MONSON, MASSACHUSETTES

If this was a book I feel like this would be Chapter 2 in the book, so I guess it is considered the second day of tour. Of course, there's a lot to be said about prologues to books and stuff. So this might be Chapter 1 and the Long Island post would be the Prologue, or the Introduction. Anyway, this was our first out of state show on this string of shows that will lead us all the way to back here where we started. Well, back there were we started. Not Monson... Long Island.

I woke up a little early considering what time I went to sleep last night. I had to take care of some stuff, our record label dropped off some more pins for us and I did an interview with Jersey Beat magazine in New Jersey where I sounded like a pretentious asshole and ending with a very paranoid quote that I will hope some day is used as a yearbook quote by some fucking idiot who thinks me saying "don't trust the american media" is more important that 1,000 media theorists and modern philosophers stating the same thing.

We arrived at the rendezvous point extremely late... Math and Mike were still asleep at Math's house I guess from a busy night of making out with each other or something. I was at Sean McCabe's house convincing his mom to let him fly out to Florida so he can tour with us by flaunting my nice GPA for the semester and acting responsible. And saying he can only drink two beers a day. Load in time was at about 5:00... maybe 5:30 if I'm giving us any credit whatsoever. But since we're assholes, probably not. By the way, any future promoters reading this, we usually show up on time, especially for tour shows because we're not coming from Long Island.

At about 5:30 PM we are roughly 6 exits into Connecticut. Fuck.

We get out at a rest stop because its rush hour and it really makes no difference if we're on the road or not so we can switch drivers. Nothing very interesting happened there. I guess that the most interesting thing was that one of those fucking little bags of chex mix (not the littlest one, but the size about that) was $2.29. I gave the cashier such a "no thank you sir!"

I got out of the empty back space with the CD boxes to hop up front and drive a bunch. We get to one exit and I think we're there, but we have to drive another 60 more exits to another exit when I once again think we're there but then we have to drive another 60 more exits. Then the numbers went up and down by large increments simultaneously. Confused? ConFUZEd.

yesterday i said that this tour was this first day of my adult life, y'know, trying to do this as a career.

POINT OF ORDER NO. 1: Math bought a clicker because Kevin Gunther had one to count how many people were at a given show. JT took this counter to find out how many SARS jokes were told on the van ride up. The SARS count was an unprecendented 1120 jokes in about three or four or five hours. I believe SARS has officially replaced "the" and "that" in the dictionary of ASOB.

POINT OF ORDER NO. 2: Reggie And The Full Effect's "Apocalypse Wow!" came on while I was driving and everyone in the van started moshing. Everyone, including Joe who was sitting shotgun. We repeated the song for about a half an hour, ten minutes of just "lets get it on!!!" and everyone crammed onto a bench seat to beat the shit out of each other.

We finally got to the show which was in the middle of nowhere and in a log cabin. It was awesome lookin'. I told the band earlier to ask for food at every show because there is no way we can afford $8 a day to feed all of us. They said no one would give us food. Well today, thanks to Laura, the kind woman doing something at the American Legion for the show other than selling snacks I'm sure, gave us FREE CANDY! We ate candy all day and all night. It was breakfast lunch and dinner. Before Bove at his last Twix, he said "Goodbye, candy."

What a fun fucking show, a great way to get out of state. Tomorrow's New Jersey, maybe I'll stop doing this thing at 4:30 so I can write more stories.

Take care.

LONG ISLAND

first day of tour. first day of me being an adult. anyway... here's the quick recap because I have to wake up early tomorrow.

- Around 400 people were at this show I believe and we were the headliners. And it was a school night. Wow.

- We plan on playing and recording "People Pops and Fudgesicles for the Hit Factory" to put it on the website before we leave for tour, but certain people refuse to play it unless it is picked out of the hat. We yell back and forth for a half an hour, come to no conclusion, play it at sound check and realize that we can't really play it well when Joe won't play the guitar. Thanks Joe.

- VIDEO PREMIERE PARTY. The video gets eaten. Yep. That's right. The video gets eaten as we're testing the tv.
conversation. JT: I didn't know that was the vcr that eats tapes.
someone else: You just called it the vcr that eats tapes.
We're frantically looking for another copy, eventually we get one with lesser sound quality but just as much love.

That's all that happened that was crazy. There were just so many people there, and it was a great way to leave home feeling like some people might even want you back when you're done with tour. I'm really tired right now but I just wanted to get this up here to keep the documenting well. Lets see how long I can keep this up when we're actually on the road.

Oh yeah, we went to Bennigan's afterwards and ordered their cheapest bottle of champagne to celebrate such an insane night. So many people. Wow.

Queens

Not out of state, but still noteworthy for two reasons.

part one: why i wish i was in premarital sax
Our friend Neil from PMS came with us today... I think it was to watch merch, or at least that's just what we disguised it as, but we knew that he has a beard and is funny. After raiding the Go-Kart coporate headquarters for the Terror Firmer soundtrack and Cinema Beer Nuts DVD, we played some songs. Afterwards I know that Joe and Neil both had markers and everyone was outside beating each other up, trying to hold each other down while writing certain things in Sharpies on certain people's hands. "I have AIDS." "AIDS". "SARS". et cetera, follwed up by many "dude that's not cool"s. Neil was not writing on once because he is very wiry and can slip through your hands when you try to hold him down. Eventually everybody got on top of him and held him down on the side of Metropolitan Ave. while he is screaming "help me! help me!" and while everyone else is screaming "fuck you! fuck you!". Then the "fuck you"s stop. Why? Because police officers showed up at the scene. Of course, with five people on top of him, Neil can't hear these officers, so as we all quiet down all we can hear are the shouts of Neil screaming "SICKLE CELL! SICKLE CELL! SICKLE CELL! SICKLE CELL!" damn.

part two: why i'm glad i'm not in sprout
JT had a bit too much to drink. Coronas. Liquor. Jack. Coke. Whiskey? Southern Comfort? I don't know but right now he is passed out on my bathroom floor with toast on the sink, a half empty bottle of water next to him, a motel 6 pillow and a blanket. JT ran around the inside of our van a lot after the show, screaming, shouting. Being an obnoxious drunk in a confined area. Damn. As we are pulling out of the venue he shouts "I hate you Queens. You're all poor! You're all poor! Get jobs! You're all poor!" out the window. 15 minutes later he shouts "um... i left my jacket at the venue." Math did his usual "no, i checked for your jacket and its not there" but JT wasn't havin' it. We went back and JT found his jacket but couldn't find his cell phone. He left himself two voicemails screaming "what the fuck is wrong with you, JT? You got drunk at a Queens show and you're so stupid that you lost your cell phone. Its you. Call me back." and so on. Eventually when someone drinks too much they pop. JT popped his body out the passenger side window and started dry heaving and eventually vomiting. I pleaded with him to please exit the new van before vomiting but he wasn't hearing any of that. At one point, we were in the middle lane of traffic with JT hanging out the window, vomiting on other cars as well as our van. Chunks on our windows were clearly visible. Streaks. So much. We pull up to my house, Dave suggests leaving JT in his car without his keys as we go out. I tell JT if he wants he can throw up in my bathroom. Eventually he is on my front lawn screaming as my neighbors are taking out the trash, while dry heaving. After coming downstairs I hear JT screaming "HA HA YOU'RE DEAD HA HA YOU'RE DEAD" at himself in the mirror and often screaming into the sink. He was so drunk that he was crying. It was pretty funny. Then he threw up and got sober. The rest of us were already sober, but I guess we were kind of tired of hearing him scream ASOB song lyrics in order to stay awake. Now he's asleep in my bathroom, and who knows what the morning holds for him.

That's all I've got. See ya here in a week or two.

Connecticut

Fun out of state show today. Super super super fun. Sean McCabe fun. What I did today with extra super blatant hypenation action:

- Chugged beer outside our van at a Mobil because we are not allowed to drink in the new van due to the law (although i'm sure the law says that you can't drink outside, especially if its not brown paper bagged and you're littering).

- Showed up at the venue only to find that:
-- It was at the Hellen Keller Middle School basically
-- Kids who were not in grades 9 - 12 were not allowed to go.
-- There was a:
--- ping pong table in which math and joe played dave and sean (i believe those were the teams) in doubles ping pong. talking to dave outside he was drenched in sweat and said "dude, i just played 7 intense games of ping pong... that's why i'm sweating.
--- pool table
--- video game console center containing tony hawk 4, which i beat bove's ass at
--- air hockey table
--- foosball table

- I saw some cool people including the Blind Luck people, Ethan from our label and we met the Folly guys who were really really nice even though I thought that they'd be really really scary because their band is really really good.

- Sold our 200th copy of the new reissue of the CD

- Performed songs. Right. Here's where it gets a little wacky. We've stopped doing that whole lame "wait until the show starts to play" bullshit that we did for a little while to feign some sort of professionalism. Today we opened up with "Raining Blood" by Slayer (from the album reign in blood) then we did an instrumental version of "People Pops And Fudgesicles for the Hit Factory". It was definitely a fun show... we decided to cover "Walkin' on Sunshine" off the tops of our heads today and it wasn't a very good idea. I don't think it would have been had we learned it before hand anyway. So we go through our routine, yadda yadda, NOBODY IS DANCING AT ALL, fuckin' connecticut kids, man, SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. I shook a little too much today. During "Piss Off" I took the most hilarious fall possible. I'm running around doing whatever, and I fell on my ass, like better than a banana peel slip. I was really scared that I seriously injured myself because I couldn't stand for the next few minutes... played the sax part on the ground, sang the rest on Dave's back. The set ended in a sea of cacophony which we've started doing moreso recently like we used to. That makes me cool.

- Got a first class massage and a good dose of SARS jokes. other jokes too... we won't talk about those.

Nothing too interesting happened today for you guys, but I had a fucking blast just haaaaaaaangin'.

5.11.03: Massachusettes

I'm trying really hard to not get backlogged here. This update will not be funny although this is possibly the funniest thing we've ever done as a band. However, I want to just get the story over with so it is going to be told like a guy who is trying to get through telling a girl a story so he can get laid. So let's get laid.

We show up to this show, pile out of the van, and our record label is there. We start arguing with each other about my sickness (by this day of tour i was wicked wicked sick), everyone's smoking habits, everyone's sleeping habits, my inability to sing. Bove said something to me and I just lunged at him and punched him in the face. Bove tackled me to the ground with all his pearlikeness and started choking me.

the night prior we decide that we should "punk" our record label, because, yknow that ashton kutcher mtv commodity... and how he always shouts "you got PUNK'd". so we said, kill normals been good to us recently... lets make them think that all the hard work they've put in is nothing because we're breaking up.

Everyone steps back for a second from the fight, I start screaming at everyone and saying that they're all a bunch of dicks. Bove spit on the van. I sit down alone on the ramp outside the Flywheel as label people both come up to me and I start talking to them and saying "no, this isn't a bullshit fight... i can't deal with these fucking assholes, there is just no way i can do it. They smoke all the time, I lose my voice because of it... how are we supposed to do this for 30 days if we can't do it for 3.... we can't stand each other." Stuff to that extent. For a while. When certain band members pass me by, I give them evil stares. When my "allies" pass me by, we talk about my problems. Eventually we are all outside and I made the announcement.

"Guys. I can't deal with Bove's bullshit anymore, and its not just that. I can't stand all the smoking all the time. I can't stand the way we all fight with each other. I can't sing for more than 3 days. You guys can keep doing this if you want, but for me, after May 29th, the video release, it is over. And its not cool if you play all the songs that I wrote. We can't do this anymore."

I swear the label guys (Ethan and Dan) looked like they just shat themselves. Finally I shouted "Kill Normal Records... YOU JUST GOT PUNK'D" Saliva. Screaming. Shouting. Totally. Ashton. Kutcher.

The rest of the show went pretty well, i can't remember it too well... i had to try and write a final paper on the way home and no one including Sam the Blind Luck merch girl who apparently reads books and our record label guys who we hope would be geniuses in financing and other areas as well had any fucking clue what the paper was supposed to be about. I was fucked. That's the story.

oh yeah. at one point dan kill normal said "make a set of rules, make 100 xeroxes and put them all over the van so they don't fuck with you." ha. ha. haha.

The saga continues...

5.10.2003: Maine

We wake up to get in the van to drive to Maine. MAINE. Maine is far as hell away, dudes. Stopped off at a Denny's too. Clever as everybody is, they told the waitress that it was my birthday, and they gave me this really awesome brownie thing that I was too full to eat. Sons of bitches. Oh yeah, when the waitress brought Mike a courtesy glass of water he said "Where's my Sprite?" in the rudest voice I've heard in a while. Grand Slam breakfast $2.99, when you can't go Waffle House, Denny's is a good enough alternative.

Five state drive pretty much. You know you're fucking far as hell away when the road signs start reading kilometers as well as miles because you're so close to Canada. That was pretty cool. By this point I was pretty sick, and that was not cool at all. I learned how to drive the new van with my thumbs so I could put my feet out the window if need be. We pull up to the club and its on the water... the scenery is too nice for punk rock. I spent a while sitting on the rocks writing songs in my head. Some of the other guys went to a video game store in town. The door stop to said video game store was a Mario Bros./Duck Hunt game that had a post-it on it that said "nobody loves me." That's pretty cool.

We played the show and a lot of people gave us a problem about picking up the CD, not because we were bad, but because it is too capitalist to have CDs and sell them. This was the first show full of young serious punk rockers that we've played in a few years, so it was nice to be able to argue with kids about something other than "you don't know who fugazi is?" Someone didn't buy a CD but wanted an autograph. I didn't get it so I wrote "Please excuse my daughter from gym class. She has SARS. - Mr. Jeff" There was also one or two old people at this show that bought our CD... like older than middle aged old. That's pretty damn old.

Dave was outside spinning bottle caps off of water bottles and we were all hanging out with the Skeptics until eventually it was time to leave. Where did we go? Another Denny's. No free dessert this time, just Math complaining about us not eating at the KFC which was closed. Two Denny's in a day... WOW. A bunch of kids from the show were at the Denny's including Nick, the promoter and some others... it was fun sitting somewhat near these people. It was just bizarre being all the way up in Maine. At some point we realized that we needed to get close to Masachusettes 'cause the call time was early for our Mother's Day show.

We drove for hours and hours and hours, switched seats a bunch of times, got into a bunch of fights, lit a lot of socks on fire, heard a lot of crappy Thrice songs, froze our asses off from the temperature change and lo and behold we were at a Motel Six in Springfield, MA. All I wanted to do was sleep because I was sick. Me and Dave went to get the room and the guy behind the front desk thought that we were gay, and going to the motel to fuck. I gave him the dirty kissy face (think Heather Graham in the limo scene in Boogie Nights before she beats the shit out of the frat guy) nonchelantly [sp?]. Anyway, we got the key, I jumped in the shower, jumped into my floor sleeping zone and pleaded with the rest of the band to be quiet so I could sleep a little bit before the show tomorrow. They were not talking. They were LISTING every wrestler they could think of. Eventually we made an agreement: They would be quiet if I played a trick on the record label tomorrow...

We just got back... is this kind of lame that i post these when i get back and not while we're on the road? I'll try and capture the moments... on our big tour we'll have computers and chicken wire.

5.09.2003: New Jersey
[phone rings]
RECORD LABEL: Hello.
MATH: Hey, what's the number of Tri-State Stage [sic]
RECORD LABEL: Don't tell me you're gonna be late.
MATH: That is the case.
RECORD LABEL: You guys are such dicks...

So we got a new van recently that runs. We drove like 950 miles this weekend and it didn't die once. We feel like we're living in the lap of luxury: econolines and motel sixes. We get to the show and to our happiness there are lots and lots of kids there. And as we're loading out someone says: "um... can you guys go on now?" he doesn't say "instead of later on, after the band that everyone is here to see, which isn't you guys, later on when no one will be here except for blind luck music, andy from your label and that homeless guy." So we're playing New Jersey for like hundreds of people, completely unexpected. And what breaks? My guitar. Over. And Over. And over. AND OVER AGAIN. We did our best to cover it up and I think we did alright.

I sat merch from when we got off stage until pretty much the end of the show... met some really cool people including Blind Luck Music who are on our label and we've never met before, and double including BLM's merch girl Sam, who decided it was an ass/legs day and wore a skirt with fishnets and a garter. The awesome things these people do to sell rock and roll. I wish I had cleavage and an ass people wanted to look at. Then I could owe my record label less money.

We decide to drive to Massachusettes and stay with our record label. Our record label disagrees, so we drive to a Motel 6 stopping off at a rest stop where there is nothing vegetarian to eat so I am stuck with a stale bagel and apple pie. Outside, Math and I engaged in the first eevr apple pie fight. At 3:00, 3:30 we get a Motel 6. We call beds, call showers, call shits et cetera. We tried rolling a blunt with a page from the bible but we forgot which page you're supposed to do it with so we decided if we're gonna be sacreligious we should wait until we know how to do it properly. We ended up smoking a pretty good blunt in the bathroom while Math was outside (he don't like that stuff). Then we pissed and farted around and talked and told jokes until it all became Dave reciting entire Homestar Runner skits and me shouting for him to shut the FUCK UP BECAUSE I WANT TO SLEEEEEP. Math was apparently outside masturbating in the van. Everyone sleeps, wakes up, eventually I wake up because there is a free spot on the bed. I get back into the bed and sleep some more until at some point we steal a bunch of pillows and get out of there.

...the rest of the weekend coming soon!