October 3rd – Brooklyn, NY
I imagine that getting into New York City is a lot like climbing Mount Everest: physically exhausting, hazardous to your health, financially draining, and ultimately not worth it. Furthermore, I have never seen a larger gathering of self-serving hipsters in my whole life and I can’t escape the urge to open up a vein or drop a bomb on Brooklyn.

Decent enough show, though.

October 4th – Ithica, NY
Bubba is way stoked on everything and I didn’t know it at the time, but he would not be the most stoked dude we would encounter on this tour. Regardless, Bubba is way stoked to have us play in his basement, and we are way stoked to be playing to a gathering of late teen/early-twenty-somethings who really dig skanking. Like, the ska dance. I wonder what it feels like to actually be excited about live music, because that idea has escaped me about half a decade ago. Ultimately though, I’m ok with the decisions I’ve made.

October 5th – Syracuse, NY
I feel like we need a rider that clearly states that we will play anywhere so long as it isn’t up three flights of stairs. Usually I wouldn’t mind lugging gear around, but expecting us to lug our full PA and amps up four flights of stairs seems like a cruel joke that everyone but us was in on. I was half expecting someone to tell us after we lugged all our shit upstairs and played to 15 people “I mean, I guess we could have just let you play in our living room…”

October 6th – Fredonia, NY
Another flight of stairs and Jakes 13x15 living room is our venue for the night. Kinda awesome, kind of not. Furthermore, Fredonia is the most southern northern state I have ever seen. People drive tractors down the road and are really into Jesus and the Bible but do it all with a thick upstate NY accent. Kinda awesome, kinda not…

October 7th – Day Off – Fredonia, NY
Matt Garfield works on our bus in a warehouse in Dunter, NY while I watch the sun give way to night. And that’s how I spent my whole day. Being on tour is fun and exciting, no?

October 8th – Day Off – Drive Day – Tewksbury, MA
Gather Oil in Rochester. Get rained on. Argue on the Phone. Argue on the phone while getting rained on while gathering oil in Rochester.

October 9th – Day Off – Tewksbury, MA
We arrived at Vallerys around one in the morning and we all went straight to sleep. When I walked into the house I was hit with the over bearing stench of dog shit. To be exact, the house smelt just like a clients house that had two very old and very little dogs that were not house trained, so at least once a day I would have to pick up turds from the living room. Vallery’s roommate’s dog is obnoxious and strikes me as the type of dog that isn’t house trained and probably jumps on top of tables to steal food, and, over the course of our stay here I would realize that all my assumptions were true. Matt dubbed the dog “Cock Trotter” and I don’t think we ever learned its real name. I was left with a shitty two person couch that is in the epicenter of the shit smell, but cant for the life of me find the shit anywhere. Cock Trotter jumps all over me while I try and sleep, the smell is overbearing, and I am about 24 inches too tall for this couch.

So, I slept in the bus.

Behind the small couch I planned on sleeping on is a giant curtain. Behind that curtain lay piles among piles of dogshit.

October 10th – Allston, MA
Our bus is well over a 10 foot clearance, and our GPS sent us through every single low overpass between Tewksbury and Allston. Have you ever tried to back up a handicap airport shuttle bus down a busy road? Neither have I.

October 11th – Off Day – Tewksbury, MA
4th off day in 5 days and I have reached my snapping point and beat every objective on Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and I hate myself more and more as every second progresses.

October 12th – Mexico, ME
We played an hour and a half off the highway in a city that, aside from having modern vehicles, is stuck in the 1950s. Matt Mose and I got caught redhanded stealing used vegetable oil form a chicken coop and all the cop said was to not make a mess and to have a good night and we are invincible.

October 13th – Medford, MA
If I had to pick a worst show of tour, this would be it (obviously I am writing this long after all of this happened. To give you some kind of perspective, I am on a plane going BACK to Philadelphia right now on November 29th. Everything written is a lie). Battle sets are awkward and just, really, not very much fun for anyone.

October 14th – Providence, RI
Note To Self: Math the Band. Math, the fucking Band.

October 15th – Hartford, CT
Less than 4 miles from our destination, our bus IZ dies on I-64 east. Chris and John meet us on the side of the road…we will spend two hours here watching a very unhappy tow truck driver toss around IZ, and then take 4 car loads worth of gear to the Underground Café on Trinity College, which is down a flight of stairs and about a two football fields away from the closest place we can park. When it rains it pours, I suppose

October 16th – Brooklyn, NY
I woke up at noon. When I wonder outside Matt is elbow deep in grease and oil trying to fix our blown serpentine belt. After about 30 minutes of driving around, we realized that the bus is not actually fixed and we spent a good 3 or 4 hours getting really familiar with a Pep Boys parking lot. After getting the correct belt and buying a new battery, we are finally on our way, albeit about an hour and a half late. While our return to Brooklyn was not nearly as painful as the first, my perception on the city hasn’t changed at all and it never will. This Brooklyn show was much more enjoyable, regardless of the fact that Pete Morgan was swaying votes in the Gay Game, thus forcing me to have to kiss the Emotron. This doesn’t bother me that much because I have only had to do this once, where as Claxton has had to get gay with the Tron at least 3 times now.

October 17th – Doylestown, PA
Rednecks really get a kick out of the Emotron, for some reason. I have yet to figure out why, but I have never seen more camera phones and uninterested bar-goers snapping pictures of a guy in his underwear.

October 18th – Willmington, DE
Fucking sound guys.

October 21 – Baltimore, MD
Surprisingly, I have spent a lot of time watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. I have been to Baltimore twice this year and have always been within a mile of Charm City Cakes, the bakery in which the aforementioned show takes place, and I still have yet to even drive past the shop. I have a feeling that if I can make this happen, my Baltimore experience will without a doubt be much more enjoyable. Never before has a city given me such problems trying to get a show booked, and actually playing it sort of makes me wonder why I try so hard.