we’re shooting down the highway into iowa. tour is over and i’ve been a shitty note-taker. or rather, a shitty rememberer. erer er er. errrrrrr. i’m listening to Megadeth’s Peace Sells and eating a bag of corn-nuts of undetermined origin. aaron is listening to some band that pisses me off because a dude in it has history with an ex of mine. I have some sort of cold now.
Raleigh was an emotional blur for me. i’m sure it was hell of a time for everyone else, and it was for me, but you see, i lived there for three years. we even drove right past my old fucking apartment. things were different in that predictable way of how things change – i had a steady girlfriend, a cat, a job selling insurance
who fucking cares
i dont remember the trip down but at some point, logan decided to “cross the line” and tipped my tea over on me. then he felt really bad and tried to buy me more tea. i think it was in reference to a few nights earlier when he was drunk, tipping people’s shit over and giggling. i cant blame him for it given that sometimes i do that in our set. what i can blame him for is throwing the tire pressure gauge out the window after he tried to eat macaroni with it.
the ten of us arrived at joel’s folks’ place which is this bungalow house downtown that probably goes for a billion dollars due to the location. it’s not a mansion or anything, but it’s about the most comfortable place you could ever end up on tour.
i need to turn up the megadeth. i can still hear that shit music.
so we get there and joel starts running around and freaking out, making sure we’re all comfortable, prepping us to meet his entire family. i have no idea why these people decided it would be okay to let so many idiots into their home, but then again, i guess people had been doing it for the last week. they just weren’t what we’d consider to be “real grown ups”
we sat around with joel’s dad, who is a film professor, and talked to him about various animal movies like Most Valuable Primate, Most Verticle Primate, Babe, and Babe 2. dan did his usual weird guy bullshit and talked to every adult about history, politics, and documentaries he’s seen. we met his aunt, his sister, his sister’s husband, and a bunch of dogs. fucking people fixed us salad, chili, ravioli, and spaghetti. goddamn i could use some of that instead of these chalky corn-nuts right now.
after eating, i left and did some things. i don’t know what everyone else did and i dont care. we got to the show at this new joint called The Union that was pretty cool and me and joel both saw a shitload of people i hadn’t seen in forever. Lung Matter played and according to the rest of the tour, kicked fucking ass and were a bunch of young dudes.
i played in my underwear again to a pretty big crowd and stole some dude’s top hat for a few songs. i found out earlier today that i guess after the show, the dude with the top hat revealed himself to be a bona fide freakshow artist and nailed a bunch of nails into his face. how the hell did i miss that? no one got hurt during our set which was good because i’m not sure i would be able to keep standing if anything else happened. i guess pat flailed around and that night a bunch and told me that he wants to just play while rolling around on the ground from now on, and if i ever see him standing up and playing i should just kick him down.
we racked up a pretty impressive bar tab and pat ended up passing out in the van and when trying to close out his credit card and being asked what he wanted to tip, he simply responded with:
“i’m a sexy fucking beast!”
and then went back to bed. but Much Worse killed, as they always do and got a good reaction. but the highlight for me and probably one of the highlights of the whole goddamn tour was watching Shards play. fucking dumb band i guess has broken up or whatever, but man, what a blast. i yelled a request for “Watersport Olympics” and they obliged me by playing it, then making fun of me for liking that song.
everyone went out and partied and had a great time meeting all the characters in that amazing city, but not me. i disappeared.
i still woke up at Joel’s. we went to this Ole Time BBQ place that i used to live by and picked up a ton of fucking pulled pork. the place was in front of a trailer park. i put some money in a giant container to benefit a little girl with a brain tumor. we sat out front while we waited for our food and some dude in khaki shorts and a fender shirt came out and started bullshitting about us being in a band. pretty unremarkable conversation except he kept talking about how his buddy in fayetteville was in a “pretty heavy band”
“yeah man, my buddy is into some wild shit! one time, he jumped right off the stage and punched this dude in the face, right in the mosh! yeah man, right in the mosh. he punched him so hard that blood spurted out of his mouth!”
“like mike tyson’s punch-out?”
“yeah man, right in the mosh!”
for some reason we had to run by the campus area so a few of the dumber members of the tour ate a slice of pizza as an appetizer. we are adults and can eat pizza whenever we want, even before we’re about to eat more food.
i’m typing this in the car and there’s shitty light. i keep losing where the cursor is, so i freaked out a second ago yelling, “WHERE IS THE FUCKING CURSOR” and aaron replied with, “i gotcha right here, brother. damn, shit, ass, fuck, dick, bitch, pussy,” and continued in a forrest gump like manner. what a dude.
i can’t remember what happened after that but we left to go to asheville, nc, up in the mountains
taken by david from raleigh