gone back to his house and played on his lawn. Stupid jerk. I still am in amazement that people who book shows are often not responsible enough to remember when a band from half way across the country is coming. Most booking people are great and then there are the rotten few that seemingly go out of their way to fuck you over. Our next show is almost 1000 miles away and we get another night with no gas money. What really pisses we off is that we wasted an entire day basically just waiting until the show, when we could have gotten a head start on the drive to our next show. Hell we could have stayed with Sam some more, but no, we get to spend the day tooling around Dallas. Anyway, some guy at the club (who actually lived there) did his best to help out and recommended some other clubs down the road we could try and play at. So we headed up the road looking for a show. At one of the clubs we ran into Geraldine, a band from Ohio, who also had a show in Dallas which got cancelled. They were in the exact same predicament we were in, but it was a different club. We decided this was a sign from above, so we immediately stopped looking for shows and left towards the great south west. Along the way we stopped at a cricket infested truck stop and I re-discovered the joys of beef jerky. We slept in a truck stop somewhere in the Texas panhandle.
Show Journal 1999-08-14
Day 8 – On to Austin we went with full stomachs thanks to Lisa and Mike and their veggie bacon. We picked up the required “don’t mess with texas” stickers and decided to stop in Dallas. We did the JFK thing and walked around sweating in the 100+ heat looking over at site of the assassination. Personally, I really don’t get it, but Jim and Dave were having a ball with it. The museum was cool though. On to Austin and a stay at Sam’s house. We arrived and hung out with Sam for a while (who has grown a moustache of shame) and then we walked down to the local bar/club for some food. The place has bands play regularly, so Sam asked if we could jump on the bill and the booking guy actually said yes. So we ended up playing Austin. The show kind of sucked, but who cares, we played Austin and we got free food.
Show Journal 1999-08-13
Day 7 – Today we killed time until the show tonight. Watched some TV, ate some MRE’s, went swimming … totally easy day. We even got some laundry done. Lisa brought us home some souvenirs from a local embalming seminar. We went out to eat and then headed to the show. So we’re back to the store and the owner tells us that we are no longer allowed to play, because we were late, there are too many bands, and about 10 other lame reasons to screw us over. By this point, I really didn’t even care anymore and we just left rather than arguing. They have screwed us over two tours in a row now. If there was a band from 3000 miles away that wanted to play in my store, were booked and confirmed, and were sitting in my parking lot, I would make damn sure that they played. Nope. Not here. This is the third time we have been parked in front of Music Dimensions with a loaded van on the night of our show and for the third time they have fucked us. They even had our posters for the show in the window. Jesus, we’re days from home and they can’t even help us out. Fuck that place. Never again will I even waste my time on it. All wasn’t lost though, we headed back to Lisa’s to watch Weird Science, eat snow cones and make everyone endure my impression of the guy in the movie who says “Every damn night … on the telephone”. Oh yeah, Dave ate a snow cone one that was pickle flavored. We didn’t pay him, but I offer his props here.
Show Journal 1999-08-12
Day 6 – Woke up today and headed towards the St. Louis Arch, the worst place on earth for someone scared of heights like me. 600+ feet high with nothing under you. People kept asking “can you feel it move?” I pretended not to think about and stayed firmly attached to a post or structural support whenever possible. Dave and Jim laughed at me and took pictures of me as I looked frightened and kneeled on the ground. The windows allow you to look straight down, but I’ll just take everyone’s word that it was impressive. I’ll admit, the whole thing was pretty cool, but still way scary. Next we backtracked in order to see the world’s largest bottle of ketchup and then the statue and museum dedicated to the world’s tallest man. This is fitting since we are still impersonating the world’s tallest woman. After the sightseeing was done, we realized we were way behind schedule and running very late. There were tons of nasty thunderstorms in Oklahoma which further delayed our progress. There was a very cool lightning storm over Tulsa though. We got to the club/record store about 90 minutes late and they said we were too late to play but we could come back tomorrow. That was fine since we were planning on staying in Ok City for 2 nights already. So we hung out with Lisa and Mike which was probably more fun than sweating in a little store.
Show Journal 1999-08-11
Day 5 – On the way down to St. Louis we stopped at the House On The Rock in Wisconsin. Words can’t do it justice. Do stop there if you are ever in the area. We devised a new way to pass the time on the drive today … we place our ghost rider doll and blossom toy in compromising positions on the dashboard. The big thrill for me today was eating at Steak and Shake. Orange Freeze and a Steakburger … mmmmm. (I did have an MRE for breakfast though). The show tonight was good, both bands were really good and fun to watch. Rachel the t-shirt girl let us stay at her house and we would like to take the time to thank her right now. Thank you Rachel. The club was across from the world’s largest Amoco sign. Rumor has it there used to be an office inside of the sign. Dave officially won the beard of shame growing contest. Jim gave up after a measly two days and I managed to hold on for six. Dave’s beard of shame has taken shape and he already looks like an angry meat eating trucker from the deep south. Dave wins again two years in a row.
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