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attack of the killer _____

as you might've guessed, tour is over now. we made a quick run through the northwest, and finished up at the lovely house of blues in hollywood. the northwest treated us better than ever, i must say. our manager and brother in crime, adrian, met up with us in portland, just in time for some margaritas at the ash st. saloon. might i add, these are the best margaritas we have had. ever. it's somewhat of a tradition for us to hit this place up while we're in town. they also have killer krinkle cut fries. the portland show was nice... a courtesy crowd is all we need. this was also the show where i crowd surfed for the first time in my life. wild, righgt? i was doin well, but i think the security didn't wanna have anything to do with me cuz i kinda fell right over the barrier. we got a little bit rowdy, as it was kyle's (merch dude for cartel) birthday. we had a bit of a slap contest in the basement, and then roamed the streets for a while until we realized it was way late, and we had to be in seattle super early. now lemme tell you about our morning in seattle. joe (who stage techs for the early november) has a wonderful mom who works for the seattle mariners. she was kind enough to take a handful of us to the field for a huge, all-inclusive tour of the stadium. pretty bad ass. the man who owns nintendo, Fusajiro Yamauchi, also owns the Mariners, and has his own huge plush suite to watch the games from. but apparently, he's never even been to the stadium cuz he's afraid of flying. ironic. we saw the clubhouses, the training rooms, the press area, the front rows, the dugouts, and we even played whiffle ball in the bullpens. pretty cool. i never thought i'd ever set foot on a professional baseball field, but now i can say we have. we hit up the pike street market for some clam chowder from our fave clam chowder place in the world. i just realized that northwest is home to a lot of our world favorites. wild. the seattle show took place in the club we usually play when we come through town, el corazon. unfortunately, they've done away with their kitchen... which was the home of our favorite fries in the world. krinkle cut fries with dill weed seasoning on top. ridiculous. the show was cool, cuz most of the places on this tour we've been playin real big rooms, but it was very refreshing to get back to a smaller club without a lame barrier in front of the stage. we also were lucky enough to steal michael (who plays keys and guitar with NFG) to jam with us a little.. he also jammed in portland. he's a great dude, and a seriously good guitar player. somehow, adrian got us a corner suite at the sheraton hotel on the water, which just happened to be across the street from the edgewater inn where led zeppelin caused some crazy hi-jinx a few decades earlier. we got crazy by ordering pizza at 4am.. watching SNL reruns.. and throwing huge pillows everywhere. the next day was a drive day, but instead, we decided to enjoy seattle until 5pm. we went out to lunch at a brewery with adrian and jordan and this dude chris who's really loud and funny. we finally realized we had around 14 hours to drive, not including stops, so we decided to leave. on the way back to the van, i bought a yo-yo that didn't work right, and robb bought some more clam chowder. that stuff is drugs it's so good.

we stopped in weed, california the next day for some HORRIBLE taco bell food. justin seems to LOVE taco bell. he's all about the cheesy chewy crunchy food things they offer. i can't stand 'em. the only things i really like are the nachos and the caramel apple empanadas. i can imagine justin being in this commercial, and being all out it. the bigger the better. justin's a good dude. we pulled up to the warfield just in time for load-in. apparently, the warfield is located in the tenderline district, which is pretty rough. we realized that when we saw a dude in a wheelchair smoking crack. the warfield is a real cool venue with pictures of the grateful dead allllll over the place. we saw a ton of good friends, so it was nice hangin out. when we played the place was a little bit empty, but we had fun. the crew that worked there was over the top nice, and there was freshly made catering, and some nice drinks for us in the back. i made a lynchburg lemonade. sooo good. we decided it was time go when some lady was standing outside our van reaching down her pants to get crack rocks to sell. one of the dudes that worked there told us that. that's how i know. anyhow. we stopped over to see our buddy jeremy who plays in apollo sunshine. we showed him some new jams, then hit the road for a few hours. the next day was a rough one. everyone got some sleep, which was nice, but our trusty ol' van had a hard time gettin over the grapevine to get back into LA. we overheated about 6 times, and at one point thought we had no chance in makin it to the show. for some reason, we weren't even stressing about it, which felt nice. sometimes there's only so much you can do, so we weren't gonna freak. but yes, we did make it in time. we pulled up at the house of blues people are like "you have about 45 minutes until you're on stage..." and i said, "woah, are you serious!? i had no clue. i thought we were waaaaaaaay early!" and then i turned around. crazy hob dudes can't touch us. haha.. the soundguy was apparently Tower of Power's normal soundguy, and gave us the best sound we've had all tour. and he was quick. good dude. we had a few disasters like broken strings and broken snare drums during our set, but other than that, it was completely golden. i don't think anyone even noticed. that's how pro we are. later on, justin was in a good place, so he was buyin' everyone drinks. that's always nice. i played some guitar hero... crowd surfed a bit.. then found myself upstairs blabbing to the stefanie from drive thru how they should sign us. what a wild night. somehow i found my way back home..... and my dog woke up to say hello. what a sweetheart.

so now we're home for a while. i've been tryin to surf every morning.. which is cool. we're tying up all the loose ends with our record (artwork, ideas, tour ideas, etc.) so we can take over the world, or at least part of it, next year. maybe our record will go balsa wood in india. whatever. we like it. yesterday i had to get a tooth drilled. i asked for too much novocaine, so by the time i left, half of my face was non-workable. i decided to get a diet coke and a cookie from carl's jr. (hardy's in other regions), and that was a rough situation. can't chew with one side, and can't hold liquids in either. i went to bestbuy to buy the documentary on gram parsons called fallen angel. i know the girl that checked me out was totally staring at my mouth cuz only half of it worked. oh well. call me self conscious. so i sat at home and tried to use rum to make my mouth stop hurting. it worked! the documentary was real good, too. highly recommended. it's got some great live footage, as well as some interesting interviews. i had no idea that gram's stepsister and halfsister were soooo mad about phil kaufman stealing his body. i mean, i get it.. but i thought they barely played a part in his life at that point. oh well.

oh yeah!!! i almost forgot to mention. robb and i did an interview and a 2 song performance for this channel called No Good TV (NGTV) up in beverly hills last week. it was just about the best thing we've ever done. when you walk in, you're greeted by an open bar. i can't say enough good things about this, cuz usually when you do a video interview in the middle of the day, it's as awkward as all hell. but we actually had a GREAT GREAT time. and i must thank our interviewer for reading through ALL of this tour journals and having an arsenal of good things to talk about. then we played "home" and "names for dogs". totally nailed it. pretty cool. we got pizza across the street, and freaked about how we were in beverly hills but it totally didn't feel like it. we'll let you know when the thing is gonna air.

tonight is the homecoming parade for san clemente high school, so i think me and carolyn and maggie mae are gonna go check it out. then we're gonna go to the football game. craaaaaazy. it's good to be back home for hangin out, surfing, laguna beach episodes, and mexican food. life is pretty good.

we WILL be doing a quick tour in early december, which we'll start talkin about soon. other good things are happening too. i'll tell you later. gotta split.

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