Issue #5

Issue 5 - sacrifice - came out September 1999.
I've noticed a pattern of great things happening in my life every year September - October and then in March-April. Of course good things happen outside of that, but generally I'm at my peaks during these times. The covers of this issue had glow in the dark, silver, and black ink.

This was the issue I finally learned how to spell weird correctly, which I completely overused.
I like a couple of my short little rant/aphorisms/whatever so I include those now, but the main focus of this issue was the tour Dead Letter Auction, Cataract Falls, and Ramona and Beezus went on together. It was pretty nuts and very ill fated. Looking back, I have very fond memories despite all this. We were a bunch of silly boys getting in the van for what was supposed to be a long tour. We had done short ones here and there, but in no way were we prepared for this. We had no peers to ask, and no idea what lay ahead. Again so much not documented. the rant about the hidden chord is awesome; I remember at the time being really upset about that, even though now I somewhat agree with what they were saying (in few instances). At the time, the shape of our community, I felt it was truly inappropriate. Young and naive, especially the scene after the Goleta show. I still have issues with that, but I'm not as mean or hostile about it.

Overall so much anger and negativity, I shake my head at this person that wrote this account, but there is humor in this telling, I think I wanted it to be more funny than it comes across as.



*** page 3
it's been noticed that I repeat myself. there is purpose.

I think words can heal. I've been looking for so long to find the words to say I hate you, I forgive you, to say thank you, and/or I love you, or even to explain the most basic of things.

For so long I thought I knew, but now I see it's the things not said, the silent agreements.

Potency exists within these words; a sense of urgency; almost desperate, but only because I am impatient. And still I wait.

I am a child full of questions, full of hope. so much to learn, so much to unlearn.

This is a journey not meant to be taken alone, but time and time again our eyes don't meet, our hands don't fold together and too much is misunderstood.

***
page 4
it's repeated. it's repeated. it's repeated. it's repeated. it's repeated. it's repeated.

***
"For the moment I can think of nothing - except that I am a sentient being stabbed by the miracle of these waters that reflect a forgotten world. All along the banks the trees lean heavily over the tarnished mirror; when the wind rises and fills them with a rustling murmur they will shed a few tears and shiver as the water swirls by. I am suffocated by it. No one to whom I can communicate even a fraction of my feelings..." - Henry Miller - The Tropic of Cancer

"Did those who lived in past ages lie sleepless as I do tonight longing for my beloved?" - Hito Maro late 7th Century.

***
tour

Touring, being in a band is a privilege. I think it's overlooked by many people in our position.
I know that there are many people who would love to be able to do these things, even within this scene; therefore, no matter how much I personally lose or how much we lose as a collective, or whatever sort of bad luck may fall upon us, I cannot and will not get too upset about it. Besides, these moments last lifetimes.
On the same level there is a lot of work involved, a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. A lot of sacrifice. It's draining. And so I have to say, if you want something, it's up to you (how often we lose sight of this). So what if you fail, at least you tried and not perished in vain, in wonder.

With that said, this is somewhat of an account of the Dead Letter Auction, Cataract falls, and Ramona and Beezus tour.

Thursday, May 13, 1999
Ft Wayne, IN @ the back door.
Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction, Ramona and Beezus.

Sort of our kick off show I guess. We don't leave until sunday morning though, which if I had known far enough in advance I would have moved this show to Saturday night. But it's too late now, so whatever.

To me it's completely unbelievable that people come out to see us play. It's so cool. To see some of their faces almost every time is so awesome. I wonder if I do my part in return for those that do make it out. I should tell them sometime, but I feel like such a dork and usually end up saying something completely wrong. Like tonight I was trying to explain a song and what came out and what I meant were completely opposite. I think Jarod was the only one to hear what I said. Luckily. Hopefully.

I think all the bands played and sounded good tonight. Jarod and I played with Ramona and Beezus on Dramarama's "Anything, Anything" - it was weird. It's funny watching Jarod play drums, it has a cute like quality to it. Chris and I used to play that song back when we were in high school, ages ago, of course! It was weird to play with him like that again; I mean I know he plays drums in Cataract Falls, but that's so different. It's like a flashback, which makes it hard not to get nostalgic of those days.

This was our (Dead Letter Auction's) first show with Bryan, our second bass player. Nick, who was our first bass player was here. That was weird, it was the first time I had run into him since he quit. We made up, sorta. The thing that made me get weird about the whole thing is he asked if I wanted to use his speaker cabinet while we were on tour, I said "sure" of course. But then he took it without saying another word. Weird, but cool, whatever, you know.

Sunday, May 16, 1999
Chicago, IL @ the Fireside Bowl
Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction, Rom, Jumping Bomb Angel, Lazarus Plot

I made jokes of punk rock fantasy #xxx: playing at the Fireside. Ha! It was my first time there, and for as much hype as the place has, you'd think it would be a lot cooler than it is, oh well. Not to say it isn't cool, but I had higher expectations.

Five kids came up from Fort Wayne. Which is so cool. Byron, Josh, Chris (Pownall), and Caroline came up in Caroline's car. Derek rode in the van with us.

Both bands were pretty sloppy tonight. Cataract Falls more so, of course. I think the stage sound was crappy, but everyone insisted we sounded good. The other bands overall sounded good, so I'm assuming they're not just trying to give us words of encouragement - but still there was something weird about tonight.

I bought a brand new SG on Friday and hadn't really had the time to play it, so this was the first time I ever played it. It's an SG alright. It feels a little different. I like it, the roller bridge I had put on it is really cool too, and should help me from breaking strings as often.

We stayed at Derek's apartment he has up there. He was going to Columbia for film classes. I guess he's going to stay in Fort Wayne next year, which is cool. He's working on a movie, it sounds cool, kind of like a TROMA type funny horror movie. I'm pretty excited about it. I'd like to work with him on that video project I had thought about doing.

Byron, Josh, and I walked down to Lake Michigan from Derek's. It was cool. Not a lot said, but it wasn't one of those awkward silences. There is a lot of cool graffiti and carvings: Mr. Peanut! and weird Aztec looking carvings. On the way back we saw this car completely smashed up under a bridge. We couldn't figure out exactly how it got to it's current position and in the shape it was in and what had caused it.

Derek gave us a lot of canned food to take: beans, corn, peas, and pie filling! It was awesome! I didn't take any which I know I will probably regret later, sorta. I say sorta because somehow in my thought process I came to thinking that being on tour means sacrificing a lot of things to some extent. It's a weird thing, I know, but that's just how it goes in my head.

Monday, May 17th 1999
It's Chris's birthday! He's 21 now.

We left Derek's at 8am. it's now 10:30 am and we're getting the driver's side rear tire's brakes fixed. Shit, first problem already?
It's not as bad as the Cataract Falls tour where our van blew up 40 miles away from home and then spent 3 days and $400 on an engine that would only get us another few hundred miles, and not even out of the state.
As we were driving through North Chicago, there was a weird bang-type noise from under the van. Funny smells and smoke from above mentioned tire. In my brilliance I said, "if you drive fast enough the smoke goes away!" Jokingly, more like wishful thinking that it would somehow magically fix itself, yeah right!!!

We were back on the road at about 1pm. We lost $211 from that. I'm sure we could have fixed that for $50 if we knew how. Next year we should bring a more mechanically inclined person with us, the would be the smart and cool thing to do, so we probably won't.

Tuesday, May 18, 1999
Minneapolis, MN @ Castle Danger
Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction, The Ending Again, and the Hidden Chord.

The show took place in a store turned into a house. It was an amazingly cool space, though it was very hot due to poor circulation.

Both of the other bands were very rock oriented. Is this the new big thing? I hope not. Adam Lewis is in the Ending Again. I really like watching him play drums and miss playing with him (he played with me and Jarod in a band called A photograph to remember you by). The Hidden Chord are a bunch of stupid assholes and their band sucks. They said a lot of derogatory statements directed at us. Like "nobody cares about your opinions" and "don't you hate how bands explain their songs and then scream the lyrics so you can't understand them." The circumstances got to me a bit, not because they were saying this about us, but about half or more of the d.i.y. scene. Needless to say I will never carry any of their, or even their previous, or future bands releases in the record shop I work in. Very much like a boycott. Still riding that ex-members crap. Ordination of Aaron was so long ago anyway.

A lot of people came to the show in Star Wars attire and left after the show was over to go see the premier of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace!!!

Wednesday, May 19, 1999
Rapid City, South Dakota @ Old Story Book Island Park Pavilion
Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction, Mike Ray

Last night I had difficulty sleeping. When I was driving it was really hard to keep my eyes open, they would get really heavy. But then I would go up in the loft and be wide awake. It's always like that.

We went to the bad lands and wore ourselves out. It was awesome. We were running all over and being crazy, climbing everything.

We stopped at Wall Drug and it sucked. Dumb as shit. It's a stupid flea market for brother's fucking their cousins and sisters - that's so awful, but you know you've had those thoughts too, and you know what I mean.

A strange town, Rapid City is.
The show got moved from a house to a park. I guess the kids who were going to have it at their house had a run in with the local law enforcement, I wasn't too clear on why or how, but I think they were posting fliers on telephone polls. At least they were posting fliers! It's cool they moved the show to a park and not cancelled it and all, but I really hate outdoor shows, they just don't seem to work all the well - the way the sound isn't contained at all, etc...

The exhaustion from running through the badlands really showed in the sets tonight, but I still think we did alright.

There seem to be some really cool kids around here. Some of them were cool enough to hang out and talk with us for awhile. It began to sprinkle right after the show was over - good timing!
Jason Wade was there running around acting goofy as hell. A lot of people talk about how crazy he is and I enjoyed the Resin/Still Life split lp - so it was cool to put a face to the name. Kevin, the guy who set up the show is super awesome and we stayed at his place.

Overall things are going really well. I guess we have 5??!!????? days off. I don't know how that happened. AGGGHHHH I hate days off, and this many, agggh I'm going to hurt someone by the third day, I just know it, it will probably be myself, but the intentions are noted.
I guess wer're going to Denver then to Las Vegas, then on to Sacramento to pick up the tour. Money is tight and I've spent way too much of my own on gas, but hey someone's got to do it.

Friday, May 21, 1999
Denver, Colorado

Last night we stayed at the Red Rocks Amphitheater, but didn't know it when we got here though. The place was really cool, well what we could see of it, which wasn't much - it was really dark. We did see a sign warning of mountain lions and rattlesnakes, exciting!!! We slept in the van, in the parking lot. I had a real hard time sleeping, it sucked. so what else is new? When we woke up there were all of these people, cars, and buses all over the place. We eventually gathered that it was for the Columbine High School commencement. It was packed as all get out. I found it somewhat coincidental that I didn't attend my own commencement, but now I'm attending the Columbine graduation in the wake of what happened.

Through all of the confusion Bryan and I lost track of everyone else, so we took off and climbed the hill mountain behind the Amphitheater. It was an easy, yet strenuous climb. We kept saying, "We've come this far, let's keep on going," not realizing that the hill kept on growing while we climbed it. When we finally reached the top we saw the snow covered peaks of the Rockies. We were both amazed, the view was amazing. Everything looked really hazy. We didn't see any rattlesnakes or mountain lions as the signs had warned the previous night. (* I wrote the song "the View" on this mountain.)

I called Sonny, he couldn't get us on anymore shows, but we are going to stay with him and check out Bottlenekk, he also told me he would be at our San Diego show.

The mountains have proven to be very tough. I think we should try to avoid them as much as possible next year. Our van practically slows to a stop on some of the inclines. They are amazing though. On one of the longer inclinations we pulled over to let the van rest. We played in the snow and a snowball fight ensued, of course! Awesome, I put my shoes on without any socks, so of course tons of snow got inside my shoes. it was very sharp and at times would hurt.

Sunday, May 23, 1999

Las Vegas sucks, to say the least. Too many damned insects. It was so dumb, porn all over the streets. I do not like it one bit.

Coming here created some tension between all of us. Chris really wanted to go to some magical buffet that was like $12.95 a person. But the thing is, somewhere along the way he told us it was $3.95 a person and the price steadily increased as we got closer. At some point he added that it was $12.95 but it was buy one get one free. So when we finally get to Las Vegas he finds out that it was just $12.95 a person, no buy one get one free. Whatever. So then we walked all over trying to find something reasonable, as if reason exists in this town, and something vegan friendly. In the long run trying to find something made matters worse. I was already very irritable. Fuck this town. I did get to see Star Wars which also turned into a big ordeal. It made me mad as fuck, I don't even want to go there cause I will get pissed off about it. Star Wars was cool, but I'll have to see it again though.

We left the city without seeing it all lit up, which I guess is supposed to be one of the great things about Las Vegas. But I was glad to leave. This town is just representation of consumerism. And I hate it I hate it, I hate it. May it be struck by some crazy natural disaster that just completely annihilates it!

We drove for a real long time. We almost ran out of gas. We ended up having to stay the night in the parking lot of a gas station. We slept/waited eight hours for it to open.

We crossed into California in Mono County. It was weird, we half expected California to just look different, but it didn't. we weren't terribly disappointed or anything, I really can't pass judgement on what lies just outside the windows anyway.
Shit.
We got pulled over for holding up traffic!
The cop: "California State Law requires you to pull over if you are impeding more than 5 vehicles."
My license is expired, among other things, so John had to drive. He put the hat on that I was wearing, the driving hat. We passed the cop that pulled us over and he started following us again. John and I thought that we would get pulled over again because the cop may have thought that I was driving again. He eventually turned off somewhere.
Soon enough another cop was on our ass. We pulled in to a gas station to get gas. He drove on. We saw him come back the other way. We were at the gas station for about 10 minutes. As soon as we pulled out of that station, that cop is on our ass again. He pulls us over for a taillight being out. Something the first cop failed to mention to us. He walks to the van to tell us why he pulled us over then he asks John to step out of the vehicle. They talk for awhile, I saw them laughing in the rear-view, so I thought it be over in a matter of minutes. He comes back up to the van and said "Hey buddy" we all look at him like who the fuck are you calling buddy? "you in the yellow shirt" Jarod. Pulls him out. The first cop that pulled us over is now out there with John. Jarod and the officer talk. That gets over with then he pulls out Chris. I stepped out of the van for some reason, I think something flew out of the window. He yells at me to get back in the vehicle. Then he pulls me out. He asked me if I had any "guns, knives, razor blades, grenades, rocket launchers, or any nuclear devices." I laughed at him with a no! "I'm not kidding," he replies way too seriously. He tells me that he pulled me out because "your buddy" john "got nervous when I started talking to him, which tells me he's got something to hide or he don't like cops. do you know if he has a problem with the police, do you guys not like the police"
I wished I had said, "no they were an awful band" but I said, "not necessarily"
He dismisses me and I join John, Jarod, Chris, and police officer number one. Instantly we all start making fun of the cops. Pig one laughs along with us. Another police officer pulls up, but the other two wave him away. We all pretty much got asked the same ridiculous questions. We laughed at Bryan getting questioned by the officer. Highlights from each of the questioning sessions; He asked John what his scars are from. "They look like a knife fight, if I didn't know better I'd say they're from shooting up." Which any blind person could tell you that they were not from any of these, they actually came from an automobile accident, in case you were wondering.
When the "guns, rocket launcher" question was asked, we all laughed at him. I guess he yelled at Jarod and John when they laughed. "I'm serious, this isn't funny!" Yeah right.
He asked what Chris had under his hat, "I don't know, hair?"
"What's in your pockets?"
"I'm not sure, a highlighter, a pen?"
"What do you mean you don't know?"
and so on.

Anyway, so Bryan joins us and the cop asks to search our van. We found this amusing and said "sure!" What else were we going to say with out causing more of a problem. He comes out with a five pound bag of flour that Chris thought would be edible, which is almost as ridiculous as the cop asking, "What's this?!!!?"
We explode with laughter, "it's flour!"
He ends up confiscating some of our fireworks.
"California's a pretty dry state, we don't want you burning it down."
Why not? It would be a lot of fun.
He comes out five minutes later, "well it will take me forever to search this van, you can go."
We ended up coming away with a fix it ticket for the tail light.
I'm sure that the cops were just harassing us because they have nothing else to do. Through the whole fiasco, they ended up keeping the registration, which would have caused major problems later on.

We finally ended up in Chico. Ramona and Beezus played at The Blue Room. Black Heart Procession played too. That was so cool to find out. I really like Three Mile Pilot and knew that Pall was in Black Heart also. I hadn't heard anything prior to this show. I was REALLY impressed. All of the Black Heart fellas turned out to be super cool. They wanted us to play, but the club said we were too noisy. We had no place to stay and followed them to the place where they were staying. Pall slept in their van, and we all slept in ours. We brushed our teeth together and said good night.

Monday, May 24, 1999
Sacramento, CA @ the Loft
Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction, Smash Your Face (Japan)

We drove around Sacramento. Ended up at the mall to make phone calls and to try to escape the heat. It's one of those awkward silence kind of days between all of us. I don't like these sorts of days, it makes me want to kill the other kids and hire robots for musicians (just kidding). I don't understand what creates this tension, aghhhh!!!!

Sacramento is way too hot.
The show went pretty bad. 3!? people showed up. Both bands weren't all that great tonight either.
Meeting Scott Torguson was pretty cool. He told us a few stories. Smash Your Face from Japan was added today, they showed up and then a BUNCH of people show up. Whatever, they were fun.

We stayed at Scott's house. I got to see old videos of a Sinker and Current show and an Amber Inn show. That was cool. Scott also let us hear the Amber Inn CD that isn't out yet.

Tuesday, May 25, 1999

We were bored and filmed a rikki and playboy buddy lee video.
Ridiculous.

As we were leaving at around 2pm we saw Scott's roommate coming home, he gave us this funny look that was clearly, "you're just now leaving?"

I called Sonny and we left for the Bottlenekk/Ikonography warehouse.

We got to the space, it was really cool. It was exactly what Jarod and I have envisioned doing. Sonny told us that the Hail Mary guys are staying at his house tonight, so we would have to stay here, which is cool. We sorta hung out with Sonny talked a little, he was really nice. He said something like 14 people living here. Amazing. They were putting together the first Locust CD, amazing 3" CD in really awesome packaging. I could tell we were kinda getting in their way though, so I asked about Berkeley. He gave us directions to the record shops, and the college area that most college towns have.

We went into Berkeley, I really liked what I saw. I think I might like to live here someday, but I'm sure that it's just that whole thing where I have to learn to be satisfied with what I have and want the most difficult or impossible things, who knows? not me.

Sonny has got to be one of the nicest and coolest of people I have met.

We went back to the warehouse and sat on the couch in the living area. A guy was sitting there watching TV and I sat next to him. A few moments later he got up and left and I realized that it was the guitar player of one of my all time favorite bands, Portraits of Past. That was a moment for me that I wished I had recognized him a few minutes earlier and said something, even if I made a fool of myself.

Wednesday, May 26, 1999
Goleta, CA @ the Pickle Patch
Hailmary, Subtract to Zero and Cataract Falls and Dead Letter Auction split a set of 3 songs each. Steve Aoki recorded this show but never sent us the tape.


The Drive here was nuts. We took Highway 1, the coastal highway. We passed a Henry Miller museum in Big Sur!!!! I really wanted to go to, but there was no way we had time. I will go next year. Gas was as high as $2.55!!! what the fuck? I don't think we ever drove faster than 45 mph for like 3 hours. That seemed to really drag, despite the world outside our van. The view was amazing and worth it.

The show was alright. The place, is just an apartment, stunk like the worst B.O. and beer mixed together - so thick. Who cares how the bands played, that's not what this is about.

Mark (Hail Mary) gave me a little shit on that whole thing where Jarod called him at 3am or something, he seems to think it's my fault. I tried to explain to him that Neil Burke and Ken Prank! told me to call really late. I told him that I agree with him that three am is unreasonable, but I didn't make the call. I certainly didn't mean 3 am when I passed the information on to Jarod. It was funny to some extent.

Mark has got a mouth on him though. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but he got the rest of the boys upset with statements of "christian hardcore sucks and shouldn't be a part of hardcore." He also spoke of the evils of Tooth and Nail. I myself couldn't have agreed more.

After everyone left we had a pretty long drawn out conversation/argument about it. It was kinda stupid, and I'm not saying that just to dismiss it all. The discussion was cool to an extent. This was the first time of the tour that we actually conversed on something of some sort of social value, as a whole anyway. John, Chris, Jarod, and Bryan had points of "well you can't say who can and can't be into hardcore" which is very true and valid. I said my points of a lot of us came here to get away from that nonsense, we don't need bands/labels whatever trying to convert us, which is ultimately their goal. You also have to take into consideration the very oppressive nature of christianity and what hardcore is ultimately trying to accomplish, equality for everyone.
Which they threw back, "well christians need to be equal too."
This went on and on and nothing really came of it, the conversation evolved into a few other issues.

Thursday, May 27, 1999
We left from the Pickle Patch and went to Long Beach. Drove through L.A. not very exciting. We're staying at Deanna Winter's apartment. She's a friend of Jana's I guess. I met her once while she was in Fort Wayne. She's cool, so why not?

We got into Long Beach early and walked around. A lot of interesting people around here. John and Bryan went to the beach. Chris, Jarod, and I walked around some more.

Deanna was a sweetheart. She told us we could eat whatever we wanted. She basically let us take over her apartment while we were there.

Friday, May 28, 1999
We went to the beach, how exciting, well not really. It was a rather cloudy day.
Deanna left for the weekend and trusted us to watch her cat and apartment while we are here.

Saturday, May 29, 1999
Bryan broke the news to us that the van had got broken into. What a bunch of horseshit to have to wake up to. I went out to see all what got stolen. Personally I lost 2 guitars, an amp head, approximately 30 cds, a cd player, and more I'm sure. John and Jarod got their bikes stolen - why the hell they ever brought those things, I will never know. I decided it was time to head home. We will do the next two shows and cancel the rest.
Whoever did this drilled out the locks. Crazy!
We did the whole police report bullshit like they'll do anything about it. They didn't even come out, and gave us a case number all over the telephone.
It taught us a lesson in security for next time. Which is an important thing, from each experience learn in order to be prepared for the next time.

I called Jay to get directions, but he was out of town. Justin answered but I didn't recognize his voice, he sounded funny, he said he was beat. He invited us to lunch so I told him about the van getting broken into, I told him I wasn't sure how long it would take us to get down there either.
We packed our remaining belongings and shipped off to San Diego.

Saturday, May 29, 1999
San Diego, CA @ the Che Cafe (UCSD)
Hail Mary, Jenny Piccolo, Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction

We just went straight to the Che Cafe and walked around campus. nice place, some really cool views from certain areas.
Miguel was the first to show up. We talked for awhile. He was really cool, one of the nicest people we met on this tour. He forgot his keys, so he couldn't let us in.

The Che Cafe has a really nice garden that is worth the notation of.

Miguel told us we were the first band to ever help out with food preparation, which is ridiculous. There was a lot of great food, we stuffed ourselves. Amazing!

John and Jarod dressed as rikki rodeo and playboy buddy lee during Jenny Piccolo's set. Justin kept pinching rikki's ass cheeks that were hanging out of his hideous red thong.

the show was a lot of fun, but during our sets I could feel the weight of getting my stuff stolen and it made me feel defeated and burnt out instead of making me mad.

Everyone here was really cool for the most part.

Sunday, May 30, 1999
Albuquerque, NM @ Youth in Transaction
Fever Hot, (I prefer) Brand X, Roman Candle Choir, Cataract Falls, Dead Letter Auction

We left from the show and drove straight here.
Our alternator went out as soon as we got into Albuquerque. We barely made it to the venue. The van died in the alley in the back.
Great space, it's a shelter for homeless teenagers. I think this was the first show done here. Both bands played exceptionally well, and I was rather articulate (for me) when I spoke, which was really nice.
John and Bryan went to school with five kids from here. They all moved here from Battle Creek, MI. One of them, Gordie, is somewhat of a mechanic and he ended up replacing the alternator for us, which is awesome!

***
We were back on the road the next evening.
We drove straight home.
Somewhere in Illinois there was a major storm. I pulled off the highway to get gas and food. We were at the gas station for about 45 minutes.
As we pulled out the electricity went out at the gas station.
As soon as we were back on the highway, all traffic was stopped. We eventually found out that a tornado hit three miles ahead about 45 minutes ago! It over-turned two semis.
Later I found out that the storm killed at least one person. I can't help but wonder, what if...

After dropping everyone off, I went to my dad's house at about 7:30 am. That afternoon I was back to work at 4:30 - insane. I was beat but knew I had to get back to work right away.
and that's the end.
sort of.

Jarod drove the van to his grandparent's. On the way back, he got pulled over for expired plates. He had the correct registration (the plates got switched to my van), so the cops only gave him a ticket for having the wrong address on his license.
When he started it back up, the van started on fire.
The cops told Jarod to disregard the ticket issued, how kind.
Jarod thinks the fire started in the carburetor. Something I said that we needed to get fixed or cleaned since somewhere back in Chicago.
The van burnt to the ground.

Brian Fletcher and I drove to pick him up, we could smell the fire from the other side of the highway, miles away.
Jarod told me the junkyard wasn't even really interested in it, except for the tires, which ended up paying for the towing.

***

Touring is a lot of fun, except for the mishaps of course. It's a romantic idea and it seems to get put up on a higher level than it should be. It's like people fall in love with the idea, not the actuality. During the few weeks I took in the editing process I came across the following quote in Formula issue #5. It is an awesome zine, which is all about tour stories from a bunch of cool people.
"Being on tour is just surreal. You lose your mind the minute you get far enough from home that you can't walk back. You're stuck with these people that you're married to. It's this bizarre Wizard of Oz journey, that at the end of you just try to make sense of" - Katrina Ford


Even through all of the starving (for food or sleep), stress, and whatever else I would rather be on tour than in Fort Wayne.

Meeting all the people that I've listened to their bands records for a long time, it's kinda hard not to get somewhat star struck. Sometimes I wouldn't even realize who I was talking to or sitting next to until long after the fact. It's the experience of getting the chance to do these things that is important. It's so cool meeting and hanging out with these people, if even for only a second.

***
When I got home I felt weird for a long time.
Whatever.
I will leave it at that.
The simple notation of.
No explaining, it will end up getting lost in the mess of confusion.