year of a thousand roommates

The end of an era

2009-08-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

So I am going to bid this blogspot adieu. Fear not though my loves, we're headed for bigger and better things. As it turns out, tumblr is way easier for me to update from my phone which will allow for much better communication. Also, for your convienence and mine, you can now just go to http://www.yearofathousandroommates.com. Fancy huh? Tell your friends. So the site is hosted at yearofathousandroomates.tumblr.com and will hopefully be more exciting. For now the old posts will stay here but new stuff will be there. Good? Good.

grand rapids, mi

2009-08-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

right now i'm sitting in the computer lab at a college i don't belong to nor ever went to. brian and i are working on putting together some handmade artwork today after a good nigh last night. yesterday was a serious of pit stops to fix sweet pea, my lovely 93 plymouth sundance, and after hours of wind swept hair we were quite excited to be able to close the windows and reapply the air conditioning without watching the temperature gauge go through the roof. that was a wonderful feeling.

when we stopped for gas we decided we were hungry, and since both of us are trying to eat well, we debated internally and aloud for what was probably way too long in the snack area of the food mart. we eventually decided on pretzels, and dipped them in our great value crunchy peanut butter. not too shabby, no high fructose corn syrup, and only a few stabalizing chemicals we barely knew about.

we then left for phillip's to stretch our legs and relax with a beer after a near 7 hour drive. phillip had invited a bunch of friends and had a nice big garage for us to play in, as well as a cooler full of beers. again, not too shabbby. we relaxed and hung out with phillip and his friends, told stories, listened to music, met his mom and generally enjoyed not being in the car. but then i got a few messages from my friend echo in grand rapids and decided we would head up that direction. brian and i are planning on going into canada so i can do some more writing for the book and so we can visit some old friends, so getting up this way seemed to make the most sense. we pulled into echo's area around 4 am. luckily death cab, circa, and communipaw kept me awake and moving in these early morning hours while brian dozed in the passenger seat. the moon was shining brightly and the roads were near empty so i blazed down them in hopes that others were under the same moon sleeping well in their beds. if i can't be somewhere i want to be here, in the moment. there are other places i'd sometimes rather be, and other people with whom i'd prefer to be spending my time, but that is not my place, it would seem. so, we much enjoy these moments. i'd thought we'd get to echo's around 230 or 3, but forgot there was another time zone change. whoops. sorry echo. but we got there, woke her up and soon fell asleep among new cat friends and their kittens.

this morning brian and i woke up and headed over to meet echo for lunch and then walked around grand rapids. i like this city, and Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ter the last time i was here it holds a special place in my heart for being so welcoming and loving. after a walk around the park after lunch we said our goodbyes to echo and brian and i headed for a bookstore and now to this here lab. and that's that. there are no rules, and if there are, well, they just don't apply. i hope you find fun and laughter in your hearts.

On the road again

2009-08-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

I have a slowly healing wound at the base of my right hand pointer finger that I'm wearing like a badge of honor. I spent the days prior to and the morning of my brothers wedding chopping vegetables and cheese, cutting up roast pig, cooking salmon, preparing fresh cole slaw. Now, yes I am mainly vegetarian, but seeing as the pig was going to be prepared regardless of my protest and I'd offered my full services for the weekend, well there I was. After lots of last minute scrambling the day of the wedding I took a relaxing dip in the pool, showered, got dressed and prepared for the onslaught that is close to two hundred family members coming into what had been a mainly relaxing space. But it was great. It was wonderful seeing so many people I'd not seen in a while, the ceremony was beautiful and fun and during and after I built a nice buzz. Throughout the night I restocked drinks and food despite protests from my brother and his wife. I was kind of enjoying that people saw me as a bit of a leader and efficient worker. After taking pictures and eventually making a half drunk but decent speech I changed into jeans and a tshirt. You might think this a bit too casual but by the time the bride and her father danced, he was in shorts and sandels.

I'm jeans and a t I danced drunkenly with friends and started saying goodbyes. By around one am it was mainly friends who would be stayin over. The twenty or so of us danced until about three at which point we decided we needed to do work on the fourth and freshly tapped keg. Suffice it to say all shirtless guys and bride doing keg stands while the remaining gals laughed and took photos is pretty much a great ending to a great day. Around four I built a tent out of tables and table clothes and went to sleep in the backyard. A few hours later my parents woke me up breaking down all the tables and chairs. I disk have much choice but to get up and help so possibly still drunk and definitely tired I got up and got right to work. After an hour or two I knew I'd not be able to sleep after workig and drinking last nights now cold coffee. So a dip in the pool and some sandwiches a shower then goodbyes. It'd been am amazing week or so but I must get back to my life of nomadic movement, continue on my path of potential emotional destruction.

I had to drive five hours to pick up my buddy brian in Ithaca where he'd had a wedding himself. Unfortunately he had to sit in a cafe for so hours and talk to questionably fun people. When I got there I was wasted tired. I got some food and made nice with the locals but we decided to make our way to my friends in buffalo. Four hours later brian and I were finally relaxing in my friends living room watching a movie. Still tired. When my boys got home from their night out we all caught up and I got to sleep at about three. Up at nine to eat with chris so still wasted tired almost hallucinating. But breakfast was good and seeing chris even better. Am eventually I somehow ended up in chris' tattoo studio gettin work done. I really wanted brian to get the work he wanted as well but there wasn't much time ad I felt weird trying to haggle with my friend who offered to tattoo me. I still feel bad and lie I navigated the situation poorly. So while I ended up with an amazing piece I wish I couldve worked things a bit smartly.

It was then off to kent Ohio to meet up with greg and laura whom I'd seen recently but was still quite happy to see. Brian and I made a stirfry with tofu and then greg made us watch the strangers with liv Tyler, who my new tattoo oddly resembles, and I'm only partially ashamed to admit that the movie scared the shit out of me quite a few times. That sort of all suspense meets anxiety type of horror does not agree with my hippy heart. Still I enjoyed it in a potentially masochistic way, at least enough to see how people could get addicted to the rush.

This morning after a breakfast of cantelope brian and I headed towards Illinois and I anxiously kept my eye on the ever high engine temperature. But after an emergency gas station purchase cum repair and today after quite a bit of speculating and subsequent coolant filling I believe we fixed the problem. Look at us. A couple of mechanics are we. Ha. Ok, off to get to work. Sorry it's been busy.

the big day

2009-08-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

today my older brother is getting married. i've spent the last few days shopping, cutting vegetables and cheese, making drinks, creating bbq sauces, meeting new family and friends, taking dunks in the pool and drinking beers. it's been a wild ride of good times and warm feelings. i feel blessed to have a new extended family that have given up their home to our ridiculous invasion, took us in and allowed us to live comfortably. i'm definitely impressed with everyone's openness and positivity and think it bodes well for a life filled with beauty for my brother and just about sister in law.

tomorrow i leave for my two week tour with my buddy brian (the waltz) but i've been terrible about getting information out to the masses. i realize this is stupid, but i've been so busy thinking about all of this stuff that i've just not had the time to sit down and sort everything out in my head. i suppose i'll have to do that at some point today, and if not tomorrow before i leave. oh well, we'll see what happens.

how are all of you? in all my traveling and hanging out, i've not checked up on you? i'd love to hear how the world is treating all of you, both those i know, and those i don't. i hope splendidly. i send my best and will be sure to let you know how the upcoming travels and exploits go.

a thousand pounds of cheese

2009-08-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

i'm up in massachuetts shopping, preparing, and generally readying for my brother and soon to be sister in laws wedding in a few days. i shopped all day with my parents, navigating the western mass towns, visiting destinations that all seemed to somehow be about 1.5 miles from each other, not enjoying traffic cirlces and trying to figure out how much cheese and vegetables 180 people might or might not eat in a 10 or so hour period. it's wonderful to see my family, especially my brother and his lady, a wonderful couple that give you faith in love.

in the coming days i'm headed towards canada with my buddy brian and i'm quite looking forward to it. we'll be meeting up with many old friends, i'll hopefully be getting a tattoo finished and eating at new york subway burrito, paying too much for booze, and laughing my ass off. the laughing is purely a function of good times, not the high priced booze, i promise. still, i have a car that i paid 500 dollars for that's taken me over 40 thousand miles, great kids to see and a variety of untold adventures i'll enjoy unfolding.

i'm also currently reading many good books about food and how it's shaped our culture, and between that and talks with an amazing mate, i've decided that i think i might want to stop eating fish. it's hard to do so when the next few days have been planned around the fact that i will in fact eat sea dwelling animals, as many attempts have been made and dollars spent to ensure that i have animal protein at my ready, but once that all commences, and i'm back in my own mini world, i think i will revert to a purely vegetarian diet. i think that will make me feel better about many things, and i'll keep you updated.

tomorrow will also bring the beautiful arrival of my younger brother, whom i miss dearly, and will also allow me to discuss our upcoming collaborations prior to his leaving for eight months. i'm so excited for him to study abroad, but know too that i will miss him and eagerly await his arrival. it's strange to think such ways seeing as he's not yet left. but, we predict these things. so, we'll drink wine, spend evenings with loved ones and feel blessed. we'll see the union of a couple that we wholly believe in and be happy. and this is how it should be. come the morning of my departure i will give hugs and well wishes and then back off into the world that is sleeping on floors, writing, making friends, reading, singing songs, drinking and wondering if there is a place for me to eventually lay my head on a more (semi)permanent basis. i question these ideas every day, but love that there is existence for me, that there is beauty and that there is love. i send all that i have to you, and hope you're doing the same. i also hope you receive it fully. laugh loudly, love deeply and live completely.

we woke the birds

2009-08-02T17:54:00.000-07:00

this morning, at 7 am, i was on the g train coming back from williamsburgh. seriously? seriously. just so you know, the last few days i've been staying up until 5 or 6 am while in the apartment, but this is mainly due to the fact that i hate going to sleep and have no real reason to get up at any specific time. but, riding the train when it's fully daylight out, in the same clothes from the night before, obviously having not slept and among people doing morning routines, well, there's a feeling of shame that comes with that. then again, perhaps it means i won, that i lived the day.

the day started out innocently enough, with me writing, playing beatles songs, listening to music, reading. and then i talked to buddy brian and we decided to go out and get in some trouble. so, i hopped on the g train and headed up to meet spencer at his tour bus in williamsburgh and then we'd meet up with brian. i ended up catching brian right before i got to the bus, so the two of us went and hung out with spence and the cobra dudes. we then left for what was supposed to be a fifteen minute walk to a rooftop party, but what really ended up being about a forty minute walk to bushwick where we showed up to a house that was disgustingly hot and sweaty and a roof that apparently was no longer the location of the party. after getting yelled at by the dudes who lived in the house multiple times, we decided to just pound a few beers on the street and then head back to williamsburgh. seeing as it was already 1 am and we'd barely even done much but walk, spencer decided to go to sleep and brian and i met up with amazing old friends of mine, val and betsy. i haven't seen them in possibly years but we still talk reguarly and miss the hell out of each other. we met up at union pool, as it was an obvious landmark, but didn't want to drink there due to crowded hipsterdom, so we made our way up to the alligator lounge, which while not way better in the hip sense, it totally rules because with every beer you buy you get a pizza. amazing. i've still been eating mainly raw stuff, though for dinner i had to roast all of the veggies that were starting to turn, as i didn't feel good about eating them raw. but, pizza rules, and when it's free and you're drunk, it rules even harder. so we ate pizza, drank beers, traded stories, caught up and generally loved. after we left brian headed home and i joined val and betsy back at her place to hang longer and harder. we picked up some more beers and had a blast. val said if i was going to make him come out late, as they were originally planning on going home to bed, that he was going to keep me out late. and late he did. well, early i suppose is more appropriate. still, while i hated myself crawling into bed at 8 am and subsequently back out at a time considered evening by most, i'm extremely happy that i got to spend such an awesome night with people i love and miss dearly. so, today was another relaxer. sure, i've been lazy, but i'll be back in nonstop movement grind soon enough. i guess you could argue these are all the weekends i never get. then again, who needs weekends when you're life is party?

i caught a mouse

2009-08-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

this morning the cat was laying with me in bed, and then got under my chest. yea, it was weird. i couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was so interested in my decidely unimpressive torso. then i felt something little move, looked down and saw a tiny tail. somehow, a baby mouse had found its way into bed with me. impressive. obviously a girl. ha, i'm an ass. but in standard cartoon fashion the cat played with the mouse a bit and then let it escape before i could catch it. so, i got out of bed, ate some fruit, played guitar, listened to the beatles and read "fast food nation." overall, quite a lazy, but enjoyable day. i'm allowed these short respites, no? i figure, seeing as i didn't even get back into brooklyn until 4 am, i could relax today. sure, that works.

last night was awesome. my buddy brian and i split a 40 minute set at a bar in trenton, nj where i have lots of friends. after spending the day in new brunswick, and sharing dinner with my brother i was relaxed and ready for a fun night. so, we played a great show, brian really killing it and me playing without a mic cause i love the intimacy. also, brian just got his cds mailed to him, his first solo record. so exciting. congrats brother. anyway, so while i had to fight a talking backround audience, the people up front were amazing and supportive and yet another night was spent with me feeling swollen with happiness and excitement. so many people had such great things to say and were so kind and giving.

the bands that played were awesome as well, which made both brian and i miss playing in rock bands. nick from ape up is an old buddy and a killer drummer, so watching him was great and the ruining totally ruled. i've played a bunch of shows with their singer nick recently so to see the full band was awesome. so many great friends, beers with loved ones and laughs abounded. after it all though i had to take it easy and then drive back to brooklyn to take care of the little ones.

oh, and then this afternoon, i caught the mouse. i put him in a cup and let him out the front door. i kind of feel bad, because i don't know if he'll find his family, but at least the cat won't kill him. good luck little buddy.

it's nice getting your ass kicked

2009-07-31T12:20:00.001-07:00

last night i played the court tavern in new brunswick, nj. i was asked to play by a good buddy who said that there'd be a bunch of people there and that the other bands knew me and liked the idea of me playing. i liked this idea, so i was down. plus, what else do i have to do? sitting in apartment that doesn't belong to me in a city where i don't live hanging out with a cat and bunny i barely know is fun, sure, but i'm supposed to be playing shows, right? yea, i'd say. so, i hopped in ole sweet pea (my 93 plymouth sundance) and headed down 278 west (after having to turn around twice to actually figure out how to get on the highway) towards staten island and ultimately new jersey. did you know it cost 11 fucking dollars to get out of new york that way? fuck that. i understand why people never leave. anyway, i got to new brunswick, parked my car and went to the court. while there i realized my brother was playing a show just down the street, so i headed over to see him play, running into jillian and liz on the way. i was happy to see they came to hang out, as it's always nice to see familiar faces of lovely people. when i got to my brother's show there was a suggested donation, of which i could not really afford to pay, and they then didn't want to let me in. now, i'm all for supporting bands, especially touring bands, especially since that's pretty much how i make my money, but this was to support a local college arts group. now, that's cool and all, and if people have money to spare, i think that's amazing to support them, but if you're going to do a suggested donation and then try to turn people away when they can't or won't pay, well that's just bullshit to me. if that's your style, just make it hard entrance fee. then there's no grey areas. anyway, they eventually let me, but not after doing their best to make me feel bad, which they continued to do after the show when i went to leave. whatever, fuck them, this ain't my first rodeo. ha, sorry i'm so surly, i suppose it's this beard.

now, our buddy dave was not able to be at the show tonight, and neither was kel, so communipaw was a two piece, just brian and keith. but it was great regardless. in a way, perhaps better, as their obvious connection comes shining through as just the two of them. i love those kids to death, and hope to eventually play music with them again. i'm not going to lie, playing solo is so convienent and my assholeness doesn't need to be an issue cause it's just me, but seeing them together makes me really want to have a strong connection with others playing music. i'm not entirely sure i'm capable of it, but i'd really love to try. my brother is going to be away for 8 months starting in september, so i hope to work my ass off learning how to play guitar well and listening to music with wide open ears. i have songs i need to learn, licks, techniques, etc. when he gets back i hope we can make music and if so, we will make the world sing.

after giving my boys hugs, jillian, liz and i headed over to the court, catching up with tommy on the way. tommy is a great mate, and later in the night, out of the corner of my ear i thought i heard him describing our relationship to some other people. if he was in fact talking about me, it felt great. i heard, "...pj dated my sister six years ago and we all met, hung out and we soon became fast friends." i love it. great people, lots of love, lucky me. so awesome.

now, as far as the show is concerned, there was not much to speak of, but i try to have fun. and i've had so many great shows recently, so many wonderful nights where i'm not sure it works and then people come up and clap me on the back, buy merch, ask for contact info, tell me to come back. nights like those are great, and the ones where people stand close and clap along are even better. last night was more of a "bands watching other bands" kind of situation, which i've obviously had many times, but when i finished and buddy brian played a few songs people weren't even being polite anymore. they were talking loudly, laughing, clinking glasses, etc. my issue is that there is a bar upstairs where everyone is loud and downstairs is there to listen to music. but that's neither here nor there i suppose. i also remet a kid i've met about 10 times. seeing as i hate that i do this to people, i should be more understanding, but i met this kid again in a very specific situation a week ago. whatever, a little taste of my own poison. i decided though, that these were all good things. it's good to get your ass kicked a little bit from time to time. it's good to have reminders that there's still a fight needed. not to say that i've been basking in luxury by any means, but i've had some great shows as of late or at least great experiences, so i need to remind myself and others that i still have lots of work to do. but i'm willing to do it and relish it. i think it's great and look forward to pushing myself more and learning to become undeniable. we'll see how that works out.

a little before last call i headed over to another bar to meet up with my brother, keith and a bunch of other friends. i can't stress how much i love these kids. it's weird, having people you respect so intensely and love being around and also can get silly drunk and flop around the bar together being ridiculous. i rubbed my beard all over people and we laughed our asses off. i suppose it was a "you had to be there" kind of thing, but suffice it to say, even if just for a minute, we were glorious.

of course the only way to end a night like this is to retire to the pizzeria. this fucked with my near raw diet i've been enjoying the last few days, but i guess you just have to live, you know? buddy brian, what i trooper. probably didn't get home until 4 am, and had to work this morning. and i know him well enough to know he went and kicked ass and killed it at work on 4 hours sleep. that guy's a monster. love it.

i crashed out on a couch in my underwear without a blanket, as it is hot as all get out in new brunswick in the summer. fans barely do anything. but i woke up, had a nice breakfast of grapefruit, mango, blueberries and cherries along with my first coffee in days, all thanks to sugu. we sat and discussed my recent hatred for the government that's grown out of my current diet of food related books. it's odd that 1) i'm so obsessed with reading about food, and 2) that the most i've disliked and distrusted the government is based off of books written about food. i'm halfway through michael pollen's "the omnivore's dilemma," and eric schlosser's "fast food nation." in the recent past i read pollen's "in defense of food," and blew through "skinny bitch," because i was curious to see if it was worth something or basically tabloid fodder. i was actually pleasantly surprised with the content that sat behind the base vernacular. they also referenced a variety of texts i've read and enjoyed, most notably, "fit for life," by harvey and marilyn diamond. if you want your thoughts on food to be clarified and demystified, i suggest reading all of these books, but perhaps fit for life the most. they're all easy reads and quite enjoyable in their own rights. but yes, i currently am quite displeased with the state of our food production and how it's destroying both our planet and bodies. sorry for that tangent, but it's been taking up a great deal of my brain and heart as of late.

now i think i'm going to go work on some songs and hope i can get this metal splinter out of my finger by tonight. i hope you're all with loved ones.

it's in the mail

2009-07-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

last night at around 4 am i looked at the clock and asked myself what i was doing. i was awake, watching the last few episodes of "lost" that i'd missed while on tour, and was feeling a little ridiculous. but then i realized, that i like being able to completely disregard traditional time tables and not worry about whether or not i'm "supposed to" be awake. i think by now you're probably aware of this with me.

i finally went to bed at 6 am, after waking the birds and the sun. i knew it might mess with my morning (well, afternoon) schedule, but other than writing i knew i only had to get to the post office. when i finally got out of bed around 2 pm i got up, caught up on a bunch of emails and web updates, showered and went to the post office. and there, my friends, after a few back and forths with the kind woman who helped me, i put my artwork and record in the mail. now, this may not sound momentous to you, but to me it's huge. i was hoping to have this record released in july, and to be honest, while that was perhaps a mildly unrealistic goal, if things had been slightly different i would have probably come close. the thing is, by working with my current label/friends and by choosing the people i did to help me complete it, i added quite a few months to the process. some of those months are necessary and i don't mind and a few were just stupid mistakes on my part or someone elses that delayed the process. still, now it's in the mail. which means i'm offically done with my side of the recording/creating process. and that feels amazing. it felt done a while ago, but this is the final feather in the cap. and now we wait. the hope is that a month or two from now i'll have copies in my hand and then a month or two after that you will. i know that seems like a long time, but there are always in betweens/delays when you do a record, as well as necessary set ups between companies who will be distributing it, the label, me, you, etc. it's a wild process, but an interesting one. i'm hoping to be a bit less slow in the future and already have a few plans in the works for some split 7"s with friends and some other ideas up my sleeve.

so, that was essentially my day so far. i woke up late, did a bunch of business stuff, moved my car, went to the post office, played with the cat, ate a bunch of fruit. i know it doesn't sound very exciting, but i'm on my way my friends. writing this book and touring are now the only two things i need to worry about for a little while. last night i wrote a few pages and this is definitely going to be a ton of work, but it's a pretty amazing feeling. i look forward to revisiting a lot of these memories and trying to capture the feelings i've scratched into notebooks or tucked away in my brain. wish me luck.

sitting on cats and houses

2009-07-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

i am currently in brooklyn in a sweet apartment that does not belong to me. i have a few shows this weekend and just got back from a great weekend of shows with trunks and tales (myspace.com/trunkstales). the shows ruled, i got to catch up with old friends and enjoyed my time with the t and t guys, as well as getting to meet and befriend blaine. i think when i eventually write my book, i will title this section "three days with blaine," and will suggest that you spend three days with every person you can. i realize this might sound ridiculous, but whenever you get a chance to spend a few days with someone that a friend of yours deems worthwhile, you get to see a great deal more than you would if you hung out with them randomly over a period of months. at this point i feel i'm pretty good at getting to know people fairly quickly, but if you can do that in a night, think about what three days will do. so, i suggest, if you have the opportunity, spend a few days with as many friends of friends as you can. it may seem odd, but i assure you you'll quickly realize that most people in this world have the ability to be somebody in your life. that's not to say you'll be best friends with everyone, but it wouldn't hurt to have a whole gang of acquantences, friends, tight friends, lovers, family, etc. i suggest you check it out.

after playing the shows this weekend the trunks guys dropped me off in montclair to pick up my car where i'd ditched it, and i caught up with buddy brian. what a great dude. i'm so glad i've had the ability to spend so much time with him over the course of the last year or so. i then said my goodbye to brian and ran to the grocery store to pick up a ton of fruits and vegetables and headed to brooklyn. i'm house sitting and i decided i was going to do some mild detoxing this week. to be honest it will probably only be a half detox, as i don't plan on stopping drinking, but while i'm here i plan on drinking less and also eating a mainly raw diet. i was considering doing the master cleanse, but not only is that crazy intense (though this is the week to do it, with no work and a toilet close by) but i am not sure i'm mentally prepared for something so strict and heavy. i figured though, with some self disapline i could eat a very clean diet, cut back on the drinking and flush myself out a bit. overall i want to hunker down and write as much of the book as i can this week. the way i look at it, while i'm not "traveling" this week, nor will i be as much after i get back from my next big tour, i'm pretty proud of myself for how much i've been moving around since i set out on this adventure, and am still yet to get a job or home. it's actually really exciting to know i'll have my own apartment in part of new york city for a few days. my older brother once told me that at some point, everyone needs to live in the city. while it's not manhatten, and it's only a week, i still feel like i'll get just a small taste. i'll walk to the corner store for a coffee or beer, hop on the subway to go visit my buddy at work on the lower east side, maybe ride a bike with my friend from brooklyn. and who knows, perhaps someday i'll be able to afford to live in the city, but seeing as i probably will not be able to, i'll at least appreciate what it's like for a week. i'm going to go to jersey to play some shows thursday and friday, and while i'd rather just stay here the whole week, playing shows is what it's all about. i really don't know how many shows i've played, but i should figure it out, huh? if i had to guess i'd estimate somewhere in the area of 60 during the past 3 months, but i'm not sure. while i'm writing the book i'm going to try to chronicle as many things as i can, shows, roommates, etc. my memory is not perfect, and i've been living more than recording, but i'm ok with that. why? well, because that was the whole point. now that i have some free time i'll catch up as much as i can and then attempt to keep as best track as possible, but i guess i don't think that's as important as actually experiencing it. i'll keep you updated on how the thoughts adapt over the next few days. i may also be biting off more than i can chew this week, but when i get back from the next tour, i'll have another few weeks off, so i'll find myself some place to call home for a short while and work even further. if the book is up to date, i'll catch up on reading, writing songs, maybe do some local traveling, who knows. but i know that sitting in an apartment that's not mine on a computer that's not mine has already let the next chapter of the adventure begin. so far i've listened to the association, backstreet boys, beach boys and a slew of other great and/or ridiculous groups.

all this being said, i'm going to get started writing and hope i can make some sense of my journal and blog entries and get some ideas down so that eventually i can share my entire year in one ridiculous saga. i hope you think it's as awesome as i do. i relish any thoughts you may have. be well and stay safe.

Let's try this again

2009-07-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

Ok so I spent a long time writing only to find out it didn't post so if this enter seems disjunct, I apologize. Anyway, here we go.

The last week has been super busy and filled with some great times. Early in the week I went to new Bruns to meet up with Jacob for drinks and to hang before he moved back to PA for a while. It's so funny how we haven't hung out in a year, but he came back from Budapest and we fell right back into being bros. I guess it helped that we stayed in touch the whole time. Still I love that we could hang without missing a beat. Do you have great friends that just get it? I sure hope so. When you're with a good buddy and you're just in it, life is glorious. Seeing Jacob was definitely the perfect way to start off the week, and being able to introduce him to buddy brian made my friendships all the better.

The middle of the week found me hanging out in Brooklyn and manhatten, eating delicious food, going to galleries and stores that normally would scoff at the likes if me, but when accompanied by a beautiful woman, well I come off as the requisite scummy artist, and while these people might not exactly have my ticket, I'll take the free ride. I like the idea of being able to float through social barriers and circles. The homeless kid among high rises. Oh, and of course I ate awesome pizza at lucali. Well done.

On Friday my brothers band communipaw, had their record release and asked me, buddy brian and our friend Charlie to open the show. I was supposed to be playing Philly that night but was so scatter brained and knew I needed to be at the cpaw show that I just made it happen. It was so nice to see so many old and new friends as well as parents. I think it's amazing when parents come to shows to support their kids and are genuinely excited by the music. I'm not used to this but very much appreciate it. More than one parent told me they love the one song I wrote on the communipaw ep which meant a lot. Since situations like this are rare I played the song along with some other new ones and felt good. Standing in the middle of an art gallery without a mic, just me and my guitar, stomping and singing, I was living. I think it went over really well and I felt great.

Before communipaw played they showed a short film about the making of the record. Of course it was awesome and both pride and mild jealously inducing as is almost everything my brother does. Besides a few technical issues the band sounded amazing, as always and then it was off to the bars. I got to catch up with some great friends if not seen in a while and got to know a few other people better which I fully appreciate. Off to bed.

Yesterday morning I woke up and my buddies in the PA folk/punk band, trunks and tales came to pick me up. After coffee and eggs we headed out to Waterbury, CT which should be two hours but is never less than five. When we got to Lil tommy j's home for lost boys we were two hours late and somehow one of the only bands there. So after many hours of sitting around and 32 ounces of sol, the show got under way. I was seriously surprised that the show didn't get shut down for being so loud so late. But it did not and around ten pm I grabbed my guitar and headed for the living room. I'm never really sure what kind of response I'll get but Connecticut treated me well. These kids were stomping and clapping along making me feel warm and loved. After my set I was told I definitely need to come back and got tons of hugs and sold a bunch of merch. However what really sealed my place at the home was when I showed them my lost boy lip tattoo. They made me take a photo for the wall and told me I was always welcome. Amazing. It's so incredible to travel around the country and sing songs I wrote in my moms house and have people respond well ad positively. One kid gave an amazing compliment, "I like your stuff man, but most of all that you're honest. That's quite evident." perhaps this is not verbatim but is the same sentiment and it made me feel great. This is not the first time I've heard this and I love that. If I'm known for being honest and writin good songs, well then I'd say I won.

And that mainly catches us up. I'm sorry if I missed anything. I remember a few things now that were in the previous post but that info will show it's face in the coming days. Thanks for baring with me the last few weeks, as it's been quite a wild ride. But now I'm back in the saddle and look forward to hanging hard. Let me know what you've been up to. I send my love.

God damn it

2009-07-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a huge blog for almost an hour and it got erased. Sweet. Now I have to drum up the interest to rewrite it all. Fuck me.

Another day for nothingness

2009-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm back in Burlington and the Ghosting tour is pretty much over. I say pretty much because we don't have a show tonight but one tomorrow. The reason this sucks for me is that I have to sit around all day today and tomorrow waiting to play a show tomorrow night before I can head home on wednesday. Normally this wouldn't matter and I'd relish the idea of staying in a beautiful city for a few extra days but there are people I love that I haven't seen in a while at home and I am anxious to see them again. Jacob/jake is back from Budapest and it feels so amazing that he's just a cell phone call or text away. When he was overseas I couldve called but it's either skype or phone cards and there's a six or so hour time difference. Now it's just pull out the old mobile and shoot the kid a call to hear the days happenings. And today we did this, back to our old give and take of stories of love, crushes, confused hearts and advice. He's an amazing buddy and I'm so happy to have him back so he's one reason I want to head back to the area. Oh and he and I have still not had a beer together. Can you believe that? I also want to head back to see about some things that I've hoping will still be there when I return, furthering my anxiety while sitting in this city. Oh and I'm thinking of taking a short respite from drinking which seems to make both meeting new people and the idea of hanging out a bit daunting.

Here's the catch: if I leave town now, like I would like to, I'm bailing on the Ghosting dudes. They offered to play the show without me but that's not really cool of me. We'll see how the next day or so will work out, but I can tell you that the ole brain will be working overtime regardless of me wanting it.

Right now I'm sitting in the local food co-op after eating lunch and a cute little boy just walked by who oddly looks like a forty year old junky. It's a strange look. Let's hope he's healthy and ages well. There's also a great deal of love here, both platonic and romantic. It's really warming though i'm not going to lie it also makes me feel incredibly lonely. I suppose that's not helping me want to stay in town when I know I'll feel loved in jersey.

I also suppose I should catch you up on recent events. I have a feeling I'll be better in the coming weeks but I should fill in the holes. Last week I stayed at my brothers house and felt comfortable and at home. Late night songs and wine. Morning bagels and eggs. Great friends and family. Then off to the jersey shore where jared Ghosting caught up with an old fried and I spent a good part of two glorious days feeling enormous. But eventually the bubble needs to pop and after a great day at the beach and a hippy dinner it was off to Trenton to meet up with old friends and play at the mill hill. We played a fun show and my brother and keith joined me for my set for a good, albeit drunken time. I'm also really proud to introduce people to my friends as I have the best ones around and that night was no exception. From Trenton we went to long island where I got to meet up with my old bandmate Shaun and his girl ella. It's always great to see them and I loved catching up with my boy. We were supposed to play in another band together but I got let go. He did as well recently which is bullshit but he'll be better off. I'm glad to have gotten the full scoop though. This night was also the beginning of me creating terrible senarios in my head based on zero to flimsey made up thoughts. I'm an idiot and need to learn how to go with the flow better. Just let go and let things be. Anyway from there it was to new Brunswick to blow some zeds then up in the morning to see jake back into town. It ruled to feel his presence back in my life. We played Ewing nj that night to nobody. At times like these I wonder what I'm doing with my life. I know I know it's stupid. Life comes in waves. From Ewing it was up to buddy brian's for big hearts, beers and grilled cheese. Love that dude. Then up to providence where on the way I started to make some peace with myself. Again, waves. We hung out at an indie arts festival and I sat quietly under a tree. Life felt good like everything would be ok. Then to vegan BBQ! I was hoping I'd see some providence friends but no dice. Oh well next time. I got to talk to my great friend from home, Amelia, and that felt amazing. She's one of the beat people I know. We played a good show and afterwards went back to chris from Jesuscentric's apartment. It was really nice to be comfortable and be able to get more writing done, furthering my feeling of peace. The next morning I got shaken up a bit but possibly not in a bad way. Always interesting. Then off to Allston mass knowing I'd get to eat veggie hot dogs at spikes so I was laughing. Buffalo dog! The show was fun and I got to play an acoustic set as well which always feels great. At the end of the night we said our goodbyes to Jesuscentric and empty orchestra, whom we'd played with during the weekend and it felt great to know I made good friends that I look forward to seeing again in cities I like but want to know better. And then we drove home. Well Burlington. And so here I am. I guess that's always the case, right? There we are. My supreme hope is that with this life I find things rather than lose them and create and spread love rather than stifle it or spread negativity. I'm going to keep working towards beauty and hope you'll join the journey. Much love.

Back on the road

2009-07-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

I feel as though I'm just now being forced to pay for all of my sins. Well let's not kid ourselves that's rather hyperbolic and probably far from the truth, but reardless it seems my chickens have come home to roost, so to speak.

The reason I've not written the past few days is two fold. It started because I was back in the jersey area for a bit and was catching up with old friends, trying to live a semi normal life if only for a minute. The second reason is because once you take a break from this crazy ride ad subsequently writing about it, starting up and writing again seems quite daunting. That's not to say that mini breaks are not sometimes necessary but I suppose I need to remain dilligent about writing should I hope you lovely readers will follow. I do know in a couple of weeks I will have some much needed time off with no shows and a place to lay my head, and it is during these days I plan on catching up on the book portion of this project. My goal is that by the end of the year (if I'm able to survive it) I will have a loose book version of my accounts that I hope to heavily oranise and edit and hopefully publish, even if that means doing so myself.

What's funny is that fairly early on I realized that I'd probably become quite the philanderer, or perhaps other unthinkable things. What I mean by this actually has a lot to do with a question a friend asked me a month or so ago. "so what happens after the year?" a completely valid but hard to answer question. I explained that I was not quite sure but relished the idea of finding some sort of clarity or perhaps answers to other often asked questions. And oddly, dear reader, at this very second while writing to you unnamed mass, Im feeling a moment of peace; furthermore, this is beautiful as I've been fighting through a storm of doubt, pain and sadness as of late. The thing is that one of the answers I gave my friend centered around the thought that perhaps sometime during the year I'd fall in love and have a reason to settle down, to have a place I'd like to call home. And sometimes you think you see a light at the end of this tunnel and othertimes you feel completly immersed in this darkness. And despite what the saying says about darkness and dawn, I find perhaps the darkest we see is after a flash of bright light. Catching a glimpse allows us to see some things and then when said light is extingushed we are temporarily blinded, left to fend fir ourselves in total blackness. But perhaps there is a dawn ahead. At this very second I have faith, despite the death metal band playing in the background.

So as this year progresses I hope to regale you with tales of woe and wonder, laughter and lament. I hope to write songs of hope and sing them at the top of my sometimes sad lungs. But I'll have faith. It's good there's rain. It washes away the sorry rainbow expressions. I'm not perfectly sure of this line from basketball diaries but the sentimnt is there.

Anyway the last week or so has been spent catchig up with loved ones, playing shows, and most of all, riding am emotional rollercoaster. Are you getting tired of this metaphor? If so i'm sorry but you truly have no idea. But it's real. It's life. My great friend Jacob just returned from spending a year in Budapest hungary and while we were speaking he said the one lesson he learned from this year is that nothing is that hard. Sure, things are tough but we get through them. Thaw actually a pretty great lesson to truly learn. We've been told this before but to fully digest it is priceless. It also got me thinking about how I'm three months into this year long pilgramige of sorts, he just finished one and my brother us scheduled to start 8 months in India starting in September. By the time he leaves I'll be five or so months in, which is close enough to half the year. The craziest part is that after the sixth month mark I feel the end is almost in sight. Not really but after conquering six months what's so more? This is not to say I can't wait for this to end because honestly at times this has been the most amazing ride of my life and I also know that when this year ends I'll still be me with all the same fears and hopes and dreams. While I will grow I'll still be pj. It's interestig. I suppose it's quite similar to the idea that wherever you go there you are. You can run away from yourself no matter how much we may want to at times. But that's Ok. If we learn how to live with and love ourselves we'll never be alone. Jacob was talkig about how in the end you only have yourself so find a way to make yourself happy. I can definitely appreciate this. However to add to it I hope to eventually find someone who gets it and wants me in their life as much as I want to be in theirs. Until then though I'll take to the roads and to the hills, making sure I stop to eat berries and make friends along the way. I invite you all to do the same. Thank you for being here with me and I send you my unconditional love.

Little compass

2009-07-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

We're driving up interstate 85 and listening to little compass. They're the last band I toured with in my band outsmarting Simon. OS was my baby, my first real mature love. Sure, high school introduced me to first, fleeting, young love. We spent our summers locked in the basement nursing vampire like paleness emerging only for quick dips in the pool and to steal away to the pool house to get high. But even though we had a great time and felt warmed we were only just beginning to learn how to exercise our hearts and truly feel great things. As we moved onto college I found more fullfilling music that spoke to the core of me, and eventually amazing friends with whom I'd make music and count on as great mates and travel partners. We'd move around the country and into Canada as a crew of seemingly miss matched polite pirates. We came to your town, drank all your beer, kissed your women and did your dishes, the only signs we existed being recycled cans and folded sheets in the morning. We shares dreams of booking agents and the possibility that perhaps one day we could play the music we loved to rooms filled with friendly faces night after night. We hoped for interviews and reviews, third and fourth records, trips over seas, time at home relaxing, free of temp jobs and substitute teaching. But these dreams were for naut. And I think I'm ok with that. This is not to say that I don't wish it wouldve happened, but in a way it's better it didn't. By way of "failure" we succeeded in every other way. We stayed great friends, stayed positive, stayed mildly innocent and never thought ourselves over important. When I toured with later bands nobody ever knew OS but the few times they did it was usually a really big deal to them and therefore to me. At this point I've done huge tours and nothing tours, but those OS ones will forever stick out to me as important and real. I count greg, Maguire and Kelly as some if the best and most talented dudes I've ever met and I consider myself extremely lucky and proud to have shares the stage with them some 500 times or so. We never officially broke up, oddly similar to how my breakups with girls are usually fizzle outs because we still care about each other but maybe not as passionately as we once did. No bitter fights or blowups, just a simple recognition of an undesired resignation. So, to this day I hold outsmarting Simon close to my heart, and am proud to have its ink under my skin. I will give up everything I own and carry my timeline on my body. And listenig to little compass adds a bittersweet night cap to it all. Both bands stopped playing together after the tour, and neither ever mattered to the masses; the silent passing of nobodies. But we live on in our hearts and music, and because of the experiences I had with my friends I felt I couldn't stop moving. So here I am, a 27 year old child with close to nothing to his name, save a timeline of ink under my skin and memory songs in my heart. Fill these lungs with fresh, free air, and the world is mine. I suggest you do the same. I send my love.

on the way back home

2009-07-11T16:46:00.001-07:00

so, if you consider me having a home, then i'm headed back towards it. right now i'm in atlanta, where while i know a ton of people i seemingly never see them. anyway, in a few days i'll be back in new jersey, which has a few really great things attached with it.

i'll give you a big recap/update tomorrow perhaps, but how about some photos to catch you up? this starts the day after i ate the vermonster. i went to visit my cousin and loved every minute of the peace, warmth and kindness. enjoy:

i love chickens and a duck!

the fossils left at the rock quarry were pretty intense. they were everywhere.

this rock quarry was behind the house where i was to pot luck with old people. love it.

free ben and jerry's and being made to play songs by an old folk group is pretty sweet.

my cousin and his new beautiful baby boy.

100% of the time that i have a pot luck dinner with 60 year olds i have fun.

i'm not really very excited by "historical" stuff, and found some parts of this boring, but watching this boat get out on the lake was pretty cool.

chickens! their eggs were so bright and eggy. i'm falling in love with farm fresh everything.

this is the local library on my cousin's island. amazing.

how true it is. finally someone gets it.

this is weed, he's awesome. his buddy, we called "bike horn." not sure what his real name was.

this is one of the sweeter bikes i've ever seen. it was at the creephole in michigan city, indiana. i know, that's a strange name for a city. anyway, if you look closely, you'll see that the bike is "rage certified." fuck yea.
i like cute notes/cartoons.

grand rapids is a colorful city, and i like it.

if you see the guy with the black acoustic guitar, he's actually playing the lights. what i mean is that there were a variety of cables and a light box wired into this gutted guitar, and while he screamed he ran the light show. i can't tell if this is genius or idiotic. maybe both. i think they felt the same way.

peace sign made of bottle caps in grand rapids michigan. who says alcohol leads to violence?

in milwaukee i to relax on this bench and catch up on phone calls. tyler (bass player of ghosting) then told me there was a plaque nearby that led him to believe we were in gang territory, as it spoke of "fallen latin brothers," and made references to the neighborhood. not totally sure, but it was interesting, either way.

i didn't realize i have my own soda. awesome.

jared enjoying a "chelada." what's better than bud light mixed with clam infused tomato juice? a lot of things, actually. yikes.

i'm reading a book right now that talks about mcdonalds headquarters in oak brook, il, and on the 3rd of july, oddly, we were there.

fourth of july with sweet bros and chicks and an awesome show. can't shake a stick at that.

indiana cuts their pizza into squares. really? come on midwest, get it together.

christina had quite the sweet owl collection. we played her apartment built in an old schoolhouse. wild.

it took two songs for the landlady to come and tell the band they couldn't play a living room in an apartment building. who knew?

welcome to my mini smoothie.

spencer says he wants to kiss me with a beard. or, i'm a giant drinking a normal size smoothie. either caption works.

does your chosen beverage come in orange camo? no? then you're not prepared for war. i've declared one on my liver.

white castle fish sandwich. why did i so this?

sometimes jared likes to have conversations on the phone in weird places.

we met this dude named "smoke," who is a current hippie, ex punk who saw the cro-mags in philly in 82. amazing.

do you like fishdicks? do you like fishdicks in your mouth?

if you think you're band has gear, check out the blue letter.

this is the excitable jack russell, peaches, from louisvile. what a little pisser. literally.

my soon to be sister in law, beth, and lupe. big time. hanging out with them in asheville was awesome. my brother and beth have an amazing garden and a warm, welcoming house that always makes me happy to be at.

why not drive your tractor to the local gas station? oh, and presumably he's handicapped. or he'll get a ticket.

for whatever reason, the hospital in orlando served a wide variety of good cheap veggie friendly food, so we went and pigged out. the only problem was we had to deal with ridiculous artwork and hospital smell.

i believe this was titled, "chief of surgery." wow.

sure, screamy/chaotic music and sparklers go well with a chicken hood.

Grow a garden in your backyard

2009-07-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've really not had much internet access on this tour, I'm sorry I've been distant. Oddly though the tour has been going really well. I say oddly because this is ghostings first tour which is usually rough and in general tour can be hard but especially when you're traveling in a packed vehicle with people you don't know. But things are going swimmingly and we are all in good spirits. The shows for the most part have been going well and we've made enough money to stay afloat so far so that's awesome.

To catch you up three nights ago we played in our new friend christinas living room. This is not usually weird but she lives in an apartment and it happens to be in an old school. I'm serious. The landlord lives in the auditorium and there are chalk boards in all the apartments. I know it sounds like a story you'd read in middle school but it's the truth. So weird and cool. Anyway I played some tunes that sounded great because the acoustics in the room ruled. Then we did an acoustic Ghosting set which is funny because normally we're really loud and heavy. Oddly it worked really well. We've been talkig about doing a split this winter and now we're thinking they should do their side as an acoustic part. Anyway people seemed to really dig it so it was fun. After we played a band we met the first night played. They're called leaving songs and they're good dudes and a good band. But they're loud and they didn't want to play acoustic. So at ten pm on a weeknight these guys set up a drumset and amps in an apartment living room and started playing. Of course as soon as they did the neighbors came out of their apartments. Two songs in and the landlord was there. I'm impressed it took that long. So we called it a night and just relaxed the rest of the time.

The next day we went to get breakfast and walk around indianapolis. After askig many people we determined that there was nothing exciting to do in of around the city so we headed foe Cinncinati where we were to play a bar show. We got to cincy super early so we went to the record store and hung out. I decided that I could probably find joose there finally. All of the other places we'd been were just too nice but this was not the nicest area. Sure enough they had joose and four loko which is even more ridiculous so of course I had to get it. We drank it in the car and then Tyler locked the keys in the car. Re funny thing is just the day before I said we should make a copy of the key and nobody saw a point. Luckily the front window was cracked so I was able to pop the locks. Since it was so easy we then cracked the back windows and closed the front ones. Remember this it's important. Afterwards jared and I went to white castle because he'd never been (fucking vermonters) and he bought me a fish sandwich because it was funny and I can now eat something there, albiet something terrible for you. It tastes about as good as you'd expect. I think I also burned my mouth on it and it still kind of hurts.

We then headed back to the bar to see if it had opened yet but no dice so we sat out front and talked to an aging hippy named "smoke" who told us he'd seen the cromags in Philly in 82. It's so cool to meet ex punks who now follow around ratdog selling jewelery. A bit later pam showed up to open the bar. Pam couldn't be older than 35 but had four children the oldest of which is 20. We sat around and talked to her until more people showed up. Turns out we weren't even on the bill but were allowed to open up which meant we played to the other bands. For the most part that's all anyone did. After we played we went to load the truck and realized I locked the keys in the car. Jesus. So we spent the next hour trying to pop the trunk and locks with a stick taped to a broom through the back window. We couldn't get a good angle or leverage but were so close. I then found a kid to get me a hanger but was afraid it would bend in the door so with some help from the base player of the blue letter we fashioned a hook and I hooked the keychain and fished the keys out through the window. Sweetness. It was then off to louisville but not without stopping for a road soda at the gas station where the fucked up shitty white dude told me not to sneak up on him and yelled at me the entire time I was waiting peppering his tirade with racial epithets and slurs. Awesome. Just what I wanted. I got out I there as quickly as possible and then we were off to Kentucky.

In Louisville we were to stay with an old Burlington friend of ghostings. Paul is a super sweet punk with a kind quiet boyfriend and adorable but exciteable jack russells. Scrappy, the boy, still had his balls and I saw more red rocket than I cared for over the twenty or so hours we were there.

In the morning we got coffee and talked to an eighty or so year old woman about the area. She was unphased by tattooed pierced punks. I liked that. We then headed for Asheville where my brother and soon to be sister in law live. We were headed for Orlando Florida and needed a stop over. Atlanta made more sense but my atl connections were not coming through and I liked the idea of seeing my brother. It turned out that he was getting on a plane to Europe but I decided going to see beth would be awesome anyway so we drove to Asheville and got there around eleven. It was really nice being back at beths house and hanging with someone I'm really happy to welcome to the family. I realized while talking to beth that parts of her reminded me of another person that really makes me happy which makes me smile even more. So we stayed up drinking and sharing stories and then took the dog lupe for a walk and looked at wild flowers and veggies. We went to sleep around four and this morning got up and checked out the garden. Beth and chris have such a great place that is warm and welcoming as well inspiring. By the way mustard greens are awesome. We then went to the coffee shop where chris and beth have pottery displayed and then it was off to eat a quick vegan lunch before our ten hour drive to Florida. And here we are. I hope to put up photos and update the days soon. I'm in the 80s though which is pretty fucking wild. I hope you're living loudly as well. All the best.

USA!

2009-07-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

Man I really need to get to a computer. I definitely wouldve thought I'd have more opportunities to sit and write but I guess not. Perhaps someday I'll be able to afford a laptop that works and then I could at least do things at shows and the such. Regardless I can use my little thumbs to type in randomness. I think I'm somewhere close to 70 days out if the real world. It's pretty wild and I definitely have a lot of catching up to do writing wise.

Right now I'm in the Ghosting car driving down interstate 65 towards Indianapolis to play a last minute show at a friends house. The tour has been going really well which is a very pleasant surprise. I started off with a bad attitude for a variety of reasons but was quickly reoriented which is awesome. Also I was a bit worried about money but everything seems to be going well and if it stays this way we'll be in great shape. We've even filled in a bunch of the off dates which totally rules. So now I just need to work on the next couple of tours and worry about my possible upcoming trip to Europe which I really really hope comes through. We shall see how that all works out but I'm definitely hoping. Also there are few reasons why I'd like to take a short break from traveling and it seems like I might be able to for the perfect amount of time, so again here's to hoping.

As for the last few days, they've been great. We stayed with owen in oakbrook, il and enjoyed various fourth of July activities, met tons of awesome people and heard so many good bands. It's incredible how much awesome music the Midwest is able to churn out. Well done. When I get to a computer I'll detail a bit more. I'm going to go read about how corn is taking over our dinner plates, as well as everything else we ingest.

I hope you're shining.

ghosting tour update

2009-07-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

so right now i'm sitting outside of the national coffee shop in milwaukee wisconsin. it's closed, at 8 pm, which leads me to believe that after 5 it's beer drinking time in this city. or maybe it's always time. regardless, their wireless still works, so i'm happy.

the last few days have been fairly momentous. i'll be honest, i was mildly skeptical about this tour for a variety of reasons, but they have all washed away. i was being silly and am terribly happy i was wrong. it's the best feeling to have a negative outlook turned around. my ghosting bros, drummer jared, singer matt and bassist tyler are great dudes and we're having a blast. this is their first tour, so they're so posi and excited by everything, which is of course makes life more fun and touring easier. i'm a jaded old man who's toured all over the country countless times so occasionally i laugh to myself seeing how stoked they are on everything. it's cute and reminds me of when i was young. i can definitely appreciate that.

two nights ago we played at the creephole in michigan city, indiana. all the bands were good, all the people were nice and while it was a fairly heavy show (as i imagine most will be on this tour, seeing as ghosting is a screamy band) i was welcomed with open arms. for 20 minutes a day i get to play my songs and feel great, and when people respond positively, it's the best feeling in the world. so we hung out, sang songs, i did well with my first ghosting set (i'm playing guitar for them as well) and everyone enjoyed the evening. i'd say we won. after lots of hugs and goodbyes we shot the breeze with some of the housemates and hit the hay. speaking of which, everyone had a bed. so sweet. so rare. so good.

in the morning we headed out for grand rapids, michigan, and when we got there were given a warm welcome from kelly, the girl whose house we were to play. after meeting kelly i went next door to her house and got coffee at a nice little shop with jared. we relaxed and talked for an hour or so, which was nice. jared is young and enthusiastic, and a huge supporter of what i do. it's a great feeling to have people believe in me, regardless of how pessimistic i can be at times about my "music career." afterwards those dudes and kelly went to buy records and i worked on songs in kelly's room. it's really nice when i'm able to sit and write/practice on tour. it's fairly rare, but that's one of the beautiful things about just being me and an acoustic guitar, is that i can pretty much work anywhere. when they got back we went to eat dinner with kelly and caitlin (her roommate) at a pizza/veg restuarant just a few doors down. i got a veggie buffalo chicken sandwich that was pretty banging (save for it was a bit salty, even for my tastes) that came with a spaghetti salad (it was cold like a pasta salad, but not with mayo, more with broccoli and maybe some olive oil? oh, and about a billion cloves of garlic. yowza.) also, the waiter and i had a variety of exchanges that were terribly confusing. either he or i was being mildly retarded at that time. luckily it seemed to pass by.

we then headed back to kelly's place and she told me i'd be opening and then maybe closing the show, which didn't really sit super well with me. i guess since i'm just an acoustic guy, people feel like i'm almost not valid, as if they can always just make me open, even though when bands tour together they often let them play together and at the prime spot. furthermore, making me open a show when i'm 1500 miles away from home kind of sucks. but kelly knew what she was doing so i shouldn't have questioned it at all. by the time i was to play there were a ton of kids there and i played to a packed living room, sang my heart out and was welcomed with clap alongs, sing alongs, stomping and general awesomeness. after my set i got hugs from everyone and sold a bunch of merch. amazing. the show kept going with great bands and lots of compliments, sweet people, beers, etc. it ruled. ghosting played last and while it seemed like the place was clearing out, we actually ended up playing to a packed room and we did really well. people loved it and kept laying on the positive vibe. a little after we packed up i was asked to play a second acoustic set and did so happily. it's such an amazing feeling to have so many people care so much about what i'm doing, to sit quietly during the soft songs and be boisterous when the time is right. so many hugs, laughs, loves. it was an incredible feeling i'm not sure i could properly describe. suffice it to say, i was in awe with the beauty of life and with my general luck. after tons more hugs, a few more cds, lots of kind words people started filtering out. salad, the dude trying to feed me whiskey all night, demanded i follow him to the bar down the street and split a pitcher with him. who am i to turn down such a generous offer. so i went and there met some more nice people and decided that i wanted to head back up for a week in the fall, play various living rooms and make grilled cheese for people. it's a weird thought, but it made me realize that'd be a great idea for a tour. so, hopefully in the fall i can book a few weeks where i go to towns for a few days, make lots of friends, sing songs and grill cheese. i'll call it the "grill cheese with the peej tour" i know, i'm ridiculous. if you want it, i'll come to your town. my grilled cheese is incredible, just so you know.

this morning we relaxed with kelly and her roommates and then headed out to go towards milwaukee. we were originally going to take a ferry straight across the lake, but it turns out that's about 400 bucks, so we just drove around the edge of it and got stuck in construction traffic outside chicago. at least on the way we were able to stop at a sweet gas station convienence store that was the most whole food/vegetarian friendly road side stop i've ever seen. i was even able to get kambucha tea and a nectarine. wildness. well done indiana.

so now i'm going to head back to the venue and hang out, then apparently i'm opening the show again tonight. let's hope it has the same value as last night. hope you're great.

fireflies in Ohio

2009-06-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

There are few better feelings than being proven wrong when you're thinking you're not going to have a good time then you do.

babies everywhere!

2009-06-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

The past few days in Burlington have been interesting. Two days ago I helped eat twenty scoops of ice cream and then sat in a Japanese tea house being peaceful. After sitting with tea I walked back to the house in the rain and grabbed my gear to go play a last minute show at 242 main in Burlington. Since I was added last minute I opened the show and since there weren't a ton of people there I played on the floor and I was glorious. I played to people I needed to convince and I did it and it ruled. I sold a few things which really helped cause I'm getting pretty broke. So the day turned out better than expected.

Then yesterday I said goodbye to my new friends in the band broken chords sing a little louder. After doing so I went to see my cousin dad and his family. Dave and his wife tara just had an incredibly beautiful baby boy two weeks ago. Gavin is so little and so cute it's amazing. Sometimes I forget how incredible and mind blowing human life really is and thinking about this tiny little dude and how someday he'll be a real guy. So wild. It felt great to catch up with dave and tara as they're amazing people and some of my favorite relatives ever. They took me and gavin to a gathering at a friends house where there was a full scale replica of an old cargo ship and we enjoyed free ben and jerrys though we missed jerry himself scooping it. I know what you're thinking, that I really needed more ice cream after the other day. I know i'm an ass. This also did not stop me from taking more for dessert. And you might ask why I was still there after dinner. Well as it seems during the summer this woman hosts weekly pot luck dinners with tons of wine and a house folk group. So we ran home and got some salads tara had made and then went back for an amazing dinner, wine and hanging out with 60 year olds. At one point a woman found out that I'm a musician ad made me play a couple of songs for everyone. It's weird trying to figure out the least sad sounding song I have so as not to bum everyone out. I'd say overall it went well.

After dinner we went back to dave and taras and dave and I stayed up shooting the breeze and drinking wine. It was great to get to spend so much time with loved ones in such a peaceful place. I really felt blessed and refreshed. In the morning we got up and dave made eggs but they were not normal ones they have almost 40 chickens and eat only fresh eggs it was my first time and it ruled shocking yellow yolks and full fresh flavor amazing we then went to have a photo taken of daves son Trevor on the boat and then got some coffee and relaxed. Walking around the gardens, hanging with chickens, being with good people, these are all ways to refresh your spirit. After helping dave with some chores out in the sun I headed back to Burlington to the sounds of tom petty and the clash. When I got into town the apartment was locked so I walked to the store and got some edamole which is edamame crushed and mixed with olive oil and garlic to sort of be like guacamole. After a nice bite and a walk I hopped back in the car and headed to my other cousin erica's place. It's nice that I got to see all of this family especially since I normally barely see anyone. Erica and dan have a two month old beautiful girl so it was lovely to see her and the both them. We had a really nice dinner and hung out for a bit then dan and I went out for drinks. It's always interesting to hang out with significant others or friends of people that you're related to or close to but without that linking person. You get a totally different perspective on their relationship and on them as individuals.

Today I dropped my car off at Tyler from ghostings house and we packed an absurd amount of things into a suburban and crammed in for a three week tour. I'm actually surprised that I'm pretty comfortable back here right now. Hopefully it will stay this way for what could potentially be a long three weeks. I'm hoping fir the best. So let's see how things go.

the VERMONSTER!!!

2009-06-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

so i've been in burlington for about three days now, and have dealt with a rollercoaster of emotions. so many ups and downs, but overall moving upwards, which is definitely a great thing. also, i've met some really quality guys that i've spent the majority of my time with. andrew and brendan of the band broken chords..., and their buddy julian. three really young, positive, straight edge kids who are giving and warm. each is distinctly different but good and have definitely made my stay here all the nicer. they're on a short break from their tour as well (they're from PA and it turns out we have mutual friends), so we've all just been soaking in day off burlington together.

last night i walked down to the water and looked for the moon, but couldn't find it. i also spoke with a buddy who is going through a rough time. these things, mixed with new friends, positive thinking and high hopes have allowed me to look upwards and forward. i'm looking happily at the next few weeks, trying to see all the great things that will come with them, as well as the possibility of going back to new jersey to good things. very wild times, a life i could never have imagined. but that's part of life in general, especially when you push your chin out like a boxer, taking whatever it wants to send your way.

one of those things sent my way was the challenge by andrew and brendan that we take on the vermonster, a 20 scoop ice cream sunday at ben and jerry's that they only serve in vermont. it's about a weeks worth of calories and fat. apparently i needed to join them, at least according to them. so, what follows is a photo account of my pizza day with jackie, drive up to burlington and the last few days. i hope you enjoy.

south brooklyn pizza. we got some slices here to tide us over. (isn't that a weird phrase? "tide over") apparently you can take their pizza next door to the outdoor bar/beer gardens. if we weren't going to head to defaro, that would've ruled.

all handmade, and well worth the wait. make sure you check out defaro. go with someone fun, and byob, for the line at least.

just about ready. so excited.

and now some fresh cut basil.

for some reason i love watching kids be kids.

fresh basil!

it's rare to find a new york apartment with so much green. i definitely appreciate the anomoly.

yes, that's an olde timey car, requiring hand signals.

i will say this, the drive up to vermont was beautiful.

during ghosting practice i was able to brush up on my chops using the plethora of guitar magazines in tyler's basement.

of course while my foot was asleep i'd kick my guitar case.

the broken chords boys sleeping in matt's living room/kitchen.

pick your poison.

this dude built the beast.

pick your toppings.

andrew is ready and willing.

if you can't read it, it says: 20 scoops of ice cream, frozen yogurt or sorbet; 4 bananas; 4 ladles of fudge; 3 chocolate chip cookies; 1 chocolate fudge brownie; 10 scoops of walnuts; 2 scoops of your 4 favorite toppings; topped with lots of fresh made whipped cream. while this was not exactly what we ended up with, it was close enough. i also found a website online that claims this has 14,000 calories and 500 grams of fat, about a weeks worth of each. fuck me. that's 3,500 calories and 125 grams of fat per person, or nearly 2 days worth. i'm a terrible person.

most of the fun stuff was on top. it's a bummer, once you get past the layer of cookies, brownies, bananas, candies and whipped cream, it's pretty much just ice cream.

we're on our way. getting full. there's so much orange. damn it andrew!

brendan was so bummed by the orange sherbert. i understand why.

almost done.

and that's that.

the harbor in burlington. i was happy to find this spot, as many years ago i was brought there by a friend after a night of drinking. i swam out to one of the boats and climbed on in hopes of finding a neglected bottle of booze, and as i peeled the velcro door open i heard, "who's there?" of course, my response, was, "nobody," and i dove off the boat and swam under around the subsequent boats until i was far enough away to swim underwater all the way back to the beach. from there i hung out with my friends undisturbed until three naked girls came running into the water soon to be followed by security people coming to make us leave. suffice it to say, it was an interesting night.

everyone is so polite in burlington, even the signs.

while sitting down by the lake, this little weasel dude kept running by stocking up on fish the size of his head. i decided this was his own version of the vermonster.

I knew it would happen eventually

2009-06-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I looked in the mirror and asked myself, "what are you doing with your life?" I've heard this question before, both internally and externally, but I suppose I just wrote it off or suppressed it. But it came to a head last night. I'm not sure I could fully explain why, but I just knew want it felt like. It was lonely beyond anything I've felt in a long time. It did not feel good. But it's necessary. I chose I life of wander, a life where I always leave. But the hope is that this will help me find beauty, find life and perhaps love. The thing is that without searching I fear I'll never fin anything worth living for. It's a weird fear but one that keeps me moving, if at the very least, in my head and heart. I've not felt settled while settled in a long time. But out on the road I feel a great deal of peace at times, more than anywhere else perhaps. But I also feel more alone than ever, at times. So what is one to do? Risk fear and lonliness, hunger and poverty, for the beauty and peace that is possible from the world? It seems an argument can be made.

I'm sure for those of you who come here for excitement and adventure feel dejected right now. But isn't this the greatest adventure of them all? To spelunk into the depths of one's own heart and head? It's hard work but hopefully one that will provide positive results, ones that allow me to exist in the upper eshelons of happiness. I don't know for a fact but I think so. This is a wild adventure that will take everything out of me and fill me up with something else. I'll keep you updated on the adventures.

yesterday was a win, today feels like a loss.

2009-06-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I woke up hoping for the best. If all went well I'd be spending my waking hours happily. After playing with Loki, drinking some coffee and taking a shower I practiced guitar for the Ghosting tour. Fir those of you that don't know I'll be touring with a screamy band from Burlington vt called Ghosting for the next three weeks. The twist is that besides opening for them I'll also be playing guitar in their band. It's been a while since I've played rock guitar so it should be interesting and fun. I tried to be as rehearsed as possible but between the let me run tour and catching up with friends I'm slightly less prepared than I'd like. But it will be ok. More on that later.

During this whole mornig routine I got a call from Jackie to see if I wanted to go to Brooklyn and eat delicious pizza. I did. So after finishing everything up I hopped in sweet pea (my car) and headed towards the city. For whatever reason there were a great deal of asses on the road. At the Lincoln tunnel a cop on foot made me stop because he thought my registration was expired. Luckily it was not. After I made it down the island of manhatten and through the battery tunnel I was flustered but happy to be in Brooklyn. I got to jackies and we were off on our own pizza walk. Lucali was the main destination which I was really happy about because it was closed on the pizza tour. But, our luck, it is always closed on Tuesdays, despite the workers inside. Crap. So we decided defaro was the way to go but since it was a car ride away and could be as much as a three hour wait, we stopped at south Brooklyn pizza on the way. While quite greasy I'd say they do a pretty good slice. Both Jackie and I thought it needs salt but also both love salt. After getting some food in our bellies we headed over to the heavily hasidic neighborhood to try out some world famous pizza. When we got to defaro the line was surprisingly short and there was a group of people with a mini keg to pass the time. Well done. When the doors finally opened we were treated to an unorganized line, a super hot room, an eighty year old man making everything by hand himself at his speed, and some incredible looking pizza. Since we'd ordered square slices, as per jackies suggestion, we had to wait a bit longer than other people, but I can promise you it was well worth the wait. I got one square and one regular to experiment. Jackie was definitely right. With the square pie the old man pours oil under the pie as well once it's a but crispy thereby almost deep frying the crust, in a way. It was amazing.

So jack an I enjoyed stoop pizza and street beers, soaking in the neighborhood. Then a guy across the street tried to start a fight with a street vendor. It was confusig because sometimes they seemed like friends and other times like they were to come to blows. The whole thing made us both terribly uncomfortable as we hate violence and didn't know what we should do. Luckily it soon calmed down and we were able to leave without feeling like we'd read about it the next day in the news.

So after a great day of walking around the city, eatig pizza and drinking beers (apparently this is my favorite past time) we went to rest off our full bellies. And we decided we'd won. Days like these are what lives all about and why it's worth living. The kind where you're just straight up happy.

Today I woke up sleepy but content. I knew I had a long drive to Burlington ahead of me, but felt I was leaving for it with a smile. I went to brian's to pick up my gear and take Loki for a walk. After packing everything up and singing a few new songs I got in sweet pea and headed north. Three hours in I got a sandwich. It was prepared by a girl who could not have wanted to be there any less. Surprisingly the sandwich was half decent. Granted she didn't have to do much, but with her attitude I wouldn't have been surprised if it were terrible. Four hours in my iPod died. Awesome. The radio sucks up here. But now I'm in Burlington. At least the drive was pretty. I still can't believe the best way up here was on a 45 mph road. Anyway, here I am, very tired and sad I had to leave. Since I got here late I'm not going to get to review the songs until tomorrow. Then we have one short practice then apparently three days off before we leave. I really wish I'd realized this. I'd way rather be home then sitting here doing nothing. But I suppose that's what I wanted out of this year, huh? Be forced to live and make friends in new places. So that's the goal for the next few days. Wish me luck.

again, apologies

2009-06-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

i'm sorry i've been so busy. it's odd that when i'm back in jersey i have more to do than when i'm on the road. it's also odd realizing that if i were to say, "when i'm back home," i'd be wrong. sure, i've gravitated back to jersey on most of my breaks, but that's because i have so many people i love and miss here that i want to see, as well as many places to crash. however, i think in the coming months, i may decide to venture out a bit more and see what this country has to offer me when i'm not traveling, but becoming a local in each area. hopefully this will happen sooner, rather than later. i'm going to start tomorrow by spending about a week in burlington, vt. i'll be going on tour with the band ghosting, and i'll also be playing guitar in their band, so we have a few days of rehearsal before the tour starts. should be both interesting and fun, especially considering i've only met the guys once for a few hours and before then had never heard their band. but i'm always up for an adventure and new friends, so i decided it was a good idea to hop in a car with them for three weeks. keep abreast of the blog for details. and now the last few days of the let me run tour until now:

what's wrong with two bros napping together?

new t-shirt idea.

hello. (i imagine this being said in a valley girl voice with eyes rolling)

umm...ok. moans? i know, it's means, but sure doesn't look like that.

this is what happens when louis eats 4 slim jims.

it was a meat fiesta at trevor's aunt's house. i, of course, did not partake. there was beer, so don't worry, i was fine.

my home for two weeks.

pizza tour would be mad at me. i'm sorry.

loki rode the whole car ride to my brother's in my lap.

brother brian invited buddy brian and i to go drink wine and eat food. i love hanging out with my brother, especially when we're cooking/eating/drinking wine because it's so relaxing and warming. he's one of the most amazing people to be around and in this atmosphere is near impossible to not wonder why the entire world is not at peace. there's always good music, comfortable (albeit often spartan) surroundings, great food and wonderful conversation. even when times are tough it feels like home. so, i guess he's my home, in many ways. thanks brother.

loki wanted to help cook. probably just so he could eat with us. little sneak.

almost feast time.

brother brian's sweet spice setup.

on this delicious plate you'll find palak paneer, okra, bitter gourd and missing is lauki, not to be confused with loki.

somehow david ended up with a champagne flute.

loki wanted to finish my palak paneer.

buddy and brother brians.

loki wanted to join us at the table.

i love kitschy packaging. these are dale's pale ales.

after dinner we had to do some jamming at the warren house.

meet three great friends of mine. the lovely azarja is the girl responsible for the awesome ink on my forearm and is always great for awesome conversation and laughs. greg is an old bandmate and one of the best people i've ever had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with. brian is one of the most giving and talented people you'll ever meet. they're all great for sharing a drink and good times, and i love them all.

you think jagerbombs are cool? what do you know about schwartzbombs? the bartender told me i'd either love or hate a shot of schwartzhog. i asked him if indifference was an option. he said no. for the record, it was ok.

back in jersey, prematurely

2009-06-19T15:13:00.001-07:00

so i'm not on tour. i should be, but i'm not. as it would seem, the band i was out with could not agree on their collective future, so the only plan that made sense to all of them was to cancel the rest of the tour and head home. and since i was riding with them in their van, i didn't have much say in the matter. this is not to say that i didn't attempt to help them smooth things over, both for themselves and for me, and while it worked temporarily, ultimately we were in the van for a near 20 hour ride back to new jersey. florida was fun, and i got to play a few shows, but overall i was really looking forward to heading up to alabama, then up through the midwest. at this time of year it's probably beautiful, and i was ready for things to cool down a bit. plus, i appreciate that natural progression of a tour, and when it's cut part of the way through, that can be kind of disheartening.

this was definitely an interesting tour for me, way more hanging out than playing, and way less worries about things like gas and attendance of shows. part of it was really fun, just living life, but part of it felt empty and without meaning. i suppose it's a bit like sex without a relationship. i am definitely glad that i went along on the leg of the tour that included We're All Broken, as i was great friends with 3/5 of the band and the new 2/5 became new great friends. i really couldn't have asked for a better group of guys to go out with, and for that i definitely feel blessed. i ate a great deal of sea dwellers and not enough peanut butter and jelly. i spent way more money going out to bars than i should have, especially when i just sat around talking to my friends. i'd way rather spend $7 and eat a full grilled meal of veggie burgers and vegetables and drink cheap beer from split 30 packs. sure, delicious, high end beers are wonderful, but they mean nothing if you don't have great friends to share them with and memories that surround them.

but it ended early, and now i'm back in new jersey. there are, however, things that are good about it. last night i got to have dinner with three of my best friends in the world (my old roommates, ross and kristin, as well as my great buddy tommy). it was a wonderful surprise. ross and tommy have been fairly busy lately, but i was going to see if they wanted to meet up and go out. when ross got back to the apartment, he was visibly tired, but said he was meeting up with tommy and kristin. what luck! so i rounded out the four piece and we headed for a local brewery known for it's good beer and food. sitting with old mates, splitting meals, drinking beers, telling stories, catching up, remembering days past. i can't think of a better existence. i have such amazing people in my life, i can't believe i've gotten away with it. i'm sure there's people somewhere who have nobody, and i feel quite guilty of this, as it makes me sad and makes me wonder if i've stolen all the beauty from their hands. but regardless, i am terribly lucky. after a lovely and long meal we headed for an old haunt of ours and enjoyed half price libations. for some reason, and i'm not sure if it was because i felt so blessed and happy, but everyone else at the bar seemed bored and or sad. so many groups sat silently, no laughter, people on phones, hushed conversations between just one or two members. what kind of life is this to lead? you're out with your friends, there are a hundred potential new friends or romantic leads, beers to drink laughs to be had. should you not be regaling one another with stories of your previous week, your most awkward sexual experience, the funniest thing that ever made you almost choke with laughter? are these not the reasons we live? to love, laugh, experience and share? i'd like to think they are. and, in an odd confirmation of this, tommy told me that he's proud of me and appreciates what i'm doing with my life. at times it's really hard, and having friends like him, that i greatly respect and love, and that are successful in their chosen field, to believe in me and have faith, well that means the world.

when the lot of them decided it was time to leave i swung by another bar to meet up with the buddies from the tour. after everyone got home and answered to their respective folks, grabbed some sleep and food a bunch of us gravitated towards this central meeting point. we discussed the previous 36 hours, how they panned out, how they affected us and how we were feeling. obviously, seeing as i'm not actually in their band, i was affected less so and in different ways, but regardless was. still, a comfort in all of this was that i got to spend more time with friends, in a more amicable atmosphere, and then go back to ross' apartment feeling as settled as possible, given the situation.

today i woke late, as per usual, and relaxed, got a bagel and coffee with suguna (ross' flatmate) and discussed the disparity between languages, cultures and nationalities. we often fall into these kinds of conversations, as suguna is an intelligent woman from india with a fiery disposition. i mean that in all ways complimentary. it's also nice to be provided with drastically different view points and ideas. a bit after i was left to my own devices and began rehearsing songs, as i was lucky enough to pick up a last minute show in new brunswick. i'm really excited to get to play, especially since other shows were cancelled, and even more especially because i love playing in what i consider to be my home town, to as many people as possible. tonight is a birthday party with only acoustic acts, so it seems like the perfect situation for me. furthermore, there are a variety of non-new brunswickians that will be coming, many of which i'm friends with, that will augment the evenings festivities beautifully. in rehearsing i wrote a song that i'm happy with and could see people enjoying. as of late i've been writing incredibly simple songs that in a way i'm mildly embarrassed by, as i'd love to be writing complex, well thought out songs, but in a way i embrace as they're immediately satisfying both for writer and listener. perhaps that's not the best sign, but for now, while i feel a bit spread thin, and still to put out my second LP (these would be songs for my third), i feel i have some time to work them out and write a variety of denser songs, so to speak.

tonight i will have fun. i hope to make the evening worth living. there's still a great deal of things i need to do to improve my life, and the lives of those around me. and each day i want to work more towards those things. sure, certain days you slip, and others you relax. but when you can, make a difference and i'll try to do the same. i send all of my love.

Build the world you want

2009-06-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

After driving home from Miami through the night we slept for a few hours and then Trevor and I went to sit outside the cvs and steal Internet. Afterwards we went to the supermarket and spent too much money on a big seafood dinner. I know I know I've been going wild. In my defense though being on the beach makes me want to eat seafood and I've been here a week. Also since I've only recently starting eating sea animals I am still excited about new cooking frontier. Still I do feel some latent ex vegetarian guilt and often consider going back to a stricter diet both for myself and the world.

Anyway, trevor and I steamed up a big pot of snow crab legs, mussels and clams. With our caprese salad to start and bread to dip in the broth we ended up dropping more money than we wanted but it's ok these things happen and we ate well. After getting our fill we laid down to snooze off the meal. An hour or so later Parker came by and we walked to the local bar where the tenderesses had to wear bathing suits. Odd uniform but I suppose I don't mind. So we drank beers for reasonable prices but still spent way more than if we'd stayed home. The argument is that we were paying for atmosphere and potential companionship but it was hot and nobody was at the bar so we just threw money away. Though at the end of the night for absolutely no reason and with no prompting on our part, some girl across the bar pulled her boobs out. It was a bit odd but I suppose I'm not going to complain. Louis went to talk to her and buy her a drink and she said they were fake so I guess she just wanted to show them off. It's a little weird but hey whatever floats her boat. The walk home was interesting and then we decided to go swimming. The ocean felt amazing and after a nice chat with locals I floated on my back and soaked in the beautiful night sky with fluffy clouds and bright stars. I was so at peace that if I'd floated away i'd have died happy. But I didn't and then we went home. I went swimming in the pool and when I got back there was arguing among friends and people said some rough things so I spent the rest of the evening trying to help buddies see eye to eye. I hoped sleeping would help. I awoke to further discussions which didn't help my headache so I went to rest in the other room. Some things were patched up and some weren't. But now we're all trying to get past it and make the best of things. And that's all you can really ever do. So now I'm on my way to Orlando hoping for good things. I wish the same for you.

phucking photo update

2009-06-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

this is quite a photo update. sorry it took so long, but i haven't had computer internet capabilities as of late. this is from the day before the let me run tour to now. hopefully in the future there will be less of a break.

kitty cats at the warren house.

i woke a few days before the let me run tour in my brother's basement to a beautiful sight.

making music is so much easier with a beautiful practice space and everything at the ready. had my first real jam session with my brother here. awesome.

new merch. quit your job and go and tour.

oh man, this is ridiculous.

on the road again with let me run.

oddly, it was true.

we're all broken at the charm city art space in baltimore.

hmm...

i love puppies. his owner said, so eloquently, "she's a bitch. just like all bitches are bitches." mathmatically that makes sense.

i love when the seperate the smoking section so smokers aren't bothered.

danville, va looks like it treated let me run well.

maybe not.

sleeping in the van doesn't always rule.

so cool.

flying weiner car. big time.

is this acceptable?

south caroline treated us well.

jarrett should've taken the muscle milk. maybe then he wouldn't have lost to katherine.

jarrett (we're all broken) loves staying in houses with elevators.

proud father casey at the waffle house. i'm still wondering what was supposed to be in the middle of this expanse of neon green.

the wonder root in atlanta. while i was disappointed my friends didn't shows up, i love DIY basements that are run well. good job.

travis and homer. good dudes.

i looked into drew's (evergreen terrace) closet. he owns almost nothing. apparently one of the pieces of necessity is a spiderman suit.

10 dudes drinking and deciding tour/bro tats needed to happen. laughin'. ignore the above tattoo party ink. yikes.

cute puppies everywhere. my goodness does everyone have adorable animals?

parkers parents house.

possibly the cutest dog ever? duke. totally.

the next day after i smacked louis. wait until you see the night of. i promise it was not out of malice but stupide drunk dudes fooling around.

travis' reaction to the show.

i wish you could've seen this band and its fans. imagine sublime but not. glad louis got a video.

i have an idea for a new book.

nothing like sleeping in an abandoned condo with your buddies after a 5 hour drive. big time.

Swimming in the air

2009-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's disgusting out. Not really but when you shower and then ten minutes later you're covered in slime like sweat it feels like there's no relief. And since we're in at Petersburg Florida the water we're swimming in is the super salty gulf. Oh well I suppose I shouldn't complain about the fact that I'm spending my day off at the beach with my friends and a free place to stay. Not too shabby.

As for yesterday well we were definitely proven wrong in a great way. We showed up at seven which was load in time and paid the local "parking attendant" to ensure that nobody would break into the van. Man you have to love extortion in the shitty part of town. To give you an idea I saw a lady of the night grab two customers in less than a half hour. If that's not professional I don't know what is.

Anyway we loaded our gear in and then we waited. And we waited. Then we ate fish and chips. They were good. Then we waited. I changed my strings and played Trevor some new songs. He's always so supportive. I'm not sure what I de to deserve him but it rules. Then some locals came over and we shot the breeze while I fumbled through requests. I really need to learn more songs. Eventually we decided I nobody showed up we'd pack and flee town. This is not to say we won't play if there's only a small crowd. I mean the other bands hadn't even showed. But we stuck it out and little by little people trickled in. It was amazing. By the time I played there were more than enough people to have fun. I decided not to use the stage because I hate them and find them unnecessary unless there are enough people to warrent it. So, barefoot in the middle of the bar I played sad songs of hope to fifteen or twenty strangers and friends. It's tough to play quiet songs in loud bars but if the ears and hearts are willing it's amazing. And people were very kind to me and I felt loved. Then let me run played and even more people came. It was awesome. I'm definitely glad I was proven wrong and that the show turned out well. We also sold a few things each and were given a decent amount of gas money which always helps. I got also see my friend stacy which is always nice so besides the random panhandlers hanging around and looking into our van and trying to get money from us, the show ruled. Granted the line up was a little strange but overall really good.

We decided to head back to parkers so we could sleep comfortably and spend our day off at the beach. During the ride I slept but woke periodically to good songs and random conversation. There's something really comforting about dozing and hearing your buddies enjoy the late night drive as I'm fully aware of that peace. At one point I had a waking dream where it felt like my heart exploded out of my chest in a force of pure positive love. I realized that I was alive and living life despite breaking all if the rules our parents and society set forth. I constantly worry and often see the bad side of things but want more than anything to feel the pure love I know should exist and at that moment I did.

So I'm going to keep searching for it. And sitting outside cvs using their power with Trevor and thinking things are pretty good. I hope the same for you.

Euphamistically speaking

2009-06-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Last night was quite the cluster fuck. Sorry for swearing but is there a euphamism for cluster fuck? Perhaps fracas? I'm not sure it conveys the same sense of urgency. Anyway the main point is that last night just got completely out of hand. The day started innocently enough. Recently warren the drummer from the popular punk band "against me" left the band and opened a Mexican restaurant/bar in gainesville. Since we were in town and like Mexican food and like against me and like warren we figured we'd enjoy a nice meal there. And that we most definitely did. They make the guacamole tableside and have root beer on tap. I got the fish tacos and while name sounds oddly vaginal they were quite delicious. Blackened tilapia. Big time.

After leaving boca fiesta we headed to St petersburg fl. Our buddies Parker and drew from new Brunswick were vacationing down there which totally ruled. Parkers dad lives there now so we met the family including an adorable little puppy named duke. We then went down the street to the condo that parkers dad also owns. So conviennt for us. After some swimming, a few beers and an impromptu crab steam we headed for the show. This was to be my first night officially playing and I was excited but could tell this was not the atmosphere for me. I'd prefer not to play in bars if I could help it but you play the shows you get. I played a few songs to an unreceptive bar and then broke a string. Great. I was ready to just stop but knew I couldn't. Corey from let me run lent me his electric guitar and I played two more songs feeling dejected. The worst part of it all is that I should like playing regardless of whether anyone I'd listening. But like a big baby I want people to watch and love me. And like an idiot I only half noticed that while they weren't front and center a few people were really enjoying themselves. When they came up afterwards I felt like shit that I hadn't given my all. We've all had these nights but I hope they her fewer and farther between.

So I went outside to relax and vent and when I came back the band that was so complimentary was done. Again I felt like a jerk. Next up was let me run which was cool but then things got stupid. Words were thrown back and forth with this one guy and I spent the set running between them trying to make peace. I fucking hate fights. But this escalated when girlfriends of another band got involved. So people were asked to leave and the show finished with little fanfare.

When all was said and done we'd sold a few things and got paid a little money so overall the show wasn't a total wash and since a few people were super nice my mindset dedintely turned around a bit. But it was still a little heavy on my head. We then left and headed back to parkers place to drink some beers and eat bread dipped into olive oil. Always delicious and it was a nice way to wind down the night. Fairly late one of the bartenders and her boyfriend came to hang out and it turns out we know a bunch of the same people so that's pretty cool. After they left and everyone else went to bed drummer Trevor and I stayed up talking. These are the moments that make tours, the wee hour conversations where you feel like you really get to know your mates. I hope the next few tours have some good late night conversations.

This morning found me and Trevor skippin breakfast as we'd woken the birds but the other guys got up and went out. After washing the previous day from my body we left fir Miami and here we are. I'm not going to lie this area seems pretty shitty. But they're going to feed us and seeing as it's an English style pub maybe fish and chips? Oh and I need to go change my strings. Hope you're great.

You can't win 'em all

2009-06-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

For every up there's a down. Have you ever felt fully out there only to see it doesn't matter? Have you ever wanted someone to care buy they don't? These are real, adult feelings that we've all experienced. And sure your buddies can buy you a drink and wrap their arms around you and sure that can help but I'm not really sure what the true remedy is. We're all just children who've grown a bit, learned a few coping techniques and generally try harder. But we still don't have the answers.

I've been thinking I've been actively searching for something for so long only to wonder if I've just been running away. I've done things no parent would be proud of and made decisions I'm sure many regret for me. But you know what? I'm still trying. And maybe not in the best way but I am. I'm not following rules set by those before me but especially not ones who can't claim pure and utter bliss. Why would you ever follow unsatisfied leaders? This is not to say those we emulate need always be laughing, but broad hearts and big smiles as often as possible, no?

We live in a world where people lie, cheat and steal without regard. We live in a place where we numb ourselves with drugs and alcohol to forget about the workday, where we live for the weekends, vacations and false sick days. This is not acceptable.

I'm not going to lie, I feel like shit today for a variety if reasons. But you know what? These reasons are mine and are based on decisions made by me. I have a big gnarly beard, and a huge (albiet shitty) heart. I'm sitting in a parking lot after playing a terrible show to people who could not have cared less. To clarify the main reason the show was terrible was my attitude and performance. But I'm also in fucking Florida with friends from home and a belly full of the last minute crab steam I threw together. Yes, i'd love if the world cared at all about the songs I sing but I suppose I can't change this. Regardless I can change the way I choose to live my life. And I'm trying to do this the right way. In not always succeeding but I do know I'm not sitting at home wishing I could escape. I experience boughts of lonliness, doubt and fear. But u also have those at home. The thing is that when I'm at home I never feel this alive. So until I'm ready to die I'd rather live. Fuck complacency. This world belongs to us.

Laughin'

2009-06-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

When we first rolled into Jacksonville we went to the guitar center because Trevor needed to pick up a drum head. They were closed but some woman who apparently is a big deal in Florida saw them reject trevor and she asked them if they help him as a favor. Oddly they did though we still have no clue who this woman was. After that we went to panera and ate some food. Me being the industrious upon scavenger I am asked the girl at the counter if she could hook us up and at the end of the meal she came over with two big boxes of bagels for us. It's amazing what a smile and polite question can get you. The fact that the guys were amazed too didn't hurt.

After eating we split up and some guys got a hotel while a few of us went to the punk house where my buddies drew and Jason from the band evergreen terrace live. I was really excited to see them as I spent all last summer sharing a bus with them on warped tour. I loved hanging with them and missed our fun times. When we got there we drank some beers and caught up. Eventually they went to bed and we crashed out. In the morning we went to panera again to enjoy their free refills and wifi as well as the air conditioning. Once we'd relaxed enough we headed for the beach to enjoy the Florida sun. At the beach finding parking for a van and trailer is near impossible so we asked this bar if we could pull behind the building. Surprisingly they said we could provided we come in and have a drink. Twos our arms. So we enjoyed a drink and were asked to shotgun a beer before we left. I've never been asked to do that in a bar so I couldn't turn it down. After pouring maybe as much beer down myself (luckily I was in my swim trunks) as in my mouth we headed to the beach. The water was amazing, perfect temperature, and there were many beautiful people half of which would probably land us in jail, unfairly. Damn hormones in milk and meat.

I'm not going to lie, when I spend the day at the beach I love the idea of drinking a cold beer and eating some seafood. So we asked around and found a decent local spot. On the way we passed a tattoo parlor and on a whim we walked in to ask about prices. You see we've been talking about the possibility of a tour/bro tat for a bit so now seemed as good a time as any. The artist, Shannon, at first street tatttoo quoted us a good price and we said yes. Insane. When the content was suggested nobody could agree, and then something we'd been saying a lot came up. When we are having a great time with our friends we say, "we're laughin'" or you/I'm or any version of it. So rather than decide which version we simply decided on "laughin'" and amazingly ten of us agreed. And that was that. While half of us dined on oysters, crablegs and hush puppies the other half were getting ink put under their skin for life. Laughin' for life. Life. Amazing. I love it. And all of this before the show. It was a full day.

We'd been told that the bar where the show was going to be was more of a straight punk bar than anything but since we'd had such a great day we didn't really care if the show ruled. This tour has not had the greatest shows but we've had an amazing time together and since we're all broken goes home tonight we've spent the last few days just trying to have a blast. The bar turned out to be what we were told but all things considered it was a rad show. Afterwards we stuck around and closed the bar and just generally enjoyed what would be the tail end of our time together. At the end of the night we web back to the punk house for some shut eye.

This morning we reconveined at the panera as seems to be our custom. I really live all these guys and quite enjoy just brig able to sit around doing nothing with them, talking over coffee. It's a rare and beautiful feeling especially since there's so many of us which really allows conversations to bloom and grow. We then took our final leave of this breadbox and headed for Gainesville. The short drive took us to trevors cousin, randy. After a short respite we headed to the movies to see the hangover. Good time good friends. After a but more relaxing and pizza eating we got to the show, I read a local paper and then it was show time. So here we are, the last night with tourmates which is always sad, all of us in different states of our own hangovers, and me with the knowledge that tomorrow I start my playing leg of the tour. So that's that. I'm excited while dealing with a variety of internal issues. Here's to hoping for great things. I send my love.

You can't poop

2009-06-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

No this is not about how being on tour often prevents regular bowel movemets, though to be honest, that is the less than pretty truth. No this is about the house in which we stayed last night. It's on the rare side that people are able and willing to house eleven gross dudes, but when they are we take full advantage of facilities and scrub, brush, rinse and relieve all parts of out beings. The issue here though is that at zachs house there was a septic tank issue and the professionals were not coming until the morning. Overall this is really not a big deal. We had comfortable floors, couches and beds to sleep in as well as bellies full of delicious burritos that Zach made us (bold choice for a house with out of commission toilets) so we were stoked. But when I woke up multiple times (my bladder seems to be aging much more quickly than the rest of my body) I needed to navigate the maze of hallways to the open air and find an unsuspecting tree to relieve myself. Sure there are way worse situations but this was funny.

This morning we backed the van and trailer around the septic truck and up the curvy driveway before being able to swing it around and head to get fuel for our vehicles and bellies. After a profanity filled hour or so at taco bell (I used hot sauce on my pb&j, which I called my Thai pbj) we jumped back in the vans for Jacksonville, FL.

I'm really excited to go to jax, because my good buddies in the hardcore band evergreen terrace live there and also Florida means I get to start playing more shows. The bummer though is that Florida also marks the end of we're all broken being on this tour. Sure finding houses for six is way easier then eleven but I really love these guys. I went to Canada with them and they're seriously great friends. There are two new guys but they rule as well and I coulnt ask for a better group of traveling companions. After this tour I head up to Burlington, VT to practice with a band called Ghosting and then hit a lot of the same places as this tour which is exciting. The interesting thing is that I don't really know the guys well. I think it will be fun to throw myself into unfamiliar situations and get to know new friends and learn.

So hopefully I can rest my sunburnt shoulders tonight and catch up with great old friends. I wish you the same love I'm feeling.

sunburnt shoulders

2009-06-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

man oh man, what a great day yesterday. it started with a great breakfast of eggs, biscuits, toast, bacon for the meat eaters and lots of coffee. we stayed at our buddy michael's house and he took great care of us. after a long afternoon of hanging the day before we assumed we'd done all the hanging we'd do, but sure enough after a good breakfast and a few hour drive we showed up in clemson, SC and bought grillin' food and some beers. we headed down to a lake in town, lit the grill and commenced hanging. burgers, dogs (of meat and veggie varieties) and lots of corn. so good. after stuffing ourselves to the gills a few of us went swimming. the water was perfect, we were with friends, we were laughing. around 10 pm we headed over to katherine's house. it took a little while to get there, but when we did we were rewarded with a huge, beautiful house. four levels, seemingly a million beds and an out of order elevator. yes, an elevator. amazing. so for a few hours we drank beers and sweet tea vodka, laughed, told stories and loved life. eventually we all crashed out in what we called "the dormitory," because there were two bunk beds and couches, a tv, a huge bathroom. it was awesome. we had to get up earlish because a few of the guys had to sleep in the vans at walmart since vans weren't allowed in the complex. i'm sure we could've gotten away with it, but katherine didn't think it was a good idea, so we didn't. i felt bad for them, especially because it was such a nice house and could've fit everyone on a bed (which is insane, as there's 11 of us. this is such a rarity on tour but obviously a great one.) but sometimes on tours someone needs to step up and take care of business. i definitely appreciated them doing so, and was also glad i didn't have to. after waking up we went to a rousing breakfast at waffle house and headed for atlanta. i have a lot of friends here, but i'm not sure i'm going to see any of them. it's a bummer, but these things happen. oh, and if you're ever in atlanta, definitely go to little five points. we ate at the vortex, which i always like. i get the black and blue veggie burger with a salad. it's kind of my thing. overall i'm loving life. the We're All Broken and Let Me Run dudes rule, and i'm having a blast just constantly laughing and hanging. tomorrow we're going to go to jacksonville, FL where i plan on meeting up with the Evergreen Terrace dudes. i spent last summer on a bus with those guys on warped tour and they totally ruled. i miss them and look forward to a good reunion. ok, i'm going to go rest my brain. it hurts. i hope you're well.

Four loko...interesting.

2009-06-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I met a girl who was drinking something called four loko. It was like joose but even more intense. Dave, I'm looking at you. Speaking of joose this wasted dude came into the show in Greensboro last night drinking dragon joose. He was one of these annoying drunk guys who walks into a show and air drums along but in a way that just feels uncomfortable. I appreciate the idea of when anything can happen but I don't like thinking that could be a fight or something especially at a show. And this guy kept grabbing the mic which bothered me. Anyway during let me run it wasn't that big of a deal becaus they were loud enough that he didn't really affect anything by when he came in during my second song and then tried to play my guitar and was yelling over
E it kind of sucked. The thing is that I was playing on the flop with no mic or PA because I'd rather be among my friends and pure. Our buddy rob asked him to be quiet and when h wouldn't rob asked him to leave. The issue is that this guy was so drunk that people though he was funny and kept him around for a good time but I just thought r was uncomfortable a d mean. And sure enough when this other guy felt drunk guy had crossed the line he punched him in the face and knocked him out. Fuck. As the kid say, this is why shows get shut down. So drunk guy got up and asked who hit him and tough guy knocked him out again. What the fuck. Now there's a ton of drunk kids standing around making it worse. And sure enough the cops then showed up. Come on guys this shit is ridiculous. So the show was over and we packed up and left. The crazy part is that as soon as drunk guy heard there were cops he stopped trying to milk sympathy and walked away jumped in his car and drove off. Three cops chased after him but ten minutes later we saw them and then he was walking on the street so I don't know if they caught him and let him go or if this joosed up gentleman was well versed in the art of evasion. Anyway forget the negative part of the night. I had a great show and del blessed and this came after a long day of relaxing and spending good times with great friends. I still can't believe how lucky I am that I can play quiet songs to strangers and they will listen. I met some really sweet people who appreciated my songs and it meant a great deal. I got a lot of great compliments but the two best were probably from boon who said he'd been hopping trains for two years and that my songs spoke of his ffelings and life and then rob from Nashville said he'd seen tons of songwriters and I really impressed him. I feel winning over train hoppers and nashvillians is tough and rewarding. So I had a great set and felt amazing and both my buddies bands were able to play before the show was shut down so that was good.

To bring you up to speed, the day before was laid back with us getting to Danville va around four pm, loaded in and then while everyone cracked beers I ate carrots and peanut butter. Due to an offhand comment that morning I started showing some of the guys some music theory stuff so since we had a few hours to kill I ended up playing professor. It's funny to see six guys sitting in a circle in the shade drinking beers, smoking cigarettes and listening to their buddy explain how a major scale is constructed. The guys were super nice, receptive and appreciative. They also said, "man if class were like this I wouldve actually gone," which I appreciated. So after some schoolin and beers the guys played a show to the soundman and each other. Then the sound guy left. Amazing. I suppose I feel if one knows the show won't do well perhaps one shouldn't book it. Just saying.

So with no reason to stay in town we heads to Greensboro. After a lovely late night meal at dennys, punctuated by trips to the van for drinks, we headed to walmart to catch some sleep. I haven't had to sleep in a vehicle for a
Few years which I definitely appreciate. But this was necessary. Had I called my buddy mike a week earlier or so we probably couldve go e to his house but I'm terrible at remembeing to contact people before I end up in their towns. Anyway when you sleep in a van with five other grown men you wake up disgustin no matter how cold it is. And this was the south in early summer. I woke up at seven with what corey described as feeling like a blatter filled with hot soup. The only times I usually see this hour are when I've yet to go
To bed. But I got up and went inside to pee. I came back and laid I. The parking lot in the shade of the van and when a few people got up we went inside to mcdonalds and got coffee. Though tired it was nice to just sit and relax for a few hours. We laughed told stories and enjoyed each others company. At one point I went food shopping and tried to buy cheap wine but they wouldn't sell it to me before noon on a sunday. Damn I'm never up this early and we'd been up for hours.

Finally we gathered everyone up and headed for the mall. I called my buddy Spencer who lives an hour away and he happened to be out so he came by. It felt great to be able to bring together so many people I love. Furthemore I knew later they'd all meet mike another grew friend. While we were all eating lunch spencer asked if we wanted to go to the bar so I suggested beers and frisbee in the park. Everyone loved the idea and we were off. It turned out the park was a little too out in the open so I called mike and he invited us to his house. So all twelve of us we rolled up on mikes house and took to the porch. For the next many hours we lounged played frisbee and generally loved life. What a great time. I'll tell you it was a marathon day of relaxing and I loved it.

This morning we woke up and cooked a breakfast feast, took showers and now are driving to Clemson, SC. We're hoping to see a movie or go swimming and I'd love to cook a meal tonight. Here's to hoping. I send my best.

It's been a while

2009-06-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the last time I had to sleep in a van. And interestingly I've not had to sleep in a vehicle this whole big trip. But tonight walmart has welcomed us into her bosom. So here I am again. At least she'll always take me back. Thanks baby.

waffle house

2009-06-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

Yea, it needed to happen. I'm hungry at two am though I shouldn't be. And I can't pass up waffle house. You ever eat their waffles! I'm not sure they're actually good but sometimes feel necessary. Still who can pass up an egg and cheese biscuit for a dollar? Especially when there's 57 sauce to be had. Not me that's who.

Baltimore bound

2009-06-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up in jason and nicoles living room to Jason shifting boxes around. I'll be honest, while I don't love sleeping on futons I was too lazy to unfold, I was not terribly happy to peel myself off of it. I suppose though, that laying in my underwear while the cable guy hooked up various boxes and electronics is not socially acceptable. So I got myself up, scrubbed my body in an ever changing shower (temperature wise), then hugged Jason and Nicole goodbye. After grabbing a coffee and some food from wawa I headed to new brunswick.

I pulled into trevors driveway, threw some shirts in my backpack and hopped into let me run's van. For the next two and a half weeks I'll be riding with my buddies and playing some shows up and down the east coast. I'm really excited to be out in a DIY sense and more than anything can't wait to be playing music again. I really appreciate going out on various types of tours and working bigger tours is definitely exciting but my heart is deeply rooted in punk/indie rock and more than anything I'm in love with the DIY aesthetic. These are my people and this is where I'm happy. This is not to say that I wouldn't love to take my songs all over the world to heights unimagined, but if it's between doing things I don't love for money and things I do for none I'll happily choose the latter. More than anything though I think I like the idea that people can come together and treat each other well and as equals. I love the idea that we can make positive changes in each others' lives. And I love that we can do this all on our own terms.

During the trip I settled into my book and enjoyed witty commentary while absorbing the intro nuances in everyones personalities. It's always fun learning more about people you already like and I cherish the fact that this will grow more. Sure there will be tough times and sure we'll argue, but the main idea and goal is that by the end of this is that we've had fun and love each other more than when we started.

I'm not going to lie though I though I was going to see an old friend tonight and now she's not coming which definitely makes me sad. Also I really wish I were playing the show tonight but don't take over to play for about a week. Luckily in two days I secured a slot so that's going to rule. Plus it's with good friends in north Carolina so that's awesome. For now I'll try to dwell on the positive. You do the same. I wish you all well.

hmm...odd

2009-06-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

it's 5 am and i'm still awake. strange. you'd think my need for coffee at 6 pm and yawns at 9 pm would be indicative of an early evening. instead jason, nicole and i started a movie at 2 am. assholes. oh, and i ate my first and only meal at almost 10 pm, which included not one, but two plates of french fries. well, one was normal potato fries, the other, sweet potato fries. i am disgusting. i promise you, i did not order these, but our overly friendly waiter with the high waisted pants overheard my answer to jason's, "oh, i didn't realize you were getting fries," (which was, "yea, i knew i was, but they were supposed to be sweet potato fries. i don't care.") and offered to bring me more. i told him i didn't want more fried fare in front of me (how's that for alliteration?) but he still felt it was the waiterly thing to do, and while i appreciate this, i then proceeded to eat said fare. again, i feel disgusting.

for those of you who don't know, jason is one of my greatest friends, an old band mate, an amazing dude, and an all around asshole. trust me, i mean this in the best of ways. he's really not an asshole, i'm joking, but we have this thing where he's a jerk to get a rise out of people, uses language he's more than aware i abhor and generally likes to push buttons. but, he's the lovable version of all of these. jason is a smart, very quick witted kid who understand film and literature in a way that always impresses me. he and i are almost the same size, have similarly round faces, have had the same haircut and dress quite the same. all these things being said, we've often been mistaken for brothers. as a matter of fact, my actual brothers have said they're almost jealous or find it weird, because jason and i look more like siblings than i do with either of them.

nicole is jason's girlfriend, but that description does her no justice or is in no way fair. that is strictly a reference point for this specific situation, as you, dear reader, may wonder, "who is nicole?" but who she actually is is someone way bigger and more beautiful, in the sense that she's smart, fun, loving, intense and can hang. nicole has a way of being able to dig at your deepest wound and let you know she's not letting you off the hook easily, which while it sucks at the time, is amazing. she and jason are a great compliment for each other in this way, and generally prove to me time and time again that they rule both independently and as a unit. couples like them make me feel like love is possible, and i love them both dearly for that, and for being just exactly who they are.

jason and nicole recently moved from the second floor of their two family home to the downstairs, more roomy apartment. i once slept in here when they were in the process of moving and the landlord walked in on me basically squatting (not like i was to defecate, but as in sleeping somewhere i wasn't supposed to be.) and then i awoke, let a string of mumbling excuses fall from my mouth and quickly gather up my sleeping bag and was out the door. this is not the first time i've encountered a landlord who was both unaware of my presence but potentially unhappy about it. i'm sure it will not be the last. anyway, i'm not sitting on their futon watching the morning light pass through the shades yet again. but, in my defense, i adapted to west coast time just days ago and then came back to east coast time. it's a half a defense at best. anyway, i need to wake up in a few hours so the cable guy can come plug in their soul sucking machine, and then i'll pack my remaining things and head out to meet up with the let me run dudes to start our tour together. i'm telling you, it's going to be a blast. i hope you're all laughing. much love.

suggestions

2009-06-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

(49/365)
warren, nj (to be pronounced as h[a]warren {like bob ross said "white"})
brian (brother)/keith/brian (old bandmate)/dan

my older brother, who while i haven't spoken much of him on here, is one of the most intelligent, well written, smart thinking, fun loving people i've ever met, suggested i present my location and housing on the outset. his suggestion was a bit more specific, but i'm going to take some liberties with it and see how he feels. regardless, i'm not against the idea. would it not be a nice idea, dear reader, for you to know where your lovely protagonist was residing, be it city, state or home? so, we'll see how you feel. any and all thoughts are appreciated.

i guess i've not spoken much of chris because we don't talk as much as either of us would like. you know, it's weird, there's this whole idea of not sharing "private" things with the public. but that's not us. sure, if there is something potentially sensitive, i'll happily and respectfully keep it to myself. but, why not share the things that are wonderful? i personally wish i could cut myself from vocal chord to pelvis, pour myself out and give you all i have. but i suppose i've not been good enough to do that. and perhaps at times that's "not acceptable." but, i really should tell you about the great people in my life. why? well, because they're that important, but also, because i hope you have people like them in your life, and i hope you wish to tell the world of their wonders.

i have the best friends there are. that's not to say you don't; on the contrary, i'm sure you do, and i'm coming to get them. ha. share them, that is. seriously though, i am related to the most impressive humans i've ever met. right now i'm listening to brother brian's songs for his as of yet unreleased album, and i'm close to tears (if i knew how to cry) by how amazing it is. if it weren't for brother chris, i'd be nothing these days, probably an office drone, fighting down a daily regamine of complancency and nothingness. instead, i'm sailing seas of wonder, beauty and possibility. that's not to say that there aren't storms of self doubt, hatred, sadness, fear. but, what good adventure doesn't have trials and tribulations? would any of us care to read a story of straight smiles? i for one would not. interestingly, this seems to be the desire of the people i'm so glad i avoided becoming. perhaps their desire is non-tumult, but regardless, i'm avoiding this sickness like the disease it is. i'm approaching life as the rollercoaster it is, with the respect for upsanddowns it deserves. without them, i'd be a robot, a stoic and worthless. i think in many ways i have chris to thank for this, and do so with my whole heart.

so tonight i sit in my brother's/friend's basement talking to my gay friend via the interweb, remembering how we gave each other strength during hard times, confusing times, and marveling at the simplicity of life and how complicated even that can be. ha. amazing. i'm not sure i'm doing anything right, but i do know one thing:

people i love and respect are telling me i'm doing well.

with that, i'm going to keep working forward. i have faith in my heart, but even then things get hard. but when they do, and i turn towards the wonderful people i have in my life, they hold me up. and, they do so in a way that doesn't make me feel patronized. if i ever felt like people were just trying to protect my ego i'd happily stop it all. but, luckily, i trust and believe so much in the people i love, that i think i should keep pushing forward. if things are ever hard for you, i truly hope you have wonderful people to help you have faith. nobody should ever feel like they need to always be strong on their own. without loved ones in our lives, i'm not sure they're worth living.

perhaps this got heavier than you were willing to lift today. or perhaps it lightened your load. either way, i wish you beauty, happiness, love and laughter. if you need any of them from me, please don't hesitate to ask. all of mine to you,
peej

hello 4 o'clock

2009-06-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

i, unfortunately, am able to say this all too often. it's a cyclic problem i've developed. occasionally i'll joke that i'm inertial. i'm not sure that's ever been an adjective anyone has applied to one's self. by this i mean that whatever state i'm in, i want to be there perpetually. if i'm awake, i find no desire to go to sleep. if i'm sleeping, i abhor the idea of waking. the worst part of this vicious cycle is that if i've had a few drinks my mind slows down enough to let me go to bed, but those same drinks are the reason waking up is even harder. i'm sure many would argue that exercise and a good diet, as well as forcing one's body to bed early would cure me of this disease. well, for one, this may be a possibility for some. for two, i've actually tried all of these things both in conjunction with each other, and independently. the success was fair at best. and three, the life i lead is not terribly conducive to any of these things. what i mean is that regular, consistent exercise is not as easy to come by in my days as it may for someone with a standard schedule as well as a place to perform said exercise. sure, there's running that can be done and morning stretches, but i find when i'm staying on someone's floor/couch, i want to put them out the least amount possible. sometimes these people leave before me, thereby allowing me to do some p-ups and s-ups without the fear of looking like an idiot, but the whole going for a run thing is a bit harder as they've asked me to, "lock the door when (you) leave," and i feel odd running while leaving their house unlocked for a half hour or so. then there's the whole, "run before the show" idea, but that always strikes me as a good way to get gross right before i meet people and precisely when i want to be in a relaxed mood. as far as the regular sleeping times, well, when you stay with other people and don't want to be a wet blanket, that's often dictated by their sleeping schedule. and often people want to hang later than they might normally, as their newfound, wonderful traveler friend is visiting for just one night. the issue is, i'm somewhere every night. please let me clarify though, i think this is an amazing and wonderful problem to have. i'm by no means complaining, just trying to explain my situation. i'm most definitely one of the luckiest kids on the planet to be able to travel and have people who actually want to stay up late with me. and that's the issue, is that i never want to turn that down. so almost every night i stay up late, share stories, a drink, a meal, laughs, whatever the night allows. again, let me reiterate, i'm incredibly lucky, blessed and happy about this situation. it can just be a bit exhausting at times. i'm burning the candle at both ends, but at least my hands are warm.

sometimes though, i keep myself up. like last night. two nights ago buddy brian and i went to get mexican food and out to the local watering holes. it was a sunday, and therefore was dead. it's really quite a waste of money to pay bar prices and hang out with only each other while five or so locals sip their bud heavies and their whisky rocks. so, yesterday we decided to make the night worth it, and when brian got home from work i stopped sending out emails and we went to the store to purchase our evening's fare. the liquor store got us white wine and some summer beers. whole foods provided us with mussels, clams, garlic, shallots, parsley, lemon, broccoli rahb and a sourdough baguette.

mince the garlic and shallots, cook in a little butter and olive oil. add parsley. add mussels and clams, then white wine to almost cover. cover pan with lid. steam until all shellfish are open. as for the broccoli rhab, blanch in boiling water to free it of some of its bitterness, then saute in olive oil (perhaps a little butter) with some of the garlic. the baguette, cut on a bias, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic, salt, pepper and rosemary. bake at 375 until crunchy. reserve part of the baguette for soft dipping. while all this is cooking, drink a beer with a friend. when the shellfish open, dump into a big bowl with the liquid, plate broccoli and baquette croutons along with some lemon wedges, extra parsley (and optionally, tomatoes, which would probably work best is thrown in the sauce right before dumping in the bowl). serve this along with some beers or more wine, a good friend and a lovable but nosy puppy. enjoy.

by the way, this was delicious, the mussels were perfect and it was way more food than i would've thought. for about 20 bucks, you could feed yourself and someone you love a fancy, delicious meal. that's pretty sweet.

after the meal we cleaned up, hung out and then brian went to bed, while i proceeded to stay up way later than makes any reasonable sense. did you know emeril has a new show on the "green" network? he must really be losing footing over at the food network. anyway, these are the things i find out at 3 am. i went to bed and woke up this morning to a text from a great friend who's been living in the UK for the last 6 months or so, and we're going to hang out tomorrow. i'm incredibly excited to see him and can't wait to catch up and just see a dude who i've spent many great times with. when i finally rolled my lazy bones out of bed i tried to do some exercising while loki ran in and around me (have you ever seen a dog do the "downward facing dog" position on a yoga mat? it's fucking hilarious.) then worked on figuring out some guitar parts for a band i'll be playing with and rediscovered some old songs i'd written. i'm quite proud of myself for writing all the parts down in these old notebooks because once i start fumbling through them, i actually remember how they go and it's as if the song wrote itself, as i barely remember doing so, or thought i'd lost the song forever. not to shabby. tonight i'm going to try and go see my brother at his new place again, hopefully drink some home brewed beers or eat some homemade pickles. well done warren.

three more days and then i'm back on the road. hope it's ready for me.

(48/365)

welcome back, peej

2009-06-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

please meet acacia and jareth, my two new mates. seriously, this pup rules.

sometimes you need to dance with a turtle. just saying.

after the show in LA i was starving and half sober. i decided i needed to change both of these things, as it was the last night and life is supposed to be fun. seeing as the bar was closing and drinks were expensive i took advantage of the various wounded soldiers floating around the bar and topped myself off free. sure, i suppose i could catch some gnarly disease this way or ingest something gross; but you know what? such things don't really concern me. with that, i saw a rather delicious looking meal left on a table. an almost full takeaway container with french fries and an "indian pizza." i'm assuming that's what it'd be called on the menu. it was basically naan bread with a sauce resembling the sauce in malai kofta, a kind of indian version of vodka sauce (basically tomatoes and cream, i'd assume, with nice spices) and then that was topped with what seemed like palak paneer, a creamy spinach dish. it was amazing, especially while so hungry. you might say that this didn't belong to me, so i was wrong for taking it, but i looked around at the near empty and further emptying bar and quickly realized this didn't belong to anyone and would probably be either thrown away or eaten by the staff. so, i ate it and drank my free drinks and was merry. i'm not sick now, days later, so i'd say it was completely worth it. sometimes you just need to be an industrious scavenger, thereby furthering your survival and keeping from having to worry about or make money.

back "home." i have a love for jersey that will never die.

this was from the airtrain to the nj transit train that would take me back to new brunswick. i tried to get in touch with my buddy brian to just have him pick me up and then i'd get back to the bruns the next day or so. i really only needed to go there to pick up my car, so there was no rush. but, getting out of that specific train station is near impossible unless you're actually on a train.

it turned out though, that me taking the train was a good thing. there was this guy eddie, originally from liberia and now from minnesota who got screwed with his visa and couldn't take his flight, so he was headed to philly to meet up with a friend who'd let him stay while he figured everything out. but, understandably, eddie was a little lost and didn't know the area well, so he and i spent the next half hour or so together waiting for the train and then on the train trying to figure out how to get him to his buddy. it felt really good to be able to pay back a little of the positive "karma," or whatever you want to call it, that i've built up on this trip. the way i see it, i'm incredibly lucky and people are always taking care of me, so if i can help anyone else out, either by way of showing them a good time or aiding in travels, maybe planting seeds of positivity and possibility. regardless, i was happy to help and felt good about it.

i got off the train and headed to the apartment where i was to crash for the evening. before heading inside i saw the next door neighbors and they invited me up for a drink. rather than head inside first and drop off my stuff i figured i'd take them up on their offer. me, scott and reeshi shot the breeze, caught up, shared libations and laughed about ridiculous stories we each had. after an hour or so suguna came out on the front steps to share a smoke with a friend and saw me.

"pj! when did you get home?"

it's funny to think about people i barely knew just a few months ago, and now seemingly see all the time. i like that. suguna and her friend came over to the porch, and we continued our relaxing but enjoyable evening. i had planned on going out, but was tired and this was the perfect return to jersey and the perfect evening for my state of mind and body.

if you're wondering, this photo is from scott's bathroom and i just thought it was funny. i hope you enjoy it.

yesterday i went to my brother brian's new place where he's living with a bunch of our friends. the house totally rules and is very DIY, but not in a shitty way. sometimes when you get a bunch of DIY kids together certain niceties and comforts fall by the wayside, and other times it's just a blend of beauty. this is definitely the latter, and the kind i love. they have all sorts of projects, including lots of music, roasting fresh coffee beans, brewing beer, making pickles, homemade veggie dogs, just generally cool stuff. i loved it and felt inspired being there. it's places like these that make me not want to travel anymore. one i finally plant roots i want the trees/flowers to look like these.

and now i'm at buddy brian's house, and we're going to cook mussels for dinner. i'll let you know how it turns out.

hope you're great and laughing.
peej

(47/365)

Alright, alright, alright.

2009-05-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the atlanta airport and I'm fucking exhausted. Last night I finished packing everything up and went to spend my last few minutes hanging out with Jac, acacia and the band. At one point this guy pushed passed Jac and me and I wondered aloud "is that michael rappaport?" I realized it wasn't but actually a different actor whom I was familiar with but mixing up the names. You know the guy in dazed and confused with the reddish hair who folds his hat in his back pocket? It was that guy. Weird. Anyway I was hanging out with Jac and mentioned that I knew who that guy was, to which she responded, "is it the guy standing over by matthew mccounahey?". Hmm. Yes in fact it was. Wild. I decided I didn't really care to go try to talk to someone I didn't really care about knowing he could care less about me when I could actually spend my remaining time in LA with people I cared about. Funny thing is at one point I needed to push past butch and he stopped me to introduce me to matthew and tell him that I am a talented song writer but just helping out on the tour. I'll tell you what, that was definitely a surreal moment. It's not everyday a highly respected successful songwriter compliments your talents to a movie star. Weird. I shook Matthews hand and he asked me how he could get some shirts. I told him if he walked to the bus with me I'd hook him up. I think this is not the response he expected or was used to. But you know what? He's a guy like amy other. Why should I leave my friends to give him free merch? He was a good dude though and at the end of the night I grabbed him a few shirts and he was appreciative. Overall i'd say it was a fun story. Much more pleasurable though was when Kerry from the state and Reno 911 came up and was very sweet and unassuming. She bought a few things an left me a little tip. Not that I am big into meeting stars or anything but I love when I do and they're real, good people. It's awesome to see people who've worked hard and earned success but don't seem fazed by it. I love this quality and hope that If I'm ever lucky enough to find some success I'll be as thankful and appreciative as I am now.

Anyway, by the time we left and the bus dropped the band off at their hotel and then me at the one by the airport it was almost five am. My flight was at eight so I wanted to get up at six. Fuck me. I woke up at six thirty an freaked because I thought I'd miss my flight. No shower and out the door straight onto the shuttle. Didn't have time to dig through my bag for deoderant. Didn't put any on yesterday. Yikes I must be a sight and a smell. I made a breakfast of food from the bus the might before and slammed that down as I waited for the security checkpoint. You know it's awesome they have these kiosks now where you can check in in two seconds if you're not checking a bag. Anyway I made my flight which ruled but was incredibly tired the whole time. I tried to sleep a little but it was hard not only trying to do so between two strangers but also painfully aware of the face that I probably smelled, I snore and in order to keep from grinding my teeth need to wear what I lovingly refer to as my "geek guard.". Yes I'm aware that term only half makes sense.

Still I survived the four hour flight and tried to sleep a bit before my connectin flight. No dice. I decided to go be some food. You know you fly a lot when you recognize the workers at the Atlanta bread company in terminal c at the Atlanta airport. My meal definitely conflicted with the book I'm reading, "in defense if food," but well, I'm tires and cranky and just don't care right now. So now I'm standing amongst crying babies and hare krishnas waiting to board my second flight of the day. I'm full of diet cola and hate the fact that I won't make it back to new jersey until almost ten. Well new Brunswick. Man I hope I have an aisle seat otherwise someone is going to have to move a bunch of times. Fucking free refills.

(45/365)

salmon hash? ok, i'll bite...literally

2009-05-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

i had salmon hash for breakfast. like an ass, i forgot to photo it. what good is having a ridiculous phone if you forget to document things? oh, and the kicker? i hear the new iphone is going to have video, so if i had waited a few months, i'd be able to share moving pictures with you on this glorified diary. by the way, do you remember diaryland? just curious. it was pre-livejournal, and we all wondered why anyone would care about posting one's innermost thoughts, and even more so, why anyone else would care to read said thoughts. and yet, here i am. go figure. on a side note, one of my favorite bands, paulson, had a song called diaryland on their second EP cum first LP. i believe it even enjoyed a short stint on MTV's "the real world." the song totally rules. and yet another tangent, i believe "the real world," started this whole ridiculous "reality show" stupidity. thanks MTV. bastards.

back to the hash. i had a conversation with jac about why i now eat fish. it's totally a valid question, as i've been vegetarian for the majority of the last 8 years. i say majority, as i've had stints of eating fish, so i'd call me pescetarian for those times. anyway, i suppose for a variety of reasons, including watching too much food network television, i found myself occasionally wanting to eat meat. i also think from touring and traveling as much as i have that sometimes i felt like i wasn't putting anything good in my body. and sure, vegetables and fruits would've fixed this issue up nicely. sometimes, though, you need to just listen to your body. at times i've felt pangs of guilt, in that i do like the idea of being vegetarian, and do feel it's better overall. i decided that the three main reasons i appreciate a vegetarian lifestyle (other than just generally feeling better doing so) are environmental, humanitarian and health oriented. based on these three points i felt that if i were to consume any animal, fish and seafood in general are the least adversely affecting in these areas, thereby allowing me to maintain a mostly vegetarian lifestyle while taking in fairly small amounts of animal flesh. sounds kind of gross when you put it that way, huh? ha. i'm sure by now you've come to appreciate my tangential style, and hopefully you embrace it. so, the hash was interesting. i've had fish with breakfast before, but mainly in a lox way, colder and more "flavored." this was good salmon and potatoes under eggs overeasy and questionably sour dough toast. should've gone wheat. i think the oddest part about it was that the fish was hot, as normally fish should be, but with breakfast, well, i'm not sure. (hot fish! for those of you who get it. if not feel free to ask). atop all this arguably decadent breakfast was a shallot and dill creme freshe. wow, how bourgie. i just might have to move to connecticut.

after clearing the glasses from the table (and subsequently being offered a job by the waiter), jac and i headed back to acacia's apartment to drop off some stuff and get me to the el rey theatre for the last show of the tour. it's pretty wild to think that i'll be flying home tomorrow and in a few days back on another tour that couldn't be more different. 6 friends in a van with 5 in another screaming down 95 together trying to paint every town red. we plan on doing lots of swimming, tons of drinking, loads of grilling. and, maybe if there's time, playing the occasional show. i've already packed my bag and am ready to count out all the merch at the end of the night, hand over my final money and prepare for better things.

you might ask yourself, faithful reader, how i got to be here. well, that question can be answered in many ways, and some has been done so already, but for the most part i feel the hole is in the previous hours, the night before, when i feel things occured, as they will, beautifully and full of flight.

as the night ended and i finished up my final work for the evening i realized i had many hours to kill and new friends to do so with. we were not planning on leaving until 10 am, which was pretty sweet as i was happy to be hanging out with jac and her best (now my new) friend, acacia. through them i met libby and the lot of us, after enjoying 24 oz pabsts at an upscale bar (and me getting corned by a drunk latino telling me of his 5 kids from 4 woment while i was taking a poop) we left pomona in search of late night fare, and an escape to LA. it really wasn't that hard. we packed into acacia's car, she ran over a curb, and then we were on our way. upon our return to acacia's apartment i meant the cutest little pup, jareth, a puggle, and whipped a mess of breakfast food as a late night feast. we soon bedded down and i was happy to have new friends and to be seeing old ones. i slept late, got up, showered, headed down to check out acacia's office (which totally rules and if i ever have to work in one, i hope it looks like hers) then off to breakfast.

so this now catches you up. in a few hours this leg of the wild journey that is my life will begin to come to a close. and you know what? i'm okay with that. onward and upward, i always say. i hope this finds you splendid and laughing.

(44/365)

let them eat bread

2009-05-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

yesterday butch played the great american music hall in san francisco. after finishing up my merchandise duties and shooting the breeze with the incredibly friendly staff, i headed out to the bus to drop off all my gear and relax for a minute. everyone from the band and the venue were going to a bar around the corner that was playing rock and roll music. after a brief respite i headed over and was immediately impressed by the amount of good looking people hanging around outside smoking cigarettes. i suppose san fran is a pretty town.

upon walking in i was promptly handed a beer. that's good service. ha. i'm not sure who bought it, but that's a great situation i'd like to find myself in more often.

looking around i saw even more beautiful people dancing, carousing and having fun. this is my kind of place. i smiled at pretty ladies, talked to nice dudes and then realized something interesting: this, more so than anywhere else, is the kind of place where you have absolutely no clue what you're dealing with, sexual orientation wise. my buddy and i were dancing with two girls who were friendly, but not overly so, even though it'd seemed like they were smiling at us and talking about us. but that's the thing, they could've been saying, "these straight boys think we like them," or "i hope this breeders don't come over and talk to us." i'm sure it wasn't so mean, but still, i've been in gay bars and obviously knew what i was getting into, as well as been in typically straight bars and knew fairly quickly who was gay, if anyone. not to say i have amazing gaydar or something, but i'd say since i have absolutely no issues with these things, i often find myself engaging in conversation with people of all walks of life. that being said, here was a situation where both the city and specific bar allowed for confusion. overall i found the evening humorous, as it's funny to watch a bunch of dudes try to hit on women only to know they're fighting a losing battle from the beginning. i didn't care as i wasn't trying to pick anyone up, but it definitely made me think a bit.

then, this girl bought all these shots.

holy crap. that's something like 15 shots of jameson. she bought them for the dudes on the tour and for a few of her friends. i think it ended up being either 60 or 80 bucks. all things considered, that's actually a pretty good deal. but golly.

today i walked around pomona, ca a bit, and found what is lauded as one of the best local bakeries in the area, the pomona baking company. they were closing up shop but the guy cut me a deal on some jalapeno cheddar bread. it was really rich, i'm thinking lots of olive oil, and reminded me of other jalapeno cheddar things i've had at places like panera or wherever. it's definitely good though, and i can only assume it's way better when it's fresh. however, if i ever go back there i'll be sure to try either their wheat bread, which is something i generally love, or their chocolate cranberry, which not only sounds really good, but is interesting and different. i usually like to try things i can't get other places, which begs the question, why did i buy a loaf of bread i'm not normally in love with? don't get me wrong, i love all things cheese and all things spicy, but i find bagels/breads of this variety tend to clash with whatever i put on them. oh well, this was good. i got some eggs and put them on, allowing the cheese in the bread to be my cheddar. i found some hot sauce in the venue, so i was laughing.

now i have a few hours until the show, one more tomorrow and then i fly back to jersey. in a few days i'll be starting the tour i'm going on with Let Me Run, and i'm definitely looking forward to that. i think i need to start playing shows again. the last few days have knocked my spirits down a little, planting seeds of self doubt. i think i need to have my guitar in my hands and sing at the top of my lungs. i need fresh air in this chest. i'm going to try and go find some. i wish you the same.

(43/365)

it was cold, but refreshing

2009-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

if you've been wondering, more specifically, where i've been spending my time, this is where i sleep. they're referred to as "coffin bunks," and while this is obviously far from the case, if you want to be alone, this is where you go. oh, and there are definitely times i feel like i'm going to die in here, but i suppose that's nothing new for someone who travels like i do.

holy crap. i guess that hat had money in it.

i found this sign and these flags humorous and ridiculous. oh, mormans.

butch got passes to go see no doubt and paramore. this is the view from the limo. so wild. sometimes i'm amazed at the situations i find myself in.

man, arena shows are fucking crazy. before no doubt played i hung out on tony's bus (the bass player) and met adrian (the drummer). both dudes were incredibly nice. tony was amazingly kind and welcoming without there being a feeling of it being a farce. i'm sure that there are people of his stature that pretend to be nice but are thinking negative thoughts behind it all. while i don't pretend to know a man i met for a half an hour, i will say that i like to think i'm a good judge of people, and he seemed like someone incredibly down to earth who knew that he'd earned success but still really appreciated it. i think that's wonderful and wish all the best for him.

the mess that is my bunk, complete with the daniel johnston documentary. it doesn't help to watch this while drunk and in a bad mood. doing so made me think a lot of terrible things about where i am in my life, the decisions i've made and where i'm headed. but, i think these are good things to worry about. i think we need to remind ourselves of the paths we're on from time to time. plus, while some of it is ridiculous, daniel wrote some amazing songs.

you ever see when an alcoholic beverage blows up a plastic bottle? well somehow i think these chips fermented and gassed this jawn up. weird.

i'm still trying to figure out the math behind this. is there a law in lake tahoe against things being over 8 feet, and someone felt this was a way around it? not sure.

i also need to apologize for being lax with my updates, but this is really the main reason why. days off in amazingly beautiful places are to blame. the rest of the guys went out on a boat ride and apparently there wasn't room for me. so, i made my own fun. i found some locals, well one local and a friend that was visiting. ann and i dropped amy at her job (had a happy hour beer there) and then went to some swimming in lake tahoe. i've driven past tahoe before but never gotten this close or swam in it. the water was the clearest, most beautiful water i've ever seen. this is what i think of when i imagine the caribbean. actually, i've been there, but i was young and forget it for the most part. anyway, i have a better picture of the amazing blues and greens but ann is in them, and she asked that i not post pictures of that. i'll respect this.

i have to tell you, this whole meeting people randomly and then making friends thing, it totally rules. even when you meet someone you might not normally hang out with "at home," i like to think that you find new and wonderful friends who can teach you a lot about the world and yourself. i definitely suggest you go out and try it. i know it's not easy, trust me, but the payoff is amazing and bigger than you'd ever expect.

i woke up this morning and all i wanted was a coffee and a PB&J. well, we were out of bread and coffee, so i had to venture out into the world. fair enough, that's how it goes. so, being half lazy, and half adventerous, i wandered into the nearby vietnamese area and into one of their more prominent sandwich shops. i ordered the vegetarian baguette sandwich and got something that was both quite odd and rather tasty. the "meat" base of it was tofu, noodles and yam, all stir fried i think. then the veggie topping was carrot, dicon radish, jalapeno and cucumber. the tofu part was a little weird, very "asiany." i quite liked the vegetable part, it was cool and refreshing. overall, the experience was interesting and i suppose for the most part enjoyable. i'm specifically happy with myself for trying something new, something different. if i'm lucky enough to go to other countries my boundaries will be pushed even further, so i'm glad that i got to do a bit of that in the comfort of my own country.

my reason for living and my biggest downfall.

i love things printed and written backwards. at the top of the stairs at the great american music hall in san francisco this is written so you can read it in the mirrors. amazing.

this is one of my best mates from college, nick. he and his now wife, emily, took an amazing road trip a few years ago looking for a place to plant some roots. i think that's so cool and always applauded it, even though it bummed me out that their roots ended up finding soil 3000 miles away from me, in california. still, i love the idea of my friends going out into this crazy world and making it their own. and this lovely couple did so. luckily i got to meet up with nick, catch up, get made fun of by a bartender (pay for your own drinks, what is he, your girlfriend?) and generally feel better being in the company of someone i really love and miss. sure, it's not always in the forefront, but i had a great year living with nick in college, we put out my first proper record together (which i was subsequently signed on) shared loss and love, had drinks, met great friends, just generally were great mates. sometimes you forget about these things when you don't see people for a while. sure, you remember you love them, but it's not so active a love, so pure and powerful an excitement as it is when you get to be in their presence, see them, hug them, laugh with them. i am a very blessed kid to have had so many incredible people in my past, present and i'm sure future. it definitely catches up with me at times, and occasionally i need to pay the piper. but, here is nick in front of an impressive structure, and for that, i'll count myself lucky.

(42/365)

so much to think about.

2009-05-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

I've decided that so much of who we are is what we do. And I like to think that I treat people well. Sure Im by no means perfect but I promise that overall I try to treat people well and make them feel welcome and loved. Still if we can't always do this I hope we always try. So I'll keep trying my best and hope others will do the same. Big update soon. Much love.

(41/365)

Denver daze

2009-05-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

this is katherine, my new amazing friend from denver. i went to thrift store that my buddy had told me about and heard her say she was leaving for lunch, so i asked her if she'd show me around town. i've wandered around so many random towns and cities and felt i didn't get much out of it because i prefer to see places from the local's perspective. i was really lucky to ask the right person because she was so sweet and walked me around a bit just showing me local places that i would probably haunt if i lived in denver. we then went to get some food and a drink at a place by her work called city o city. it had a great beer selection and a veggie friendly menu. who could ask for more? katherine and i hung out for an hour and then she had to head back to work so i just sat finishing up my beer. the bartender was really cool and bought me a beer because he said i couldn't come to denver without trying the great divide brewing company. i really appreciated it and had a healthy buzz from two big beers. a few minutes after katherine left carla got off work and sat by me so i struck up a conversation with her. soon after, phillip, carla's fiance sat down and the three of us shot the breeze and shared a drink. they're a wonderful couple and just seem to fit perfectly. i love when i meet people who give me faith in love. i got up to take a piss and when i came back carla had purchased me a beer and then she bought us all shots of whiskey. here it was, four in the afternoon and was already 4 drinks in. i felt great hanging out with my new friends, laughing, telling stories and learning about each other. after one of my stories phillip decided we need to go buy some joose and go to the park. i rode carla's bike while she sat on phillip's seat and we cruised down to the store. how awesome is my life? i meet new friends, they're amazingly sweet, i get to ride bikes and we go have drinks in the park. it really doesn't get much better. i don't know what i did to be so lucky that people just let me into their lives and hearts, but it's amazing. i already had three people in this city that i felt like i could call friends and would hang out with if i lived here.

so we rode to the park and hung out more, enjoying the energy drink that seems to follow me around the country, and i learned a new fact: in denver you can drink in the park if it's in a can. bottles aren't cool, but no worries if it's a can. so weird but amazing.

what a lovely couple.

carla poured some of the blue joose onto the orange so that it looked like the denver bronco colors. she's silly.

we then left to go to a bar so carla could watch some local sports match. at this point i was feeling a bit out of it, so i sat outside and talked some local kids who were hanging out and then i said my goodbye to phillip, thanked him, and headed back to the bus. speaking of which, this is where i'm living right now.

it's a little different than my other digs, but lovely nonetheless.

i headed back to the bus, laid down for a bit and just generally caught up with my mates. i hadn't seen them for hours and enjoyed that i had stories to tell them. when katherine got out of work she called me and told me about a house party that was happening a mile or so from where the bus was parked so i figured i had no excuse to not go hang out with my new friend. katherine is really fun and likes to laugh, so i was excited to go spend some time with her. it was raining out a bit and just cool enough to make walking around quite pleasurable. i called my buddy brian since it seems like his job's been working him to the bone. just checked up with him, made sure he was ok, and told him to quit that shit and come on tour with me. ha. i know he'd love nothing more and i can't wait until he's able to. when i got to the party i met a bunch of other fun, like minded folk, and decided that if i moved here i'd be quite happy. though it was raining we felt great. we were alive, spending time with new friends that felt like old, listening to music pouring out of the windows and generally loving life. at one point katherine and i went out on the porch just as all my buddies were rolling up. i'd been so preoccupied with my new friends i forgot to call my busmates but luckily they found out about the party independently. so, we caused a bunch of troubled and at the end of the night i walked katherine to her bike and headed back to the bus. i'd say it was definitely a day worth living.

katherine paints these amazing pictures using school style watercolors and they come out incredible. this is a creepy/cute self portrait.

this is an awesome, weird alligator kid.

this morning when i woke up i hung out in the front lounge just in time to see michael and cari ann come back. cari ann sat down and busted out a bottle of wine, jumping right into it. i'll admit that i get up late, but i still found this funny. she's a trip, so fun, so full of life and so incredibly talented. they're an amazing couple and an amazing duo musically. quite lucky to have each other, and we're all lucky they do.

i'm sorry i didn't write yesterday, but as you can see, i was out living life. there was no time for reflection, i was straight flecting! i hope you're wonderful and safe and happy.

(39/365)

"thanks for doing such a great job."

2009-05-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

i'm still not sure exactly why this happens, but people often thank me for a job well done. please realize that i, under normal circumstances, would greatly appreciate this, except the situation here is that i'm sitting behind a table selling people things they want, or reading a book. i'm not convincing anyone they should pay for things they don't want or entertaining them at all. and, it's really not that hard to hand someone a shirt and a five dollar bill in return for their twenty. even greater/more ridiculous though, is when the above comments are followed by drinks, as happened last night. a girl came over with a guinness, handed it to me and thanked me. the weirdest part: i'm not sure i dealt with her once the whole night. i don't remember her at all, other than when she handed me one of my favorite drinks for free. sure, i can understand if someone asks to try on three different shirts in two different sizes and then buys a cd instead, then thank me for being nice and patient, which i am. that's totally understandable and appreciated. but, when you give me money and we exchange pleasantries, sure that's wonderful, but you needn't then go out of your way to tell me how great of a job i'm doing. it's kind, don't get me wrong, but i feel like there's something else involved, perhaps a misunderstood sense of hierarchy. like maybe they think since i'm on tour with a guy they love that i'm somehow special as well or more important than they are. but that's not the case at all, you know? sure i happen to ride on the bus with dudes they like but i'm just a guy slinging merch, hustling every day to play shows, sing songs, drink beers and generally avoid traditional responsibilities. but, if you want to by me beer or tip me, of course i have no issues with this at all. it's just weird i guess. but i do appreciate it. so don't stop. ha.

this is the fourth day of the tour and it's going pretty well. there are 12 people on this bus, which if you've ever been on a tour bus before, you realize that's pretty much it's limit. that's how many bunks there are, sure, but when everyone is awake and on the bus, it feels packed the gills. boo hoo, the bus is full. yes, i know, the complaints of a tour bus. seriously though, i love van touring, and while there are so many perks of being on a bus, i can't wait to get in the van in a few weeks with my boys in Let Me Run. we're headed down the east coast spreading trouble for the month of june. it's going to rule.

but texas is treating us well. i'm in dallas right now and i love the weather. i'm sure i would hate it here over the summer, but being here in the spring is absolutely gorgeous and i am happy to be alive here.

and now for a further photo update:

one day i'm going to by this car for dave. USA! USA!!

on the flight down. it's a bit blurry, and i don't like advertising, but that's a pretty great slogan.

this is the park where jac and i went to drink joose.

shovels and rope, an awesome country duo of lovely married folk.

ponderosa. think lynard skynard and love your life.

we had a day off in monroe, LA. since the two opening bands did not get to play the first show in atlanta, the drummer from Ponderosa, darren (who's also in butch's band) decided he was going to dip his toes in the DIY pond and called a local bar asking if his band and the other opener, Shovels and Rope, could come play a set. the bar said they couldn't pay them but would let them drink for free. bad idea. so, after eating a meal at olive garden we headed down to the bar and watched a great set by both bands. the locals loved it, they sold some merch and i'm sure drank more than their fill at the bar, so i say well done.

a side note about the olive garden:
at this point just about anywhere i go outside of new jersey/new york, i get asked if i'm in a band. so you can only imagine what it looks like when seven dudes with tattoos walk into a family restaurant in rural louisiana. the family at the table next to us sent over their teenaged daughter to ask us if we were in a band, and since we all feel awkward about dealing with this question, we answered in odd, unsavory, confusing ways. this poor young girls discomfort was palpable and she eventually crept back to her table feeling just as weird as we did, i'm sure. after the meal a slightly more talkative friend brought the lot of them over and probed the issue further and we were more prepared for it this time. the conversation went more smoothely and luckily the folks and grandparents appreciated it and we felt we'd evened things out. on our walk back to the bus to grab the kids some cds an SUV came screeching by, and a girl threw the door open, almost tumbling out, to scream, "ya'll think you're rock stars, but you're ugly!" the thing is, none of us recognized her, so we were just plum confused. why so much animosity towards us? we didn't do or say anything to her. we later found out from a guy who did magic tricks for us in the bar (really? seriously?) that when we were walking around the mall the general consensus by the mall folk was that we thought we were too cool and it spread like wild fire in the underground mall circuit. wow. that's ridiculous. anywho, we called a cab and six of us hopped into what was both the weirdest and most expensive cab ride any of us had ever been part of. understanding the cab driver was like trying to fight through sea weed infested waters to talk to a fish. man, that was some accent. then when we got out he charged us 5 dollars per person. i've never heard of that before. usually it's a flat rate plus a per person extra charge, but not that much. we ended up getting a ride back from him as well, so with tip the guy made about 70 bucks off us to drive us about six miles round trip. oh, and the best part about him: he pointed out a strip club and when someone asked if it was any good he said, "no, not really." guess where he spent the evening while we were in the bar. exactly. "actually man, i think it's improved a little, want to come over and check it out?" no, thanks man.

outside of stubbs in austin, tx.

inside stubbs. i'm not sure i fully understand the story behind this, but i like it.

just enjoy the sunset. (from some other day, not sure when)

(36/365)

oh, austin? are you going to pahk yah cah?

2009-05-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

austin, texas. everything is weirder here. well, that's how they like to see it. an oasis of leftism in a sea of red state. i like austin. i slept quite late today, as i tend to do on these butch tours, so i'm not sure i'll have time to walk around, but just being here feels good. i only know about 10 or 20 blocks of this town, but i feel good about it. i've had a lot of fun here, walking around trying to get in trouble, asking homeless kids to help us find fun times. the boys are playing at stubbs tonight, which will be the first real show of the tour, and i'm excited that my merch area is a cool little patio outside the club where i can just relax.
---
I stopped writing to go eat family dinner. I think it's really cool when clubs do this where they cook you up a big old mess of food or like tonight let you order off the menu. Sure I never mind getting cash instead of food but there's something really cool about everyone sitting down to a meal together in the place you're to later play. The only downside is that being someone who doesn't eat meat I am often relegated to eating a meal of side dishes or mainly bread. Still I appreciate the sentiment. Luckily this wasn't the case today and even though it was a BBQ joint I was able to grab some enchiladas. Not too shabby. Oh and furthermore, I find the vibe to be reminisent of what we do in the DIY punk scene so of course I love that.

After eating I took a walk around Austin just soaking in the city. One of the many things I feel very lucky about with all the traveling I've done is that I feel so at home in so many places. Sure, if you dropped me a mile away in the same city i'd probably feel lost but in the ten minute walking radius around sixth street I'm a local. During my wanderings it felt good to reminisce about previous trips here and I found myself upon the state Capitol. Well if it wasn't that it was a stately looking building with beautiful lawns, trees and benches. I sat and thought about the record contract I'll be signing when I get home and about how lucky I am to be wanderig around like I am. In general things have felt a little weird and uncomfortable the last few days but I suppose that's to be expected. I've had so many great highs lately that there were bound to be some lows. But I have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks and that proactivity (is that a word?) will help me push positive.

I think what's most interesting to me is how much I'm living. A buddy recently said each day on tour is like three regular days. I definitely think there's truth in that and perhaps me living out of my car and on the road all the time is more like four or five days for each sunset. I'm sure by the end of this year I'll have songs, stories and a rotten liver. Five years of living in 365 days. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Live loudly and die quickly.

After getting back from my bench sitting I got my merch stuff together and relaxed. The weather here today was quite possibly the closest thing to perfection I can remember in a long long while. Right now I'm sitting outside of stubbs BBQ in the perfect summer evening air, that kind where you'd go ride the swings and smoke cigarettes with your high school girlfriend maybe stoked you could wear a hoodie or buttonup after so many days of heat. And the best part is that I could feel this before my actual summer even begins. So rad and so much better than sitting in a grimey club. Now all I need is a good woman to share nights like these with.

Tomorrow we're headed to Dallas and I'll try to put up some photos and explain the ridiculousness of yesterdays day off. I hope this finds you well.

(35/365)

Rules just don't apply

2009-05-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning quite unhappy with the prospect of getting out if bed. For those of you that don't know I'm terrible at sleeping and even worse at getting up. Well I suppose to clarify I'm horrible to sleep next to and never wake up feeling rested however I can sleep until the cows come home. And if you're wondering when that is it's easily three or four pm. Just saying.

Since I knew I'd miss the train and subsequently my plane if I didn't get up I peeled myself off the futon folded the borrowed sheet returned the pillows to their rightful place and rubbed the sleep from my squished puppy eyes. That's at least how Shaun says I look when I wake up and I fear he's not far off. I showered which was great but drying off with the mildewy towel I left here months ago is none too appealing. Still it's better than the non existant shower in my car.

After throwing two weeks of essentials into my knapsack I left the apartment grabbed some crap coffee a pretty good bagel and headed for the train station. Fifty minutes and two trains later I was at the airport again. Seems I've made this trip so many times I just run the motions. I was happy to not have been called into the little swab analysis room. However I did have to get in some weird machine that shot jets of air all over my body. Strange? Yes.

The flight was uneventful if you don't count the pilot playing harmonica over the PA along with some kind of spoken blues or his later very poorly executed Arnold schwartzenegger impression. By the way we couldn't leave until he'd received a proper applause for his harp solo. I half dozed to thoughts of lovely absurdities and desires. I knew Jac would be pickin me up and was excited to see her. While catching up she asked me about joose (which I blame dave for. Or love I'm not sure which it is.) and I also remembered that my favorite beer in the world is local to here so we went to the store to get some provisions. Unfortunately they did not have wake and bake as I found out it's a seasonal beer but a got another coffee stout recommended by the helpful clerk. I was sold by the fact that it recieved a 100% on ratemybeer.com. Now I'm not normally swayed by things like this but think about that fir a second. That means that not even one person rated it as less than perfect otherwise it's be 99 point something. That's crazy. Sen if I dot like it I figures I owed it to myself to try a perfect beer. For five bucks while a bit steep for me I figured it was a risk worth taking. So Jac and I took our joose to the park and sat on a swing chair catching up and sharing energy drink malt liquor. If you've never hung out with someone fun drinking on the sly on a sunny day you're missing out. Just saying. Eventually I realized I needed to get to the studio and check in all the merch for the butch tour. Today is the first day I butch walker tour number three for me. I'm not really sure how my life twisted in such a way they've been able to do this a few times but I definitely appreciate it. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would wonder why I'd go out to sell merch seeing as I'm a performer. I have a lot of reasons to be honest but overall I do it because I like it. I've learned more about a variety of things including myself on these stints than many other tours. There's something beautiful that comes from spending time on the road with people who are basically strangers and then learning each others ins outs ups and downs. I've also met some amazing people and written one of my favorite songs on these tours. There are more things that make me appreciate being out here but suffice it to say I'm back on purpose.

After checking in all my stuff I said hello to the guys claimed my bunk on the bus ate some food and then left to meet up with some friends for a beer. It's weird nut amazing to have a local bar to recognize the tender know the local fare. I've technically only been here on three tours but I already have a routine I'm comfortable and happy with. I feel if I moved here I wouldn't feel that out if place and that's an amzing feeling. And now I'm just sitting back waiting for people to come buy stuff and otherwise just hanging. I hope this finds all of you well.

(33/365)

pizza tour nyc 2k9

2009-05-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

a few months ago i decided that i wanted to combine my love of all things ridiculous with my love of pizza. i spoke with my buddy brian about the possibility of walking around new york city trying all of the famous, highly regarded pizza places. of course we would be drinking the whole time. he loved the idea, and so the NYC pizza tour was born. what follows is a photo series and brief notes that i kept on my phone. the notes are the ones that start detailed and devolve into "big time." the rest is explanation of the photos. i think you're smart enough to distinguish the two. you'll notice that as the night progressed the notes got less specific. that will happen when you've been eating pizza and drinking on the sly for 9 house. man, my life rules and i love my friends. oh, and just for your knowledge, d=dough, s=sauce, c=cheese and o=overall experience/enjoyment. the money signs indicate cheap to expensive, $ being cheap. (note-of course we couldn't hit ALL the places we should have, but we made a list of 9 that we'd regularly heard good things about. some changes were made, but here's what we ended up with. if necessary, we'll have to have a followup tour).

Pizza tour 2k9

though we were quite anxious to get the pizza eating underway, we felt we needed to start the day off right with a guinness. well done greg.

Artichoke
Art d3 s3 c4 o3
Marg d4 s4 c4 o4
Crab d3 s4 c4 o4
Long wait
$$$

Una pizza napoletano
Marg d5 s3 c4 o4
Started off watery
Whole pies only 12"
$$$$$

this is a pretty small pizza for a lot of money, 22 bucks, and looked watery when we got it, but honestly, it was amazing. the dough was similar to naan bread, soft, pillowy and charred perfectly. overall this was one of the best experiences of the day.

the pizza champs outside UPN. i tried to take a photo of the guy chopping wood in the basement but it didn't come out. seriously though, my friends rule. does it get any better? oh, and orange joose? yea. exactly.

if it weren't for brian, the pizza tour never would've happened. thanks dude. well done. oh, and 32 oz cup for drinking on the sly? well done.

we decided to skip john's because it was pretty out of the way for where we were going and as it was we knew we wouldn't fit in every place. after using one of the most useful iphone apps, sit or squat, to find a bathroom we got some more beers and while ross filled us up i shot this great piece across the street. i definitely appreciate the idea.

Rays
D4 s3 c3 o3.5
Reg Good trad slice. Nothing new.
$.5
Pesto d2 s4 c4 o3.5
Good slice no synergy.
4 beers in.
this was a good slice. not amazing but definitely good. reminds me of new brunswick, nj pizza at my favorite place, so while by no means mind blowing, definitely a really good regular slice. and you know what, i'm quite alright with that.

my buddy jeff suggested this place and said the pesto sauce was "slammin'," i believe. i don't particularly care for olives but don't mind them enough to take them off. still, i think straight pesto would've been better and made more sense. overall, for me, pesto is a bit oily to make the entire base of the pizza, but i appreciate the sentiment.

leaving ray's we saw this entire slice of pizza deserted. under normal circumstances i would've eaten it. but not this day, and also it had meat on it, so probably not, but seriously, who gets a slice of pizza and then just ditches it? sorry the picture sucks, the camera took a second and we were on the move.

Lombardis.
Whole pies only. Already had joose just got sparks. Good and bad beers. Getting full. Life rules. USA.
D3 s3 c3 o3
This was a good slice. Quality quasi gourmet nothing special but quite good.
$$$$
this was tourist central. artichoke had locals waiting on line, this was all people traveling from other states and countries. this was probably when were the most brazen and ridiculous, opening beers and filling up our styrofoam cups on the street. i think it's crazy enough that for some reason i don't think that rules apply to me and that this is ok, but even crazier that my friends didn't bat an eyelash and did the same. i love them so much.

Rosarios
Trad 3
Special 3.5
Good not great. Garlicky. Oily. If it's close do it don't go out of your way.
$.5
i forgot to take a photo of the traditional slice, but snapped a quick one of the fresh tomato slice before it disappeared. this was another place where i felt quite good about the pizza, and agree that NYC (and to perhaps a greater extent, NJ) pizza is generally awesome. even if it's not perfect or amazing, it's quite good.

further fillups in cool doorways.

you know it's a good pizza tour when it requires you to take a subway to another borough. we were headed towards lucali's which we hear is quite good, but when we got there a sign in the window told us they were closed for vacation. who does that? probably a place that doesn't believe in leaving the shop behind with just any random worker. we also met some locals who agreed it ruled and suggested a few other places, a few of which we'd already tried. go us. with no brooklyn slice yet we walked down the street and decided we'd throw a wild card in the pot and just try a random place. and that place? francesco's. it ruled. was arguably in the top two or three, and when i told the oven guy, he thanked me with a free slice cut into tiny pizza tour trial slices. amazing.

Francescos
Big time.

while they do make great pizza, brooklyn's spelling leaves something to be desired.

on our way to grimaldi's there was some really cool lights by the highway.

Grimaldis
Big time.
there was a long line but they let us cut it. they claimed it was because we were doing take out as opposed to sitting in the restaurant, but i think it's because they could smell we were professionals. well, it could've been that or the booze, not sure. there's probably a good explanation why photo's are missing.

after grimaldi's we walked across the brooklyn bridge back into manhattan. in all my time living right outside of NYC i've never done that. my brother and i used to talk about how we've done so many interesting things in other cities but never really did the "tourist" based things in new york. this was really fun and i got to do a lot of these kinds of things without it being super corny. and it really is quite beautiful at night.

Somewhere else
We were drunk and it was good.

i believe greg exclaimed, "see, it doesn't matter where you go, the pizza's always good!" and while we're all aware of the old adage about how pizza is like sex, and we were pretty gonzo, i do remember this pizza actually being quite good.
---
overall i'd say this tour was a huge success. what did we learn? i'm not totally sure. i do know that for the most part there are huge differences between "gourmet" pizza and "traditional" pizza, but both are of worth and wonderful. i think they both have their place in this world and in my mouth/stomach. by the way, if you're wondering where the incredibly scientific scores came from, they were loose averages of everyone on the tour. i've decided for the most part they didn't help us come to much of a conclusion, but the basic notes did help quite a bit. the best part? wandering the city with people i love drinking beers and eating pizza on a beautiful day. does it get any better? i think not.

(32/365)

Thanks for coming boys

2009-05-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

i went to get my oil changed a jiffy lube. a few thousand miles overdue. yikes. not a smart idea for a boy who lives out of his car. but, i've never had to change the oil on my house before. by the way, you might wonder who/what this wonderful car is that i've been traveling in. please meet sweetpea/sweettea cassidy. she's a '93 plymouth sundance and i love her. sure, she's going a little grey, but i paid my friend 500 bucks over two years ago and have put over 40 thousand miles on her. she's been completely worth it and i am proud of her.

please enjoy the green spray paint on her roof. i was experimenting with covering up the grey areas. that's what i get for not accepting her for who she is.

while waiting i started to write the following blog, but got side tracked and never wrote one. i could finish this story, but i think it's kind of funny as is
---
Last night Steve and I went to the local townie bar and one of the local men was half flirting with us.

(30/365)

pizza tour nyc

2009-05-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

i've been the opposite of a busy boy. however, i've spent quite some time on the computer, which perhaps counts as being busy. not sure. right now suguna and i are sitting in the apartment that neither of us live in and typing away on our laptops as if this were some sort of wanderer's computer lab. she calls me a migrant, by the way.

anyway, yesterday after deciding that a sunny afternoon needs beers we walked down to the liquor store and picked up some libations. seeing as i'm on a tight budget i went with milwaukee's best. my friend the bear works for miller and says that at his work the majority of people drink this over anything else in their line. furthermore, a lot more goes into making it than you'd think, but it's sold so cheaply because it's good to have a variety of prices in the marketplace. and you know what, it's really not bad when you forget about any associations to freshman year at college or frat parties. it is, afterall, the best milwaukee has to offer. we enjoyed cold beers in the warm sun, reveling in the fact that we're both somehow existing in this fantasy land where we don't have to play by the "real world's" rules. sure, suguna had to leave to go work a crap job for a while, but that's fine. she knew she'd be coming back to hang out's and 5 beers. over the rest of the afternoon/evening i wrote emails, caught up with backlogged stuff and made phone calls about tour. it's weird having to constantly think about dates 1 to 3 months in the future, imagining holes that need to be filled, friends and strangers that need to be called upon for help. luckily, i've encountered mainly warm, positive people and while i by no means have a totally packed schedule, there are lots of pockets of greatness. but i hate booking tours, i hate asking for favors and i hate having to spend my time working on the part of my music that has nothing to do with music. still, i love traveling and playing, and since nobody else is going to do it, it's a necessary evil. if this is the worst i have to deal with, i'm a lucky kid.

when my eyes got tired i made dinner. risotto with saffron, okra, tomatoes and corn. it wasn't good. that made me sad. i'm a pretty decent cook, but this was really just me throwing crap together with stuff i had leftover in this apartment where i lived so long ago. it's amazing the stuff didn't get thrown out, but at least i didn't have to steal my friend's food. ross bones got home from climbing shortly after i ate and we got to catch up, which is great. i love that kid and always feel better being around him. eventually suguna came home and then brian and we all got a chance to relax together, shoot the breeze and talk. bri, suguna and i stayed up rather late drinking tea, splashes of sierra nevada and talking about india. i rather enjoyed myself.

at some point probably too late for everyone else, i retired to the futon and dragged the single blanket across my tired body, falling off to sleep while tuckerman scratched at the couch. i woke up to brian making a late breakfast and made myself some green tea. i find something comforting about sitting around shirtless in the spring, drinking tea, talking to my brother. again, i'm a lucky dude.

when brian left i exercised a bit, showered and hopped back on the old information super highway. still, i'm not doing everything i need to be, but hopefully in the coming days. i'll also have a lot more time next week, so if i'm lucky i'll bust quite a bit out.

but, here's the most important thing:

this saturday, may 16th, we're taking a tour of New York City pizza. i've done a little research, and sure, should probably do more, but i have a bunch of places we're going to go. oh, and by we, i mean me and anyone that wants to come along, including you, dear reader. i'm going to make an intinerary, approximate cost list and general map of where/when we'll be. depending on how many people come we'll get one slice or a few and split them mulitple ways. should a ton of people come, we'll get a pie and have it cut into a million slices. still, the idea is not get full, but to just try it. maybe i'll make a score card? who knows. and i for one plan on enjoying cold beers. i'm hoping it's a nice day out, but if it's not, we'll eat pizza in the rain. ok, so, if you want in, let me know, and i'll give you all the info you need.

by the way, i'll of course be documenting it in some respect, and those who can't come will be sure to hear about it. i hope this finds you well. i send my love.

(29/365)

late morning breakfast

2009-05-13T12:29:00.000-07:00

i'm sorry i had to leave so abruptly yesterday. also, i realize my lack of capitalization while typing on my computer coupled with my horrible spelling and punctuation when using my iPhone is probably driving you batty. i apologize. if i ever have the time to go back and edit all of those previous posts, i will do so. but this is meant not to prove my amazing ability to write beautifully, but more to get down many of the things i'm experiencing as closely to when and how they happened.

with that, i'll pick up from where i believe i left off:

two nights ago after leaving the bar and heading over to scotty's friends' place i was met by three new friends, lynne, nelson and ruben. immediately we took to each other, each offering a great deal of interesting insight and fun into one another's lives. later yis showed up and we had some great talks about art and creativity. it's so funny and amazing to me how i can just show up at a house where my character was vouched for and make wonderful new friends in minutes. from my perspective there was no awkwardness, just jumping right into conversation and friendship. i know full well that there are going to be really tough times on this trip, and i know full well that there will long periods of darkness and despair. but for now, that hard times are short lived and fleeting, while the overarching feeling is one of warmth, acceptance, positivity and fun. color me impressed.

after finishing off the remaining beers and letting the conversations peter out, everyone went to sleep except for nelson and me, who stayed up until 4 am talking about a variety of things related to gender/sexual issues, social acceptance and peoples' overall views of these things and how they relate to one's makeup. it was really nice to have an interesting, meaningful conversation with someone after the many late night silly ones i've perpetuated. i take full blame for late nights turning into ridiculousness, so i appreciate that this night turned into something else.

i had to wake up early because the cable guy came, but nelson let me go sleep in his bed. i woke up a few times marveling at the fact that a mere 12 or so hours before, this kid didn't even know i existed, and now we knew intimate details about each others' past, and he was letting a stranger sleep in his bed while he dealt with the cable dude. again, people constantly amaze me. when i finally got up i met the one more roommate and then headed out with everyone as they went to the diner. i decided to leave for jersey so i could get back in time for the wake, which i'm glad i did, as i ended up being a bit late for the first one. i know there's no specific time you need to go, but i wanted to be there to show my support and love. as i referenced yesterday, i didn't bring any "nice" clothes on this trip, so i had to run around new brunswick to finally get my brother's "nice" outfit. it fit me well in a socially acceptable way, but looked silly on me, and as far as i was concerned definitely made me look ridiculous. but, that's the way it goes, i suppose.

in between the early and late services i went to barnes and noble to write on my phone about the day. see yesterday's poor excuse for an english major. from there i headed back to the funeral home and at the later service i saw the people i expected to see, all the kids from around the area, the punks, the old friends. it's a weird place to reunite with old friends, and since none of us were particularly close to our friend's father, it further confuses things. of course we all feel a great sadness and love for our buddy, but it's not the same as feeling a direct sadness for the person who passed. that mixed with it being nice to catch up with old friends is a weird feeling, though i'm sure this is not the first time something like this has happened. i talked to everyone i could and we all made sure our friend knew we loved him and felt greatly for him. afterwards trevor, jess, corey and i went to get food. i haven't hung with these three in a while, so it felt warm and like home to be able to just be back with kids i love. corey, trev and i will be headed out this summer for a few weeks when i tour with their band, Let Me Run. i'm super pumped for that, as i know those dudes will be a blast and i haven't done a DIY van tour in three years or so. i can't wait. part of me has a feeling that i'm stepping on toes with them though, so i just want them to know i love them and will do my best to be a good van/tourmate.

after supping on chips and salsa, salad and veggie burger, i headed to the secret bar/late night liquor store to get some beer. new jersey has really odd liquor laws, or at least weird to me, in that almost every state but ours and a few others let you get beer at almost any hour at gas stations. here, if it's after 10 pm, you have to buy "packaged goods," from a bar. but, this genius little place is a liquor store that has a bar, and they just keep the hard alcohol behind the counter so after 10 you can still use the beer coolers but they just don't let you touch the hard stuff. genius! it's saved many a late night new brunswick party. and, 24 oz miller high life for 99 cents? can't beat it. took my beers back to my brother's place and we hung out, had some laughs, some drinks and finished a few things on my record. the recording/mixing phase is just about finished, so mastering and artwork are all that's left. mastering should just take a day, so if i can get the art done soon, i'll be laughing. can't wait, it's going to rule. this new record is really good, and i feel great about saying that.

now i'm sitting on my brother's couch sending emails for tours and hoping somehow beyond hope i can keep convincing the world i deserve to play music and travel around. the next step is to have someone book me full time. that, my friends, is the beautiful kicker. i have no clue what the coming days will hold, and i'm ok with that. on monday i fly to atlanta to start the butch walker tour, and that's the start of almost 2 straight months of tours, which is amazing. sure, i have a bunch of holes to fill, which i'll be working on continuously, but it feels great to know i'll make some money on the butch tour and have a blast for 2 solid months. sounds good to me.

by the way, it's 4 pm and i'm still in my underwear. but, for what it's worth, i've done a decent amount of work today. onward and upward, i suppose.

such a pretty pup.

new philly friends rule!

a new friend from my afternoon lunch in the park.

this was the hallway to the sweet underground apartment.

just a photo of my buddy dave for good measure. last night at the hub i suggested joose to two unsure buyers. they bought 10 24 oz cans. dave would be proud.

yis and nelson.

lovely gustav!

jersey city show.

stone skippers at the model home.

word.

this is a photo i forgot to post from NYC. classy shop sign.

dog snake!

keeping warm outside the model home in philly.

my new york city park bench.

(28/365)

For employee use only

2009-05-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on the floor in a barnes and noble and apparently I'm not allowed to use their outlets. What kind if crap is that. Of course I'm going to charge my phone because I really don't care what that guy says but that's just straight ridiculous. I'll tell you what guy, if you need this plug to vacuum the floor I something I'll get out if your way. Otherwise give me a break.

I'm taking a coffee break off of route 18 in new jersey. I was supposed to spend most of the week in Philly writig songs and working on my book, but a good buddy's father passed away and there's no way I was going to stay in Philly when it is just a short drive back to jersey to pay my respects and show my friend I love him. Regardless if the circumstances deaths are never easy, though to be honest, I feel like I'm rarely quickly affected by them. This might be, however, because I've never lost anyone I'm super close with. Of course I have been lucky and hope I never do. In many ways I want to go before anyone I truly love does. Either way my heart goes out to my friend and I hope he knows how much we all love him.

I'm feeling kind of ridiculous dressed in my brothers clothes typing in B&N because I don't like wearing clothes like these (I didn't bring any in my trip with me for a reason) nor do I like the reason I'm wearing them. In a lot of ways I don't like any situation where you have to dress nicely mainly because most if them gave negative connotations. Work, funerals, court, and weddings without true love. To my brothers I'll probably wear a beard and a smile, the cloth draping my body not representing how much I care. Also, the way in feeling right now is expounded by the fact that I think mist chain stores like this suck and the adults who work in them even more so. What did these people do to be fifty years old working in a chain book store? And is that why they're such miserable fucks? I'm not normally so actively against chains but my current experience is mainly dredging up negative feelings. Sure I love being able to steal their electricity but otherwise I feel empty in here.

In a little bit I'll head to the second wake where i'm sure I'll see most of my friends from this circle. Say what you will about our pack of bar fly punks, we have heart and are loyal. We know who our friends are and so do they. And despite what some may think, it's not hard to get let in. Just be a good person, have a good heart and like to have fun. If you're already like that then you're one of us. After the wake we'll either go out for beers or I'll head back to PA.

Over the last year or so I've developed a great affinity for PA and Philly more specifically. Sure there's times I don't feel safe and sure I never sell records there but man are they sweet. It's rare to find such open eared open hearted folk. Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe I'm that good but man oh man I can play the quietest saddest songs and a room full of people will listen silently. That's amazing and I'm not sure what I did to be so blessed but it's incredible.

After my show the other night I went back to my buddy jon's house where we'd grilled earlier and went to sleep. I was woken up by one of my new roommates yelling about how he was pissed that all his beer was gone. We at the grill out were the culprits. Whoops. This kind of scared me and it's not my first time in Philly being woken up by yelling. That's one part if Philly I don't like. Eventually he went upstairs and I fell asleep. In the morning Jon and I shot the breeze over multiple cups of coffee and schemes about maybe going to Europe. I then caught up on emails and then went to murph's to play some music. I'd found out in the morning about the wake so I knew I'd only have one more day to play with murph. We wrote a cool song and then I left to meet jeff for a beer and some food at scotty's bar. They have a great grilled cheese, arguably better than mine, and an amazing beer selection. Also the staff totally rules so as far as I'm concerned the south Philly tap room is one of my favorite bars. Sure for a kid like me it's a little pricey but for a normal human it's great.

Jeff and I talked about everything that's going on with my music and tried to figure out my touring schedule as he's going to help me with that aspect. I then met his lovely girlfriend and we shifted topics to art. By the way if you've never read the childrens book "the hungry caterpiller" your doing yourself a disservice. Scotty hung with us after his shift and then left to go hang out with his girlfriend and their mates. I was going to go to jeffs cause I had nowhere else to sleep but before I could finish my beer Scotty came back and said his friends wanted me to stay with them.

By the way quick interruption. This drunk kid just came over to talk to me. It's six pm. He introduced me to his friend who works at the cafe here and apparently thinks I'm cute. She was so embarresed and very sweet. I felt bad for here to feel that way but I thought it was incredibly nice and told her I really appreciated it. The drunk friend was just trying to help and applaud both if them. It's a great compliment and I fully support people ignoring social constructs. Well done both if you.

Ok I need to go back to the wake. More later. Hope you're wonderful.

(27/365)

you'd think with all this time...

2009-05-12T02:22:00.000-07:00

...I'd be writing something worth reading. Nope. I'm out living. Tomorrow though my loves I'll make it all worth the wait, like Heinz 57.

(26/365)

another photo update

2009-05-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting in the chicken coop, an awesome house with some really amazing people. justin and dan play in the band trunks and tales. think americana/folk/punk. these dudes have really good hearts, always take good care of everyone and generally care about the world. i'm lucky to have met them. tonight we're going to philadelphia to play to friends and feel great. i've felt incredibly blessed lately. i also really love that it's been nice out and getting nicer. there's something amazing about starting this great journey in the spring, a new beginning if you will. and i hope you will. when this idea first came about it was january, which seems like a perfect time to start a year long project, but a terrible month emotionally, as i can imagine if i had to deal with both the toughness of getting used to living on the road and a cold winter i'd probably have a really rough time. but, instead, i'm emotionally blooming and feeling the sun shine down on my face. incredible. i'm an amazingly blessed kid. somehow i convinced the universe to let me drop out of "real life," and start living a real life. thanks universe, preesh.

i am, however, quite sorry that i've not updated recently. i've been living loudly, so i think it's a good excuse, but i've neglected, none the less.

quick recap:
may 5 and 6 i rehearsed with and played a show with the old pop group. hung out with great friends (danielle, sam, sam's mates) as well as the old bandmates, whom i love and miss dearly.

may 7 i went to go see the sleeping and paulson in a new brunswick basement, which was insane and awesome. basements get sweaty, and in totally non-drunk, but clumsy move, i fell down a small set of stairs in front of 50 people. ouch. my ego was more bruised than my body though, so all was ok. dan, the house kid, always takes care of us and is a good dude. he let me play a few songs for some new friends, and i really appreciate that. over all it was an amazing night, new friends and old. i ran into a ton of people i've not seen for years, but still care about, and was really happy to see they're doing well. also, the paulson dudes remain some of my favorite people in the world, as well as making up one of my favorite bands ever. i met new friends who were sweet and fun and talented, quite a good mix. well done new brunswick. it's times like these that i'm reminded how much i love you.

may 8 i woke up feeling terrible but amazing. brian and david were there, and i was given a breakfast beer. so ridiculous, but occasionally things like these are necessary for stories. brian, david and i then worked on my record for a bit and then david and i hung out in the living room with suguna. it's something we laugh about, how we all were making ourselves at home, relaxing and enjoying each others' company while none of us actually lived there. amazing. the three of us, none of whom have ever really hung out much, walked to get thai food and a brown paper bag beer, headed down to the park and ate in the sun. again, it's times like these i love new brunswick. nice weather, new friends, spending my time doing nothing but laughing, living and loving. i'm constantly amazed by the fact that i do nothing other than these three things and i'm still alive, well fed and healthy. not sure what i did to deserve this beauty, but i definitely owe a great deal of thanks to the world and everyone in it. after a wonderful lunch i packed my car and headed north to jersey city where i was to play a show. it seemed like it was to be a quiet show, but then friend after friend streamed in. i am the luckiest boy on the planet. old friends and new. i played on the floor in the middle of the bar and just used my heart and lungs to project my songs. everyone was amazing. i sold records, got paid some gas money, gave and received hugs, drank beers, felt loved. the bartender, kate, and her boyfriend leigh took amazing care of me. wonderful people, let me stick around after closing, introduced me to the owner. he took us back to his place, which was through a tiny gate in a random wall in jersey city. we walked through a winding alley way that was half indoors, half out. rain dripped through the ceiling and i had to avoid various construction materials to find an unlocked door at the end of this dark hallway. once passing through, we were in one of the most beautiful, classy apartments i've seen in a long while. amazing. here i was, a dude with 4 strangers in a secret apartment just sharing an experience. i love my life. after the quick visit kate and leigh brought me back to their place, which turned out to be an really nice, tall apartment with great style and an amazing little grey cat, gustav. they even gave me my own room with a bed. so fucking great. how am i so lucky? new friends, great times, fun stories, soft beds. again, i'm amazed.

may 9 brought me to annville, PA, where the trunks and tales/chicken coop dudes put on an awesome show in the music building at the local college. lots of friends came out, including a few professors. dan made the stage look homey and we gathered around low lighting and found carpets. so rad. again, eveyone took great care of me, and then we went back to the chicken coop for super late hangs with rad folks.

and now, after a belly full with delicious pancakes and coffee, dan, justin and i are headed to philly for more sweet times. the waltz might not be able to play tonight which severly bums me out, but i'll just make sure to go see brian this week and catch up. i love that kid and miss him dearly.

ok, gotta run. enjoy the photos:

this is a dream spence and i once had.

paulson and the sleeping in a new brunswick basement. love it. except for when everything gets so sweaty that i slip down the stairs. yikes.

four of my new york roommates, my buddy sam has the sweet beard.

another NYC roommate. i miss petey.

so, new york, space is limited, huh?

danielle, the queen of vegan treats. i'm lucky to call her a friend. oh, and this was at 'snice, a quite tasty veggie restaurant in NYC. i got the "cheese steak." big time.

joey ballaro. only got to play one show with the dude, but have nothing but love.

oh, spencer, how i miss you.

such an amazing kitchen in an unexpected basement.

the chicken coop!

the chicken coop kids in annville, pa. love it.

chicken coop show fliers.

greg has been described as being like 20 dudes. it's true. when he leaves the room you're feeling great and exhausted. pump the breaks, greg.

fancy beer.

andy and the mule/donkey glove. this kid enjoys fun, and i like that.

uuuuuhhmm...yea.

(25/365)

Let's all sing along

2009-05-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

I've been hanging with the chicken coop kids in annville pa so I've been too busy to write. Soon, I promise.

(24/365)

The walls were wet

2009-05-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

Last night. Oh man. My good buddies in the bands Paulson and the Sleeping played a basement in new Brunswick. It's pretty rare to have a show that big in a basement which ruled. While rather sober I fell down the stairs. And then the night started. Stay tuned for details.

(23/365)

One last hurrah

2009-05-07T10:52:00.001-07:00

Did you ever have to go to thanksgiving dinner with your ex-girlfriend? Or have to take your ex-boyfriend to a work function? There's an awkwardness in spending time with someone you once loved but now just feel obligated towards. Well perhaps both of those feelings are clouded. In a lot of ways that's what last night felt like. I used to play in a girl fronted pop band as a way to make money playing my guitar. The thing is that fir the most part it was an incredible experience but certain aspects if it were soul sucking and crushing. For the first part, well I met three of the most talented, insperational and amazing friends I've ever had and I got to spend a year of my life traveling with them. I'm a way better man for all of it and am incredibly thankful for it. On the downside, it was really hard to forget about my love for writing and singing my own songs as well as some other hard to swallow pills. But there's parts of every job that we hate, right? So considering all the good that came from it I'd say I'm incredibly lucky.

Last night was what it was, you know? A last frolic through the gardens of what once was. And now I can fully move forward. That's a beautiful thing.

Before the show danielle and I went out to eat at 'snice, an awesome veggie resaurant in NYC. Danielle is one if the sweetest, most talented people I've ever met. Upon first introduction and hang you're aware that she's a woman of impressive convictions while still able to have fun. It's only after a little digging do you realize she us a self made woman of amazing proportions. Danielle has built a veritable empire of vegan desserts that is growing all the time. And to be honest I know it's big but have no real concept of actually how huge because she's incredibly humble and refuses to throw her success in anyones face. On the contrary, she's incredibly generous but without the least bit of flaunting. By the way, thank you for dinner danielle. So my pre-show hang was great and positive which rules because it allowed me to go to the show in good spirits. My brother lent me all his amazing gear since mines in storage so I sounded great. That is dude. And then we did our thing, packed up and called it a day.

After the show I went with coley and joe to the apartment monica has for her travel program. Central park west. Not too shabby. I love monica. She's a constant source of sunshine and inspiration in my life. Someday she and coley are going to make beautiful talented babies and give the world faith in love.

On a side note, I've never played with joe and really appreciated the opportunity to do so, as well as hang. He's a great dude.

Tonight I get to go see paulson an the sleeping in a friends basement in new Brunswick. I'm really excited and know lots if friends will be there. Then the next few days I have shows. I'm definitely a lucky kid. And I have many of you to thank for that. So, thank you and much love.

(22/365)

One more try, Mr. Darwin

2009-05-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started writing this tirade about change and evolution. I was on the train to NYC and as soon as we went underground I lost service, and my diatribe with it. So now i'm sitting in my shirt sleeves in some park in Chelsea amongst elderly dog lovers. I'm sure we are both equally confused by the others existance. The funny thing is that I'm positive they don't even know the half if it.

As for yesterdays thoughts:
It's a strange feeling experiencin ones evolution. But perhaps that's the wrong word as it seems to have a positive connotation. I've been feeling quite weird lately, like I can tell I'm changing, but into what I don't know. I'd think that normally people don't recognize changes so much as they're occuring. When a college student returns home for his or her first thanksgiving there is often a reorientation in which old friends need to figure out where they fit in each others lives. Stories are shares of people they'll never meet, sights they'll never see and crushes they'll never be excited by. I think these are the moments we can begin to clearly see how much we've rearranged our makeups. Yet somehow here I am, a bit cold, without home amongst day dwellers, all of whom have little to do but sit in the park reflecting.

The other night Kelly told me of a train ticket you can buy that let's you ride the rails in the states anywhere you want for 30 days. 300 bones. Ten bucks a day is not too shabby. If I could figure out a way to bring merch with me it's be a great way to tour. Lots of drop shipping perhaps. I like the idea if becoming a rail rider as it would put me one step closer to being a true hobo. What a fucking dumb privledged white kid thing to do, idealize transients. And perhaps I'm alreay one. What does hobo even mean, is it short for homeless bohemian? If so that sounds about right.

Last night I stayed with my great mate Sam. Awesome guy. With me his current apartment population was five. For the record it's a two bedroom apartment but with a girlfriend and another couch surfer we'd balooned the place. My fellow surfer was quite the opposite of me, the picture of success and potential. Business grad school student in between apartments, early riser, runner, obviously intelligent and well groomed. I suppose there are many reasons to surf couches and think it's quite probable that we both secretly think we each know what life is about and that the other is missing out.

On a side note, one of sam's college buddies talked to me for about an hour about a contract I'll soon be signing. In the real world it wouldve cost me around 500 bucks. He did it as a favor to Sam. Amazing. I owe him huge and greatly appreciate it. It was also amazing to speak to someone so smart and on point. For his sake I won't name him, but thank you friend.

So while I feel a bit weird still I'm living in it. And while at times I feel like a bum when I'm not working I am getting paid for various music based services, one of which is today. So I guess I'm working. All I've eaten today is a bagel and drank a cup of terrible watered down coffee. It's almost 6 pm. I'm getting 15 dollars in a few hours so I can go buy dinner. Perhaps I'll go to the discount market next to the club and stretch them dollars out.

Ok I'm getting cold. I think I'll walk around for a while. I hope you're great.

(21/365)

Seriously Darwin?

2009-05-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote sonething awesome, then somehow erased it. I'm am ass. Tomorrow I'll fix that little problem. Hope you're next to someone you love.

(20/365)

pistols at daybreak

2009-05-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

i forgot these veggie dogs in my brother's fridge. when i found them they looked like little black sausages. so weird.

on saturday, may 2nd i went to the bamboozle festival in seacaucus, nj to see the get up kids. if you're not familiar with them, GUK were a rock band from the late 90s in what was at the time referred to as "emo," though that term has since been co-opted and bastardized. still, they put out some great records and i hadn't seen them since about 2001, so it was cool to be able catch them again with a bunch of kids who were equally excited. dave went to their show the night before which was a full set, but at least i got to see something.

dave, billy and phil at bamboozle. thanks to phil for sneaking me into the fest.

the get up kids playing to an insane amount of people. last time i saw them there were just a few hundred. wowzers.

at the end of the set a young man walked up to me, leaned in and said, "bonjour?" "i'm sorry, can i help you?" then it dawned on me: i had been talking to this guy mehdi from france, and we'd discussed trying to meet up at bamboozle. randomly we ran into each other, and i guess by way of the wonder of the interweb, mehdi knew what i looked like and recognized me. it was awesome to finally get to meet in person and we spent the rest of the day hanging out, trading stories and generally enjoying each others' company. mehdi came out with us in jersey city that night, and i was glad to be able to show him a good time in new jersey. the way i see it, i've built up enough travel karma that i'm not even beginning to pay it back.

at the bar i also saw some old, amazing friends, caught up, felt loved and generally just enjoyed a great evening. after the bar closed down phil and i went to kelly's place to hang out in arguably the nicest backyard in jersey city. i also met some sweet cats.

phil was cold, so, you know, he had to wrap up.

---

yesterday dave made me drink joose all afternoon. it was a rainy jersey city sunday, the new rambo was on tv and a few twenty-somethings sitting around the living room are bound to get in trouble. so dave emptied out his change jar and walked down to the liquor store to get us some joose. energy drink/malt liquor. it's a terrible and wonderful concoction. after enjoying some oddly colored drinks we made up some pasta with string beans. suprisingly, it came out pretty well. i'm learning how to cook well using cheaper and simpler materials.

the joose is loose. we decided to mix the flavors. the blue one tasted like sandwiches.

the negative creeps were the house band at "crewtonz: the house of god," a friends' warehouse space. i haven't seen one of their shirts in a while, and then dave's roommate had one on yesterday.

for our second meal, dave and i made broccoli/cheese rice with hoppin' john. if you haven't had it before, you're missing out.

xack was my bed buddy last night.

---

i got to hang with my brother in the afternoon, which as always, was great. i played him a newish song i have, and he liked it, so he set up some mics for me to lay my new tunes down. awesome. i'm excited i was able to record them.

i made stew tonight for dinner. olive oil, garlic, onions and carrots. sweat with salt, pepper, cumin seeds, coriander, thyme, parsley and crushed red pepper. then add potatoes, chickpeas and lentils. some water and bring to a full boil, then reduce and simmer. serve with bisquits or warm bread with olive oil for dipping.

amna came over to help me eat the stew, and it was fun to catch up. she had her last class today. that's amazing. i remember that feeling, the idea that the world was now wide in front of you, that you could do anything you wanted. it's scary, exciting, wild. to everyone who's graduating this month, have fun. make your life worth living.

(19/365)

Ride the snake.

2009-05-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dave is making me drink joose. If you haven't heard of it, I suggest you do. My head is swimming right now. Yesterday was quite a day. Snuck into bamboozle fest, caught up with tons if old friends, saw the get up kids (yea, amazing) then went to jersey city with phil, dave, and mehdi (my buddy from France). We got a little rowdy at a bar that ive already caused trouble in. I saw some amazing friends and felt loved big time. I'm an incredibly lucky dude.

(18/365)

COLLEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

oh, new brunswick.

after having lunch with scotty i headed down to festival pier in philly. cobra starship was playing, so i was able to meet up with my really good buddies spencer and nate. sure, it's weird to have to avoid/dodge teenage girls just to walk down the street, but it's totally worth it to hang out with my dudes, catch up, tell stories, and generally be around good folks. there's nothing crazy in any of our lives, but it's still always nice to see your brothers in arms, people who understand what you deal with.

after saying my goodbyes to the boys i left philadelphia and headed north to new brunswick, nj. i figured i'd rather hang out with ross and my brother than most other places. i knew it wouldn't be a party and that i'd be with people i really, truly love.

ross and i caught up a bit, and you know what? he's incredible. my boy is within view of the finish line of his doctorate in astrophysics. exactly. wowzers. he's also the same dude i went drinking with for years, had more laughs than with almost anyone else, enjoyed romantic comedies (what can i say, we're lovers at heart), talked to tons of ladies, helped each other through breakups, grilled tons of food and generally made each others' lives more worth living. it's a bummer we don't see each other more, but these little catch ups are still wonderful.

a bit later my brother came home. man, that kid rules. anyway, he wanted a beer, and who am i to argue. so, we went to a party down the street that had died down, and also contained a variety of uncomfortable situations, including accusatory girls, and past students, which is always weird. brent and christina were there, and happy, as they'd just won the ability to continue their current political campaign. this i support and congratulate, but after catching up with them, brian and left to get some decent beers at a hopefully more hopping location. well, with that we got more than we bargained for. after fighting through a sea of assholes (today was the local free college music/spring festival, to which many idiots invite their idiot friends) we obtained some quality beers and made our way out to the patio where a friend of ours was entertaining. while back there a few inebriated gentlemen with a bit of an abercrombie meets against all odds leaning spilled a drink that almost hit us and then apologized and said they wanted to, "hang out with the beatles," and "get down with these guys." apparently brian and i look like the musical geniuses we so love, therefore we were slightly less perturbed than we might have been. still, dealing with jackasses of this ilk is annoying, so we moved our bodies multiple times to avoid consistent interaction with them. overall, it was amazing to hang with brian. i love the kid to death, and cherish all the time i get with him.

quickly we grew tired of the bar so we left, but i decided that being in new brunswick meant i needed to eat poorly, which most likely meant fried food. we were right next to cluck u and i'd been craving buffalo wings all night, but seeing as i don't eat meat, buffalo fries seemed like the obvious choice. last time i got cluck u i was feeling brave and ordered the second hottest sauce they make. the only reason i didn't go for the hottest was because a man way larger than me ordered just before me, and when he asked for the hottest and was met with an incredulous response, he exclaimed, "i'm from africa, i can easily eat this shit." i decided that since i was most definitely not from africa, perhaps i did not possess the same qualifications. i ordered the next down. this guy and i sat while waiting for our food and regaled each other of attempts at heat, love of spice and generally caroused. he was great fun, as were his friends, but my tongue soon realized my order was anything but. it took me a week to finish those fries, as it became a battle of wills, me against these buffalo fries. my ass never forgave me.
oh, and they're not the best spellers at cluck u. just saying.

this is after i ate a third or more. my goodness.

anyway, i was not to let this happen again. this time i ordered a reasonably mild version and enjoyed them on the walk home. i felt, and feel, disgusting, but come on, sometimes you have to live on the edge. i caught up with some old friends from a few years ago, saw a nice beard, got a beer to go with my fries and soaked in the ridiculousness that was spring fest rutgers new brunswick.

sweet beard.

now i'm sitting in my brother's apartment, finishing my beer and happy i have a safe, comfortable place to rest my head. tomorrow i'm hoping to go see the get up kids, one of my favorite bands from my previous years. i'm quite excited and looking forward to meeting up with some old friends.

on that note, i should go to bed. i hope this finds you splendid.

by the way,

the part that connects the mustache to the beard is called, "the dude." this is a sweet dude.

photo update

2009-05-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

my two new food friends.

this is my cousin and her amazingly beautiful new baby daughter. i was so glad to get to meet the lovely new addition to the family.

sure, stuffed animals are cool and all. old strip clubs are nice as well. why don't we throw shows there?

various art in canada.

so after getting the local plattsburgh delicacy (reheated pizza with cold cheese on top) we came across a perfectly plated meal. the only odd thing was that this was on the street, in the rain. what? exactly. also, justin asked, hilariously, if the glass of water had started filled, or if it had collected rain.

bettie makes an amazing melon chicken.

the plattsburgh crew knows how to hang. it felt great to see all my old friends.

and greet the morning sun.

this morning

2009-05-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

i awoke to screaming. and it's not the first time.

i think while i am incredibly romantic and love the idea of staying with other people, periodically there's going to be tough/hard/scary times. sometimes i won't know what to do during these instances. sometimes i'll feel like a little kid hiding underneath the covers. i hate that this is a feeling i will have to experience occasionally. i hate even more than it's something that some people experience every day. part of why i'm doing this year long trip is to actively spread positivity and love to people. sometimes i forget it, at least consiously, but for the most part i think it's present. let's fix this place up ladies and gents.

yesterday i played the titan house in philly. i love that place and the dudes who always help me out. i'm incredibly blessed to be able to play shows to sweet, kind folks who are willing to listen, especially in a city that gets so much good music, so often. lots of great friends came out, all the bands ruled, just an amazing basement show. and, i was supposed to be in providence, RI last night, but that fell through, so to get such a sweet last minute show ruled.

after the show we went to the philly pretzel factory, where at 12 midnight you can get three super hot, super delicious pretzels for a dollar. that's right, a dollar. if you're not that hungry, one pretzel is 35 cents. free mustard. not too shabby. we bought a bunch of food and gorged ourselves. after eating i went back to scotty's to hang out. steve and i ended up staying up super late just catching up and talking about various music. i love that kid and feel blessed to have him in my life.

today i'm trying to figure out how to get into hoodwink fest up in seacaucus, NJ, because my buddies are playing a cover set of jimmy eat world songs. should be awesome. it's looking like it's getting to late and i won't be able to, but worst case i'll go down to festival peir in philly and see some other friends of mine i haven't seen in a while. all in all, it should be a good time. the get up kids are playing bamboozle tomorrow at that festival in NJ, so i really want to try and make it up there to see them. it's been years since i saw those guys, and they totally rule.

i have a bunch of contract work to do today, and hopefully tomorrow is bamboozle, so if all works out that means sunday will be me big work day/catch up day/photo update. i hope that all works for me and you.

i send my love.

(16/365)

and i swear...

2009-04-30T11:05:00.001-07:00

i promise i didn't forget about you. lots of craziness over the last week or so. i will fully update you quite soon, and with much greater regularity. i send my love.

(15/365)

Winterbottom!

2009-04-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

i'm terribly sorry my loves, i've been without interweb and been busy. living loudly takes time, so occasionally i need to stay offline and breathe fresh air.

scotty and i spent four days in canada playing music, hanging with friends, meeting new great people, loving new york subway burritos, paying way too much for alcohol and generally loving life. oh, and scotty didn't mind the decriminalized stance on his favorite plant either.

it's pretty amazing to be in a place where people are so open minded, warm, kind, welcoming and supportive. sure, it's a bit of a generalization, but i suppose if i'm going to generalize, it's not so bad that it's a positive, loving one. bettie and pat took us in to their apartment for four days, which i know ben franklin would frown on. also, i went to more art galleries in the short time i was in canada than i've been to in probably the last year.

the first big show was at a gallery where i played to amazing people and re-fell in love with canada. the next day shawzy tattooed me and i laughed at how ridiculous i am. that night we went to another gallery where one of bettie's friends put on a show with a bunch of artists who'd donated their time and art on skateboards to support a charity for hospitals. while i thought that was an odd choice for a country with socialized health care, i really appreciated it. the styles really varied, were well done and exiting. i had a great time. plus, how often do you get to go to an art opening where you can drink beer and watch people skate a mini ramp?

we then drove to sarnia, which is just about michigan, and automatically expected the worst. we were told it was a chemical plant town and not only was it, but the street where the show was happened to be under construction. i thought we were late, only to be there before the venue was even opened. we didn't expect much at all. so, to kill some time, scotty and i walked to harvey's, which is a fast food place that sells veggie burgers, so obviously we had to go. after eating we walked back to the club and realized that things might not be so bad. kids started showing up, coming in and i got excited. as i started my set i wasn't sure they would be into it, but i figured i'd might as well just have fun. within a song i had 25 kids stomping and clapping along right below me while the other 50 or so people sat and listened, clapping loudly after each tune. what a great time. oh, and i neglected to mention that i was playing on what was obviously a stage built for strippers, as that's what this club used to employ. the front half, however, was filled with stuffed animals. not the cuddly kind, but the taxidermy kind. yikes. one of the bands playing was called streetcore, and they were really sweet young kids with a fake problems/against me vibe. well done. the headliner was spiral beach, super young band, no one older than 21, and they were fucking insanely good. super tight, psychadelic, dancey, fun, just awesome. i sold a bunch of stuff and got paid well. what a turn around from what i expected. canada never fails to deliver awesomeness. after the show i drove scotty and i back to toronto, as it was a few hours into a trip we needed to make to plattsburgh, ny.

we woke up in toronto and i was incredibly tired, but we had to make our way to ny. the drive took about eight hours total, including the hassling we got at the border. they obviously thought something was afoot with us entering and leaving canada from different points and no real reason for being there. one of the things they found while searching my car was an old oxycontin prescription bottle with someone else's name filled with pills. those pills were ibuprofin, generic brand advil. the bottle was just something to hold them in. i'm an idiot. but, the realized it was a stupid mistake, told me to be smarter and let us go. the long drive continued, we got a terrible sandwich and then eventually made it to plattsburgh. by then i was in a terrible mood and just wanted a beer and rub my bare feet in the grass. it was so incredibly beautiful out, if i were home i definitely would have been grilling veggie burgers, drinking a beer and hanging in my backyard. but, instead i had to walk up to a third floor apartment and play show. boo hoo. don't get me wrong, i fucking love playing, and i love seeing old friends, but i was just being an ornery bastard, and wasn't in the mood to not be sitting in the grass drinking cold beer. but, you know what? once i got up to the apartment and saw all my old friends from previous tours, i was in a great mood. i had a beer, hugged my buddies, talked a bunch, played a really fun set and just felt amazing. what an incredible turnaround. after the show we went for a walk and then to the river behind where the show was. i finally got to take off my shoes and let the grass tickle my feet. i was in heaven. great people, fun town, drinking beers by a river, all laughs. we then rode bikes to dana's house to check out old picture of my old band from five or so years ago. we were so skinny and soft looking. then a sweet photo shoot by monuments and the river. such a good time. we stayed up until the sun rose over the river, then went back for morning waffles and sleepy time. chris told me some amazing stories about being in a movie in iceland and i generally loved my time. scotty and i slept on a futon mattress on the floor until 3 pm. what bums.

when we woke up we went for pizza. i prefer breakfast food when i wake up, regardless of the time. scotty thinks i'm ridiculous, as he'd always prefer a burrito. we got the plattsburgh specialty: pizza with cold cheese. this is where they reheat the pizza in the oven, then pile on more cold mozzarella when it comes out. the pizza was so hot it basically heated and melted the cold cheese to the point where it was more or less an extra cheese slice, but i always appreciate local fare, espcially if it involves pizza, so i was down. by the way, a little side note: in canada they spell it "pea-eye-zed-zed-aye." zed zed! ha ha. incredible.

scotty and i left plattsburgh, got on the ferry to vermont and drove through the rain to matt's house. and that brings us up to tonight. this evening we had sweet jams, met lots of cool people and then we walked to the store and bought supplies for chili, came back, i cooked, scotty made corn muffins, and we all supped. amazing. phew, that was quite an update. sorry for being absent, i promise i'll be more current in the future. i have a couple more shows, then some time off, after which i head out with butch. should be lots of fun. thinking about a pizza tour when i get back.

(13/365)

Run for the border

2009-04-26T17:37:00.001-07:00

Right now we're just close enough to the US border to pick up AT&T service so I can actually use my phone without it costing me an arm and a leg. Speaking of body parts, Scotty's girl chopped part of her finger off so I got a tribute tattoo. Not really but it's funny to pretend. I'll get up picture up as soon as I can.

Overall, things are good. I made a little money the other night so I've been able to feed myself. I wasn't sure how tonight was going to turn out but it's looking really good so I'm happy about that. It's a constant flux, an ever evolving emotional set, but I'm trying to keep my head up. Really though if I could get a booking agent that would rule so hard. But until that happens I'll keep plugging forward.

Tomorrow we're back in the states which will be nice. I love Canada but it's always nice to come home. I'll have a few more shows then a few days off, after which I head out with butch walker and then have the let me run tour. I'm really excited for all of that and really hope I can set up something good for the summer. We shall see my friends. Ok well I'm going to set up mercy. More from me later. Hope you're great.

(11/365)

art shows and skateboards

2009-04-26T11:59:00.001-07:00

soon i'll be back in the states and updating more often. sorry i'm absent. hope you're well.

toronto, i love you

2009-04-25T14:47:00.001-07:00

last night was incredible. i can't tell you how incredible it feels to have people like shawzy and nate care that i exist. these two guys, among many other last night, made me feel like what i'm doing matters, that i am on the right path.

shawzy rented out his friend's art gallery (there were some great pieces by a guy who did a bunch of work with a NYC theme. funny, i go to another country to see stuff from my backyard.) and invited a ton of his friends. lots of amazingly nice people came out and listened wonderfully and just made me feel incredible. i can't explain how awesome it feels to have lovely people care about what i do. i think to even try would be remiss. so, suffice it to say, i felt filled to the brim with love and happiness. i sold some stuff, which ruled, both because it meant people liked what they heard enough to want to listen more, and also because i can now afford to get to the next city.

we eventually moved the hangout down to shawzy's tattoo studio in the basement and he mentioned he wanted to put a zombie hand on someone, so i offered up my leg. today we did the outline and when i come back in the summer we'll color it. ridiculous, i know. i sure love road tats.

so, i hope this finds you all wonderful. i think i'm going to go work on a new song i started writing this afternoon. i send my love.

the crazy clouds rolled in and ruined the bbq shawzy was going to have. oh well, these things happen, but i thought they looked pretty sweet. at least i got the chance to spend the day with shawz while he tattooed me. good times.

this place is ridiculous. it's right on the main drag, queen st, but there's these girls dancing in the window like something out of amsterdam. it's super populated and a sunny day, so having near naked girls gyrating awkwardly is quite odd.

this place has the best burrito i've ever had. they're so weird. i get the mixed vegetable one, which has potatoes, beans, cauliflower and spinach as well as what i can only describe as some sort of mayonaise sauce. no description would suffice, but the best i give is that it's like indian food meets mexican. weird but amazing. go check it out on queen st w.

cute little fisherman at bettie's place.

a sleeping giant

2009-04-25T01:05:00.001-07:00

tonight was beautiful. well, to be honest, just about everything about today was beautiful. the afternoon was simple, i hung with scotty while he seized the day

and patrick made sure it was documented.

while in the alley and on the walk back i realized a few of the many light hearted reasons i love canada

and after going to the beer store and paying what feels like way too much money for beer, we headed down to meet shawzy at the art gallery. shawz took us to dinner at a really good restaurant called nirvana, which i was of course okay with, and we enjoyed pad thai and libations with new friends who were good times. i think the rest of the night was too fun for me to write about now, as i'm falling asleep. but, i promise, i will recount on the morrow.

i hope you're all great.

(10/365)

oh, canada

2009-04-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

i fucking hate parking in cities. i fell asleep at 4 am just to have to get up and move my car at 8 am. but i then realized, "oh, i have to move my car in a city 10 hours from my hometown after hanging out with cool friends. oh, and i don't have to go to the job i don't have? ok, i guess things aren't so bad."

yesterday scotty and i left kristin's and headed for the border. it's always nerve wracking to cross, even when you know you're not doing anything wrong. sure, i'm trying to play a few shows, but really i'm going to spend way more money being here than i would be making, so i don't feel bad about lying and saying i'm just coming up to visit. the border guard was definitely accusatory but i think then realized i was of absolutely no threat to either the country or its economy, so she simply handed back our passports and waved us on. there's an ever-present feeling of relief and unsettled fear that comes from passing over the border. "she did say we could leave, right?" "i think so. yea, we're cool, i think." we're such jackasses.

scotty and i drove over kings hiway 402/401 for three hours, pulled a couple of turns and arrived in front of dan's apartment. i met dan when i opened a show for butch walker in toronto and when i said i wanted to come back up he offered his place for a hang sesh and to play some songs. dan made us some chili, corn muffins and provided beers and booze. what a great welcome to the country. so, we supped with our new friends amanda and christine and then mike and bettie showed up. i played some songs, we shot the shit and just generally hung hard. dan is an incredibly warm and generous dude, and provided a great open place where we instnatly felt comfortable.

after the night died down we headed back to bettie's to catch a few hours sleep and to fulfill the promise of afternoon eggs. screw morning eggs, i'll be asleep. the thing is, i can make some killer eggs, and while traveling they're the perfect cheap but filling and semi-nutricious meal, but if i don't have quality tools i kind of suck. this morning i kind of sucked. but, these things happen.

however, it's beautiful out, i'm in tornonto with friends and just living. sure, i'm down to my last few dollars and unsure of how the upcoming days will treat me, but i'm doing my best to stay positive and happy. there are so many great things to be excited about, so i'm going to try to not worry about my funds. we shall see how things go.

ok, i'm going to go enjoy the day. when i'm back in the states in a few days it will be a lot easier to update things more regularly. until then, sporatic will have to do.

the best part is that i'll be spending my time with these great kids!

until i get back, i send my love down south.

(9/365)